Property owner wants to display permanent sign

Like it or not, former Manassas property owner Gaudencio Fernandez is planning on submitting a special use permit application for a much larger, more permanent sign to replace his controversial structure at 9500 Liberty St.

In January, Fernandez came to the city offices for what officials thought would be a building permit application for the existing structure. However, Fernandez instead presented plans for a 220-foot long, 16-foot-high L-shaped structure that would display murals “expressing the community’s ideas.”

“We wanted more room to display the great history of our country and show that it doesn’t just belong to white Americans, it belongs to us,” Fernandez said.

According to Manassas Community Development Director Elizabeth Via, the city denied a building permit for the proposed structure on Jan. 3 because what he was proposing would have necessitated a special use permit. On Wednesday, Fernandez said he would be applying for the special use permit by the middle of April.

Because of the reinforcements that were done last fall on the second version of the sign, the city had requested that Fernandez get a building permit because the city began to consider the once temporary structure permanent. Fernandez never applied for that permit and the case has been passed along to the city attorney’s office for possible litigation, Via said.

City code requires that a written application must be submitted and approved before a structure can be constructed, enlarged, altered or demolished.

If built, the new structure would replace a third version of the sign Fernandez recently placed on the site. It contains the angriest rhetoric yet since cloth was first draped across the remaining wall of the demolished house last summer.

The current sign calls Manassas and Prince William “the national capital of intolerance” and is littered with statements like “the actions of Prince William County and Manassas City Council are similar to the collaboration between local governments and the KKK in the 1900s.”

Fernandez said as long as the city and county back the newly instituted Immigration and Customs Enforcement 287(g) program, he will not take the current sign down.

“As we long as we have not seen any changes, we will not remove our message,” Fernandez said.

The same week the building permit was denied in January, Fernandez and Montclair architect Don Little presented their case for rezoning the Liberty Street property to commercial to allow for a mixed-use building.

Via said a special use permit would require a public hearing and the city’s Planning Commission and Architectural Review Board would each have to review the issue before sending it to the city council.

A recommendation by the ARB would be necessary because the structure is located in the historic district. The property is zoned residential and would not have to be re-zoned to conform with what Fernandez is proposing, Via said.