Monday was Lionel Warrell’s fourth attempt for a zoning change that would allow commercial use of his scenic Mafolie property. Both Warrell and government officials acknowledged the afternoon’s endeavor was doomed before the zoning management meeting started.
The Virgin Islands Department of Planning and Natural Resources would advise against rezoning because it had recently offered to buy Warrell’s land for preservation as a watershed. Territorial Planner Leia LaPlace-Matthew asked if Warrell wanted to continue with his presentation despite assurances DPNR would recommend against rezoning. He did.
Warrell said he’d purchased the land — with its vast vista of St. Thomas’ central south shore, St. Croix, Vieques, and more — in 2008 with the dream of a gift shop and snack bar for the daily stream of tourists that flock there. A line of sightseeing safari trucks is regularly queued at the narrow corner about halfway between Mafolie Hotel and Restaurant and Sib’s On the Mountain.
That narrow roadway and the area’s residential nature have upended three previous attempts at rezoning to allow commercial activity. There’s also the property’s precarious topography, bisected by a drainage gut officials said was vital to the entire hillside’s stability.
In 2022, Warrell, a taxi driver and retired firefighter, presented a plan to build his gift shop over the gut, spanning the broad ravine with a bridge-like structure that offered off-street parking. He presented the same plan at the Monday meeting, where neighbors said the plan was improbable, at best, given the lot’s lack of buildable area and property-line setbacks required by law. Done correctly, it would cost well more than $1 million, they estimated, which would be difficult to recoup selling daiquiris and banana cake as Warrell planned.
Senate turned down Warrell’s third official attempt at rezoning 30C Estate Elizabeth in 2023 after negative reports from neighbors and DPNR. It was much the same as presented Monday: a one or two-story gift shop with as many as 20 parking spaces.
Warrell has run a shipping-container beverage outlet on the site on and off for more than a decade, he said, despite zoning restrictions barring commercial activity there. The Department of Licensing and Consumer Affairs issued a Tavernkeeper business license to Warrell at the address Jan. 1. It was unclear how he obtained a business license to sell beer and snacks at a property zoned R-2, light residential. The license will expire Jan. 31, 2027. In 2012, DPNR and DCLA investigated the same activity on the same property, eventually revoking Warrell’s business license.
Earlier Monday, Michadia Viera Donovan asked for a zoning variance to allow for renovations over ruins along Gamble Nordsidevej, Kronprindsens. She planned to build a four-story family home on the site with off-street parking. She also hoped to incorporate the centuries-old stone and masonry into the structure, possibly for stairs.
The basement level would become two apartments, Donovan estimated.
