DALEVILLE – The Botetourt County Board of Supervisors ruled this afternoon that a Fincastle man cannot operate a backyard motorcycle track in the Deerfield Plantation residential subdivision.

Mark Newberry had come before the board seeking a special-exception permit to operate the practice course after neighbors complained to county officials earlier this year about motorcycle noise coming from Newberry’s yard. The county then notified Newberry that the motorcycle course was not among the accepted uses under the county’s zoning ordinances for residential subdivisions in an agricultural area.

The track is located behind Newberry’s home in the back corner of his 4.3-acre property in the Deerfield Plantation subdivision in Fincastle.

The Newberrys moved to the subdivision in May. Newberry’s 14-year-old son, Zach, is active in regional and national motocross races and wanted to use the track to practice on up to four hours per week.

Newberry presented information to the supervisors Tuesday at a public hearing that the decibel levels emitted by his son’s motorcycle aren’t much different than the noise coming from commonly used neighborhood yard tools like lawn mowers, weed eaters and leaf blowers. He said he wanted to build the track because there is no other facility on which to practice in the Roanoke Valley.

But the supervisors ultimately sided with six neighbors who objected to the motorcycle noise, arguing that such a use in a residential subdivision was inappropriate.

“Would you want that near your home?,” Mary Anne Osborne asked the supervisors.

The supervisors unanimously agreed.

“I have to sympathize with the neighbors,” Fincastle District Supervisor Don Meredith said, while at the same time acknowledging Newberry’s efforts to support his son’s recreation. “It’s a good idea in the wrong location.”

“It’s just inconsistent with what I see as the tranquility of life,” Amsterdam District Supervisor Steve Clinton said. In rejecting the track, supervisors voted unanimously to overrule a vote by the county’s planning commission earlier this month to change the county’s zoning ordinances to allow race tracks as a special-exception use in an agricultural area. Without the wording in the zoning regulations, Newberry cannot apply for an exception.