Chap. 120.—An ACT to amend and reenact Section 2854 of the Code of Virginia,
as amended, relating to courthouses, clerks’ offices, jails, and other public

property. [H 91]
Approved March 5, 1948

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia:

1. That section twenty-eight hundred fifty-four of the Code
of Virginia, as amended, be amended and reenacted as follows:

Section 2854. There shall be provided by the board of super-
visors of every county and the council for every city a courthouse,
clerk’s office and jail, the cost thereof, and of the land on which
they may be, and of keeping the same in good order, shall be
chargeable to the county or city; the fee simple of the lands shall
be in the county or city, and the supervisors of the county or the
council of the citv, may purchase so much land, as, with what it
has, will make two acres, whereof what may be necessary for the
purpose, shall be occupied with the courthouse, clerk’s office and
jail and the residue planted with trees and kept as a place for the
people of the county or city to meet and confer together. And the
board of supervisors of any county may, if they deem expedient,
acquire, in addition to the two acres of land aforementioned, as
much as twenty acres of land, at any point within their county
to be used for county purposes and in counties having a density
of population of three hundred or more per square mile and in
counties adjoining a county having a population of more than one
thousand per square mile, all according to the last preceding United
States census, and in counties having a population of not less than
twenty thousand, nor more than forty thousand, and adjoining two
or more cities within this State, one of which cities having a popula-
tion of one hundred and seventy thousand or more according to the
last preceding United States census, as much as fifty acres for
county purposes including the use of the local board of health,
and for such other purposes as the boards of supervisors of such
counties may deem to be necessary. And the boards of supervisors
of each county, or the council of each city shall, if there be offices
in the courthouses of the respective counties and cities, available
for such purposes, provide offices for the treasurer, Comnion-
wealth’s attorney, sheriff, commissioner of the revenue, commis-
sioner of accounts and division superintendent of schools for such
county or city, and the board of supervisors of any county, or the
council of any city, may if there be offices in their respective court-
houses available for such purposes, provide offices for the judge of
any court sitting in the said county or city, and any judge of the
Supreme Court of Appeals who may reside in said county or city,
and if such offices are not available in the courthouse, same may
be provided by said board of supervisors or council, if they deem
it proper, elsewhere than in the courthouse of said county or city;
and with the approval of the judge of the circuit or corporation
court, arly vacant rooms in the courthouse, after furnishing offices
to the said officers, may be rented for a term of not exceeding one
year to other parties for office purposes, and any public room or
hall in the building may be hired for compensation for the purpose
of giving public entertainments, and all moneys received by the
counties or cities under this section, shall constitute a fund to
maintain and care for such building. Furthermore, where the board
of supervisors of any county or the council or other governing body
of any city, in providing land for the courthouse, clerk’s office and
jail purposes, shall have purchased or may hereafter purchase or now
own.any land, a part of which had valuable buildings thereon when
purchased or have been since constructed thereon and that portion
of the land so occupied by such buildings, or the buildings thereon,
is, in the discretion of such board, council or other governing body,
not required for said purposes, such board, council or other gov-
erning body, if deemed proper by it, may either lease such building
or buildings for private or other purposes, or remodel and use the
same for a market house or for other public purposes, or both,
although such lease or use may reduce the total to less than two
acres, and although as much as two acres may never have been
acquired, but such lease or use shall be first approved by the judge
of the circuit court of the county, or of the corporation court of
the city, as the case may be, and such lease or use shall be termi-
nated when, in the opinion of such judge such building or buildings
or the land occupied by same, is needed for the purposes of a
courthouse, clerk’s office, or jail.