Lurching from crisis to crisis

The vision thing

Goochland supervisors voted unanimously to accept revised proffers for Manakin Towne Center at a special meeting on April 14. The proffers, changed after the April 7 public hearing, include a written commitment on the part of developer Scott Gaeser to donate easements needed for the widening of Broad Street Road.

The Board also unanimously approved a resolution asking the state to keep the Oilville rest areas for Interstate 64 open.

Our supervisors are so busy fighting the last war that they are usually caught flatfooted in the harsh light of day as each failure to plan bears its perilous fruit.

The brinksmanship with Gaeser could have been prevented by creation of a master plan for the Centerville Village. Discussed in vague terms by the board for at least five years and listed as a high priority action item in the newly approved Comprehensive Land Use Plan, a detailed vision for Centerville is still a pipe dream. Without a plan, each parcel is planned and developed with little regard for the whole. It is the county’s job to look at the big picture.

Given its queasiness about the economy, the board will reject measures to fund creation of such a plan. Yet, the board, with one different member, spent about $250,000 in 2007 planning a central garage that was scrapped before it left the drawing board. School bus maintenance people still work out in the weather on vehicles too large to fit into existing buildings.

District 5 supervisor Jim Eads regularly advocates inclusion of a referendum on the November ballot to gauge voter support for the county incurring debt, by issuing bonds, to pay for parks and other recreational facilities.

Eads seems to believe that the measure will fail at the ballot box and its defeat will silence the persistent drumbeat for more playing fields.

He also wants referendum support to build a new elementary school. The supervisors regularly point to a drastic falloff in building permits as evidence that the student population is stable and the school is not needed.

The number strollers and pregnant ladies around the county seems to indicate that the children to fill the seats in the unbuilt classrooms will come from homes already built and occupied.

A never-ending duel between the supervisors and the school board expended a lot of money on absurd plans to renovate and expand the existing Goochland Elementary School.

In addition to a genuine need for a new elementary school, county government will need more space as the county both grows and becomes more sophisticated. Given its location adjoining the administration building, the current GES is ideal for county expansion.

Because a school referendum must be requested by the school board, it is unlikely to happen.

At the request of the board, the schools presented a long- term building need program, about two years ago, which the board seems to have dismissed as unrealistic and ignores.


A long-term plan for school construction and a supporting funding strategy should have been in place ten years ago.
Instead, a cash proffer policy was tacked onto residential rezoning that was supposed to offset the cost of new schools.

At $8,375 per new house, more than 2,700 new homes would have to be built to recoup the approximately $24 million cost of a proposed elementary school. If that many new houses go up, Goochland will new a lot more than one elementary school. Currently, there are about 8,300 homes in the county.

Because the school system costs consume all of the revenue that the county realizes from property taxes, it is the most blatant illustration of the consequences reactive rather than proactive policies.

The prevailing philosophy on residential rezoning artificially inflates the cost of new homes in the county, transforming Goochland into an enclave for the affluent. That’s a great way to ensure the death of community.

People who can afford houses that cost $500,000 and up are far less likely to send their children to public schools; become fire-rescue volunteers; coach sports teams or join local organizations.

These associations and activities that nurture community and bind us together will wither for lack of new blood and eventually disappear leaving an anonymous community of upscale folk passing through between the boardroom and the cemetery.

Glimmers of an attitudinal paradigm shift by the supervisors peek out every so often. Their recent purchase of 36 acres of riverfront property near the Maidens bridge for development into a county park is one such indication.

Support for economic development at the Oilville interchange is another.

We can only hope that the incoming county administrator will make the board to focus on the county’s future and think long term in their decisions.