A day late and a dollar short

Wishing and hoping won’t make it so

On September 30 the county held what was billed as a charette on the Centerville Village at Company 3. The event was intended to gather citizen input about development of the village.

This should have been done at least seven years ago when cows were grazing on what is now West Broad Village in Short Pump. In fact, a master’s thesis project completed by VCU student Brad Shelton earlier in the decade, created much of the groundwork for this scheme.

All sorts of maps of the Centerville Village, as defined by the county’s 2028 Comprehensive Land Use Plan (visit www.co.goochland.va.us for details) as well as charts and road cross sections were available for inspection. Members of the county planning staff were on hand to supply information, a answer questions and encourage people to comment.

As currently envisioned, the Centerville Village seems to have two parts. The area now considered the “village,” centered on the Broad View Shopping Center is envisioned to have neighborhood scale development. The area bordered by Ashland Road, the Henrico and Hanover boundaries and Rt. 250 is intended for more industrial and commercial use while south of Rt. 250 is residential.


Bright colors and cross-hatching on the maps illustrated current zoning. In spite of frantic efforts to create a B-3 zoning category, which accommodates hotels, a few year ago, there is still no land zoned that way.

Indeed, in spite of zoning, whether extant or intended, much of the land in the Centerville Village is either in agricultural use, or vacant. Almost five years after the Tuckahoe Creek Service District utilities went online, Centerville still has cornfields on main roads with access to municipal water and sewer.

People commented on suggested new roads, including a connector between Manakin and Rockville Roads, north of Rt. 250 to move people to the Ashland Road, I-64 interchange without going through the Village. Several iterations of the circumferential road on the north and south side of Rt. 250 were also drawn in. These are all in the center village area. There was no indication that the owners of some of the parcels bisected by these putative roads agreed or were even aware that their property could be affected.

Another suggested road would connect the soon-to be-built Gayton Road extension in Henrico with Goochland. Another good idea is connecting Hockett and Ashland Roads east of the current location using the already signalized and widened intersection to eliminate the current dangerous rush hour bottleneck to move traffic through the village.

Overlay district standards, which are a mixed blessing, should be used to ensure a visually pleasing balance of signage and lighting rather than as a bludgeon to discourage business.

Speaking of overlay district bludgeoning, the property expected to be the site of a Peace Palace behind the Bank of Goochland seems to be up for sale.

The crucial factor missing from the all of the Centerville planning schemes is the understanding by the board of supervisors that density in Centerville must be high enough to make investment there economically attractive.

Currently, the approved density in the Tuckahoe Creek Service District, including the Centerville Village, is 2.5 units per acre.

Last year, the supervisors approved a legislative initiative informing the Virginia General Assembly that Goochland is unable to create an urban development area with a minimum density of four units per acre because of limited water and sewer capacity.

How can water and sewer capacity be limited? The million gallon water tank in Centerville has never been more than half full?

What is behind the board’s refusal to designate even a morsel of territory for high density development in an area well served by roads, municipal water and sewer and perhaps even fiber optics? Could this reluctance be based on a concern that the TCSD trunk lines installed at great cost in both dollars and heartburn are too small to handle the millions of gallons of water and wastewater that have already been pledged to Goochland?

After more than seven years’ worth of dithering little private investment has been made in Centerville. Why has Goochland failed to capture even some of investment going on in Short Pump? Goochland could be collecting sales tax instead of watching as its citizens take their dollars to stores in Short Pump.

The various iterations of plans for Centerville are appealing, but until there is an attitudinal paradigm shift on the part of the board of supervisors, the plans are just wishful thinking.