No one told me

 

The latest episode in the ongoing local saga titled “No one told me” unfolded during the April 18 meeting of the Goochland Board of Supervisors.

Despite a wealth of information easily accessible on the internet, newcomers rarely look beyond the carefully crafted narrative of builders, realtors, and developers whose only goal is to sell homes.  

Spending an hour or so reading the county comprehensive land use plan, which shows the location of planned development, could avoid heartburn for all involved. People who have lived in the county for a minute and did no research before they moved here, arrogantly claim to know better how to run Goochland than those in charge.

At issue on April 18 was a rezoning application for five acres on the east side of Hockett Road north of its intersection with Tuckahoe Creek Parkway, part of the county’s designated growth area. The parcel was given to the county by West Creek as part of a 2012 proffer amendment. The county sought to rezone the property from West Creek’s M-1 zoning, which permits fire-rescue stations by right, to B-1 to remove business park proffer restrictions. Supervisors voted 4-1 to approve the rezoning application with District 3 Supervisor John Lumpkins in dissent.

The property surrounding the site, approximately 414 acres, much of which fronts Hockett Road, also part of West Creek, will be developed regardless of what happens with the fire-rescue station. It is beyond naïve to expect that property here will remain open land.

The parcel in question was selected in 2019 by the county for a fire-rescue station, only the second owned by the county. Centerville Company 3 and Manakin Company 1, which are owned by the Goochland Volunteer Fire-Rescue Association, Inc., were built long before I64 and Rt. 288 existed.

Residents of Kinloch Villas, an upscale residential enclave on the west side of Hockett Road, don’t want a fire-rescue station in their backyard. Fair enough. Several of its residents consulted with staff and put together a presentation opposing the station.

They claimed to be unaware that a fire-rescue station was planned across the road from their new homes and objected to its location. The noted that Hockett Road, one of the few north south collector roads in eastern Goochland, is narrow, winding, and already has too much traffic. This will not change. Emergency vehicles currently use this road on a regular basis and will continue to do so regardless of a potential new station there. Had the West Creek Emergency Center remained open and expanded into a full-service hospital as originally intended, sirens would have filled the air, and ambulances would have travelled Hockett Road.

Lack of transparency in the site selection process, which would probably not have troubled Villas residents had the location been anywhere else, was also used to condemn the proposed location.

Some Villas residents reported that they had experienced quick response times and were pleased with their experience with Goochland Fire-Rescue. These remarks were cited to support the contention that there is ample fire-rescue coverage in eastern Goochland.

Using Georgetown, Texas, whose residential growth rate is higher than that of Goochland, a speaker accused the supervisors of wasting taxpayer dollars for even considering this facility. Curiously, he did not object to the $15 million increase in the cost of the new elementary school, or its location.

Georgetown, Texas, north of Austin, is about 59 square miles in area compared to Goochland’s approximately 290 square miles. Georgetown is laid out in a grid pattern, which provides many alternate routes should a road be blocked. Goochland is long, narrow, and roughly hatchet-shaped, with relatively few roads. The distance from Randolph Square in the far southeastern part of the county to Shannon Hill, at the far north west, is at least 35 miles with very few road options for the trip. Complicated wrecks on I64, which are becoming more common, often divert traffic to Broad Street Road for hours, making moving around the county even more challenging.

Georgetown, Texas grid layout (Google Earth image)

Goochland County main roads

Unlike Virginia, where you are either in a city or county, in Texas, cities are inside counties. The city of Georgetown seems to have only three rescue squads in its seven fire houses. Williamson County, which encompasses Georgetown, has 18 “frontline ambulance units” and ten back ups. There is a hospital with a level 1 trauma center and free-standing emergency room right in Georgetown.

Only 17.7 percent of Georgetown’s population is over 65. In Goochland, that number is 23.4 percent and growing daily.

A Villas resident snarked that predicted county growth would not fill a decent sized lecture hall at UVa. He was unaware that in the next year or so, at least 1,000 people over the age of 55—the demographic most likely to need EMS—will move within a few miles of the Villas. This does not include Avery Point. Indeed, new residents in Goochland, and those already here, skew older.

Duration of EMS calls—the bulk of fire-rescue “business”—varies widely. Ideally, an ambulance arrives at a patient’s location soon after a 911 call is placed. The patient is stabilized, loaded into the ambulance, and transported to an area hospital or even the Short Pump Emergency Center, which is closer. After dropping off the patient, the ambulance returns to its quarters ready for the next call. This does not always happen. During the Covid emergency, for instance, a lengthy decontamination process was performed after each call, removing that unit from service.

Goochland ambulances transport patients to medical facilities throughout Central Virginia, including VCU in Richmond, UVa in Charlottesville, and the Barfoot Veterans’ Hospital in south Richmond, so the time that an ambulance is out of the county and unavailable to answer calls varies widely. Goochland currently has nine ambulances, two each are assigned to Centerville and Manakin, another is on order. There may not always be enough personnel on duty to staff all units.

Suggestions were made that existing Companies 1 and 3 be enhanced to handle increased call volume. Ferguson explained that when those stations were built, Goochland was all volunteer organization, whose members typically responded to calls from their homes.

Now, we have 24/7 career providers, whose working conditions are subject to OSHA regulations. This requires more space per employee, and upgrades in station air handling to remove diesel exhaust, a carcinogen. The sites of company 3 and 1 are too small for meaningful expansion, though renovations to improve their usefulness in the short term are under way.

This year’s county budget process included discussion about recruitment and retention of fire-rescue personnel and resulted in salary increases. Goochland competes with neighboring counties for employees. In addition to salary candidates evaluate working conditions.

A suggestion to sell the Company 3 site, which the county does not own, and use the proceeds to build a new station, has some merit. Nearby parcels have been on the market for so long that their for-sale signs are fading so this would not be a quick fix.

Following a 2021 bond referendum that specifically mentioned construction of a West Creek fire-rescue station, which was approved by 85 percent of county voters, Goochland issued general obligation bonds in early 2022 for this purpose. What happens to the bond proceeds if that money is not used to build a West Creek station? Goochland is paying interest on the bonds. Would the county face arbitrage penalties if the bond proceeds are not used for the purpose intended?

As Fire-Rescue Chief D. E. “Eddie” Ferguson explained, his agency deals with all hazards. A major wreck on either, or possibly both, I64 and Rt. 288, could tie up several ambulance crews for extended periods.

Ferguson said that at current staffing levels, Companies 1 and 3 can handle one, maybe two calls at a time for the 10,000 people who live in Districts 4 and 5 and thousands more come here to work, as well as thousands more passing through on I64 and Rt.288.

Expected growth, commercial, more than residential, could easily generate enough emergency calls to totally occupy Company 3 in the Broad Street Road corridor and Company 1 in the Rt. 6 corridor, especially when the southern prime economic development area (SPEDA) builds out in the next few years. This would leave those in the middle, including all of Kinloch, Broad Run, and other nearby residents, with fewer resources to respond to their calls.

The objection about the rezoning application that seemed to have most resonated with Lumpkins, was the adequacy of the site—is five acres too small for eventual expansion? He suggested that the county investigate the purchase of more land from West Creek—the five acres is part of a larger parcel—to perhaps move the facility back from Hockett Road.

Approval of the rezoning application paves the way for detailed engineering of the site to proceed. A final plan of development will come back to the supervisors for approval, after which they will need to appropriate funds for construction.

The county cannot compel homebuyers to thoroughly investigate their new surroundings, but newcomers should not be rewarded for their ignorance.