Planning Commission hits pause

 

At a May 24 special called meeting, the Goochland Planning Commission tapped the breaks on the approval for the Centerville small area plan, unanimously approving a motion to defer a vote on the matter to a future date. On May 25, the county announced that the supervisors and commissioners will meet on June 15 for a joint work session on the subject beginning at 6 p.m. in the county administration building.

Following a brief overview of a draft plan, prepared by Timmons Group, unchanged from last week’s community open house, several speakers presented a wide variety of objections to the draft plan. No one spoke in support.

Begun with great promise in February 2022, small area plan studies for both Courthouse Village and Centerville were expected to provide useful land use strategies to deal with growth pressures. See GOMM “Much ado about nothing” for more detail. None of the feedback from that meeting was incorporated into the draft presented to the planning commission, and there was never any intention to do so.

In the past few weeks, it seems like a decision was made to wrap up these studies and move on. The county contended, on its website and social media pages, that adoption of the small area plan revisions as part of the comprehensive land use plan changes nothing, that it’s simply the first step that will lead to amendments of zoning ordinance, overlay district standards, and the major thoroughfare plan. All true, but the comp plan is the foundation for Goochland’s land use vision.

Contentions by county staff and Timmons that the draft plan is based on input gathered in 2022 were disputed by many speakers during the public hearing. In reality, it seems that significant changes to the proposal were made with no citizen or land owner input.

While the Timmons proposal is simpler to understand and has better graphics than the previous version, some of the details were new, and others contradictory. Sycamore Creek golf course was removed as open and green space. Golf courses are often developed but this is different from the November version. What changed?

Scott Gaeser spoke on behalf of owners of land on the south side of Broad Street Road in the village core, which the plan designates for lower intensity uses that that across the street. This property, said Gaeser, has been zoned B-1, since 1969. Its owners donated easements for Tuckahoe Creek Service District infrastructure and the widening of Broad Street Road. Now, without discussing the matter with property owners, a two-story height limitation—there is already a three-story gym there—and lower density is specified, significantly decreasing the value of the land. He said an existing treed buffer provides a transition between commercial and lower density residential uses. He said that reducing the size of the village core is understandable, but removing land from the core without discussions with landowners is not. Curiously, the land use map included in the presentation allows up to three stories in the “neighborhood residential” use behind the B-1 south of Broad. Why should three story homes, in less intense categories, be allowed but nearby commercial limited to two?

Residents of Oak Grove Estates, on the south side of Broad, want growth to be done respectfully to retain the integrity of Centerville but oppose three story commercial use. They believe that Centerville is special and want to keep it that way with local businesses that “feel like home.”

Most zoning districts in the proposal include multi-family and townhomes. The Centerville Village is huge and mostly raw land. No effort has been made to figure out, even at a “ballpark” level, the future population of Centerville. Could it be 5,000, 20,000 or more? The current population of the entire county is approximately 26,000. Significant residential growth will require careful planning to ensure that services can be provided, including revision of the 25-year capital improvement plan to pay for it.

There were lots of comments on roads, new and existing, in the plan, as well as valid complaints about traffic. For instance, the plan uses Mills Road through the Bellview Gardens neighborhood to connect Three Chopt Road to Broad Street Road. It also shows a new road making the same connection to the already signalized intersection at the southbound ramp to 288 bypassing Bellview Gardens. There was no justification for the road through Bellview Gardens. Buffers around Bellview Gardens, shown on previous maps, seem to be gone.

Another “conceptual” road connects Ashland to Broad opposite Whippoorwill Road, which was tied in to Reader’s Branch when that subdivision was expanded to the surprise of its homeowners. Residents of both neighborhoods opposed the connection, contending that it would become the shortcut to Short Pump. Extending it across Broad would also make it a shortcut to I64. Why is this necessary? 

So called transition zones between the village core and less dense residential areas now include lodging as a use. As shown, “lodging” is included in several zoning districts. Hotels should be east of Ashland Road, east of 288 would be better. We need to know who decided that lodging should be in these zoning districts and why.

One speaker contended that the plan includes building sidewalks down Manakin Road to Hermitage Road that will never be used and create drainage issues. He moved from Short Pump to get away from sidewalks and declared that the draft plan looks like what he left.

Greenways along flood plains are shown on the plan. One speaker pointed out that they are great in theory, but not so much when they bring strangers tromping through back yards.

To read the full agenda and listen to the meeting go to meeting .

The bottom line is that the Timmons version of the Centerville small area plan is very different from earlier iterations. We need to know why the changes were made, and who authorized them.

It took a long time for county government to regain the trust of the citizens, this total lack of transparency is a step backwards.