In a very brief special called meeting on August 7, the
Goochland Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to grant a deferral requested
by the county, the “applicant,” on consideration of the Centerville small area
plan (CVSAP) revisions to the county’s 2035 comprehensive land use plan.
The latest version of
the proposed plan, presented to the community as a fait accompli in May with no
citizen input, generated robust negative pushback from many neighborhoods in
the Centerville Village. To their credit, these citizens offered constructive
criticism and thoughtful suggestions to improve the plan, which until now, were
pretty much ignored.
Board Vice Chair Charlie Vaughters, District 4 said “We want
to stress to the citizens of Goochland that we have thought long and hard about
this plan and all of the comments related to it. And we have decided to give a
period for public amendment requests and then additionally a period for review
by staff and the board. So, while initially we thought that would be January,
it appears it’s going to be around December because we have legal limits to how
long we can defer.”
He then moved that the board defer consideration of the plan
to a special meeting to be held not later than December 22, 2023, with a
specific date to be determined by availability.
This is a very positive step that, hopefully, will provide a
mechanism for appropriate growth in the Centerville Village that does not
overwhelm the county’s ability to provide core services.
All development in Centerville will be funded by the private
sector, therefore, support from landowners and developers is also critical to its
success. Finding the sweet spot of acceptance for both citizens and the
development community is a delicate task that staff and the supervisors can achieve.
Stay tuned for next steps!
1 comment:
I wouldn't call this deferral listening.
In fact, it reminds me of the school board meeting back in Summer 2020, where numerous parents showed up to oppose the school board's decision to reverse its decision to return to return to in-person learning. That board deferred its decision, only to vote a week or two later to reverse the return to in-person learning.
If folks want to win on this issue, force the BOS to take a vote BEFORE the election, because if this gets deferred until after the election, I think we all know what the result will be.
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