The future is now

 

SIS area. 

On Tuesday, March 27 a community meeting was held at Hope Church on Rt. 6 to kick off the southern infrastructure study (SIS) for the area formerly known as SPEDA (southern prime economic development area), which is part of 21,000 acres considered the county’s designated growth area. The study focuses on approximately 3,300 acres, or11 percent, of the designated growth area, defined roughly as east of Hockett Road, south of Tuckahoe Creek Parkway.  The study area is less than two percent of the county’s total land area.

Consultants from Timmons Group, retained by the county to complete the SIS, meet weekly with a technical committee comprised of  county staff; monthly meetings with a steering committee comprised of two supervisors, two planning commissioners, the county administrator and county staff to talk about how the project is going and discuss next steps. Landowners and other stakeholders are also a vital part of the process and take part in these discussions.

When the last update to the county’s comprehensive land use plan (https://www.goochlandva.us/250/2035-Comprehensive-Plan) and major thoroughfare plan could not reach consensus about development of the subject parcels, it was decided that the area would be looked at in detail sometime in the future, which seems to be now.

Principal Planner Tom Coleman said that much of the area was broadly designated “prime economic development” with no specific uses defined.

(A word about economic development. Currently, about 80 percent of county revenue comes from real estate taxes with the remainder from commercial. The goal is to increase the commercial revenue to at least 30 percent, reducing the tax burden on landowners to 70 percent. This means that the county must prioritize mechanisms to attract new business to Goochland and expand those already here. Encouraging appropriate economic development in the designated growth area will generate tax revenue to fund county services and keep the rest of the county rural. “Appropriate” means different things to different people, as does the term rural.)

Lessons learned from the small area plan initiatives—the plan for Courthouse Village was adopted—included failure to address impacts of land use changes, especially high density residential, on schools, fire-rescue, utilities (water and sewer), and roads.

A “heat map” showing crash prone areas including Rt. 6 and River Road, West Creek Parkway, and Hockett Road and declining or failing levels of service, which need mitigation to support development, is part of the study. Distances to fire-rescue stations in road miles will be addressed.

Current zoning in the study area includes a little bit of everything, including a conservation easement, which prevents development in perpetuity.

The SIS is a study, not a plan, to “provide a detailed empirical data driven foundation to guide the Board of Supervisors and county staff when considering future land use and infrastructure decisions.” Baseline data about current conditions will be part of that foundation.

A word cloud exercise gathered input via a phone app from those in attendance. Among the responses was robust support for developers to pay for improvements associated with their projects. To see the results, go to the county website goochlandva.us, click on watch county meetings and then on community meeting.

Steve Schmidt a consultant with Timmons Group, which was retained by the county to conduct the study, said that the scope does not include greenways, trails, energy—electric and gas—or telecommunications, the last two are not county-controlled infrastructure. The goal is not to support, change, or reject the comp plan, but rather provide data about the infrastructure needs for different growth scenarios. For instance, residential growth in the area would require more services, schools, and fire-rescue while commercial growth could need more water, sewer, and road capacity. Access to public water for fire suppression, which is not currently available in parts of the SIS, is vital for economic development.

The study will also evaluate how much of the land is developable given wetlands, creeks, and other impediments. It will not change the current zoning or suggest that a particular use be placed in a specific location.

Developers tend to downplay the impact of proposed projects on county infrastructure like schools and roads with vague details to support their contentions. The deliverable of the study should be “if then” scenarios, as “if you build xx homes here, the impact on schools, roads, fire-rescue, and utilities will be xx, and these specific measures are needed to ensure that new development does not overwhelm the county’s ability to provide core services. Or, if you build xx square feet of office space, then roads will need upgrades to support traffic generated by workers, and so forth.

Having access to detailed current data should lead to good land use decisions and avoid unintended consequences. The study will also look at different opportunities and challenges. An objective database to provide clear cost-benefit analysis of various build out scenarios will be a valuable decision-making tool to avoid unintended consequences.

Input from the March 26 meeting will be used to craft draft results and analysis, which will be shared in a future community meeting. Feedback from that meeting will be incorporated into a final report, which will be presented to the board of supervisors. Completion is expected in the summer of 2024.

Go to https://www.goochlandva.us/1280/Southeastern-Infrastructure-Study-SIS and https://www.goochlandva.us/1312/SIS-Existing-Conditions-Maps for maps used in the study.