Here a lot there a lot

 

Everyone wants to preserve Goochland’s rural character. Rezoning applications for subdivisions in the east end—which is the county’s designated growth area—tend to incite robust opposition.

A more subtle threat to the peace and privacy of rural living, and the agricultural pursuits that define it, was highlighted during public hearings at the Tuesday, May 7 meeting of the Goochland board of supervisors. Lots new homes are sprouting in western Goochland in a random fashion with direct access to country roads. They’re putting kids in school and adding traffic to country roads and are, some would argue, just as much a threat to our rural character as major subdivisions to the east.

Farmers without 401ks sell building lots to fund their retirement. Sometimes people with larger tracts of land sell a parcel or two to generate revenue. Whatever the reason, these homes tend to fly under the radar of many who oppose growth.

Two rezoning applications on the May 7 agenda, for applicants seeking to “cut” lots from existing parcels to allow children to build homes there illustrate the issue.

When Goochland adopted zoning regulations decades ago, larger parcels of land, as recorded on April 19, 1979, were designated as parent tracts. A formula allowing division of these tracts into a specified number smaller parcels without rezoning was also created. For instance, a 100-acre parcel could be divided into a 40-acre parcel, two 20-acre parcels, and four five-acre parcels “by right”. Further division requires a landowner to go through the entire rezoning process.  Typically, these land use changes are from agricultural to rural residential, RR, zoning classification and involve “taking cuts” from the larger parcels. The minimum lot size in RR zoning is five aces.

Applicants for both of the rezoning petitions presented on May 7 wanted to create an additional lot to allow children to build homes. As existing and new lots would share the same access point, easements for these driveways must be recorded on the deed to ensure access to the new parcels in perpetuity, regardless of ownership.

Rezoning these parcels, rather than seeking a conditional use permit (CUP) for an accessary family dwelling on a single parcel, creates the potential for lots created to be sold to non-family members. Under the family CUP conditions, all dwelling units on the parcel must be sold together.

Neil Spoonhower District 2 pointed out that, to his knowledge, the supervisors have never rejected a CUP application for an accessary family dwelling unit, which offers the county come protection against the parcels being sold separately. He supports families living in close proximity but questioned the creation of more building lots.

“We have 2,887 houses that could be built tomorrow without rezoning. I’ve heard loud and clear from citizens that they’ve asked to keep it rural. I’ve said we’ll keep it rural by making sure that growth is in the designated growth areas. To do both (approve more homes in villages and rural enhancement areas) is a little duplicitous. I do feel that people want to keep this rural, and we need to have protections in place to do that.”

Jonathan Lyle, District 5 pointed out that using the family accessary dwelling CUP process prevents “checkerboarding” the county with an increasing number of smaller lots and keeps focus on the family. He expressed hope going forward that the county would amplify the CUP auxiliary family dwelling unit mechanism because that does tie family to family. He suggested that the update of the county subdivision ordinance, currently in process, include more supportive measures for the family CUP.

During the public hearing on the second rezoning application, a neighboring property owner said that he would like to create a building lot on his property for a child.

Both rezoning applications to “cut” lots from larger existing parcels were approved 2-1 with Spoonhower in dissent. Board Chair Charlie Vaughters, District 4, and Jonathan Christy, District 1, were absent.

A frequently asked, and never satisfactorily answered, question about Goochland is how much residential growth is too much? The county planning office projected that our population would reach 30,000 by 2015. Almost ten years later, we’re around 27k.