Sunday, July 6, 2025

Highfield part last

 





Goochland supervisors approved an application filed by Markel/Eagle, LLC to rezone 138.52 acres on Rockville Road, just north and south of Interstate 64, from A-2 to residential planned unit development (RPUD) by a 3-2 vote at their July 1 meeting. Supervisors Jonathan Lyle, District 5 and Charlie Vaughters, District 4, where the project is located, were in dissent. In May, the Planning Commission voted 5-0 to recommend denial of the application.

Known as Highfield, the approval allows no more than 138 single family detached homes on the property. While “builder math” density works out to one home per acre, as presented, some of the proposed dwelling units will be built on smaller lots, as roads, open space, and unbuildable wetlands consume acreage. There are a few lots larger than an acre.

Since it began the rezoning process years ago, Highfield, which originally proposed 199 houses, met with robust community opposition. Objections included that Highfield would add too many homes to a rural area and make an already dangerous road worse.

Rockville Road, which runs between Ashland Road and Pouncy Tract Road in Hanover County, features white crosses nailed to trees to marking the site of fatal wrecks.  At this time, there are no plans to improve the intersection of Rockville and Ashland Roads, which is already a choke point during rush hour traffic and expected to get worse as development in the Ashland Road corridor ramps up.

As approved, the Eagle project will make significant improvements to Rockville Road along the Highfield frontage, which will require closure of the road for at least three months but not address the chokepoint intersection with Ashland Road. In response to concerns made about fire response, all homes built in Highfield will have internal sprinkler systems for fire suppression. Eagle will build, at its own expense, a 16-inch water line from Highfield to Ashland Road. This will ensure adequate “fire flow” for emergencies and also enhance attractiveness for economic development in the corridor.

No comments in support of the application were made during the public hearing. Despite the holiday week, there was a good crowd in the boardroom. The staff presentation of the application, made by Deputy County Administrator Josh Gillespie, was relatively brief.

Natalie Croft, Director of land planning for Eagle, made the presentation for the applicant, familiar to those who have followed Highfield since its inception. Go to the county website to review details in the July 1 board packet and view the discussion under the “watch county meetings” tab beginning at about the three-hour mark.

A change from the Planning Commission submission is that home construction will not start before January 1, 2028, with no more than 36 homes built in any year, taking almost four years for full build out to increase traffic impacts gradually. Road improvements must be completed before residential construction begins.

As with Tuckahoe Bridge North, the 49-lot subdivision that borders Highfield to the south, entrances to Rockville Road were a sticking point. Initially, Highfield proposed a single access to Rockville Road, even though more than 49 homes require a second access, using a stub road to access TBN north, whose roads were built to accommodate only its homes. After much wrangling, in response to community concerns, Highfield added a second entrance and reworked its internal roads to make using TBN roads less attractive. Highfield expressed willingness to install a right turn lane at the southernmost entrance but needs to acquire a bit of land from TBN to do so. Eagle has had no response from Main Street Homes, the developer of TBN, about purchasing the land, so that remains unresolved.

Fire-Rescue Chief D. E. “Eddie” Ferguson expressed his serious concerns about safety issues on Rockville Road in an internal letter opposing the development that found it way into the planning commission packet.  Indeed, it is not hard to imagine a scenario during construction when the Highfield frontage is closed, that say, a dump truck overturns closing Rockville Road from the east rendering access to TBN north or the Highfield site by EMS crews impossible.

The staff report identified issues with the timing of the closure. “As there are a variety of traffic implications arising from the development and proffered road improvements, the timing of the development will be of concern.  It is anticipated that the road improvements along the Property frontage in Proffer 9 will require the closure of Rockville Road for an extended period of time.  Although necessary for the planned Rockville Road roadway improvements for this project, timing of a closure of this portion of Rockville Road should be considered in relation to other road improvements and the likely closures and/or detours for other major roads in the traffic shed including the interstate interchange on Ashland Road (fall 2026 through summer 2029), and the realignment of Hockett Road to Ashland Road (fall 2028 through winter 2029).”

To their credit the supervisors took the time to explain their votes.

Lyle thanked the folks from Eagle for their willingness to meet with all concerned, the engaged citizens, planning commissioners, and staff. He commended the community development staff for the endless hours and attention devoted to this application.

The January 2024 Highfield community meeting was one of the first he attended after taking office. The meetings, there have been three, served their purpose as the applicant made changes in response to citizen concerns, but the fundamentals stayed the same. Safety, Lyle contended, is the fundamental job of government. He applauded Eagle’s proffered transportation improvements, but “even with those road, will the 138 homes that will generate more than 1,000 trips per day be a positive impact on safety and what improvements are needed to Rockville Road to keep safety from deteriorating? Is it appropriate for the county or VDOT to expect the applicant to improve the road? It’s been acknowledged that most of those 1,000 trips will go to Ashland Road, an already failing intersection. The proffered improvements will result in moving people more quickly and safely to a failing intersection.” He noted that the delay in building starts is unprecedented but will only delay the safety impact for three or four years, by which time Ashland Road traffic will be heavier. “That’s not a scenario I want the board to deal with in three or four years.” He said the Highfield application was solid, but he could not support it at this time. “

Lyle vowed to work with staff, VDOT, and regional transportation organizations to find a solution for Rockville Road.

Neil Spoonhower District 2 said he spent a lot of time looking at the Tuckahoe Bridge case five years ago with many of the same issues brought up by some of the same people.  He said he drove Rockville Road and after spending time looking at the crosses he could not understand why anyone would oppose road improvements.

He mentioned the many communications he had gotten on the application, then cited county budget data, taking issue with the contentions that the county does not have the resources to deal with residential growth. Spoonhower referenced county budget increases in past years for schools, fire-rescue, and the Sheriff’s Department to support his reasoning. Goochland’s population in the last few years has grown about 18 percent while the fire-rescue budget for instance, has more than tripled. However, he does not like the Ashland/Rockville Road intersection.

“I would love to be able to pay for everything up front. That’s just not the way the world works. At the tax rate of 53 cents, we don’t have the money to do this. It’s much more affordable for the developer to build roads and that’s how we get it done.” He contended that the subject land is used exactly as intended and pledged to work to get the Ashland/Rockville interchange fixed.

Vaughters said that he traverses Ashland Road every day. “In order to have sensible growth in this county, we have got to have thoughtful and deliberate applications.” He said that most of the comments he has received from citizens over the last six months concerned burgeoning real estate assessments. “When you decrease the supply of homes in a market where demand is going up prices increase. These decisions do have impacts on getting quality commercial projects that want housing options for their employees.” He said that local governments are forced to clean up messes made at the state and federal level and promised to “poke” appropriate authorities to secure needed road improvements. “We cannot simply say we don’t want this; we have to stop (residential rezoning). We’re not going to see the best applicants. The county coffers do not fil themselves if we do not have the best projects.”

Jonathan Christy, District, who moved to approve the application, agreed that there is a supply demand housing dilemma in the county. When houses “pop up” in the western part of the county through by right splits on Hadensville/Fife Road, which, Christy contended, is as if not more dangerous than Rockville Road, no improvements, including turn lanes, are made. “I look at this as a way to alleviate the supply/demand situation. “I can’t deny this while homes are popping up to the west. This is how we get economic development. This is how we do it. This will eventually solve a lot of problems.”

Board chair Tom Winfree, District 3, agreed with these sentiments. He said that Eagle has “checked all the development boxes. It is in the area where we want to see economic and residential development to keep the rest of the county rural. I believe we can rely on VDOT to recognize the need for further improvements as volume dictates.”

He too cited the need for housing to attract quality commercial development and that the county needs school children, which are the future. “If we’re not growing, we’re dying. Goochland County is maturing and becoming more significant every day as a regional player. We must keep up. This will help our stated goal of keeping 85 percent of the county rural,” said Winfree.

He hated to vote against the planning commission, which he values and respects. “My over riding belief is that this is proper for approval.”

There are some interesting aspects to this case. The delay and phasing of home construction, unprecedented, is curious. We do not know what the world, or this part of Goochland, will look like in almost three years. Should the land on the other side of Rockville Road be developed by an entity that will improve its side of the road and strongarm VDOT into fixing the Ashland Road chokepoint, safety concerns will be moot.

Comments during the public hearing estimated that proposed road improvements will cost Eagle about $2-3 million, as opposed to a $5-6 million if built via the convoluted and glacially slow VDOT route. This brings the question often asked of and ignored by our delegation to the General Assembly as to why VDOT road construction is so expensive and slow.

There is indeed a supply/demand issue in the Goochland housing market. While Eagle declined to estimate price points for homes in Highfield, it seems likely that they will be in the high six figures echoing those in TBN. Does Amazon pay that well?

The planning commission concentrates on appropriate land use. The supervisors look at the “big picture” of development. Since taking office in 2024, this board has repeatedly committed to improving the ratio of residential to business tax revenue by rigorously pursuing investment in the county. Given the sensitive nature of negotiations with companies interested in coming to Goochland, the planning commissioners may not be privy to information that affects board decisions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

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