On December 9th, Benchmark Road Investment LLC represented by the Law Firm Hirschler held a community meeting to discuss a proposed rezoning of multiple parcels on Mine Road in the vicinity of the Mine Road Convenience Site. It is located in the Battlefield District. To learn more click here.
This rezoning specifically is interesting because it was just rezoned from a by-right 13 single-family detached (SFD) homes to 29 (SFD) homes in December 2017. In less than 2 years the applicant pursued and acquired additional parcels and with that acquisition is now seeking a second rezoning to a denser land-use.
In December 2017, the developer told the Board of Supervisors that it expected to sell the 29 SFD units for between $300,000 and $350,000. If you use the low end, the developer increased their investment value from roughly $4.5 million to $10 million. If the now proposed 77 age-restricted single-family attached homes are approved that $10 million increases to over $23 million on the low end (estimated base cost is $299,000 x 77 = ~ $23 million). It also creates 48 additional tax paying residents.
This project stands to be one of the densest developments along Mine Road. A higher density project was temporarily abandoned behind the Wawa on Mine Road which proposed to add over a hundred 3-story townhomes. A larger project is moving through the rezoning process that would add hundreds of units next to the Weis Markets on Spotsylvania Avenue.
No one truly likes residential development, but the community may be less apprehensive if we knew our elected officials’ full vision for areas when they consider projects. Do they just feel obligated to approve every project? If so, just tell the community that, so we save the time following the process. In a rezoning application, data can in most cases be expressed in such a way to get a project to appear to have a positive community impact.
In broad terms, my concern is less about congestion and more about new developments being a part of a greater vision for an area and not just jamming disjointed projects together that in 20-30 years from now will have future Spotsylvania leaders wondering why these projects were ever approved.
In the end, the only real persuasive argument to approve these higher density projects is that most Spotsylvania residents want their taxes to remain low. One of the few ways to do that is to approve higher density projects to expand the tax base. The downside is clear – more congestion. But you can’t continue to have low taxes and no development. You have to balance the two and regularly the Board of Supervisors have sided with expanding development and not doing nearly enough to expand existing infrastructure. Additionally, the supervisors have not individually put forth enough effort to inform the community of their plans, nor are they lobbying Richmond hard enough to expand infrastructure spending for transportation improvements - and because of that - it’s becoming harder for citizens to support new projects.