During a public hearing last month, Spotsylvania County Board of Supervisors representative Jacob Lane lamented that the county’s once-rural way of life is dissipating.
The hearing concerned a 99-home subdivision called Smith Station Crossing, and while Lane of the Livingston District and Supervisor Lori Hayes of the Lee Hill District voted against the development at a meeting Tuesday night, five other supervisors supported it.
Approval from the supervisors paves the way for the rezoning of more than 58 acres from Residential-1 to Planned Development Housing-2. The construction will take place on the north side of Smith Station Road near its intersection with Woodfield Drive.
Since the April 22 public hearing, the applicant, Denali Capital Group LLC/Tricord, Inc., revised its proffers, committing to scheduling construction deliveries outside of school pickup and drop-off hours. It also added $100,000 for transportation improvements, going from $1 million to $1.1 million.
The transportation initiatives will be implemented prior to the construction of the 40th home, rather than the 60th as originally planned. Those improvements include extending the eastbound left turn lane on Courthouse Road by 200 feet.
“That will be a significant improvement at that intersection,” County Director of Planning and Zoning Kimberly Pomatto said.
Pomatto presented information to the supervisors that the school division will not be dramatically impacted by the subdivision. The applicant is providing $2,000 per unit to schools, $337.31 per unit to the parks and recreation department,= and $761.62 per unit to public safety in addition to the $1.1 million for transportation.
If the rezoning was denied, the applicant could build 36 homes by right, and supervisors expressed concern that construction wouldn’t come with any transportation improvements.
While Lane and Hayes didn’t get their way on denying the subdivision, both spoke strongly in favor of amending an ordinance that they hope will help the county regain some of its rural character. The board voted unanimously to remove the five-acre threshold for keeping livestock and the two-acre threshold for crop farming.
The vote means land in Agricultural zones will not be subject to acreage minimums and will be safeguarded by the Right to Farm ordinance. Owners of land in Agricultural zones still must abide by the county’s animal control ordinances, which require safe and sanitary conditions.
“Similar to the camping ordinance, similar to the shooting ordinance and now here we are at the agricultural ordinance,” Lane said. “We like to try to give the freedom back to the people and not have the ordinances in place that were put in place because of some bad actors, and it negatively affected the entire community.”
Lane noted that, prior to Tuesday’s vote, gardening was illegal in the county on properties less than two acres.
“Isn’t that unbelievable that we as a county, put restrictions on our people that if you own 1.9 acres, don’t put that Troy-Bilt in the ground and grow some tomatoes because you’re going to get a ticket,” Lane said. “So, I think that’s a little crazy.”
The planning commission voted 3-2 in favor of removing the thresholds, with two members absent. The county’s Agricultural/Forestal District Committee and the VA Cooperative Extension also expressed support for the changes.
As a result of the vote, residents may have to get accustomed to seeing livestock and chicken coops on smaller properties. An officer with animal control spoke at the meeting and said the department is prepared to receive more complaints.
Several residents came out in support of lifting the acreage restrictions.
County resident Justin Dix said, “homesteading and agriculture is vital to this community,” while Deborah Sharpe lamented that when she first purchased property in the Berkeley District in 1993, she only needed one acre to own a horse, before the requirement rose to three acres.
“This is something that the citizens really use and need not to have the oversight that was imposed on the small acreage farms,” county resident David Goosman said. “I know several people that have less than two acres and they have chickens. Well, they’re kind of operating outside the lines. But this will help keep them legal and just be a help to the citizens out there in those rural districts.”
