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Monster projects

Date published: 8/2/2002

Developmental giantism sets its sights on Spotsylvania County

YOU SAY you're feeling glum that there aren't more cars on local roads? You say the sight of farmland and wildwood makes your heart wax heavy? Cheer up. The Lee's Parke project in Spotsylvania County promises to help chase away those not-quite-gridlocked, underbuilt blues.

If cleared by county officials, Lee's Parke would put 2,250 new homes in northeastern Spotsylvania--normally not something to cheer in a county plagued by the harpies of too-much-too-fast growth. Not to worry. "It will help the community," promises a spokesman for the project's designer, Fried Companies Inc. of Springfield. True, Springfield is not everyone's idea of Community Beautiful--behold the Mixing Bowl--but let's move on.

Fried Companies points out that Lee's Parke, which would include retail sections, would dedicate more than a third of its homes to older people without school-age children to publicly teach. Also, the high cost of the project's houses--most would be around $300,000, more than twice the county average--would generate some fancy tax revenues. Such an upscale development, it is suggested, would impart an unspecified uplift to a part of the county not inaccurately described as "the boonies." And here's the real sweetener: Fried would build 2.3 miles of the proposed, but unfunded, 22-mile Spotsylvania Parkway. This leg--or legette--immediately would carry shoppers from Lee's Parke to Leavells Road, bypassing the heavy traffic around Four-Mile Fork.

Add up this, that, and t'other, says Fried, and the county each year would come out $5.3 million in taxes to the good.

But there is another side to the ledger. Even discounting for the empty-nesters, about 1,000 new children would enter the already-stressed county school system. Furthermore, Lee's Parke residents would likely gravitate for some of their shopping to congested Big Box Boulevard--State Route 3-- and Central Park, worsening the crawl through the sprawl. And, finally, Lee's Parke, despite its sidewalks and open space, represents more of yesterday's growth. Retail stores are not integrated into the neighborhood, except in one small section that includes a proposed library. Mostly they are set apart, making most routine shop visits automobile-dependent.

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Date published: 8/2/2002