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The Crow's Nest area of Stafford County, across from Indian Point.
An American lotus blooms just off the point of Boykin's Island at Crow's Nest. Stafford hopes to preserve the land as a park. |
A Circuit Court judge agreed yesterday to hear evidence in a case involving the denial of a subdivision plan for Crow's Nest
A trial date will be set soon. But Judge H. Harrison Braxton encouraged Stafford County to first consider giving the landowner an opportunity to resolve its issues with the Planning Commission. He cannot legally order them to do so.
Attorneys are discussing that option.
K&M Properties of McLean, developing Crow's Nest as Stafford Lakes Limited Partnership, wants to put 688 homes on 3,230 acres of the environmentally sensitive peninsula.
Planning Director Jeff Harvey formally recommended approval of the plan three times before the Planning Commission took up the matter in January. But he reversed his position in a memo handed out just minutes before the meeting, where the plan was unanimously denied.
Ten deficiencies, ranging from improper lot sizes, lack of information on maps and inaccurate dimensions in the subdivision's design were cited.
David Stoner, outside counsel representing the county, excused the change in opinion, saying staff and the Planning Commission operate independently.
"It would have been no different if the planning director's decision had stayed the same and the Planning Commission disagreed," he said. "There's nothing that anyone on the staff could have said or done to exempt Stafford Lakes from complying with the zoning ordinance. These aren't practices and procedures. These are ordinance requirements."
Stoner said Stafford Lakes officials should have spoken up at the Planning Commission meeting.
"They were present. Nothing precluded them from standing up and requesting a continuance," he said. "We can't know now how Stafford Lakes would have addressed those deficiencies. Today they've tried to ignore them, tried to push them under the rug."
County officials had hoped the judge would throw out the case on those grounds yesterday. But Hunton & Williams attorney Courtney Sydnor, who represents K&M, successfully argued that her client was not given an opportunity to comment on the memo and its application, as every other applicant was that night. They would have explained, she said, that the problems raised are typically addressed in the construction or final plat phase.
"It's not that we are proceeding based on the assumption that certain parts of the ordinance don't apply to us, but as customary practice in Stafford County these are things that would be addressed in later stages of the process," she said. "At a minimum, it should not have been denied on that date."
Braxton did, however, throw out two of K&M's complaints, which claimed the county did not act on their application within the amount of time state and local laws permit. Applications are automatically approved when local bodies don't meet time limits.
K&M's plan for Crow's Nest is the largest in acreage ever reviewed in Stafford.
County officials hope to preserve it as a state park. They have offered to pay $33.2 million for 2,887 acres of the peninsula, and threatened to pursue condemnation if K&M doesn't accept.
K&M, however, wants to cash in on its long-term investment. Clark Leming, a land-use attorney working with the developer, says his client believes the land is worth about $60 million.
The company has already started testing the soils east of Raven Road for drain field sites.
But the work, which they say involves clearing trees to get equipment in, resulted in a stop-work order from the county two weeks ago. Officials say the firm didn't submit plans, get a permit or pay the required fees before disturbing more than 2,500 square feet of land.
County Administrator Steve Crosby said code officials inspected the site yesterday morning and the company had repaired the damaged area. K&M has agreed not to do any more work until the county figures out whether the clearing was allowed under the law.
Leming contends that his client was complying with Stafford's new drain field ordinance. It requires that the preliminary subdivision plan include proof that each lot's soils perk.
"We're continuing to work with county staff to reach a resolution that is both in the county and property owner's interest and hope to have a specific resolution shortly," he said.
To reach MEGHANN COTTER:
Email: mcotter@freelancestar.com
