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Cosner's Corner at Massaponax has attracted commercial and residential growth as well as the new Spotsylvania Regional Medical Center. Officials are considering it as one of four Urban Development Areas in the county.
A digitally created panorama shows urban-style development at the new Spotsylvania Courthouse Village. The buildings have commercial space and some county offices. |
To comply with a Virginia General Assembly mandate, high-growth counties around the Fredericksburg area must have plans by next July for dense developments where people can live, work, shop and play.
These Urban Development Areas could look like small cities with a mix of different types of housing, stores and businesses. UDAs must accommodate at least 10 years and as many as 20 years of projected population growth. Economic conditions will impact how many UDA proposals localities get.
UDAs are envisioned as pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly communities that limit the need to maintain additional secondary roads and subdivision streets. A UDA could have narrower, more interconnected streets. These developments are supposed to be planned near existing infrastructure, such as commuter rail, highways, and public water and sewer.
The hope is the UDAs would preserve open space elsewhere because development in them is more compact.
The land-use policy changes originated from former Gov. Timothy Kaine's smart-growth platform. He wanted to tie land-use and transportation decisions together, in light of the financial strains that sprawling development puts on the Virginia Department of Transportation's budget.
Del. Clay Athey, a Republican from Front Royal, introduced the UDA legislation in 2007. He has been working on clarifying it ever since.
"It's probably the largest change in land-use planning since zoning itself," he said. "There will be gnashing of teeth over this."
The process has been complicated for local governments. VDOT has hired consultants to assist county and city planners with the process.
In Spotsylvania, Board of Supervisors members were confused last month after a state-funded consultant told them that land in a UDA would have to be rezoned so that the development would be allowed by right.
By-right development does not require a public hearing, and supervisors cannot ask for proffers from the developer to offset the costs the project would impose on public services.
County Planning Director Wanda Parrish sent a memo to supervisors on Aug. 26 correcting the misunderstanding. A UDA would be part of the county's Comprehensive Plan, indicating that it's a preferred type of growth there, but existing zoning still stands.
For Spotsylvania and Stafford counties, one or more UDAs would be in the comprehensive plan.
In Spotsylvania, the UDA would accommodate at least 26,000 people--more than the population of Fredericksburg--over a 10-year span.
All localities with a growth rate of 15 percent since the last census or an annual growth rate of 5 percent and a population of at least 20,000 since the last census must have one UDA in their comprehensive plans by July 2011.
Spotsylvania and Stafford counties--the two largest in the region--have seen their population increase by more than 50 percent from 1990 to 2000.
King George, Caroline, Fauquier, Culpeper, Orange and Louisa counties also must create one UDA each.
"The thrust of the [legislation] was to try to change the direction the commonwealth has been moving in, which has resulted in sprawl," Athey said.
Stafford and Spotsylvania each received $225,000 from the state to hire the planning consultant firm Rhodeside and Harwell, but officials in both localities are taking different approaches to meeting the state mandate.
For example, Stafford officials are considering eight UDAs--some in developed areas of the county and others in rural sections. Spotsylvania is considering four UDAs, all of them in the growing U.S. 1 and U.S. 17 corridors.
Dan Telvock: 540/374-5438
Email: dtelvock@freelancestar.com
For localities with more than 130,000 people, a UDA would have these densities:
Single-family houses: 8 units per acre
Townhouses: 12 units per acre
Apartments: 24 units per acre
Commercial: 0.8 unit per acre.
Localities with fewer than 130,000 people must meet half of these densities.
With both counties' populations estimated at around 125,000, Spotsylvania is basing its UDAs on the higher densities while Stafford is using the lower densities.
Other area counties are well below the 130,000 figure.
