LAND USE: To Pave or Save Henrico’s Farmland?

Builders who want open license are calling locals concerned about the environment and sprawl idiots and losers? Your upbringing must not have included the lesson about namecalling bouncing back on you, MrT. You represent your trade when you respond like that.

I’m glad the Times Dispatch has allowed this type of coverage just wish there was more of it. Our future as residents isn’t just about re-active crime stories and daily drama. Follow up so retirees like me can keep up with those late night meetings we read too little about please?

mikeyt, you may be in building but that doesn’t mean you speak for the industry. I am in green building and skeptical of many aspects of this plan.

You say you define progress as “sustainable, responsible growth” - just out of curiosity, can you give us some of your own projects that are sustainable / utilize smart growth/ LEED? I’d love to see a portfolio of your work.

ken hopson… oooh, we’ve got a loser on this one. Guess I have to straighten you out, too.

1) Less than one percent response to a plan that has been being developed for 4 years, that has, by county counts, had 42 different opportunities for residents to receive information or comment about it. If you’re out of the loop after that much contact, it’s because you don’t want to be in the loop. After 4 years of this, YOU’RE DAMN RIGHT they’re moving on. You don’t do this forever. It’s already taken far too long. Everyone has had more than ample chance for their say.

2) The zoning designations are done with the plan. And any citizen can attempt to rezone any piece of land at any time if they choose. That doesn’t mean it will be approved and in fact, the majority of rezoning cases are not approved. 

How do I define progress? Sustainable, responsible growth. Not standing still and doing nothing, as Novision Henrico wants. There’s not proper civic approval? That approval will come in August when your elected leaders, the people you vote to represent you and give that civic approval, vote on the plan. They’ve taken an extraordinary amount of input from the people and have heard from their planning experts, and they’ll make a choice in August. And the experts know A WHOLE LOT MORE ABOUT PLANNING than the people. The supervisors hear the people, but that doesn’t mean you have good ideas. In the case of Novision Henrico, they do not have good ideas. Not protecting natural or historic resources? Show me where a Civil War battlefield is being rezoned residential or commercial. Show me where a significant wetland is being filled in and not replaced. You can’t because it doesn’t exist. No, not the Elko Tract—EPA and DCR have both seen that swamp is not historic or of any benefit to controlling stormwater.

3) Not a developer, a builder. A builder who, like every other builder I know, has lost 40 percent of my business in two years. Can you match that? Have you made that kind of sacrifice? Didn’t think so. And because you’re obviously not a developer or builder, you have no clue of the legal ramifications of a 2,000-foot buffer along the rivers. You ever heard of a regulatory taking? It’s where a county takes private land without just cause and it’s illegal. Because no one in their right mind has ever proposed a 2,000-foot buffer, a court would overturn the buffer requirement for the first landowner that sued the county and the county would get stuck with the legal bills. You gonna pay the county’s fine and attorney bills to set that buffer up? Nope, didn’t think so.

4) You know how many people participated in that survey? 400, not 200,000. The key is not the survey, but how many people took the time to be in the loop, go to the commissioners public hearing and speak. That would be 30. And the survey said “restrict” development, not stop it. When you ask for any land-use change from the 2010 plan to be rescinded, you’re trying to stop growth. When you ask for a one-third of a mile buffer, you’re trying to stop growth. I don’t care what Novision Henrico’s web publicity site says.

5) Tuesday night will NOT be the last opportunity to give comment! Do you know how to write? Try a letter! They’ll accept those at county government! Publicly express their views? Why can’t Novision Henrico take out a newspaper ad? More public comment! Ms. Ellis told that little white lie in her piece in an effort to anger the people and get them to storm the supervisors chambers Tuesday night. Nothing wrong with rallying support, but when you have to lie to do it we have a problem. No nitpicking. I just want the truth told, and there’s nothing in my previous post or this one that can’t be proven true by the facts.

There you go, Ken. Everything you posted has been debunked with facts.

Wow, what an idiot. So much falsehood in one column. It’s scary. I can’t list it all because I’ll be typing for an hour. So I’ll hit the highlights.

First of all, this comprehensive plan update has been in the works for three years. There have been more hearings about the plan initiated by the county and by individual supervisors than anyone can count. There has been more public input on this plan than for any individual action the county has taken in its history. Any citizen could have made their feelings known to the planning department, to the private firm hired to help with the plan, or to the planning commissioners and supervisors any time they chose within the last three years.

Second, the only thing that has changed with regard to “prime agricultural” land is the designation. If Ms. Ellis had bothered to talk to county planners she’d know that the county has changed the names of many of the zoning classifications to reflect today’s language used for zoning nationwide, but the definitions have not changed.

Third, the draft says nothing about “massive residential/retail construction” being the best use for land along the riverfront. It allows for limited sections of mixed-use development, along with thousands of acres of environmental protection area. Of course, Ms. Ellis and her Envision Henrico anti-growth crazies want a 2,000-foot buffer from any development along the riverfront. That’s one-third of a mile. Even the state only recommends a 100-foot buffer along all state riverfront property. The anti-growth zealots’ idea would mean several miles of state Route 5 would not be eligible for any development, on either side of the road. So what about the landowners who live so far from the river they can’t see it.

Fourth, there is no “clear, quantified and county-wide opposition to the proposed destruction of Henrico’s last farm district.“ In fact, the proposed land-use map allows for thousands of acres of protected land countywide that can be used for farming, preservation, parkland or other non-development uses. In fact, at the planning commission’s public hearing there were a grand total of 30 people out of almost 300,000 county residents who spoke about the plan, and some of them were not the Envision Henrico nuts that Ms. Ellis represents. There is no wild-eyed countywide opposition to restricting development (or stopping it as Envision Henrico wants)in east Henrico.

Fifth, there will be no vote Tuesday night. Only the public hearing will be held. Then the supervisors will hold a second work session in July to discuss potential changes with the planning director, then a vote is expected in August. So there’s at least two more months for Ms. Ellis and her living-in-the-19th-Century cronies to whine about how the eastern part of Henrico County is not being treated like Charles City County anymore.

Those are the five worst “misrepresentations” in the column. There are at least 10 more.

The Envision Henrico people (actually, we should call them “Novision Henrico”), led by folks like Ms. Ellis, have asked supervisors, among other things, to take every changed zoning designation from the 2010 plan and change it back to exactly what it is in that plan. In other words, they want absolutely nothing to change in eastern Henrico. They have no vision for progress in east Henrico. These people need to learn that progress happens, and that the proposed comprehensive plan takes into account very well the need for change along with the desire to keep a rural feel in that part of the county.

Henrico County is not the country, folks. That doesn’t mean east Henrico swhould become west Henrico, and any objective look at the proposal will show that nothing close to west Henrico has been proposed. Henrico officials realize that progress has to happen or the county will die. It’s time the Novision Henrico people figure that out.

Apologies for the length but it’s necessary to counter the “misinformation” in the column.

From what I can see the county is already in decline due to the kind of people who live there anyway.  Let’s stop the growth of all that, or if possible, move it out.  Make your voice heard to save what little we can of Henrico, before it just becomes another extended ghetto of the East side.