Land-use designations, the population build-out and a county-sponsored telephone survey dominated the conversation at a York County Planning Commission public hearing on the proposed draft update to the Comprehensive Plan.
More than a dozen residents spoke at the hearing Wednesday night.
“Most of the changes to the proposed land use map are not policy decisions as much as changes that are intended to reflect land-use decisions that have already been made in the seven years since the last update of the plan,” said Tim Cross, a planner for York County who gave a brief presentation before the public hearing began.
One popular topic among those who spoke was the mixed-use land designation proposed in the draft update. A mixed-use development is “for developments containing an integrated, comprehensively planned and designed mix of business, retail, cultural, residential and other appropriate uses,” according to the York County Zoning Ordinance
The designation allows for higher density living, which some of the speakers opposed. Their comments revolved around a maximum build-out number, 80,000 people, which is in the current version of the Comprehensive Plan.
“Is the intent still to remain at an 80,000 build-out?” Asked Kelly Place, a York County resident. “I sure hope we haven’t abandoned that build-out target. If we have, I hope we have a lengthy public conversation. Mixed-use would result in higher taxes for schools and other infrastructure, and that’s a fairly significant issue.”
An area along Interstate 64 in York County where the Colonial Parkway intersects with the road is currently zoned economic opportunity with a mixed-use overlay, though the only way to access that parcel of land is via Winchester Road. The owner of that land, a Maryland resident, said at the meeting his family purchased the land in 1951 as a speculative investment. With the way the roads developed in the county, that parcel of land has become isolated.
The plan calls for the mixed-use overlay currently applied to that land to move to the Marquis at Williamsburg and surrounding areas, which would allow the Marquis owners to develop residential areas on the land. However, the owner of the other land wants the mixed-use overlay to remain on his property.
Will Holt, an attorney representing the Marquis at Williamsburg, voiced support for the mixed-use overlay being added to the shopping center.
“We’re excited by the prospect of the property as the addition of a potential residential component could be the missing link,” Holt said.
[stextbox id=”alert” caption=”Changes to York County since 2005″ float=”true” align=”right” width=”275″ bwidth=”0″]
- More than 4,000 new residents
- 1,582 new housing units
- 584 fewer school students
- $229 million of commercial construction (much of this was between 2006 and 2008)
- 1,681 new jobs (98 percent in the private sector)
[/stextbox]
The use of a telephone survey of county citizens, which is referenced throughout the plan, also became a point of contention during the hearing. Several of the citizens who spoke said the public meetings where citizens had made comments on the Comprehensive Plan in the last year had not had their comments incorporated into the draft update.
“Ordinarily I’d be glad to see so many references to citizen input, but in this case, I’m not so sure,” said Ken Hamner, a York County resident. “With the reliance on the telephone survey in August, the plan seems to ignore the input given at the forums and replaces it with opinions of those who didn’t make any effort to investigate and attend the forums and were likely not ready to answer questions for the telephone survey. They demonstrated that dynamic with the most common answer: ‘I don’t know.’”
A few residents spoke in support of sidewalks and bike paths, praising the county for continuing to install them.
The next step in the process is a Feb. 27 work session where the Planning Commission will continue to work on the update. Cross recommended the Planning Commission take a vote on the document in April. Once they do vote on the document, the Board of Supervisors must act within 90 days, so he cautioned the planners to take their time.
During his presentation at the start of the meeting, Cross went through the history of the document and the process of working toward a new version. This is the third major update of the original Comprehensive Plan, which was adopted in 1991. There were also major updates in 1999 and 2005.
The process to update the document began a year ago with four joint community forums and a joint Planning Commission work session with James City County in April. There were then public meetings in York County in May and June, and work sessions from April through October.
Cross said he has heard from the Virginia Department of Transportation that they hope to offer their proposed changes to the draft update by the end of February.
You can view the draft update of the Comprehensive Plan by clicking here.
Previous Coverage:
York Planning Commission to Host Public Hearing on Proposed Comprehensive Plan Updates
