A bid from York County to rezone about 29 acres of land along Back Creek Road in Seaford has prompted a few citizens to speak out against the proposed changes.
The York County Planning Commission discussed the plan during their March 12 meeting, when a pair of citizens who live in homes on the affected land and another man who lives nearby expressed their opposition to the proposed changes. After hearing from the citizens and discussing the proposed changes, the commission voted 4-1 to recommend the land remain in its current designation.
Tammy Beaumont, who lives in a home on the 600 block of Back Creek Road, asked the planning commission to leave her property as an industrial zone, which allows factories, refineries and utility uses. The county wants to change the designation to allow only residential development, which she said would increase her taxes and leave her with a lack of options for improving her home.
Beaumont’s property and the others in the 29 acres once abutted a more than 560-acre tract of land formerly owned by BP Amoco, which did not end up developing the land industrially. Instead, the company donated the land to the Nature Conservancy, which has since protected the land from development.
York County Planner Tim Cross said during the meeting that any discussion of changes in tax rates from the shift in zoning “requires a lot of speculation.” He said he spoke with a real estate appraiser who said the change to the residential zoning would cause the per acre valuation of the land — a factor considered in the tax rate — to be “a little higher than it is currently,” especially for the larger parcels of land with more frontage along Back Creek Road.
“I think they should be left the way they are,” Seaford resident Anthony Bavuso said during the meeting. “I view undesired rezoning of properties as a public taking of the rights of the property owners, which I strenuously oppose.”
The proposed changes stem from the county’s update of its comprehensive plan, a document that offers guidance for land use in the county. The York County Board of Supervisors voted in September to approve an update to the plan, part of which included recommendations to shift the designations of several parcels of land in the county.
Many of the proposed changes have attracted no negative feedback from the people they would affect. These changes include a move to shift hundreds of acres owned by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in the upper part of the county from their current business and residential designations to conservation, which is in line with the foundation’s vision for the property.
The commission spent much of its discussion of the changes last week focused on the 12 parcels on Back Creek Road, which stand to be shifted from industrial to residential. Their 4-1 vote to recommend the Board of Supervisors preserve the industrial designation is in line with the stance they took last year when the matter came before them as part of their review of the comprehensive plan prior to its passage. The supervisors ended up taking a different path, voting to adopt the plan with language recommending the designation shift.
“I still feel the way I did when we voted before,” Commissioner Tim McCulloch said. “If we’re going to actually make things harder on the folks who live there, I’m not sure I see a clear reason to change it right now.”
Commissioner Richard Myer Jr. agreed with McCulloch, saying there is “not a chance” there will ever be any development there other than the houses already in place.
“I want to lean toward keeping it the way it is to avoid doing anything to the property owners,” Myer said.
Property owners in York County were allowed to build homes on land zoned for industrial uses until the 1970s. The 12 parcels have been zoned for industrial use since 1957, when York County began zoning land.
The matter will now go before the York County Board of Supervisors for final determination. A meeting date where the issue will be considered has not yet been announced.
