James City County supervisors voted 3-2 Tuesday night to approve a zoning permit for Dominion Energy’s Skiffes Creek project.
Powhatan district supervisor Michael Hipple said “It’s not a pick and choose. We’re here whether to decide whether this land use is right or not,” before voting to approve the zoning permit.
The vote will allow Dominion Energy Virginia to construct a switching station in Grove.
The $185 million project, called the Surry-Skiffes Creek Connector, aims to construct high-voltage transmission lines over the James River to provide better “electrical reliability” to the Peninsula, according to Dominion Energy.
Construction is expected to take between 18-20 months, according to Dominion spokeswoman Bonita Billingsley Harris. The project will allow the county to earn an additional $400,000 in tax revenue, Harris added.
Over 150 residents packed the James City County board room, filling all available seats and wall space in the room. Both conservationists against the project and supporters of the power lines stood in an overflow area outside the meeting room.
One of the nearly 30 speakers who came before the board Tuesday was Danny Schmidt, a county planner. He said he came to speak as a private citizen, saying the project could be “the final nail in the coffin for Eastern Grove.”
“I believe rezoning the communities that border Grove, from largely residential tracts to industrial, followed by a massive industrial-sized switching station could have tragic consequences,” Schmidt said. “The opportunity for revitalization could be lost.”
The permit will allow the construction of electrical utility stations on 67.4 acres of land on Pocahontas Trail. The development, including a switching station and two 80-foot lightning rods, will be near several residential areas in Grove.
However, Dominion officials have said that the station will be minimally invasive to the nearby neighborhoods, calling the area a transition area between neighborhoods and more intensive industrial lands.
“Just because the area is zoned for residential development doesn’t mean it’s…suitable for residential use,” Dominion’s attorney Brennen Keene said.
Le-Ha Anderson a spokeswoman for Dominion said the property was oddly shaped and had been purchased in 1974 when the company “anticipated growth.”
She said the purchase was part of a “long range plan” for electrical reliability in the Peninsula.
County planners voted against the measure 4-2 nearly two years ago citing concerns about the revitalization of Grove and that it would “erode” home prices in the area, Planning Commission chairman Richard Krapf said.
Supervisors Michael Hipple, Kevin Onizuk, and Sue Sadler voted for the measure Tuesday, while supervisors John McGlennon and Ruth Larson voted against it.
The vote ends the nearly five-year permitting process for the project.
Roberts district supervisor McGlennon questioned the necessity of the project with an intense line of questioning for Dominion staff. At one point he had as many as four Dominion representatives standing at the podium answering his technical questions.
In the end, McGlennon voted against the measure saying “I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a situation from an applicant that said at 11:59 that if you approve this, I’ve got a bag of goodies that I’ll give to the community.”
Quinn Emmett who called himself both a “longtime and recently returned resident” reminded supervisors that their decisions would impact more than fish in a river or a view on a horizon: supervisor’s decisions would impact people’s lives.
“It seems like up till now everybody’s been focused on what it’s going to look like,” Emmett said about the transmission lines. “And they’re forgetting the people who are going to be affected by it.”
