A look at land use

Greene’s planning commission and board of supervisors held a joint workshop Tuesday, Oct. 13 to discuss changes to the county’s comprehensive plan.
The plan, adopted by state mandate and reviewed nominally every five years, identifies land use ordinances as tools that can manage growth, and at issue is the county’s growth area.
For this update, the county enlisted the help of the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission and Charlottesville’s Renaissance Group to work with its planning department and citizens to create a preferred growth scenario.
During a series of workshops, citizens argued for higher residential and commercial development in Stanardsville, Ruckersville, Midway and a fourth new center at the intersection of Route 633 and U.S. 33, TJPDC Senior Planner Bill Wanner told county governors.
According to a report published by The Renaissance Group, the preferred scenario development emphasized new centers, or places in those areas. That report said: “Future growth in Stanardsville … retained an emphasis on growing with a small, walkable village/small town feel, and with a more interconnected local street grid.“
The report went on to say that the scenario created at workshops “encourages future growth in more compact farms, in closer proximity to infrastructure, balances rural and urban living and work options, and reduces projected acreage required by more than half of that projected in the trend scenario.“
But in fact the workshops held to discuss the scenario were poorly attended, with about 30 citizens taking part in each.
And, some supervisors objected to changes to the growth area, including acreage along Route 33.
Chairman of the board Steve Catalano urged his colleagues to “consider growth areas on Route 29 North to capitalize on all the business growth that we can in that area.“ He also wanted to include the area between Routes 643 and 743 “to allow an appropriate distance for development of access management on Route 33,“ and other changes, he said.
Board vice-chairman Buggs Peyton said he wanted to “revisit Route 33,“ and supervisor Jeri Allen said there were “places that should be put back in for a variety of reasons.“
Supervisor Mike Skeens said the plan “needs some tweaking,“ and supervisor Carl Schmitt asked for an explanation of the rationale behind the placement of the growth areas.
“I think the safest way to answer that is the growth area is by definition the area in which we want to encourage the highest intensity growth,“ explained planning commission chair Jim Frydl. “We are not precluding growth from any other part of the county, what we’re saying is in a perfect world, where can we support high density growth?“
Catalano asked zoning administrator Bart Svoboda for a timeline for the process that is likely to involve more workshops and several public hearings, “so the Board can start taking vitamins.“
Svoboda responded that there will most likely be a public session in December, and that the plan would go to the board of supervisors in January.