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Rural vision for Rt. 3?
Board wants to change county's land-use plan to limit business, housing growth on State Route 3Date published: 7/14/2004 By GEORGE WHITEHURST Spotsylvania County supervisors are revisiting the past as they plan for the future of State Route 3 west of Five-Mile Fork. The Board of Supervisors voted 4-3 yesterday to direct the Planning Department to draw up plans for removing a chunk of land along Route 3 from the county's designated growth area, which it calls the Primary Settlement District. The owners of the affected properties would not be allowed to hook up to county water and sewer. The properties would be put in the county's Rural Development District, which calls for sparser growth. The land between Spotswood Furnace Road and Route 3--which includes the Mullins farm--was moved from the rural district to the growth area in 2002 when supervisors amended zoning laws in hopes of better managing residential development. The Mullins farm of nearly 800 acres was added because 55 acres of it had been zoned for commercial use and because the state planned to bring the Outer Connector--a proposed beltway around Fredericksburg--through the property. County planners had envisioned corporate offices popping up in the area. Supervisor Hap Connors said he sees the change as "righting past wrongs." The reasons for rezoning the land to commercial and putting the farm in the growth area disappeared with the demise of the Outer Connector, he said in an interview yesterday. Supervisors withdrew support for the controversial project last year, and the regional transportation planning board followed suit. When the Outer Connector seemed like at least a distant possibility, a Northern Virginia developer, Dogwood Development Group, wanted to build nearly 2,000 homes and up to 2.2 million square feet of businesses on the Mullins farm. Supervisors rejected that plan and since then some of the land has been sold to luxury home-builder Toll Brothers Inc., which plans to construct 225 houses there. The farm's owner, John Mullins, who also owns Covenant Funeral Service, could not be reached for comment yesterday. He has not announced specific plans for his 55 acres of commercial land, but said in April 2003 that he planned to give the county some of it--acreage that saw fighting on the first day of the Battle of Chancellorsville during the Civil War. Preservationists opposed the new-town project and have expressed interest in buying some of the farm from Mullins.
Read more stories about Caroline Date published: 7/14/2004
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