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Culpeper planners back sewage plant

Culpeper planners endorse permit for sewage-treatment plant to serve 1,000-home development near Boston

By DONNIE JOHNSTON

Date published: 5/13/2005

Developer would build new facility

The Culpeper County Planning Commission has recommended approval of a permit to build a sewage-treatment plant to serve a proposed 1,000-home mixed-use development near Boston.

If approved as expected by the Board of Supervisors, the 470,000-gallons-per-day plant would be built by the Boston Water and Sewer Co. and then turned over to the newly formed Culpeper County Water and Sewer Authority.

When complete, the plant would serve some 1,000 new residential units plus a proposed conference center and a small commercial development proposed on the Longlea Estate.

County staff recommended approval of the use permit with two stipulations. First, the plant would be built in full compliance with a strict and complex set of wastewater-technology rules the county developed to help resolve the Clevenger's Village rezoning issue earlier this year.

Second, a building permit cannot be issued for the plant until a water/sewer agreement is made with the county.

Several neighbors of the Longlea Estate made their concerns known during a public hearing on the matter Wednesday night. Sheri Armstrong told the commission the Department of Environmental Quality in 2003 cited the small sewage-treatment plant that now serves the CCA Printing operation on the property for at least three violations.

Judy Vigay said she was strongly opposed to the plant and the proposed development. She also criticized the commission's stance on growth, saying, "You guys have become a rubber-stamp committee."

Commission member David Lowery reminded Vigay that his group had twice unanimously voted against the Clevenger's Village project, a 766-home residential and commercial development near Jeffersonton, only to have its recommendation overruled by the Board of Supervisors.

Commission member Mary Foley spoke out against the permit and the coming residential development in such a scenic part of the county.

"I don't think the county is ready for development up that way," she said. "I think we should postpone this insanity."

But Foley's motion to recommend denial of the plant's use permit failed on a 5-2 vote.

Both County Planner John Egerston and County Attorney Dave Maddox explained to the commission that the 640-acre parcel along the Hazel River was rezoned as a village center and a planned urban development a decade ago.

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Date published: 5/13/2005