New board to face its first test
By Greg Pearson STAFF WRITER

Dave Anderson (left) and Casey Sowers, partners of Roseland Development Co., look over plans for the proposed 5,140-home community that would essentially create a town at the intersection of Route 288 and Woolridge Road.

They all ran on a platform of better management of Chesterfield's growth, and in two months, four new board members and Clover Hill Supervisor Art Warren will face the biggest rezoning case in the county's history. Roseland is a 1,395-acre rezoning at the intersection of Route 288 and Woolridge Road, which includes 5,140 homes (40 percent multifamily), 400 carriage homes and 1.5 million square feet of office and retail.

Developers Casey Sowers and Dave Anderson, both highly respected, have held countless meetings with citizens and business groups over the past 18 months, preaching the principles of smart growth they designed into Roseland. They have won many converts, but some residents are questioning the sheer size of a community with over 5,000 homes, which brings an urban living concept to the suburbs.

As supervisor-elect and with the community proposed mostly in her Matoaca District, Marleen Durfee wants more personal review of Roseland. "I need more time to study the application," she said last week while on vacation out of state after a grassroots victory on Election Day.

During her campaign, Durfee also called for an immediate review of the Upper Swift Creek Plan approved by the current board last month. While Roseland isn't in the plan area, it drains to the reservoir, and a revised plan with more stringent phosphorous standards could impact rezoning for Roseland.

Part of Roseland is also in Midlothian District, and Supervisor-elect Dan Gecker is also being cautious. Last month, as planning commission chairman, he voted against Roseland but primarily because he hadn't had time to study all the last-minute rezoning changes. But he also told Anderson, "I believe in your vision."

"Roseland is certainly going to be a topic of discussion," he said last week, "and we need to look at the environmental protections."

Starting his 17th year on the board, Warren supports Roseland. "I think it's a good plan," he told the Chesterfield Observer last week. "It conforms to my approach to growth management. The large number of homes gets your attention, but from the perspective of a neighborhood community, it's over 20 years of development. I'd rather see a large planned community than a lot of small subdivisions that are not connected. I'm pleased that Dave Anderson and Roseland have gone further than the current Upper Swift Creek Plan requires in protecting the reservoir."

To continue the dialogue with residents of Charter Colony, Roseland's developers mailed out 600 invitations and 41 of them attended a two-and-a-half-hour presentation at the Holiday Inn Koger Center on Nov. 12. Last month, 17 Charter Colony residents spoke in opposition to the Roseland rezoning during the public hearing when the case was deferred by the county board.

At that board meeting, they objected to the office development being adjacent to their homes, and though Roseland later agreed to build no more than three-story buildings within 500 feet of the Charter Colony property line, six stories in the next 500 feet and no more than eight stories more than 1,000 feet away, those residents who showed up on Nov. 12 weren't convinced.

They voiced concerns about transients who would be staying at the hotel and conference center that is contemplated in Roseland. By a show of hands, they wanted singlefamily homes as their neighbors - the kind of sprawl, Anderson said, Roseland seeks to prevent.

"If I wanted to live in an urban setting," said one Charter Colony resident, "I would have moved to Richmond."

That urban setting, according to County Administrator Jay Stegmaier, is what many larger employers are seeking and why two major employers from outside the area recently located in downtown Richmond. Speaking earlier this month at the Chesterfield County Chamber of Commerce luncheon, Stegmaier said young, tech-savvy employees - the ones employers are catering to - want to be in an urban environment like the television show "Friends."

If approved, Anderson said road construction would begin in 2009, homebuilding in 2010 and the business component in 2011 - if the new board approves the rezoning or the case isn't deferred too long.