Swift Creek plan proceeds without quantifiable data
By Greg Pearson STAFF WRITER

Chesterfield Observer The Upper Swift Creek Plan area encompasses 57 square miles, starting at the intersection of routes 288/360 and going north and west.

The Upper Swift Creek Plan (USCP) will go to the Chesterfield Board of Supervisors on June 9 without sufficient data needed to back up its recommendations for how to protect the Swift Creek Reservoir as a source of drinking water. The commission plan that reaches the board in July after more study will also lack data that quantifies how much phosphorous runoff the measures will prevent.

Last year in commission work sessions, the Environmental Engineering Department estimated that when build-out of already approved zoning occurs, there will be 400 to 4,000 pounds more phosphorous flowing into the reservoir annually than the recommended amount of 25,000 pounds. In recent months, staff presentations have not included phosphorous data, which were lamented in April by commission Chairman Russ Gulley and Vice Chairman Wayne Bass.

The measures included in the new USCP will reduce runoff, but may not be enough to offset the effects of already approved development and new rezonings to come. The county will also be challenged to meet lowered state mandated levels for phosphorous.

After almost five years of study, the plan appears headed to the board with components for water quality, land use and transportation. But at a public meeting held last week at Clover Hill High School by the planning commission, several from the development community and citizen Brenda Stewart, who owns property outside of the 57-square-mile plan area, expressed concerns about levels of service (LOS) in the USCP that are expected to be the model countywide.

"[LOS countywide]," cautioned Stewart, "could effectively destroy the market values of our property."

LOS will allow the county board to deny a residential rezoning if the roads nearby are inadequate to handle the increased traffic or a school in the district is over 120 percent capacity. The plan also recommends LOS standards for response times for the county fire/EMS department - 90 percent of the calls should be met within six minutes. LOS standards countywide are also expected to address other county services such as police, libraries and parks.

Developer/engineer Dave Anderson wants LOS to be countywide first and focus on water quality.

But other citizens support LOS in this plan, including Cathy Kirk. "The citizens want better growth management…we want minimum standards," she said.

"How much more time are we going to discuss this?" asked resident Greg Blake. The citizens "want you to take action…please get on with it."

Despite the incomplete data, some speakers said the board should go ahead and enact the plan, pass the corresponding legal ordinances to enforce the new standards, and tweak them later, if necessary. The commission scheduled a public hearing on the plan for June 3 before it votes on a recommendation to the board.

In an overview at the beginning of the meeting, Gulley said he found it difficult to send an incomplete land use plan to the board, but added, "We're going to have to do that…There's been some discussion that the planning commission has been dragging its feet. That's absolutely not true."

The land use plan proposes a growth management area where development is deferred to sometime in the future. The plan endorses that "additional rezoning for residential and commercial development within the recommended growth management boundary should be discouraged until public facilities, sufficient for orderly growth and development in this portion of the county, have been extended into the area." In the past, the idea of setting aside a deferred growth area has caused opposition among some affected property owners.

Several speakers alluded to the controversy over two plans - the one initiated by the commission on Feb. 19 which is scheduled to reach the board in July and the board plan, proposed later by Matoaca Supervisor Marlene Durfee and passed on a 3-2 board vote, which must be to the board by June 9.

Former Commissioner Will Shewmake sided with not rushing the plan. "I agree with [Midlothian Supervisor Dan] Gecker," he said. Gecker voted against initiating a board plan.

But Mike Harton, who worked with Durfee on a citizen group last year, criticized some members of the commission. "I don't know why some of you are politicizing this issue out of proportion," he said.

Gulley, who supports the commission timetable and has termed two plans as "confusing," responded, saying it was part of the job as a commissioner to accept public criticism.