Group Sues County Over Land-Use Plan
By Wesley P. Hester, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.
Jul. 30–A group of Chesterfield County landowners is suing the county, alleging revisions to the Upper Swift Creek Plan Amendment were not sufficiently advertised and amount to taking land unlawfully.
Seventh-generation farmer Bruce Moseley, whose family owns 160 acres in the area covered by the land-use plan, is one of 10 landowners who jointly filed the complaint on Friday. He said the group is asking that the changes to the land-use plan made by the Board of Supervisors on June 25 be nullified.
The property owners say they did not receive adequate notice of amendments that were significantly different than those advertised, Moseley said yesterday.
“Everything changed at the last second,” he said, referring specifically to a long motion by Matoaca District Supervisor Marleen K. Durfee that Moseley says substantially changed the details of the plan.
Specifically, the landowners involved object to setting up a growth-management boundary in the western part of the plan area that they say will drastically reduce their property values.
The boundary will initially restrict development on 4,300 acres..
“Our property values were probably cut in half if not worse,” said co-complainant L.C. Salle Jr., who owns more than 400 acres in the boundary area with his family. “The property is devalued to the point where really I don’t think anybody could tell you what it is worth anymore.”
The landowners further argue that the adopted amendments violate state law by requiring public facilities to be in place before approval of a residential rezoning request.
“Everyone wants to make this debate out to be a fight between developers and environmentalists,” Salle said. “But the reality is that individual property owners like the people involved in this lawsuit are the people who are being punished.”
In its complaint, the group also voices its opposition to tighter water-quality standards in the Swift Creek Reservoir Watershed that are to be considered tonight by the Board of Supervisors.
Moseley said adoption of a 0.16 phosphorous standard would add insult to injury for area landowners.
“Those standards are just totally unattainable and even if they could be attained, it would make it so expensive to develop anything it would be prohibitive,” Salle said. “It’s one thing to make the whole county subject to these things, but it’s another thing to single out one little tiny area.”
Calls yesterday to Durfee, other county supervisors and the county attorney were not immediately returned. Contact Wesley P. Hester at (804) 649-6976 or whester@timesdispatch.com.
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