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| Current Affairs Greenvest Presentation transcript |
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| Current Affairs Greenvest Presentation transcript |
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GREENVEST L.C.
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Jim Duszynski: I'd like to welcome everybody tonight to the presentation that we are providing this evening on the
proposal for the Hunt Field Property. I appreciate everybody coming. We've got members of our development team here r tonight from Greenvest, L.C. My name is Jim Duszynski; I'm I Senior Vice President for Greenvest. We have other members of our firm here, we have members of the land planning architectural firm that is going to be doing the major part of the presentation tonight from Cunningham, Quill & Associates. I'll talk a little bit more about them in a moment. We have our community relations firm, Holmes Communications and our engineer Appalachian Surveys is here.
Again, I'd like to welcome you all. We've invited every body out tonight to get a chance to see where it is we are with the community at this point. It's all pretty preliminary in terms of fine detail and again, I'll let Lee talk mostly about that but we did want to get out in front of the community and let everybody start to see, and this is just the first in a series of meetings. |
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Let everybody start to see where we are headed. We wanted to t your input, get your comments, listen to your concerns, certainly, as most of you know, we've been in this process for over a year since our first CIS was submitted and denied. So we've had a lot of time to listen to the community, to hear what the concerns are, and we've made a lot of progress since last year as well, and again we'll talk about that ore later. I think that everybody here tonight probably either falls into a number of categories. You're either just curious, want to hear what we want to say. I think there are some people here that maybe angry about Hunt Field. I think that's probably a safe guess or even a little fearful about what Hunt Field and growth in general may mean as a threat to our quality of life and that is a valid concern. Some people may be here that are really just neutral and other people may be here that are embracing change, though I'm going to guess that they are in the minority. I think that what we'd like to do tonight is really have a discussion with the community and start the discussion with the community about what kind of growth do you want? Audience Member shouts: Little. [Some laughter]. Jim Duszynski: Well, that's one answer. I think that the argument or the debate over whether or not growth is |
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going to occur or whether or not we can stop growth in our communities is probably not the most productive one that we can have. I think that there is a number of factors and conditions that exist today that show that growth is occurring in Jefferson County, like it or not.
So again, what we are going to focus on tonight is presenting to you our ideas for what the pattern of development should be or can be in Jefferson County. Again, we are happy to talk about whether or not growth should occur, and what the impacts are of growth because certainly those need to be discussed and they need to be addressed. But that really is a debate that I think is not productive and the one we want to focus on tonight is how do you want growth to occur in your community? Audience member shouts: Smartly. Jim Duszynski: There are several factors, and we are going to talk a lot about smart growth tonight. The population growth in Loudon County has doubled in the last 10 years. In the next 50 years, the population in the United States is forecast to double. Growth is occurring in Jefferson County. I had a comment come to me from one County Commissioner that Jefferson County was a victim of geography in terms of the growth issue. Like it or nor, I think that's probably, at least in part, true. Roads lead to Jefferson |
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County from Loudon County, from Frederick County. The housing pressure, Sir, we're going to take questions and answers after the presentation. We'll be more than happy to address what your concerns are at that time. Roads lead to Jefferson County, growth pressures in Loudon County and Frederick County clearly are driving the housing inventories down, the housing prices up which makes Jefferson County very attractive to many, many people.
I think the other thing that I'd like to talk a little bit about are the development issues and I'll just touch [? some] of them. But clearly most recently we've heard about the historical and cultural resources in and around Hunt Field, the Claymont area and we'll talk a little bit tonight about how we're going to deal with those. We'll talk about schools and school impacts. Talk about sewer, sewer plan expansion, sewer extensions, water, water extensions, the provision of water, police and emergency, soils and the contamination of the soils at Hunt Field, traffic issues, the relationship that Hunt Field will have over the years with Charles Town and the commercial are[a] in Charles Town, the downtown area of Charles Town and the concerns that we've heard about that. Finally, we'll talk about impact fees. We've attended a number of meetings, most recently at the school board down the street here where the state legislators came in. And |
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we've said it before, and we'll say it again tonight, we support impact fees and the County needs to figure out a way to set the mechanisms in place and move forward with the imposition of impact fees but development should carry its
fair share of the burden and meeting the demand for services.
As I've said many, many times, we're proposing a 20-year project. It would be shortsighted of me to think that we can come in here, not pay our fair share, not meet the demand for services, have inadequate schools, inadequate police protection, inadequate fire protection, and sell a lot of houses. People move into a place where the services exist and that's what they'll be looking for when they come here or when they relocate within the County. Just to talk for a minute about what I see as the role of the developer and the developer's responsibility. I'll just relay a short story of a meeting that was held recently, what I think is referred to as the Ad Hoc Committee. That's a group of people that Commission[er] Hooper pulled together to look at the comprehensive plan. I was invited to the meeting and at that meeting the group was introduced to the consultant who has been hired by the County Commission and the Planning Commission to help guide Jefferson County through the review and revisions to the Comprehensive Plan. I asked Mr. Tustian what his |
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thoughts or comments were on the role and responsibilities of developers in the planning process, development process, in any community, generically, not just here in Jefferson County. He responded that the role of the developer is to participate in the planning process, to engage in, and to be engaged, by the community in discussions about impacts, about their concerns, about sensitive development, maybe an oxy moron for many of you. But that is the role of the
developer. The developer brings to the dialog a different perspective -- that of the businessman as a land owner, as a stakeholder in the community and maybe not a resident of Jefferson County but certainly a member of the business community. This project over the life of it will generate some $300 million in construction costs, most of them generated within the County here.
But I then was most appreciative of his comments about the responsibilities of the developer. He talked more specifically about the current time that Jefferson County is in. You're looking at Comprehensive Plan Revisions, you're seeing growth coming from at least the east and south borders, I guess mostly. Mr. Tustian's comment was that the enlightened developer, that's his term, would work with the community to address their concerns, to try to plan a development that addressed the issues that were being |
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addressed in the Comprehensive Plan Review process. That we would be sensitive to and concerned with historical and
cultural resource protection, environmental impacts, schools, services, some of the things I talked about before. So my
hope is that over the course of this and subsequent meetings, we have another scheduled April 4th at the Independent Fire Hall, that over the course of these meetings that we would show our level of concern for the issues for you as people in the community feel.
So with that I think I'll introduce Lee Quill. I'll need to read from my notes here but the architectural land- planning firm of Cunningham + Quill is known for its work in master plans, and smart growth communities. Cunningham, Quill + Associates is a recognized leader in the field of smart growth and has presented their work to numerous conferences such as the American Planning Association and the Urban Land Institute in Washington, D.C. They have participated in making cities livable at a conference in South Carolina and spoke at the National Building Museum as part of the Museum's nationally recognized smart growth speaker series. Cunningham + Quill Associates also brings to this project their extensive experience in regional land use planning. |
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Lee Quill, who you'll meet in a moment is a current appointee to the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, Metropolitan Development Policy Committee. And we're pleased to have added Cunningham + Quill to our team over the last year. With that, I'll introduce Lee and let him tell you a little bit about the project.
Lee Quill: Thank you, Jim. Good evening. My name is Lee Quill. I want to thank you all for coming tonight. I know land use is one of the most important issues that we always deal with in our neighborhoods and in our cities and we appreciate you taking the time to come out because it is important. Today's land use decisions are complex, they're not simple and your involvement is critical to successful plans and we appreciate it very much. I'd like to introduce our team. Again, my name is Lee Quill, we'll have a chance to talk more. Behind you, [actually behind Mr. Quill on and at the foot of the stage] you'll see some of the studies that we've been undertaking. Tonight we're not going to present a plan to you. We're going to talk to you about some observations that we've had about Jefferson County, about growth, and about Hunt Field since we've been brought in to work on this particular plan. We'd like to throw this out for discussion. We're going to take about 45 minutes to talk about ideas that you see behind us. After that we open it up to you. It's not that we're telling |
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you what should be happening or what we think should be happening only, we want to hear from you because you all live here, this is your place. I live in the city of Alexandria. I know how special that is. It's a tremendous historic resources, wonderful neighborhoods. I know how important that is to me and that's why I live there. I know how important, and believe we know how important this place is to you, which is why you are here but we want to hear from you. So we'll establish a two-way dialogue.
We're going to record the series tonight. We're going to ask you to speak into your microphone and just give your name so that we can put it on a transcript, which will be available to all of you. It's not for some document that gets filed away but so that you can have a running history or dialogue of what's been said. So you can think about it because the issues that we're talking about tonight are larger than just Jefferson County, they're larger than Hunt Field. They deal with what the nation is dealing with on a continuum of how small communities are being impacted by growth, by people coming into a region. It's something that if we can share our observations and our knowledge of specific issues or thoughts and concerns, we will all be enriched by that dialogue. So we're really looking forward to getting this dialogue going tonight. We tried, as you |
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know, a couple of weeks ago, we had the snowstorm and we didn't quite make it so we're here. 60 degrees we knew it wasn't going to snow.
[from] My office, I'd like to introduce from Cunningham + Quill, my partner, Ralph Cunningham. Next to him is Margaret Stanton from our office and Chris Morrison, an Associate of our firm with us here today. Other members have been involved and you'll probably see them in future meetings. Again, as I said they're two parts. The dialogue is going to be on smart growth, growth management, and growth policy in Jefferson County. We want to talk about a discussion of what we've learned from studying the unique patterns that are particular to this particular region, Jefferson County and to the little urban settlements. We want to show you some observations again on a piece of property that we have been taking our lessons that we believe we've learned and observed and how they might be applied to a particular development. But they are reaching, they can apply to other developments not just this one. We understand, particularly because we do this a lot, why people are concerned about this property. It's a big piece of property. There have been a lot of things proposed for this. Everything from the CIA a couple of years ago, to parks, whatever. Because it is so large, obviously there is |
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a great deal of concern. But there are also a lot, as you know, of smaller projects which are being approved weekly,
monthly, whatever, up here. I guess what we're going to ask you to do is take off any preconceived idea of what might
have happened or should have happened or could happen at Hunt Field, the piece of property known as Hunt Field. We're
going to ask you to listen and observe what we talk about tonight, and then I'm going to ask you to look at Hunt Field a slightly different way, through the eyes of our planning background and trying to deal with issues of growth management and protection of resources and how do you manage a region so that you protect and keep the place that is so special because that is what this area is about.
Charles Town, Ranson, Bolivar, Shepherdstown, Harper's Ferry, the ones that we know well around here are all very special places and if we don't manage them right, whether Hunts Field happens or not, if we don't manage property developments in the future and manage growth in a right way, each one of those places can be threatened, as you all know. So that's stating the obvious. Under this particular thing, why don't we start ... we're going to take you through some slides and then I'm going to open it up again. Lee Quill: You know these pictures well. Jefferson County, as you know is a region that is rich in natural |
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resources of beauty, Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers, also a rich rural farm heritage with beautiful vistas and majestic mountains and valleys. It's also a region, if you sit back and look at, rich in historic resources, whether it's
Harper's Ferry and John Brown's Raid in the historic part there or the Courthouse here in Charles Town where the trial has taken place.
The Washington family holdings of Blakely or Claymont, just to name a few of some of the resources up here. There is a rich, historic character, which has to permeate whatever happens up in this region and an awareness of that. In the next slide, you'll see it's also a region that is threatened by a suburban sprawl. The separation of land uses and of housing, in the next slide, and how the gobbling up of the land through suburban models of subdivisions and retail shopping centers with large parking lots, office parks and civic institutional buildings which have all been separated as well as, wide open miles of pavement and low density land use spreading across have all had an impact and are beginning to creep in and start to change the patterns that we were just talking about. When we're dealing with smart growth, there are a lot of issues that come up but basically we're talking about a number of things. We're talking about the towns that we live |
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in. Those are smart growth. The reason they are is because they all have a land mix of land uses, they are more compact in design. They create a range of housing opportunities. It's not just for the big houses or the small houses. There's a range that goes through. There's some very urban houses that are fronting on streets and some that are set back. But most of them, as you know, if you live in one of these towns, have wonderful neighborhoods. They are neighborhoods that you can go talk to your neighbor, you can walk the street, you can walk to downtown, very, very important. They also foster a distinct attractiveness of sense of place.
Now a lot of the subdivisions that are designed and built today, are in place. But we always love to go back to our cities or to little settlements because they have much stronger sense of place. That is a key element in what should be looked at in the future, especially with smart growth. We also need to preserve and create open space with the sensitivity to the environment and natural beauty. By doing large scale developments that does not deal with natural resources sensitivity but just covers the land, whether it's commercial or residential we don't pay homage to the elements that we need to in environment and natural resources. |
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We also need to strengthen and direct our development toward existing communities. Cities have grown. Charles Town and Ranson have grown from little settlements to a little bit bigger settlement over the years. Everyone of these has grown but if you notice, it's going to be very difficult to sit there in many areas and decide where things were at a particular point in history. One major reason for that is because it was developed adjacent to the town; it was also developed in a pattern of development of blocks and streets, etc., that were familiar and also provided a very impact design of allowing people to kind of come together in a community.
Our new developments, as you know, as you see them sprawling up here or whatever, are not like that. They are wide-open vistas, they're [sic] interconnection is very weak at best. You always have to get in your car to go somewhere. You can't just go out to the street and walk down the street. SO it's a very, very important element to keep things more compact. We also need to provide a variety of choices of transportation. This can be everything from a car to some kind of communities that have developed bus systems that allow for a change for those who want to walk or not drive. But also through a series of walking and biking paths and |
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making connections from our new developments to our downtown is very, very important. That's not happening enough either here or in other locations.
The other thing is making development decisions predictable. In other words, let people go out, have a process that they can follow but have an exchange. Because the community involvement, which is number ten, is critical to the success of any plan. That's why we are here tonight. This particular region, one is West Virginia, one is Charles Town, one is Harper's Ferry and one has Jefferson County done l to deal with the issues that you are dealing with. One might think from some discussions that they're doing nothing. Others will say, well, they're doing a lot. In actuality, if you look at what has been happening, you have not lost your urban settlements yet. You still have Charles Town, you still got Bolivar, and Harper's Ferry, you still got Shenandoah Junction, you still got Shepherdstown. There's not the sprawl that has gobbled everything up. You've also set up a way to try to address this in your urban growth boundaries. This is actually a model of an approach that is being used in Portland, Oregon, which is one of the premier, smart growth communities in the country that's been trying to deal with their growth to keep it focused in. Some of the mechanisms are actually, believe it or not, here in Jefferson |
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County. You have got the foundation or the beginnings of a foundation for very, very [?] and frameworks for doing the right thing.
But I think what we are forgetting about is what is happening in that particular growth pattern. And what's happening? Is it sprawl? Is it commercial? Is it Wal-Mart? Is it draining things away from our downtown? It's not just the growth boundary, it has to also be what you put in the growth boundary. Because ultimately that will then protect what is outside that. The ideal between rural village or town and rural land is very, very important to maintain. What we are talking about tonight are mechanisms that can help that happen. It is very, very important for us to learn form the rich heritages we have here. It's one thing you can go and you can look at your suburban models that you see going up. We choose to go back and look at what's been successful 1n the region for hundreds of years. There are certain things that we love about that. And whether it's Harper's Ferry, which is [a] little settlement at the fork of a river and deals with extreme topography which makes this a very special place, including for walking. In the next slide, Shepherdstown. Again, a rolling terrain with the idea of a major downtown that goes up a |
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hill. Has a center where people come, a series of lovely shops, a University, [college] and again a neighborhood that is rich in detail. You have everything from churches and institutional buildings to your residences all facing on the street of the compact design but a wonderful environment.
Additionally, Bolivar, not quite as compact but again, just up the hill from Harper's Ferry, you know it well. But the idea of even going along a road where you see the houses moving a long [sic] such as the one here, or this particular model here of an alley side road, smaller road coming down the facing of the street with the houses hat [sic] more urban compact form creates a place that people can identify with. Here, Ranson. Places that you may not think about a lot if you're living in another village you kind of come through. It's one of those places where we always say, "look at these buildings." This is a city hall, it has a monumental avenue behind it. Each one of these has clues that we can learn from with regard to block structures and urban pattern building. And, of course, Charles Town. There are two ways to enter Charles Town. The one on the left or the one on the right. Which one do you like? I like the one on the left. The reason for that, we have to be sensitive to where we go. This is what we've got to avoid and we can do that through |
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managing and shaping growth. Sensitivity for one we want to do. This one over here when you are coming into town, you can see the center of town with the courthouse. Spectacular entrance in this particular model right here. It's an understanding of the sensitivity of how one enters the town. This one, that could be anywhere.
Here is another way to enter the town, Route 9, further coming in, or 151 as they call it now or the other one with Wal-Mart. This is what we've got to start to address because whether Hunt Field or not you still got to deal with that. And the problem is if that continues to proliferate, you will lose that. This is the danger that you saw happening in Leesburg, if you've been following Leesburg. The eastern end of Leesburg, you tell me where that boundary of that city and town is now. Because I grew up around here and we lost it. We got to be careful here. You haven't lost it yet. The wonderful thing is that you are at a point right now that this community, this region has not lost it yet but you are this close. So that's what we're talking about, the bigger issues. If you look at the settlement pattern of Ranson and Charles Town, which is on the left, and the image you know on the right. Basically you are dealing with the block structure in this particular area which deals with the |
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contract growth I'm talking about. As you can see from part of this, Ranson actually has a block structure that runs perpendicular to the block structure of Charles Town. I'm not sure how many of you thought about how you're city is laid out here. But this is it, it's fascinating. What's interesting is, the blocks ... take a look at the blocks around downtown right out in front of here, Congress to Washington. You see how they are square. We think that by going back and looking at these urban patterns and understanding how are cities worked in the past and in our villages that those are the clues that we need to take forward in development here. Not the sprawl, kind of winding roads but his.
This is a mix in Charles Town of everything ... you've got garages to houses to churches to corner buildings both they all fit. And they don't scream at you about a car. The reason is they pull up to the streets, they have developed a sensitivity for what the development is and how it reacts and basically what it is saying, "the pedestrian is number 1 here." And we're going to make pedestrian and circulation and the environment that we live in number 1 for the people who live there. If you look at our urban-suburban sprawl patters [sic], obviously you know what's number one. Here's a block study of Ranson and Charles Town are typical. If you look at the development of Ranson and |
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Charles Town, I like to take you through a few things. The block structure of Charles Town on the short east-west dimension is 330 feet by 155 feet. I'm sorry it's 330 by 600, it's broken down to basically 155 foot deep lot, 20 foot alley and 155 foot deep lot. The long dimension can range anywhere from 400, 500 or 600. Downtown the blocks are essentially 300 by 300. The reason for that is the types of buildings that go in a downtown don't deal with the rear yards, the places where you have people gathering for families, they're commerce so they are much more compact. But the residential blocks are also shaped by the size of the lots and if you look at this drawing, and we have them down here in front of you so you can come and look at them a little bit later.
The lots that these houses are on are fantastic in a sense that they vary. We've got everything from a 40-foot wide lot, frontage by 155 which is a smaller house to something that is up 110, which is larger. What that allows for in our urban environments, whether it's here or Shepherdstown or wherever, it allows for a variety of different housing types and to go into the neighborhood. It does two things; one it makes a wonderful street and environment. It gives opportunity for different housing, but it also gives you different affordability ranges, which is |
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another thing that has to be dealt with in these plans that we're talking about up here because not everyone can afford that centerline house. So what we're going to be talking about is how you start to take from these patterns and start to develop a series of blocks and development patterns that respond to that. Because right now, we've got an amazing frontage along here; 40, 60, 70 and 80. The code of Jefferson County right now allows only an 80-foot frontage.
So partly what we're going to be talking about is trying to get people thinking about what's happening out there and what slight modifications to zoning or land use regulations need to be or could be considered in order to try to get some of those developments under control which you see out here. Because right now everything is 80. It would be bigger but it has to be 80 and that's a very, very large component of using up land. Now in Ranson the blocks are 275 by 600. They're a little bit narrower but the lots are basically 50-foot wide lot 125 foot deep, again many of them have alleys. Now not every part of Charles Town or Ranson has developed the perfect pattern here. Some of the alleys have not been completely opened. But there is a consistency as you can see through the plan. The characteristic of the variety of |
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housing in these mix use neighborhoods is really what makes the richness of these communities.
Let's keep going through some slides here. These are some views, this is Charles Town, next. This is Ranson, okay. This is Charles Town on the right and this is Shepardstown on the left. > So again, coming back, the elements that we think are the most important to come back to really come back to a number of principles that have been defined by a number of books. How many people know this book -- World By Design? If you haven't read it get it. It's a great book because it deals with what you are dealing with right now. It talks about urban settlement and it talks about towns, and it talks about how do things right and how to do things the wrong way. And again, it's one of those books that we work with a lot. Another book I recommend for your reading, this is the kind of stuff that I read instead of a novel I read this stuff, but it's fine, I love it. This is called The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream. It's called Suburban Nation. This one is written by Duany Plate-Zyberk. You've probably heard of him. It deals with what are the components of sprawl, the elements that you see. These two books, there are many, many more, but these two I highly recommend. It'll elevate your |
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understanding of a lot of the issues you feel gut, right here. You know something is wrong but what do I do? What am I looking at, I don't understand? Hopefully what we are going through will bring that about a little bit more.
When we are talking about future development, the things we are talking about again are the smart growth principles but also a series of urban design principles and goals that deal with creating real neighborhoods that you can walk in. We talked about creating a center to those neighborhoods, talk about whether it's a park or an urban civic building or whatever. Those are the core of each neighborhood. The mix uses density, in other words bringing in what you saw in Charles Town with the churches and the earth structure adjacent to housing, that is part of your mixed use, the civic building. The town center we talked about, is an identifiable town center to each one of these urban settlements in Jefferson County we've talked about. There's also a hierarchy of streets. Over here on Avis, you got a very narrow street. Okay, Mason's very narrow. When you get out here in Congress, it's larger. George is larger than that because it carries more. Washington even larger. Think about when you're walking around your village what the streets are because each one has its own role. In a suburban model, think about what they look like. They all |
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look like the same street. That's why you get lost. We have to think about a hierarchy of streets in our developments so that we bring again an understanding of development pattern that is historic, it's been there.
Open space is a big one. We're not talking about open space as being a left over space for a drainage ditch or something like that. We have to design urban open space in a village so that it is accessible within a five minute walk and it is part of the fabric of the community because that is where they all come together. We'll show you some examples of that. Pedestrian friendly environment I've talked about, variety of building types we've talked about. Let's talk about a piece of property that you are all familiar with just down the road, a couple observations. This view coming in on old 340 with the Courthouse looming in the background is just taken right in the front of the end of this piece of property. So what does that mean? That means we have a tremendous responsibility for what happens here. This is one mile and a quarter, the edge of this property is a mile and a quarter from the center of town at George & Washington. Good news is you're connected visually. Bad news is if you screw it up you're dead in the sense of bad urban patterns you're stuck with it. So what we are talking |
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about here is making sure that what happens here is informed by what you see on the top of the screen which is Charles Town and Ranson beyond that.
You see a grid up there. You see a nice compact pattern. You see ground around it. If you remember the growth boundary, there was an edge. What we're trying to say is if this particular property, you look at it a little differently and say, if this particular property were the last neighborhood of Charles Town, that over a period of 30 some years the area between Charles Town and its growth boundary that you've established gets filled in, what do you want it to be filled in with? Do you want it to be the K- mart's and the sprawl or do you want it to be more like Charles Town? We think we've got some ideas we want to show you that might get you interested that are more sensitive. Next slide. We've got some constraints, however, on this site. One of them is this, you probably are familiar with this, the old packing plant for the apple orchard that use to be on this piece of property. In this diagram on the right, that area with brown and gray, it's kind of right here in the middle of this development. So we are going to have to respond to that but we don't want that to be the only driving force here. We also, as you can see from the brown lines radiating out, we |
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have a rail line that bisects the site. What we always try to do is we try to think a little bit out of the box. We're going to try to work with this railroad and instead of saying, oh my God, the railroad, what do we do, we're going to try to use it as a positive thing to generate something else and we'll show you about that in a few minutes.
In urban areas, the railroad, as you can tell by just across the street and a couple blocks over, is part of your fabric. You live with it here. So what we try to do is be sensitive to it but remember that it is part of the fabric of our commerce and what we deal with in this particular region. Next slide. We also have a responsibility to adjacent historic resources. Charles Town is a mile and a quarter downtown but we got something that's right next door and in fact, we got some stuff that's right on our site. There has been a lot of discussions in some of these newspaper articles that everything was going to be bulldozed and stuff. It didn't happen. This is too important to let that happen. And in fact, what we are talking about is trying to develop a plan that responds to that. The last thing you want to do is visit Claymont, stay on that piece of property, look over to Hunt Field's piece of property and see Bob and Joe on the back deck waving at you with the Weber going. That's the |
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last thing you want to do. That's insensitive. But that's not what we are talking about.
If you look at this particular piece of property, it forms the outer edge of the rural area that has been defined on the urban growth boundary. So we are right on the edge. So it's very important what happens on this piece of property that responds to that resource. On this diagram right here, the little point where all the lines are radiating from, that's Claymont. All the little red marks on there, or a number of them, are high points on the property adjacent to it. Those are the areas you do not want to sit your vinyl sided house, or your brick house, or whatever is, everybody as I said looking at the Weber. So those are the areas we start to look at the plan that topography has always played a major role. Remember the image when you are driving down into Charles Town and up you can see the Courthouse. The Courthouse sits at a little bit higher elevation. We are going to be responsive to these particular areas, not only from this end but also from the other end. When you come down here, that diagram is right here when you come back a little bit later. But there is also a diagram we have down here that is over here, behind me that also talks about the linkages between this particular piece of property and the |
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views downtown. And those are very strong too, especially in the eastern half. Take a look at his because we're going to have vectors on this that are going to help define things that we're thinking about with regards to what happens on this property to be sensitive to its environment.
There are also, as I said, historic resources on the property that is known as Hunt Field. That deals with Bush Rod Washington's original home, the remnants of his stable, the slave cemetery potentially so there has to be some archeological research and study done and that is going to be happening and has begun. So the idea of this thing being a bunch of bulldozers pushing over a bunch of old buildings and stuff like that was not fact. We're not going to be doing that, in fact, we're going to be very sensitive to this in the sense of how we land plan, as well as have visual linkage so that maintaining a visual quarters are maintained. Next slide. Here is our land. It's rolling, it's been covered with some corn, some other things so history has had the orchards as you know, but it's much of rolling topography on the eastern end and a little bit flatter on the west. But again, what happens here is in taking this, if you noticed those little dots that I was toying [pointing] to, what we're talking about is trying to develop and work with a series of |
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neighborhoods. Now if you recall, one of the diagrams I talked about was establishing a neighborhood that had a walkable center. If you were to look at Hunt Field's piece of property , each one of these red circles, and a again that's on this diagram down here so you can look closer at it in a minute. That's a five minute walk or a one quarter of a mile which is traditional new town planning or traditional urban planning, in your neighborhood and your town, essentially has a series of these neighborhoods where you have a center.
Those centers have also been identified as those high points. So what we're talking about in these things were have a high point or a point of critical importance, so that you don't want to put the wrong thing. We want to make those the center of our neighborhoods. So that they have a green space or a church fire [?] or some kind of civic building or park so that it becomes the center or gathering place and when you are looking at it from Charles Town or you're looking at it from Claymont or Blakely, you aren't looking at the houses, you're looking at the open space, or trees, or the church fire [?]. There are a couple of things we've looked at here that we're going to throw out some ideas we'd like to get your feedback on. Again, we do not have a plan that we're saying, "here it is, just critique it. " We are asking for a dialogue |
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so that we can develop a plan together here but there are a couple of things we know that are going to need to be happening here. One is that we're going to have to set up a series of neighborhoods so people can walk and have a center. We also know there would be some way to connect 1t so there will be some kind of road that will run from the east end to the west end. We also know that there will be come kind of mix of uses. Now the worst thing you can do is go in there, put a Wal-Mart in a shopping center development right at the intersection up here of 340, that's traditionally what you would see. Then you throw a bunch of houses on them. That's not what we're are talking about.
What we're talking about in the next slide with these studies is understanding the role of different types of buildings which I'll take you through. In the neighborhoods on the west side and on the east side, if you established a green, you have a center, a park and you establish that as a potential area for a civic or a monumental building such as a church, this one being in Nantucket. It becomes a point of reference, a point of symbol and part of the fabric of your neighborhood. When you look at Nantucket, when you are coming in on the boat, what do you see? The church. Why? Because it's sitting on the high ground. Now people thought about this in |
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the sea ferrying day because it became points of reference so you could know you're coming into the harbor. It's important today for us not [?] learn or to lose what we should I have been learning from these examples. This one is a park
actually in the Kentlands, which is one of the original farm areas and had become the central green for that particular property.
The neighborhoods should be developed so that they have real streets. That means we need to have sidewalks, we need to have buildings that can face on to the street and they need to be close enough so you don't have to walk a million miles to get to the font door. Currently in zoning in Jefferson County, you are required to set the building back 25 feet which is not horrible but you can't build a porch into that 25 [?] people. You can put a little stoop but you can't build a porch. These are much closer. These are set back about 10 to 15 feet and allow a porch to come in. And whether it's this close or a little bit, that's another thing we would like to look at within the zoning to allow for the patterns that if you walk out the door and just down the street that is not 25 feet to your front porch in every case. Sometimes it will be, others it won't. But the patterns allow for a little bit denser coming together so that you can really truly get streets that face on to parks, etc. |
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Another thing is what we are looking at is part of this retail commercial scare. You know we have 200,000 square feet, we're going to be putting in there. The Wal-Mart out here, if you were to take that, is 100,000 square feet, that one building. That's 100,000 square feet of retail. So we can put a Wal-Mart on here and take care of all the retail or you can do it in a more sensitive way which is a neighborhood store or a neighborhood market. And right here, two examples. This one is an example in Kentlands, which is in the bottom an apartment building, and this one over here is the North Alexandria. All of this is Lee's Cleaner and Lee's Market. My name is Lee; I don't own them but you can imagine who owns the cleaner. They own a market and they have set it up so that the neighborhood uses it as a true resource. That is the k1nd of element that f1ts next to the urban center of each neighborhood that we're talking about that we want to see happen at Hunt Field so that we're not competing with downtown.
The last thing you want to do is put a development in or put in retail that's going to kill downtown because what's beautiful about this particular area is downtown. Whether it's Ranson or Charles Town, we need to reinforce this. I guarantee you that Wal-Mart and the malls on the east end are not reinforcing this downtown. We will with what we're |
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talking about here because we're talking about small little mom and pop shops that will cater to that.
There will be a component that has kind of a mix use in the sense of some shops a little bit denser on the eastern end probably that can be more of like what you see here which is a place called Mashpee Commons in Massachusetts. So why do I show this? This is actually a development that was a strip shopping mall like what you have on the east end and they went back and carved it up and put little streets to make it look like you're downtown here. And that's what it looks like today. They allow parking in the front and it's turned into a wonderful environment where people come and start to shop downtown. So in the diagram you're starting to see over here which in the next slide gets a little bit more refined. The idea of creating a center on the eastern end that has a little bit more of some shops that will be allowing for offices above is something we want to play with. When you go into Shepardstown, it's an amazing place. I don't want to just talk about Charles Town since it's here it's very, very important but there are other precedence. In Shepherdstown if you go downtown you've got everything from the coffee shops and Amy's Pizza Place to little storefronts that are developed with people from engineering firms or dot com |
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companies coming in and setting up downtown. It's a fantastic mix.
There is an engineering firm in Shepherdstown right now that is doing shop drawings for the airport in Philadelphia. So this is not some quiet little town. This is a major operation. That is where the vesture and diverse economy of the Internet and things of technology today and the computer can really help towns and settlement such as this if we do it right. So we want to provide a few areas where we can have some shops but also some areas where some of these businesses can come in where they won't compete with the downtown wonderful business of the CBD but they can provide a rich mix, and again part of this mix of the development kind of a more urban setting. Again, these two slides, this one being in Nantucket showing a small scale retail, and this one over here at Maymont Park in Richmond talk about how if you think about open space or you think about a downtown being sensitive not only to how you develop the whole property but getting down to the building blocks of that particular development or settlement of what the buildings are. If the buildings are garbage then your development is going to be garbage and your I community is going to be garbage. So when we look at a plan we talk from the big picture of regional all the way down to |
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the buildings which is why we are showing you these. It's important that the streets and how these buildings meet the streets just like your downtown have a richness that engages people and that's what we're talking about. Also that the
open space, again, is not a left over space. If we have a water feature or some element on this particular piece of
property, there are models that we can learn from, whether it's a hard edge or soft edge but the idea is that it's very interactive. It's a place that you can love to take your kids and enjoy. This is a wonderful park if you get to Richmond called Maymont.
> We have another opportunity we like to think out of the box a little bit and talk to you about. We have rail line going through this piece of property. We also know that there is a substantial population up here that does commute back into Washington. In this particular property, you probably heard or in this particular area, you've probably heard of transit oriented design. There is another book called, I should have brought that, called The Next Metropolis by Peter Calthorpe which is another one to put on your reading list and this talks about transit oriented design. We have a rail line that runs through this but it's a freight line. But we also have as you can see from this diagram right here, an opportunity to make a center maybe |
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there instead of the one that's over here and over here maybe we can make that happen. Think about it from this perspective.
If we can, in Maryland the state government has made smart growth one of its premier elements. West Virginia hasn't been know[n] for its smart growth yet but it could be. When you sit there and look at opportunities like this where you can establish an area that could be the center of this development, small little settlement, urban, but has the kind of qualities of like a town square of Alexandria, not quite as grand and large as that. But the 1dea of focus1ng it around a rail station on the next slide. One that is actually you commute to, we have a wonderful opportunity. Now this is not as wild as you may think because you have Marc going in at Duffields which goes in to Martinsburg. All we have is about five to six miles of track between Duffields and the center of the Hunt Field property. I've walked it around Shenandoah Junction, I have not seen the actual juncture but there is a curve as you know it continues up there. One line joins and goes west; one line goes east that we have the potential for doing some kind of little spur between Duffields and here. Think about the opportunity if we could do a demonstration project or some element of making this a |
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transit oriented design for future growth in this county that says, we're mak1ng a commitment to mass trans1t to get people of[f] the highways and driving through 340. We need to take advantage because Philadelphia which is this area right here has this. Many other cities have it. This is the kind of station that can be a very sensitively infield station such as the one on the r1ght, or it can be an area that has small shops around a square. This is bank in Nantucket, or it could have a train coming right into it. Right here we have a number of opportunities, which we've explored in these little vignettes, which you'll see up here of how you can have a larger green, a smaller green or whatever but again, it would be based on getting off ... and that becomes your central green.
These two images talk about two different things. There is a rail station in Pomona Beach, California, which is on the beach. Those two yellow things are surf boards. That's the culture; I'm not proposing that we have surfers take off here but that talks of the surfing culture. Hunt Field, we have a different feel. We have a rural character. I think what we are going to try to explore and we'd like to explore with you all is picking up, if we do have an opportunity to do a real station that it fits in the context of the area. It either has to mold with the old train station going out |
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Summit Point Road or it has to deal with the agricultural, industrial form so it picks up the flavor and again, the atmosphere of the environment.
It is critical, again, getting down to the building blocks of what a plan and development are, when you're doing development, is not to forget the context that you are in so that it looks like every other place. Be sensitive to where you are, try to draw from the resources that you've learned, whether it's a pattern or whether it's a series of building topologies to help inform the buildings that actually make up the plan. Because, again, it starts big but it gets down to what the builders are. In the next meeting when we get together and have our next dialogue, we're going to talk more about the building blocks of community. We're going to talk about the blocks themselves, a little bit more. We're going to talk about the loss, again, this 40-50-60 that I was talking about. Because traditionally in a modern town today, the ones that were designed I guess in the '20s, etc., had essentially the lots that were 50xlOO. Pretty much a typical pattern. I live in Alexandria in a standard neighborhood, older neighborhood. The blocks are rectilinear; the lots are 50x100. I have a front driveway that comes in. My partner, Ralph, lives in Washington, D.C. He lives on a 50x100 lot. He has an alley |
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in the rear. Same identical block structure but very different in the sense of how you get into your house.
We'll talk about those a little bit, and we'll talk about the different types of houses that you can have. What we might be looking at is how it might shape some of the housing development that come along, and what you can do with standard topologies of building to help shape a development. We'll talk about streets and what the different streets are so that we can move along on that. This one is Monument Avenue in Richmond. If you haven't been there, you should go. This is an amazing thoroughfare. It's literally two lanes in each way with parking. People use it but it is an amazing street. The buildings are facing on to it and it has a series of circles, it has a series of monuments. It provides that rich character of allowing people in Richmond to experience their history and we're talking about trying to, believe it or not if you go over and look at Ranson when you go across and then you go in a diagonal to the circle. The same dimensions we're looking at here are over there. It's 110 feet wlde. Amazing street. You look at that ... where did this come from? Amazing urban patterns here in this region. Again, let's not miss the opportunities of rail. Next slide. And finally, there are a lot of other issues we're |
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going to be talking about. We'll start our dialogue now in talking about the other issues or the issues we've talked about. At future meetings, we're going to come back and talk more about historic resources. We're going to talk more about open space. We're going to talk about transportation issues. We want to bring all these out but we want to keep it framed within what should be happening in the sense of, as we look at development patterns in this county, and particularly this piece of property, what are the sensitivities we should bring that can help solve these issues.
I think that's it. Thank you. We're going to open it up to question and answer now. Lee Quill: Okay, we appreciate you bearing with us and I hope you found it interesting at least so we'll really open it up now. We've got about an hour I believe. We have to be out of the auditorium at 9 o'clock but we'll take as much time as we can, as much time as people are interested to ask questions. We've got some people in the back with microphones, if you don't mind using it. We'll speak to you first sir. Audience member: You want name and where we're from or Dave Woods of Middleway. |
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Jim Duszynski: Yes, if you can identify yourself and we'd like to respond to people individually. Dave you said?
Dave Woods: Yes, Dave. Let's just for fun say this is a couple of years ago and we've already done it and you're giving us the third year projection. What would happen to all the other developments out here? Jim Duszynski: In what way? Dave Woods: Well, this is going to be a big development, 3,000 homes, I think. I guess we're getting 200 to 300 a year. Jim Duszynski: About 400 actually. Dave Woods: And we've got plans for 400 here and 1,000 there and 500 and 600. Would this speed sprawl elsewhere, not in your development, or would it slow it down? Or can you project? Jim Duszynski: Well I think, I'll address it first and then let Lee address it. You know Jefferson County is growing at probably 2%-3% forecast over the next five years roughly. You're currently selling about 400 homes a year in the community though, a recent graphic in the Sunday Morning Herald indicated that this January twice as many homes were sold in Jefferson County as were sold last January. I think that the Hunt Field is going to offer an alternative to people. Master plan communities offer alternatives to the |
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smaller subdivisions that are currently being approved within the county as you've acknowledged. There are hundreds of units that are being approved annually, if not thousands, literally, in the last year since we originally came through in Jefferson County. But the master plan community, large planned community like Hunt Field offers amenities, community centers, rec centers, play fields, and swimming pools. The opportunity, because we own a lot of land as Lee has pointed out a number of times to provide space for the county or for the city to put in civic buildings.
So, I think, again, what Hunt Field provides is an alternative to the smaller subdivisions. It's sort of hard to, I think, predict will all the other ones stop selling? I don' t think that's ... Dave Woods: Let me try to help you a little. Jim Duszynski: Okay. Dave Woods: Say Hunt Field was built by the Ajax Howard Hughes Corporation, and it was here. Would you people be looking at us for another one? Would there be another spot ... Lee Quill: Let me take it. You're wondering where it's going to go and I think this is a bigger issue. Let's step back from Hunt Field a minute. Where do you want your development? Do you want it to be scattered or do you want it to be within that growth boundary so that it deals with |
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the compact form and near resources? And also, what do you want that pattern to be? Do you want it to be more of a cul- de-sac sprawl type land eating it up or do you want it to be more compact? I think that there are some key fundamental decisions that need to be made with regard to land use in the county as you all are dealing with these issues.
You've been talking to it and addressing it. I think now is the time to be talking about that. I don't know that it's an either, or. I think you all have to set some priorities inside whether you are going to focus your development toward the growth quarters to protect your rural farmland or are you going to allow it to be allover the place? Dave Woods: What housing area are you going to ... Lee Quill: It's not so much is it Hunt Field or something else? It's like what do you want? Do you want a pattern of development that is sensitive to Charles Town, Shepardstown, Bolivar, the patterns that we all know, and do you want it next to the resources so you're not running sewer lines way out into the middle of no where? That's what smart growth is about. What we are trying to say is, try to look at this piece of property as an opportunity to do something a little bit different. There is no way you would have known < |
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potentially from before because you've never had this meeting before, that this was even being contemplated.
And if I was living up here and I said 1,000 acres, and I thought I was going to get 1,000 acres of sprawl I'd be up in arms too. I'd be terrified, I'd say, oh my God, I'm going to get a K-Mart over there or a Wal-Mart and a bunch of sprawl. Of course, you are upset. But as you can see from tonight, that's not what we are talking about. What I think you need to think about, and you are, and need to try to work in a comp plan, is where do you want the development to be and what's important? If the maintaining of the preservation of the rural heritage is important, if the settlement patterns of the places we've talked about tonight are places you love and want to protect, then we need to start shaping the future development and growth that happens so that it starts responding to the historic precedent, rather than the precedent from 1950 on, i.e., the automobile. Jim Duszynski: If I can just add one other thing. We don't anticipate that the rate of growth in Jefferson County is going to double, triple or quadruple just because Hunt Field is here. Maybe that helps to address the issue. The rate is what it is. Current trends are what they are. As I said in my introduction, I believe that conditions exist today that show us growth is occurring and it's occurring at |
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a certain pace. Our anticipation is that Hunt Field is going to get a share of new housing and the other communities in
the county are going to get a share of the new housing. So maybe that hopefully addresses your question.
Dave Woods: Of course, the decision is really not the developer's, but the county has to decide. Jim Duszynski: As far as approval goes, then the market will dictate where people want to live. Dave Woods: Would there be room in your judgment for more than one Hunt Field in Jefferson County? Jim Duszynski: I don't know that there would be. I don't think that the growth is here. Lee Quill: I would answer it that way. Jim Duszynski: Yes, right next door, Sir. You had raised your hand initially. Wilford Burke: Yes, my name is Wilford Burke and you made a statement tonight early on that I had read earlier in the Martinsburg Journal and it concerned me then and it concerns me now. All the roads do not lead to Jefferson County. They also lead to Clark, and they lead to Frederick County in Maryland. Is the real estate in those two counties prohibited or is it the zoning regulations. I mean, are you doing us a favor bringing this here? |
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Jim Duszynski: Well, I certainly won't pretend to be doing you any favors by bringing Hunt Field here. But I will tell you that Clark County, the zoning is prohibited. 25 acre lots and you'll get a house every 25 acres for the millionaires that can afford it and that's our view as real estate professionals. In Frederick County, the next growth area for Frederick County is Brunswick. I was just at a hearing the other night, I think Mr. Rosa was there, if he's here tonight and talking about a development that occurring over there. That's sort of a similar market to the Charles Town market as I see it, but Brunswick doesn't have as near the charm, the amenities, the services that Jefferson County and Charles Town have in place.
But Frederick is, I'm going to say, having a similar situation as to Loudon County. Rising house price, lower inventory, the zoning and the adequate public facilities issues are placing constraints on growth there that are creating a situation where effectively, maybe not 11 roads, but 349 and 7 lead to Charles Town. Jim Duszynski: Yes, Sir. Microphone, down here. Go ahead you're right here. Audience Member: Virginia has indicated that they're not going to upgrade Route 9 and it's going to be tremendous bottleneck ... |
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Lee Quill: Can you hold on one second because people want to hear what you are saying.
Audience Member: I was just saying that Virginia has already indicated that they're not going to upgrade Route 9 ... ... how are people going to get back and forth to work in Northern Virginia? I don't think that the railroad is the answer because that is a long way down that road. Lee Quill: Well, if I can comment. Jim's made a comment, I believe you said that you may not be doing any favors ... Jim Duszynski: Well, I wouldn't pretend to be doing Mr. Burke a favor. Lee Quill: Maybe not you but I think that if you do the right thing here in town with developing parcels, whether it's Hunt Field or anything else, you are doing yourself a favor. That's why we are trying to bring these issues up. What I think, in dealing with transit and things as you've seen, we're talking about trying to explore some new opportunities. If you built a residential development with some mixtures, next to a rail station in the metropolitan areas, people will buy in those areas because those are the people that go, "my God I can get on that train, I can go, and I'm in." That's why the user profile of residential next to a rail line is about 70% or 80% of the people that will |
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locate at that rail line do so because they are going to use it.
There are a lot of people here in Charles Town that would die to have that old train station at the end of town here active so that they could walk to that instead of getting in their cars and driving all the way up Duffield. So I think that we're talking about trying to tie land use and transportation together with opportunities, we're also trying to get compact design so that you're not driving from the one end of Jefferson County back into Northern Virginia. If you've got people together, you've got centers of neighborhoods where people can in five minutes can walk from their house to the center of their neighborhood and get on some type of transit, you could set up a transit system that can actually be a transit bus going back down 9 so that you don't have so many cars. The idea is getting the concentrated growth in the right place and not scatter throughout. Because if you are scattered through the whole county, you'll never be able to feed that with a bus, you'll never be able to take care of it. Those are the kinds of things we have to look to. Jim Duszynski: Ma'am in the back. Dorothy McGee: I want to thank you very much for your sensitivity in your presentation. I suspect that this is |
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about the best sensitivity that money can buy. One of the reasons, it's a good indication of why we are so worried out here. If our county can afford the kind of staff that is represented here, the PowerPoint displays and the ...
Lee Quill: Slides ... Dorothy McGee: ...whatever, we would have the zoning in place to handle the development you are proposing. I want to thank the City of Charles Town for having four armed policeman here to protect us from you, I know that there a lot of you here. It's nice to see the policemen here also. Jim Duszynski: Actually, I think they're ...Do you have a question this evening? Dorothy McGee: Yes, I want to express two of the major things I picked up in your presentation, all pretty pictures from Nantucket is that you're going to be looking for variances in our regs so you can do higher density. I'm also picking up that you're going to be looking probably for state and local money to extend the railroad line so you can bring people out to commute into D.C. We've listed [sic] to 45 minutes of very sensitive, pretty talk, we've looked at a lot of nice pictures, but I haven't heard any of you address the issues that concern us here the most, which is the overwhelming of our school system at residential growth of this level and I want to know whether or not you and your owner, Mr. Jeff over |
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here, are going to make us any commitments that you will only bring residential growth online when there is a capital improvement program in place for the building and financing of the schools.
Jim Duszynski: I'm sorry I didn't get your name. [Audience members clapping]. Dorothy McGee: My name is Dorothy McGee. Lee Quill: What was her name I'm sorry. Jim Duszynski: Thank you Dorothy. On the school issue which I believe is the only real question you asked, we have stated before and stated again at the beginning of the evening that we will pay impact fees. I've had a number of meetings with the school board. We're proposing to give 75 acres of ground to the school board, which is valued at between $2 and $3 million, roughly 10% of the cost of the new high school is proposed. We're also working with them, continuing to work with them, on really ascertaining what it the short fall currently for the cost of educating each student on an annual basis. And, we'll commit to, once that number has been reached, and I'm really waiting for feedback from the school board, we'll commit to meeting that short fall. |
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I really don't know what else we can do, Dorothy. We will not commit to waiting for the school to be built. Lee, you want to comment on it?
Lee Quill: Yes. These are challenging things, where is Dorothy, I just want to know? Jim Duszynski: All the way back. in the back. Lee Quill: Okay, just wanted to see where you are. I think, thank you for your compliment on the sensitivity, I appreciate that. We are trying to be sensitive here but these are issues that are very, very important to this region. Growth is happening in various forms right now so whether it's Hunt Field or something else, we've got to try i to get hold of it. What we've tried to do with what's happening on this particular property is saying, if you're going to do a development such as this, let's be responsible and what are you going to do. What this developer has agreed to do is provide land for regional and neighborhood parks, and schools so that they take care of saying, not only saying, well, here is some money but also here it is. What is wonderful about this building we are in right now? It's right in the middle of town. What's another wonderful thing? It faces right on the street. It was easy to get here, it's part of the community and look at this room. This room that we're in today is a |
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room to die for in many other school districts. This is unbelievable. I heard it was a nice auditorium but this is amazing for an elementary school. But this is the kind of quality environment that we need to make sure happens around here as you're dealing with your growth boundaries.
These are not issues that are easy, but what we have to do is set up a framework that allows you to do the right thing. Yes it's going to take time. Remember this is not going to be built out in two or three years. We're talking about a long period of time ... Jim Duszynski: Okay, Sir, you've been waiting a long time, I appreciate it. Greg Morgan: Thank you. My name is Greg Morgan and I've taught school here in Jefferson County for 28 years. My concern is, with the sensitivity and all, a couple issues. One, is the fact that nobody has addressed too much, even though it was alluded to in the beginning, that we are connected to West Virginia. We have a local legislature that are down there fighting for everything they can get to try to bring some sensitivity to the rest of the state which doesn't understand our problems here educationally. You may offer land, how many homes are you building for teachers and bringing them in at cost? I'm probably the average age and probably the average years in teachers, I believe, in |
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Jefferson County. Been there long enough to know that our faculties, junior high school and across the county there's going to be a mass exodus of teachers. Everything I hear, you can't bring state police to Jefferson County, it's very difficult. Braxton County with a small farmette because they're getting the same pay there as you bring in new teachers.
Jim Duszynski: Is the exodus because of the pay of the teachers is what you are ... Greg Morgan: Yes, I mean you talk about public servants that serve Jefferson County, same public servants that serve the rest of the state. So bottom line is, you're going to bring growth in here. You may offer some land to the Board of Education, but are you going to bring teachers in? Who's going to bring the teachers in with more growth and who's going to bring the state police in who can't afford to live in Jefferson County? Jim Duszynski: I think, at least in my mind, the major issue that needs to be addressed is the return of Jefferson County's tax dollars to Jefferson County from Charleston and my understanding, and it certainly is not the most schooled or the most educated, is that one of the issues that your legislators are dealing with down in Charleston is making sure that as the Eastern Panhandle grows, as Jefferson County |
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and Berkeley grow, and start to create greater revenues for the overall state that a greater share of those taxes are returned to the counties that they are generated in.
This is something that needs to happen at a state level, absolutely. It's something that as a major businessman of the community we would absolutely support. Again, the impact fee structure in Jefferson County, there is not a mechanism, there's nothing in place. We come up and say we're willing to pay impact fees, we look to the school board and say, "what's the number, what's the number, what's the number?" We're waiting; tell us what the number is. There's not a way that the county can impose impact fees but the issue is one of having tax dollars that will fund the services, fund teachers, fund state police, whatever the issue is that you're looking for, and if all your tax dollars go to Charleston and don't get returned in greater proportion to Jefferson County then you've got that problem. In terms of affordability, one of the things that Hunt Field will provide, and again, one of the things about a master plan community is that we'll afford a wide variety of housing at different prices. Prices that people that are in the services, teachers, police, fire, etc., can afford. It's not all expensive housing for people coming in from out of state or otherwise. There will be more than an adequate |
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supply of housing for people that live here in Jefferson County today.
Lee Quill: That's an important issue, thanks. Let's get this young lady over here if you don't mind. Jim Duszynski: I'm sorry. Carol Henry: My name is Carol Henry. I'm a new resident here in the city. I would like to be oriented to where the property is. I know where the high wires are on 340 and where Cave Road is. Can you help me out? Lee Quill: Right here, this is Charles Town and we are right here. This is the grid; this is Washington Street right here. This is George and if you go down to the gas station, I'm trying to remember the side, I know most buildings here, and then turn out and go out Old Route 340 down along here, that's this road along here. That adjoins to the by-pass, this is the property that we're talking about right here. Lee Quill: Where Old 340 runs into the by-pass, or Hewitt Road runs into Old 340. We're basically right there at that 1ntersection. Jim Duszynski: This is Summit Point Road. Here is the old train station. Here's the split; Summit Point Road comes up like that this is Tuscawilla over here, Locust Hills. |
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Carol Henry: So the high wires on the new by-pass show up on that map.
Jim Duszynski: The high wires are actually South ... Lee Quill: They're down here. Jim Duszynski: Further down 340 towards Barrowville. Lee Quill: Route 9 comes out and goes ...this is Cross Winds ... Jim Duszynski: I believe it may be on the property just South of us. Yes sir. Joe Coakley: Yes, my name is Joe Coakley and I'm going to talk slowly because I tend to get emotional and loud. My feelings and if you know my name you know I fought against developments like yourselves since I've been here for 16 years and not against the developments themselves but the way they've been rubber stamped in the County. Now my looking at your presentation tonight and what you plan is probably everybody's idea of what is affectionately known as "smart growth." I like to call it "responsible growth." What we're used to here in the county and what we'll continue to see is the highest order of dumb growth. A few local speculators buying up every piece of land that comes up on the market from every farmer and putting it out to the highest bid to any builder to build whatever they want to with a planning commission that nods its head up and down |
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like one of the old ducks in the glass water. Where you are caught between the rock and the hard place is whether your development gets built or not, we're still going to be stuck with this old rubber stamping. We just had a meeting down about some place called Harvest Hills. Here's a piece of land that's zoned agricultural yet they'll do everything they can to make it legal to build a house on that land. Whether it is or isn't.
Jim Duszynski: Your concern is really about what is happening in a big picture. Joe Coakley: If you're built and I have no doubt in my mind but you'll get rubber stamped along with the rest of them and you'll be built. There's not a whole lot we can do about it. Jim Duszynski: Didn't happen the first time. [Laughs] Joe Coakley: Well, it didn't happen the first time but the deck has changed. The cards have been stacked more on the planning commission in your favor so we can look forward to seeing you go into it now. My concerns, as other people's here, this is going to end somewhere down the road but we've got roads like Summit Point Road, Hewitt Road, which orders two sides of your development, as I understand it, which are definitely not built for the kind of traffic either once it's built out or definitely not the construction traffic that |
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we're going to see over a period of 10 years which we're already putting up with.
You say that you're not going to hold up your development for the schools, or the roads, or the police, or the fire department or any of the other things that are really needed to support such a development. But what are you going to tell your potential homebuyers when the schools are not there and they want to come in and buy your house? Right now, I'll be honest with you and I don't know how everybody else feels but one of the school bonds was defeated already. I seriously doubt that unless things change that there's any that get passed. Lee Quill: Let me address a couple of your concerns. Thank you, Mr. Coakley. I know we'll hear further concerns. If I can take first stab. Jim Duszynski: Sure. Lee Quill: Again, tonight's discussion is really about growth in general and a particular property and what can happen to that particular property in the right way. If you look at the map up there, this is within the growth boundary. It seems, especially when you look at prototypes such as Portland and others where they've established growth boundaries, those were established in order to concentrate |
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the growth near the existing center so you've protected your other lands.
There is a concern with what is happening but part of the dialogue that I hope that can come out of a dialogue, such as what we're having tonight, if you understand or have been exposed to something, because we are learning from you right now, but maybe we've shared some thoughts with you. This is how a dialogue for one shapes a region in a knowledgeable base, an informed way helps deal with the concerns that you are talking about. The more the populace gets involved in a positive way of problem solving, instead of "oh my God, crisis moment" type feelings which is what a lot of communities have to deal with but then you start to shape it. You have a master plan process that you're going through for the comp plan. This can hopefully lead a dialogue when we take you through it and hopefully inform you better. If all of a sudden you're elected officials and your planning commission members know the stand, there's a coming together of the community of what you want to do: To focus things in the growth quarter, make sure that development is done in a sensitive response to patterns of development and urban pattern building over history. We start a dialogue of these things. You'd be surprised what happens because also these guys, an elected or appointed |
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officials start to listen to. But right now when you're dealing with crisis, it's hard to hear because all they hear
is crisis. Hopefully, what we can start to do with tonight's dialogue and others that have been happening such as one up in Shepardstown a month ago, a month and a half ago, etc., starts to inform or we start to understand what the issues are and help to form it better. There will be things that come on board at this site. They won't be showing up with no schools and no fire and no police and stuff. We're just saying that we're going to help push that along but we need to get the development going. Get it in the right pattern. Establish where the school sites can go and then help also in the process of bringing about the resources that need to come here.
Jim Duszynski: I think the other thing that I'd add is that, again this is a probably 15 to 20 year project. I expect that as I said a moment ago, the pace of growth in Jefferson County is not going to accelerate significantly just because we've arrived on the scene. I don't see other developers taking the position that we're taking where they are willing to pay their fair share. We're doing what we can. We can't answer the problems that exist in Jefferson County today regarding education, regarding police, regarding |
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emergency services. But we're doing what we can. We intend to keep that commitment and, again, that's all we can do.
Jim Duszynski: This gentleman. If you can ...there are some people we haven't heard from. Greg Morgan: I'll keep it real short. The issue before... Jim Duszynski: Your name again? Greg Morgan: Greg Morgan. I said I had another issue and it's a sensitivity issue. What I've heard and what my first impressions of Hunt Field was sitting on the front porch talking to a gentlemen, one of your architects I learned later, comes up and becomes very confrontational with some middle-aged people out here. I understand that the sensitivity that you're speaking of ... Lee Quill: One of our architects? Greg Morgan: Yes, as I understand it was one of the architects. Lee Quill: No, that's not correct. Audience member shouts: One of the owners. Greg Morgan: One of the owners, excuse me, it's the owner then that comes out and is very confrontational with these people having a discussion on the front of the steps. You're attitude is, we can't wait on the schools. I think that was your words. |
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Lee Quill: Yes.
Greg Morgan: Not going to wait on you know the roads to be built but yet you want to bring it in for the dollar. I think that is lack of sensitivity, very much so. I understand that the reason you'll get through that you high press some of the people with pressure of lawsuits on the commission. I mean, you come into our community and you want to fluff over some of these issues and be sensitive and you're talking and smoothing over but yet but very insensitive on the front porch, your comment, we can't wait for schools. We live here, that's my short comment. Jim Duszynski: Okay, thank you. Let some other people talk ... Lee Quill: That we haven't heard from. Jim Duszynski: Could you introduce yourself and put the mic real close to your mouth. Mariam Buckner: Okay, I'm Mariam Buckner and I have three concerns. I'll try to do them very fast. Jim Duszynski: No, you've got time. Lee Quill: Take your time. Mariam Buckner: One of them is sensitivity. I would comment too that this has been a sensitive presentation with one exception. I felt you showed insensitivity when you pointed out urban smart growth principles. I believe, I |
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talked to many, many people, I've been very active in the last four years with (unclear) protection and I believe people want rural smart growth, they do not want urban smart growth. And you made a point of indicating urban smart growth principles. So I simply want to say that I don't need any answer to that particularly.
Secondly, a concern of mine and I spoke with two national planners, national (unclear) during the last year about a new town or a mix use development, if you want to call it that. Both pointed out that they were magnets for sprawl. They are not sprawling themselves but they attract sprawl on adjacent properties. We do not have the kind of protection in Jefferson County that would prevent this kind of sprawl. And the kind of sprawl is copy-cat developers who will want to use your amenities and secondly, big bucks. Stores who would want that 10,000 people as a captive audience for their store, Wal-Mart or whatever it is. So that's my second point. And then my last point is, what about sewer capacity for Hunt Field? Lee Quill: Could I hit the first two? I'II let Jim deal with sewers since he knows public facilities. Jim Duszynski: I'm the sewer guy. |
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Lee Quill: Couple of things. Those are good points, thank you very much. I just had a couple of comments. Number one, the smart growth principles which were presented down there are not suburban, they're not urban, they're just called smart growth and they're developed by the EPA in the state of Maryland. Those are the same, if you go on the EPA website or if you go in the state of Maryland website, they will be the same. This is not about urban smart growth, it's about smart growth and how you manage and shape a community. We also have been using this book extensively in our work which talks about pattern language, and again, the rural by design. Doesn't get any closer to what you're talking about than this book.
Mariam Buckner: [Inaudible because she wasn't speaking into a microphone]. Lee Quill: Randall Arendt. Mariam Buckner: Randall Arendt is the one that told me that this is a magnet for sprawling. Lee Quill: Yes, the bit about the magnet for sprawl, I think is an interesting one because it is a double edge. But there are a couple of things, if you've got a growth management area, what you've decided on, that there's going to be something, the questions I think I have for you on that is this is not again, a piece of property such as Hunt Field. |
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Suppose that we are doing the responsible thing and can get some positive response from a lot of people in the audience and say "yes, that looks pretty good," we still have pieces around us.
But I've got news for you. If we're not doing the right thing, what about the other people? If there's nothing that you can hold up and say, "here's what you should be doing. Here's a sense of approach, here are principles, the foundations that you need to be following." If you don't have those, God help you on the rest of the land. It's kind of like raising a child, you set up a foundation of principles, you guide them, you give them a good foundation, you set them, you kind of control them a little bit and keep them from getting in trouble, but you let them grow. But you don't know who he's running around with or who she's running around with so you kind of have to watch over that. If we develop a piece of property here with good principles, that means that it's incumbent upon everybody in this room, including us to try to work with the local officials and the planning commission to get their sensitivity, to get some I controls or shape the development of the adjacent parcels within that growth boundary so we don't get what you're talking about because that can happen. |
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It is more likely to happen if you don't have some kind of direction of where you should go. If [you] have no road map, you will get lost. If you have a road map, you still may take the run [sic] turn but at least you have something that can guide you. So that's what I want to ask is that you get more involved and deal with us on the parcels. We'll do what we can but since we don't know we'll try to shape and give some examples. I'll leave it at that. Sewers, Jim?
Jim Duszynski: Actually if I could add on to what Lee said, and it's the same thing I said to Mr. Coakley here, we can only do the best job that we can do. The issues that you're dealing with as a county, as a larger community in terms of dissatisfaction with the pattern of growth, the planning commission, etc., are issues that you as a community, I think, are dealing with. You're in the midst of a comprehensive plan review and I believe revisions will come out that and that is the basic took in any jurisdiction that we're in. Again, we can only do the best job we can do and we think that this is the beginning of that best effort. On the sewer issue, we've had a lot of conversations with the city of Charles Town and the PSD since last April. It was certainly one of the major issues that our CIS was denied based upon the sewer capacity and the city water ... waste water treatment plan is somewhere around 2,000 units. |
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At this point while the proposal for the community is for 3,300 units, the same as it was last year, clearly, done a lot, refined the plan a lot. We have no expectation that we'll build more than the sewer plan allows. The extension agreement with PSD has been finalized. We've had our discussions with the utility board and the city manager in Charles Town and everybody seems to be on board with that. Nobody anticipates that anybody is going to have to pay for a sewer expansion until the existing capacity is met in the plan and then the rate payers for the public service district will bear the burden of the cost of the expansion of the plan fl along with the city.
Lee Quill: Could I get a show of hands for other people with a comment or ... because we have about 20 minutes we want to go and then we want to open it for you to come down here. Jim Duszynski: Who was first? Here or back in the back? Lee Quill: You work your way forward. Jim Duszynski: Hi, Norrie how are you? Norrie Huddle: Hi, Jim I'm surprised you recognized me without my video ... Jim Duszynski: Without your video camera, yes. Norrie Huddle: I actually have it here but you have the lights down so I didn't get to set it up. |
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Lee Quill: Can I, we haven't met, I'm sorry.
Norrie Huddle: My name is Norrie Huddle. Huddle as in football. Lee Quill: Hi, how are you? Norrie Huddle: I'm doing fine, thanks, and how are you? Lee Quill: Good. Norrie Huddle: I have several comments. First of[f] I'd like to say that I was pleasantly surprised that there does seem to be some flexibility in your thinking and that you have ... the sensitivity level certainly has gone up and I'm hoping that you are also really serious about getting community input because I think that you are absolutely correct in what you said. With input from the community you really can develop a community that people will like. Now with that regard, I want to go back to what Mariam Buckner pointed out, that this is a rural option. She's done a marvelous job of researching the possibilities of rural option here in this county because we really do like our rural character. One of the things that I would urge you put on your list of things that you might consider doing is a visual preference survey. It's a really excellent way to see what the community really wants. Second thing is I would urge you to look at the big picture spreading out the frame of the big picture somewhat more looking at such things as |
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the overall movement toward incorporating more sustainable technologies.
For example, I remember the first, I was rather appalled that the first Hunt Field plan forbade solar collectors on the roofs and things like that. That's what I recall, at least from what I saw early on, and I thought that was, shall we say not smart. Another thing that I would suggest is that since you're kind of caught here in the current game of looking to maximize profits, you might want to look at reducing the number of housing units, clustering them more and looking for other sources of profitability such as when you have a rural community it lends itself very, very well to being a place where you could do little incubator businesses... Lee Quill: Like I talked about at Shepherdstown, the downtown ... Norrie Huddle: That's a modest example of what's possible. This happens to be a concept I've been working with people allover the country and I'd like to get your cards afterwards and maybe talk with you about this. I think there is a way that we can have our cake and eat it too. Bring a lot more revenues into the county without destroying the rural character. Third thing is that I think Mariam Buckner is absolutely correct that there is something that we could term rural smart growth and if you guys are really |
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smart then you're going to set the standard for that because there are a lot of place around the country, if you do it right and we like you at the end of 20 years ... [Jim and Lee both laugh].
Norrie Huddle: ...then you'll be in big demand elsewhere and you can really, really do very, very well. Plus help very much with turning the curve, in terms of the stupid development that's been happening allover the country and all over the world what 100 years, 50 years? Lee Quill: 50. Norrie Huddle: Post war, post World War II anyway. I also wonder if you might put on your list of things to do creating written, legally enforceable commitments for what can happen on the surrounding territories ... Jim Duszynski: Surrounding? Norrie Huddle: ...surrounding Hunt Field and also look a little more sensitively, if I may use that word again, for how you can support the community in terms of making sure that there are adequate schools and instead of saying, "give us a number, give us a number" let's look at the surrounding communities and see what they're paying in the ways of impact fees and anti-up on a comparable level. So it all boils down really to how serious you are about community input because I |
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think if we work together we might be able to agree on something we can all be proud of.
Lee Quill: Well hopefully ...thank you. Is it Lori, you said or Norrie? Norrie Huddle: Norrie. Lee Quill: Norrie, thank you. Hopefully tonight's meeting, we don't have a plan that we're asking you to critique, we're trying to create something with you. We've opened the dialogue. This is a beginning of an effort that will go through many stages but it's very important to open a dialogue and keep the dialogue going. You just don't shape something and just forget it. This is an open dialogue that needs to continue. Norrie Huddle: [Inaudible because she wasn't speaking into a microphone]. Lee Quill: Well, hopefully with some of what you saw tonight ... the question was did I do a visual preference survey? I think we can explore what might be an effective means for that. I'd like to talk to you, we can exchange cards. I think that a lot of what I showed up here with a lot of different places, in some respects, addresses some of the issues that are visual and you have others we want to hear about it. But hopefully tonight you will start to see some kind of dialogue. We're learning a lot about of what's |
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important to this community. We've been talking to a lot of people but that's why these forms are so important. We look forward to talking with you more because this is very, very important piece of property, very, very important region they'll be differences on how the pattern develops, whether it's more of a rural village or whether it's more of a Charles Town model. Right now I believe it's probably more of greater Charles Town to make it a little bit more what you are seeing around here! We should talk more about that and thanks for you comments.
Jim Duszynski: Yes, thank you, Norrie. I appreciate your comments. Lee Quill: There are other people that we are working our way down here. Jim Duszynski: We'll try to get to everyone. We've got about 15 minutes and we'll try to keep our responses shorter and sort of hear from everybody that wants to say something tonight. John Myatt: My name is John Myatt. I'm a lifelong resident of the county. I have a family here and I'm very interested and I really appreciate the advertising for this meeting. I thought it was well advertised and I'm very disappointed in the turnout. I don't necessarily think that's a reflection of the importance of this topic to the |
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community. I don't know if any of our county commissioners are here. I sure hope they are; if they're not I think the press should make a point of saying that they're not. I think this is probably the most important issue that we've ever faced in this county. The presentation you made was very interesting.
I don't know enough about this to really ask any meaningful questions at this point but I plan on attending the future meetings but the thing that you pointed out was sprawl and the drawbacks of sprawl. I would agree with you wholeheartedly that there is a big problem there and I think the solutions that you offer are very impressive. The thing that I think needs to be said, and this is more just a comment, is that you're really not proposing a development; you're proposing a town. That's fine in and of itself but unless there is a moratorium, a complete moratorium on all the subdivisions that are being developed in this county year after year, then really what you are proposing is just additional growth. To okay 3,000+ homes is just way too open-ended for me at this point. For what it's worth, I just wanted to share that with you. Lee Quill: Okay, thank you. [Audience members clapping]. |
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Jim Duszynski: We'll try to give everyone with a microphone a chance to respond. We have somebody with a mic back here. Ma'am, ma'am. I'm sorry, Sir, all the way on the back.
Bruce Dahlin: My name is Bruce Dahlin and I've lived here in Jefferson County for about 12 years. What you presented tonight is a really, really nice development and it's state-of-the-art, it's textbook and I wish that you guys were on our side but you're not. You're building a bedroom community. Clear and simple. We don't have a housing shortfall in Jefferson County. You are building for people who are going to be working in Reston, Dulles, Leesburg, they're not going to be bringing terribly many jobs and the kind of jobs that bedroom communities bring in would be retail jobs, chains. They're not going to be in your property, but I think it's just ingenious of you to say that you're not going to be contributing to sprawl when you're bringing in 3,300 households who are going to need services. It is only going to infect, even more so, what's happening down at 340 and other places. Now you didn't answer that question when it was asked before but that's what is going to happen and you know it, and I know it, and everyone else in this room knows it. Smart growth is a situational thing. Smart growth for |
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Jefferson County is enhancing what we already have. One of the biggest sources of income that we have in this county is tourism. People come to see our historical sources, to see our rolling landscapes, they spend money in our restaurants, what you'll be doing is you're going to be paving over some of our rolling countryside. Who's going to want to come, even with beautiful developments like this, do you see a whole lot of tourists around Kentlands in Montgomery County? I don't. It's a beautiful thing, it's a nice development. Is that going to enhance the quality of life in Jefferson County for the people who live here? I don't think so.
Lee Quill: Let me just make a quick response if I could. I don't think we agree that Hunt Field and the proposal that we're doing is going to create just more sprawl, just more retail services stretched out along 340. I think that we tried to communicate tonight, and certainly we'll try to address that a little better in our next meeting what we mean by mix use community. The other thing is that what I think that Hunt Field will do, will be to help revitalize downtown Charles Town. You're worried about retail services stretching out along 340, basically between Harper's Ferry and Charles Town. What I see is a downtown that needs serious customers and clients on foot, on the street, all day, everyday, and what I see is |
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empty store fronts, windows with cardboard over them, not entirely certainly but a lot of that. Our hope would be that working with Charles Town, working with our community, looking at the mix of retail and services that we provide in our community, that those services will start to come back into downtown Charles Town. And there will, in fact, be a complimentary affect.
Lee Quill: Bruce, we're going to need to go to some other people but I look forward to talking to you in this meeting and in the future because if you look at that map, part of what we're basing the idea of growth is when you establish a growth barrier or boundary, that is where you determine you want to put your growth as a region in order to protect the farmland outside of that. Now if you're going to develop and one of those things happen, fine but smart growth means concentrating your new growth around existing centers so that you can get to places quicker, you're not driving, you're not in your car. The pattern that we're talking about is of a pattern that we are living with right here. So I look forward to talking with you more on that. Just wanted to make those comments. Lee Quill: Ma'am. Delores Milstead: I have four rather quick questions if you would be so kind. My name is Dolores Milstead. One of |
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the cornerstones of your presentation this evening was that there would be rail transportation.
Jim Duszynski: One of the possibilities that we certainly hope to explore. Delores Milstead: Have you contacted CSX or Marc to see if it is fact feasible? Lee Quill: We are in the process of hiring a consultant, we hope, that will be a former transportation official, Department of Transportation and former elected official, that will be helping us. So yes, we have been doing research with regards to ... it's not just Marc. Marc, in the preliminary discussions we've been having is not going to most likely ...it started of as can you bring the Marc train down? The Marc train goes to Martinsburg. So it really became more of how you make the linkage from an existing Marc station back down to Hunt Field or Charles Town because this runs a long the western edge. Our goal is to look at a number of. things. One, to explore with Marc where there is an opportunity further. Two, is to explore what are the other mechanisms that are out there with regard to both federal and state procurements or demonstration projects, etc. The feedback we're getting are that there are some that we can explore. What we're saying with that particular project is look at this development, if |
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we're going to do something, we should be thinking big. In the big scheme of how to solve transportation problems rather than just putting something and saying, it's just going to be a bust or getting cars off the road that's important. But we want to think a little bit bigger. So next time we get together on the 4th, hopefully we'll have a little bit more to talk about in the transportation related aspects of that particular ...
Jim Duszynski: Several other questions? Delores Milstead: Yes. We've spoken about schools this evening and everyone's concern about our overcrowded schools at the present time. You have indicated that we don't have legislation in place that would allow impact fees to be collected. Would you voluntarily submit impact fees for the schools and for emergency services and libraries even though the legislation is not in place? Jim Duszynski: Yes. Dolores Milstead: At what rate? Jim Duszynski: Those numbers haven't been determined yet and yes they will adequately address those issues. The other thing I think is important to understand is that this is a 15 to 20 year project, if according to our schedule, if we meet that schedule at 100 to 150 homes a year. We're talking about adding 27 students annually to the school |
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system, and I've provided student generation tables to the school board and we've been discussing these things. I believe that through the comprehensive plan review process and the legislators efforts down in Charleston that within the next couple of years, and again based on the meeting that was held at the Board of Education the other night, that these things are going to be put in place. I certainly hope that they are. It's what will keep us competitive in the market place. If we're the only ones paying fees, it puts us at a competitive disadvantage but we think it's the right thing to do. So I don't have those numbers for you today but we're committed to doing that.
Delores Milstead: The facilities cost for school are $15,000 per student. Jim Duszynski: And where do you get that number from? Dolores Milstead: From the school board. Jim Duszynski: Well, in my discussions with the school board if you take the high school at $30 million, and let's call it 1,000 students then it's $30,000 per student. You amortize that over the life of the school, which is 20 to 30 years, you start to get more into the thousand dollar per student range. Those are the conversations that I've had with David Marco in terms of new school construction. Lee Quill: We' re going to address ... |
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Jim Duszynski: And again we're proposing to donate land that matches 10% of the cost of that school construction, when and if the county lever sees fit to pass a bond. But we'll talk more about t at as time goes on.
Delores Milstead: I disagree with your numbers but I'll go on to the next question. There were serious concerns expressed in the past out chemical contamination of the soils. What are you going to do about the lead arsenic? Jim Duszynski: We've done quite a bit over the last year as a matter of fact. We've done a series of tests over the entire 1,000 acres. We started out at a 400-foot grid, which was about 300 tests over the property. Every 400 feet a very specific survey grid patter [sic]. Wherever those levels exceeded 20 mg per kg which is the level that has been agreed upon with West Virginia DEP and is currently the level being used nationally for clean up. Wherever they exceeded that, we've gone in and we've done further tests around those points. We currently delineated about 16 acres of soils that need to be mitigated. The way that that [sic] will happen is we'll remove the top two fee of soil because we've determined that there is no contamination level at the two feet depth, it's only at the one foot depth. So over those 16 acres, we'll remove approximately two feet of soil, put it in a burm a long the railroad track most likely and cap it off. That is |
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the standard in the industry for remediation of arsenic laden soils. Our agreement with DEP is just about finalized and the procedure that I just described has just been agreed upon. So we feel very comfortable with where we are with that.
Delores Milstead: My last question. Jim Duszynski: You got hands behind you ready to grab, so go ahead. Delores Milstead: Would you consider reducing the density? Jim Duszynski: Yes. Thank you very much. Reese Clabaugh: My name is Reese Clabaugh. Lee Quill: Hi Reese, nice to meet you. Reese Clabaugh: Nice to meet you. I don't think we need 3,300 residences in the county. We need good paying jobs and good clean business. [Audience members clapping.] Reese Clabaugh: We don't need more residents, we've got plenty. I believe I've written a letter to you some time ago commenting on this. I'd love to see, I'm sure you guys have contacts in Northern Virginia, D.C., high tech jobs, something clean. Bring it to Jefferson County. Our dilemma is we have people living here, working in Northern Virginia, D.C., their bank accounts are in D.C., Northern Virginia. |
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They're spending their money in D.C., Northern Virginia; they're not spending their money in the county. Our tax base isn't strong enough to support ...well, our base overall isn't strong enough to support 3,300 homes or residents. Although the comment with 75 acres, we appreciate the 75 acres. I believe the number put on that was $2 to $3 million. I don't know that $3 million ...$3 million will probably buy the whole 1,000 acres, I don't know, pretty close. Nonetheless, we appreciate it. If on that 75 acres, there are $750,000 worth of land itself, does that means [sic] that you're going to put whatever is left over $2 to $3 million towards the school on that acreage? That'd be appreciated.
So those things, and I'm serious about those things. These are things that bother me the most, as a business person in Jefferson County. I'm not ... I'm for smart growth. I don't want in my back yard, personally I look up over that horizon and I've seen some of the most beautiful sunsets as I've ever seen in my entire life. Now I'm going to be looking at all these houses. I want smart growth, but I also want a future for our county and I think that's going to be our tax base and we need good jobs in this county. We need good, smart, clean business. You can surely put that on this 1,000 acres and not hurt you a bit. And that's my point. [Audience members clapping] |
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Jim Duszynski: I'll try to address the two points very quickly so that we can a couple more people in. I've spent a fair amount of time talking to Jane Peters. She's your economic development authority officer for Jefferson County. One of the problems that Jane has in attracting businesses particularly the kinds of businesses that you're looking for to Jefferson County is the lack of affordable housing inventory, the lack of quality housing inventory in the county. Jane has approached us on two separate occasions with the potential that employers are, I believe and I don't know exactly who it was because it was a very preliminary contact, but she's contacted us twice in the last year about locating research and development campus type of employers on the Hunt Field, potentially on as much as 100 acres. And we have said to her, if you've got somebody that wants to provide employment within the Hunt Field property, we want to talk to them.
The second thing was the schools. .You're right; the land value is probably roughly $750,000. But what we've said to the school is that we will provide you storm water management for you. We'll provide your wetland permitting and your wetland mitigation for you. We'll provide the roads that lead to the school. We'll provide the sewer and water connections to the school. We'll grade your ball fields. |
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We'll grade your parking lots. We'll put the building pad on grade so when you add all that up, the value that I came up
with was about $2 million. The school board's value has been closer to $3 million. Who's got a mic?
Jim Duszynski: If I can say, we were going to ...there are still a lot of comments. We have to be leaving here at 9:00 so let's go for another 10 minutes or so. Jim Duszynski: Who's got a mic? Keven in the back. Can you holder closer to your mouth? Harv Shay: My name is Harv Shay and I've been down here in Ranson for 54 years, originally from Martinsburg. I'm a council member of Ranson and in my opinion this development is really what we need in the way of development. We've got developments going around over the county 7-8 houses here, 15-12 houses there with a well septic tank some of them on one-acre ground. You're going to have complete contamination. That's taking up more broken farm ground then if you put a development in one section. As long as they put these developments going up now, they've got a blacktop road and open ditch for drain. They don't have any sidewalks. A development that puts sidewalks in and blacktop roads that's the development if I was going to buy a home, I own my own home, I've owned it now for 50 years. If I wanted to buy, I rather buy because the city of Ranson we're trying to get |
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complete curbs a long with blacktop roads and it's very expensive for a town to do it. If a developer builds it like that to start with you don't have to do it later.
As far as, you all are talking about police protection, the police protection is from the state and Charleston. The more population a county gets, you'll get more state troopers. As far as the school teaching part, it's Up to our legislation to get more money and the state's got $1 million from the lottery over her. The state is getting 28%, the county is only getting 2%. The town gets 1%, the county gets 1%. So the state is making all the money off that money and it's up to our legislation to get more money to the schools from the state because Burke and Jefferson County are two richest counties in the state of West Virginia and we're getting the short end of the taxes from Charleston and it's up to our legislation to get it. I thank you very much. Lee Quill: Thank you for your patience. Roger Perry: Yes, my name is Roger Perry. I'm looking for information. You'll (unclear) what appears to be a very nice development. Do you all just do the lots or do you build houses? Will you do the construction? Jim Duszynski: I'm the developer. Lee is the planner. We generally do just the road construction and sell lots to |
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other builders. We do have a home building company, the Cambridge Company that will be one of the builders in the community.
Roger Perry: So you'll be selling lots or batches of lots to other developers? Jim Duszynski: Just the contractors. We will do all of the lot development. We'll maintain control of the development, architectural controls as well as control of who builds where and again as Lee has said very much, we need to have a master developer as ourselves in control of the plan so that it gets built the way we've described it tonight in a way that we will continue to describe it. So there will be a number of builders but they'll buy lots from us. There won' t be other developers that'll buy large pieces of the property to do with as they will if that's your question. Roger Perry: Have you done other developments that we can go look at and see how you've done? Jim Duszynski: Yes, yes. Roger Perry: Could you name them please. Jim Duszynski: Actually the Greenvest developments, the two largest are Cameron Station in Alexandria and the Cascades in Loudon County which is probably about five or six miles east of Leesburg Ion Route 7. I also was the project |
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manager at the Kentlands for five years. So the Kentlands is one of my projects, but not a Greenvest project.
Roger Pe |