Chesterfield County makes an interesting petrie dish for studying development. The county of 300,000 residents has a vast overhang of land zoned for residential housing– enough for 43,000 new dwelling units, according to Scott Bass’ article in Style Weekly. And the Board of Supervisors continues to rezone more land, at least for quality projects such as the proposed mixed-use Roseland development near the intersection of Midlothian Turnpike and Rt. 288, which is adding 5,000 houses, condos and apartments to the building stock. The Southern Environmental Law Center is projecting growth of 125,000 housing units by 2030.
Most of the development, however, is small-scale and piecemeal: following the classic suburban pattern of walled off shopping centers and cul de sac subdivisions. There are very few mixed-use neighborhoods (although some are on the drawing boards). The pod-like pattern of development offers very little connectivity between the different pieces. As a consequence, Chesterfield residents rely upon a relatively small number of connector roads and arterials to get around. Compounding the problem, the county actively discourages mass transit.
Despite the gift of newly constructed Rt. 288, paid for by the state, traffic congestion is heading to gridlock. The county lacks the means to build its way out of its jam. Although Chesterfield collects proffers of $15,600 per house on land rezoned today, houses on property rezoned in the early 1990s may yield proffers of as little as $2,000. The state, which runs Chesterfield roads, has very little money to contribute. And unlike Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads, the Richmond region is not empowered to raise taxes for regional road projects.
Meanwhile, NIMBYs, reacting to the increased pressure on roads, schools and county finances, want to curtail growth through such ill-conceived measures as minimum lot sizes that would smear growth over larger areas that are even more expensive to serve with roads, utilities and public services.
What’s a county to do? One proposal I’ve heard is to give the go-ahead to developers of large, mixed-use projects who have the knowledge and financial backing to build well-planned, well-conceived communities. Given a choice between living in pedestrian-friendly communities with a wide range of amenities available nearby or living in disaggregated, auto-dependent subdivisions, people will flock to the quality projects. The good stuff will get built, the argument goes, and the bad stuff won’t. Maybe. The hitch is that the large mixed-use projects are located on the urban periphery and rely upon Rt. 288 and a handful of other roads for connectivity with the rest of the metro area. Those roads will quickly get overloaded.
The other strategy is revitalization of older suburbs, an example of which is the re-development proposed for the aging Cloverleaf Mall just off the Chippenham Parkway. But re-development works only when developers can increase density, and that doesn’t appear to be something that Chesterfield is willing to do on anything other than a spot, case-by-case basis.
In next week’s e-zine, I will explore a third strategy: Encourage transit-oriented development along a commuter rail line running from the proposed Roseland project on Rt. 288 through Midlothian and into downtown Richmond. Follow Arlington’s example in zoning for higher density around the rail stops. And use Community Development Authorities to pay the up-front cost of setting up the heavy rail operation. Read the details Monday.
