Officials break ground on final leg of James River Water Project; Louisa Town Council to hold public hearings on three proposed developments
Engage Louisa is a nonpartisan newsletter that keeps folks informed about Louisa County government. We believe our community is stronger and our government serves us better when we increase transparency, accessibility, and engagement.
This week in county government: public meetings, August 19 through August 24
For the latest information on county meetings including public meetings of boards, commissions, authorities, work groups, and internal county committees, click here. (Note: Louisa County occasionally schedules internal committee/work group meetings after publication time. Check the county’s website for the most updated information).
Wednesday, August 21
Community Policy Management Team, Executive Boardroom, Louisa County Office Building, 1 Woolfolk Ave., Louisa, 1 pm.
Board of Zoning Appeals, Public Meeting Room, Louisa County Office Building, 1 Woolfolk Ave., Louisa, 7 pm.
Other meetings
Tuesday, August 20
Louisa Town Council, 212 Fredericksburg Ave., Louisa, 6 pm. (agenda packet)
Additional information about Louisa County’s upcoming public meetings is available here.
Interested in taking your talents to one of the county’s numerous boards and commissions? Find out more here including which boards have vacancies and how to apply.
Officials break ground on final leg of James River Water Project
There’s light at the end of the tunnel for a long-awaited water line linking the James River to Ferncliff.
Officials from Louisa and Fluvanna counties last Wednesday donned hard hats and wielded shovels at the official groundbreaking for the final leg of the James River Water Project—a years-long, multi-million-dollar effort to draw raw water from the river to meet both localities’ long-term needs.
The ceremony had an air of celebration as elected officials, county staffers, contractors and construction workers enjoyed a catered lunch under a giant tent to mark an occasion that some had speculated might never come to fruition.
“This is a recognition of a tremendous milestone for both of our counties, which is to provide long-term, reliable drinking water needed for both Fluvanna and Louisa. While the road to reach today wasn’t short and wasn’t always smooth, we are committed to providing [a responsible water source] to both of our growing populations,” Fluvanna County Administrator Eric Dahl told the crowd as they sipped lemonade and sweet tea in the shadow of excavators, pipes and mounds of gravel at the main construction site just north of the James near Columbia.
The project, which has been more than a decade in the making and riddled with controversy and delays, includes a raw water intake in the James, a pump station on its banks and a nearly four-mile stretch of pipeline to connect it to an existing water main just north of Route 6 in southern Fluvanna.
When complete—likely in two years—the infrastructure will enable the James River Water Authority, the interjurisdictional entity that will own and operate it, to pull millions of gallons of raw water from the river. That water will initially be channeled to a water treatment plant at Ferncliff then on to support development along the Interstate 64 corridor.
Construction of the project’s final leg and related due diligence—spearheaded by Charlottesville-based Faulconer Construction, Timmons Group and MEB—is expected to cost $45.6 million, split between Louisa and Fluvanna. The counties invested about $9 million in the effort prior to the groundbreaking.
Louisa has already spent some $40 million on two other components of the project: its Ferncliff treatment plant and a 13-mile stretch of water line across Fluvanna, both of which will be owned and operated by the Louisa County Water Authority (LCWA).
Just as Louisa and Fluvanna will split the cost of the project’s final phase, they’ll also split the raw water drawn from the river. During a series of speeches at Wednesday’s event, high-ranking officials from both counties hailed their partnership and said residents would reap the benefits for years to come.
“Many times, people look at their neighbor as competition or an adversary, but this is something that would not have happened without that partnership between Louisa County and Fluvanna County and, by working together, we have accomplished something that will benefit all of our citizens for years and years in the future. We have set the stage for the future water supply in both of these counties and it’s a win-win,” Louisa County Board of Supervisors Chair Duane Adams said.
Fluvanna Board Chair Chris Fairchild agreed, emphasizing that the counties’ ability to work together will yield a critical piece of public infrastructure that meets the needs of current residents and businesses and the growing demand for water on both sides of the county line.
“There are many uncertainties in life, but two things we know: water is essential, and Fluvanna and Louisa counties are growing. Water affects everything from public health to agriculture. Currently, Fluvanna and Louisa counties rely on surface and groundwater through strategically located wells. This summer’s lower than average rainfall stresses these systems, allowing us to see in real time the need for a long-term, sustainable water plan,” Fairchild said. “The James River can safely and sustainably accommodate the withdrawals needed to meet the anticipated demand even during the lowest flows.”
While the Louisa County Water Authority relies on the publicly-owned Northeast Creek Reservoir to supply water to its customers in central Louisa, burgeoning commercial, industrial and residential development along the Interstate 64 corridor—an area county officials have targeted for growth—depends on public and private wells.
For decades, LCWA has relied on ultra-deep wells to support development at Zion Crossroads, the county’s fastest growing area. Dependence on those wells, several of which are in the Green Springs National Historic Landmark District just to the north of Zion, has sparked strong resistance from some Green Springs residents, who’ve argued at county meetings that using groundwater to support Zion’s growth isn’t sustainable and harms the aquifer they depend on for their homes and farms.
The water line to the James will relieve Louisa of its dependence on the wells. It will also supply water for the Shannon Hill Regional Business Park, a 700-acre industrial site that the county is developing just north of the interstate about 15 miles east of Zion.
For Fluvanna, the infrastructure will provide water for continued economic development at Zion. According to Dahl, the county currently has a deal to buy up to 75,000 gallons of water per day (gpd) from the Fluvanna Women’s Correctional Center. When it reaches that threshold, it will transition to water from the James.
Under an interjurisdictional agreement inked in 2015, Louisa will provide up to 400,000 gpd of treated water from its Ferncliff plant to Fluvanna at its Zion Crossroads connection point with Fluvanna paying the standard rate that LCWA charges commercial customers.
Beyond Zion, Dahl said the infrastructure is expected to supply water to the Fork Union Sanitary District, which currently relies on a groundwater-based system to serve the village of Fork Union in the southeastern part of the county. Fluvanna plans to build a water treatment plant, above-ground water storage tank and additional water lines in the area, Dahl said, noting that a preliminary engineering study for the project is ongoing.
For more than two decades, Louisa and Fluvanna officials have eyed the James River as a long-term source of water.
The seeds of the James River Water Project were planted in 2002, Dahl told the crowd on Wednesday. As Virginia suffered from severe drought, then-Governor Mark Warner issued an executive order mandating statewide long-range water supply planning. Dahl said that Louisa and Fluvanna took the order seriously, beginning initial discussions about tapping the James.
In 2009, the localities officially formed the JRWA and set their sights on withdrawing water at Bremo Bluff about eight miles west of the current site. The authority planned to run a roughly 20-mile water line up Route 15 to Zion Crossroads, providing Louisa with much-needed water for a booming area that the county considered its economic engine.
But political turmoil in Fluvanna over the cost of the project and its benefit to the county derailed those plans.
In 2013, JRWA regrouped and eyed a different site—a plot at the confluence of the James and Rivanna rivers known to many as Point of Fork and to some—including the Monacan Indian Nation—as Rassawek, the tribe’s ancestral capital.
While some historians raised red flags about the location, JRWA officials insisted it was a good place for the infrastructure. They said they chose the site because it afforded the shortest water line route, lowest operation cost, impacted the fewest landowners, and provided ideal water quality and quantity, among other factors.
But the Monacan and a cadre of preservationists and Native American rights activists didn’t share their enthusiasm.
In 2018, as JRWA pursued a key permit from the Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to build its infrastructure at the confluence of the rivers, the Monacan registered formal opposition to the site, noting its historical and cultural significance and arguing that it was likely home to human remains.
The federally recognized tribe’s resistance stymied the permitting process and, four years later, prompted the authority to relocate the pump station and intake to the current location about two miles upstream and reroute the pipeline to connect to it. In August of 2022, JRWA applied for a USACE permit at the new site with the support of the tribe.
Over the next 20 months, the authority conducted rigorous archeological studies at the site and negotiated an agreement with the Monacan, the Fluvanna County Historical Society and the Virginia Department of Historic Resources to mitigate the project’s impact on other cultural and historic resources. Those include archeological sites connected to Native Americans, who lived along the river for centuries prior to English settlement, and the remnants of the James River and Kanawha Canal, a canal system that dates to the late 18th and early 19th century.
In April, JRWA received its elusive permit from the Army Corps, clearing the way for the project’s construction.
Though none of the speakers mentioned the Monacan on Wednesday, several noted the painstaking permitting process and the many hurdles JRWA cleared before breaking ground.
“A series of studies have been performed and full permitting efforts have taken us 15 years to get where we are today. Through these various efforts, we can say with an abundance of confidence that our localities have made a really focused effort to make sure we are being mindful of the environment, we’re being mindful of the property owners whose property this project goes through, and we’ve taken into consideration the historic resources of this area of Fluvanna County,” Dahl said, adding, “This project’s history underscores the importance of persevering and working together.”
Louisa Town Council to consider three proposed developments
More apartments and townhomes could be coming to the Town of Louisa.
The Louisa Town Council on Tuesday night (August 20) will hold a trio of public hearings and vote on whether to approve two developments that could bring several hundred multi-family dwellings to the town’s eastern end and one that proposes dozens of townhomes at its western edge.
Two of the projects—both proposed for construction on the west side of Jefferson Highway near Pine Ridge Drive—would tweak previously approved developments by tacking on more acreage, increasing the number of townhomes or apartments and upping the amount of open space.
The third is a new project that targets a commercially zoned parcel between the Spring Oak assisted living facility and Countryside subdivision for multi-family residential development.
The proposals have sparked concern from some residents, who contend that more high-density development in the town would tax town and county services and local infrastructure.
Some neighbors argue that the developments would snarl traffic, lead to increased stormwater runoff that exacerbates flooding along Beaver Creek and Tanyard Branch, waterways that run along the town’s eastern and southern edge, respectively, and stress local schools and emergency services.
The projects received mixed reviews from the town’s planning commission, which voted at its July 29 meeting to recommend that council approve the two developments on the town’s eastern end but reject the proposal at its western edge.
Here’s a quick look at the three proposals.
Timber Oaks developer looks to revamp PUD with increased focus on multi-family housing, open space
In the first public hearing of the night, councilors will consider Quigley Properties’ request to revamp a controversial mixed-use development approved by council in 2022.
Specifically, the Charlottesville-based developer proposes to rezone, from Residential General (RG) to Planned Unit Development (PUD), 10.53 acres off Pine Ridge Drive on the eastern end of town that was previously slated for 36 single-family dwellings—a neighborhood known as Timber Oaks 1 (tmp 41C 7 B, part of tmp 41C 7 A) .
Quigley wants to combine that property with an already-approved PUD on 11.2 adjacent acres—a project dubbed Timber Oaks 2—with the goal of significantly increasing the number of apartments, trimming the number of single-family homes and upping the amount of green space. To make that happen, the developer is seeking revisions to its previously approved plan. (tmp 41-122, part of tmp 41C 7 A).
When council approved Timber Oaks 2 two years ago, some residents in the nearby Tanyard subdivision staunchly opposed the project, arguing that stormwater runoff from the site would lead to more flooding in their neighborhood. Community members said that Beaver Creek, which runs alongside the property, is already prone to flooding, which they blame on poorly planned development. Neighbors said that building more houses, stores and parking lots would only exacerbate the problem.
In its proposal, Quigley acknowledges that “flooding is a serious problem” and argues that its revamped plan would provide more protections to neighbors.
“The Owners of Timber Oaks Development felt so strongly about flooding that they decided to completely revise the site design to reduce land disturbance and impervious area and increase tree preservation area. The most effective deterrent to flooding is to maintain natural land cover and minimize impervious areas,” the applicant says in its project narrative.
According to a conceptual plan submitted by developer Timothy Miller on Quigley’s behalf, the project would include three components: a 1.18-acre commercial block fronting Jefferson Highway (Route 33); a roughly 5.15-acre multi-family residential block; and a 1.57-acre single-family residential block. The project would also include 11.52 acres of open space interspersed throughout the development inclusive of about five acres of “tree preservation,” which would provide screening from adjacent properties.
The project includes several significant changes to the already-approved proposal. The previous plan anticipated about 20 single-family dwellings in the PUD’s single-family section while the new proposal includes only 13. It also axes the 36 single-family homes that were slated to be built by-right on the 10.5 acres that the developer hopes to add to the PUD.
The multi-family block would grow by about four acres and include 154 apartments, up from a mix of as many as 60 apartments, townhomes, and duplexes permitted under the previous plan. The block would also include a clubhouse.
While the project’s density would increase from 7.6 dwelling units per acre to 7.7, it’s open space would too, thanks to the addition of more acreage. Open space would comprise about 53 percent of the development up from about 30 percent in the already-approved plan. That space would feature several amenities like a dog park and playground.
The commercial component, expected to include 11,200 square feet of commercial space and 56 parking spaces, wouldn’t change. According to the town’s zoning code, the space could include retail, restaurants and offices, among other services.
The development’s commercial and multi-family sections would be accessed off Route 33 while its single-family section would be reached via Pine Ridge Drive. The new proposal removes a public through road that would’ve connected Pine Ridge Drive and 33. It instead includes an emergency access road linking the multi-family and single-family blocks.
The proposal retains a proffer from the previous plan that prohibits the developer from accessing the property from a deeded right-of-way connecting it to Barnstormer Court in Tanyard.
When the planning commission considered the proposal at its July meeting, several community members again raised concerns about flooding, according to the meeting minutes.
Council member Vicky Harte, a vocal opponent of high-density development in the town, expressed concern about the potential impact of stormwater runoff during construction and increased traffic.
But most commissioners were satisfied with the project, praising the developer for addressing citizen concerns. On a motion by John Jerl Purcell IV, council’s representative on the commission, commissioners voted 3-1 to recommend approval. Veronica Saxton and Carter Cooke joined Purcell in supporting the project while Cochran Garnett opposed.
Louisa developers propose 159 townhomes
Council will hold another public hearing that centers on a request to build more multi-family housing on the town’s eastern end, considering GWI, LLC and Mil Investments, LLC’s request to rezone, from Residential General (RG) to Planning Unit Development (PUD), 19.79 acres west of Route 33 off Pine Ridge Drive (tmp 41-16-1, 41-16-5, 41-16-10, 41-16-11, 41-16-12, 41-16-13, 41-16-14).
The rezoning would allow Louisa developers Torrey Williams and Charles J. Miller to build up to 159 townhomes on the parcels. Council previously approved a special use permit (SUP) for about 15 acres of the project site, which cleared the way for a multi-family development inclusive of 55 townhomes and 80 apartments. But the developers want to add another five acres to the project and tweak their initial plans.
Williams said at the planning commission’s public hearing in July that the development team had worked to improve the project and address community members’ concerns, per the meeting minutes, noting that the project includes less density and more open space.
According to a project narrative and conceptual plan, the development would include 159 townhomes that straddle Pine Ridge Drive. The homes and adjacent parking would cover about 8.5 acres with the remainder of the property—11.2 acres or 56 percent—reserved for open space and amenities. Amenities could include a park, dog park, playground and tree preservation areas.
The developers note that they “intentionally decided” not to include any commercial development given the residential focus of the surrounding area.
“The focus will be to increase residents of the town to support the commercial uses that are currently present instead of injecting competition to existing commercial uses,” their narrative says.
As proposed, Pine Ridge Drive, a roughly half-mile long street that dead ends at Tanyard’s eastern edge, will serve as the project’s only access point. Williams and Miller expect to develop the property in two phases, each focused on one side of the roadway. They haven’t determined which side of Pine Ridge Drive would be developed first.
Several neighbors raised concerns about the project during the commission’s public hearing, mostly focusing on stormwater runoff and traffic. Daniel Goetz, who lives on Pine Ridge Drive, contended that the development would generate significant traffic and said a turn lane should be installed along Route 33, according to the meeting minutes.
Williams said that a VDOT analysis would be completed and approved as it done for all proposed developments.
Commissioners voted 3-1 to recommend that council approve the PUD with Purcell, Garnett and Cooke voting in support and Saxton opposing.
Dozens of townhomes proposed for town’s western edge
Aside from hearing a pair of proposals to build more multi-family housing on the eastern end of town, councilors will consider a plan to build dozens of townhomes at its western edge.
Richmond-based East Coast Excavation is asking for a special use permit (SUP) to build dozens of townhomes on a 5.5 commercially zoned acres, directly behind Spring Oak at Louisa, an assisted living community located at 440 West Main Street near the Countryside subdivision (tmp 40-23-A1).
Dubbed “Spring Oak Townhomes,” the development would feature 42 townhomes clustered in four rows along a pair of private driveways. It would be accessed by a 50-foot right of way that runs adjacent to the assisted living facility.
Outside of a concept plan, the developers don’t provide much insight into the project in their application. At the planning commission’s public hearing in July, Kelsey Schlein, a planner with Shimp Engineering, which developed the plan, described the project as a good fit for the property, noting that it would help the town meet its housing needs and seemed to conform with its Comprehensive Plan, according to the meeting minutes.
But several commissioners and community members disagreed, raising concerns about the project’s impact on the assisted living facility and increased traffic.
John Gibson, an attorney representing the assisted living community, raised questions about access to the site and argued that the traffic generated by the townhomes would endanger the facility’s 27 residents, who routinely walk around the property.
Steve Curry, representing East Coast Excavation, countered that a by-right commercial development would also bring traffic and that residents of the assisted living facility don’t go outdoors without supervision and its main doors always remained locked.
As they did in the two other public hearings, other speakers zeroed in on concerns about the overall impact of high-density development in the town including the potential for increased stormwater runoff and stress on Louisa County Public Schools and emergency services, according to the meeting minutes.
Schlein said that the development shouldn’t have significant impact on the schools because townhome dwellers tend to have fewer children than those living in single-family homes.
On a motion by Purcell, who said that the property is better suited for commercial development, the commission voted 3-0-1 to recommend that council deny the SUP. Garnett and Cooke joined Purcell in opposing while Saxton abstained.
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