The Equivalent of One-Fith of the Town's Year- Round Populaiton Really Must have a Road Condition

Published Date: Friday 2nd December 2005 in The Farmville Herald
This editorial piece was written by the editor of the Farmville Herald, Ken Woodley

If the proposed 270-unit town-house development near Crestview is built, the number of residents could be the equivalent of approximately one-fifth of the Town's current year-round resident population, and they would all be living in one neighborhood, one development. That realization, more than anything else, put the proposed development in perspective for me. If the Prince Edward County Board of Supervisors approves the conditional use permit request, it should require, as one of the conditions of that approval for the project to proceed, that the developer pay for work necessary for existing roads to accommodate the traffic and/or build new ingress and egress into the development. Ideally, both would be conditions, would be requirements. This condition, if legally applicable, can be achieved in two ways: 1) The road construction requirement can be triggered following the first 24-unit phase of development, before any additional townhouse construction is undertaken. If the town-house project doesn't proceed beyond the first 24 units, its impact on traffic and the Crestview neighborhood won't require a new road or significant work on any existing road. Construction beyond phase one would launch the road work. 2) Require the road construction up front, as a condition before any townhouse construction proceeds. The townhouse project may not be fully developed to the proposed 270 units but Supervisors have been asked to issue a conditional use permit for that number of townhouses. Their thinking and their conditions must anticipate full development of all 270 units. Actually, there is a third possible alternative: 3) Re-vamp the conditional use permit request and have it submitted for consideration phase by phase, then require the road work if phase two is brought to the Board of Supervisors for approval. The traffic issue, raised by Crestvlew residents and Farmville's Town Council, does need the wisest consideration because if an average of three people reside in each of the 270 townhouse units—which is not a wildly exaggerated estimate—that's 810 people. According to the 2000 Census, the population of the Town of Farmville is 6,845, but that includes a Longwood University residential student population of approximately 2,654 (in 2002, two years beyond the Census). Minus Longwood University students, the population of Farmville is about 4,191 people, so 810 people is roughly 20 percent, or one-fifth, of the year-round residential population of Farmville. The equivalent of one-fifth of Farmville's population, then, could reside in that one development. If there were an average of four people per townhouse unit, the percentage would be approximately 25 percent of the Town's year-round residential population based on the 2000 Census. I respect those who believe the existing infrastructure will accommodate that growth—there is no room or reason for animosity—but I disagree with that conclusion. I do not believe one can put the equivalent of 20 percent of the Town of Farmville's population into one development in one neighborhood and expect the existing roads to provide the safest and most practical accommodation of that traffic. I don't have a study or professional analysis to support that evaluation. It simply seems a common sense conclusion. Though located in the county, the effects of the townhouse development will be felt most keenly within the town and especially by those living in the Crestview subdivision neighborhood. Traffic numbers presented to the County on behalf of the developer anticipate 1,620 vehicular trips per day, less than six trips per unit, for the 270-unit project. There could be more, of course. Just as there could be less. But 1,620 trips from that one development into the existing streets seems a significant number. People go to work. They come home from work and decide to go out to eat, go shopping, take one child to soccer practice, pick another child up from swim lessons, go rent a movie, go to church, go pick up a prescription, go to a play, and all of that could occur in a single day. In hindsight, the Town and County should have agreed to include the property in the last annexation rather than leave an isolated island of developable county land between U.S. 460 and U.S. 15 and the Town limits. That would have allowed the Town to decide the issue, which would not be inappropriate because the Town's roads and water and sewer system are going to serve the townhouse development if it proceeds to construction. But hindsight achieves nothing. Foresight achieves everything.
-JKW-