The Warren Sentinel

Article date: January 18, 2007 

County planners give OK to Cattlet Mountain project 

More traffic, accidents top residents’ concerns 

By: Matt Van Tassel

The Warren County Planning Commission passed Brookfield Washington, LLC’s rezoning and conditional use permit applications to the board of supervisors recommending that the board limit Brookfield to only 30 houses a year.

Planning commission member Harry Krum said that the most recent plan to phase-in 50 houses a year is too much.

“Bluntly speaking, I don’t like that build-out rate of 50 houses a year– that’s going to wreak havoc with our comprehensive Plan,” Krum said.

To avoid an unwieldy surge of houses, the Comprehensive Plan states that Warren County should limit its annual growth to 2-3 percent.   Based on the current number of housing units – 15, 686 – the county can afford to approve between 313 and 470 new building permits in 2007.  In 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006, the county approved 344, 333, 425, 406, and 358 building permits, respectively.

Since peaking in 2004 the number of building permits handed out has declined 15.8 percent.

While the recent trend appears to indicate that the county is not in danger of breaching the 2-3 percent range this year, County Administrator Doug Stanley said that one could never be too sure – the planning commission only has control over those lots that need to be rezoned before being built on, but there are thousands of existing lots that can be built on at any time.

The Blue Ridge Shadows housing development on Route 340 North had 225 lots approved for rezoning but has only applied for five house-building permits, Stanley said.

If Brookfield built 50 houses a year it may bump the county past its target growth rate and it may not, but commission members remained cautious and recommended that supervisors install the 30-house clause in the conditional use permit.

“The planning commission and board of supervisors are trying to make sure anything approved doesn’t negatively impact that target rate,” Stanley said.

The only Planning Commission Member to vote against Brookfield was Lorrane Smelser.  She didn’t cite the target growth rate as her reason, but traffic– something seemingly more important to the audience.

Traffic was a concern of every person who spoke at last months public hearing and even at the meeting of Jan. 10, when people were given a chance to speak about things other than agenda items, two spoke about the dangers of driving on Catlett Mountain Road.

Scott Dueweke, who assured the commission that his statement was not about Brookfield, said the road is truly hazardous and there had been two serious accidents in the past two weeks to attest to that.

“The two young girls who were in that car are very lucky they weren’t killed,” the second speaker, James Pezalla, said, referring to an accident that took place several days earlier.

“We’re building homes faster than we are accumulating funds to accommodate traffic needs,” Smelser said.  “I couldn’t approve it with a good conscience.”

Each house would add an estimated 10 trips per day on Catlett Mountain Road, which translates to 1500 trips per day in 150 houses are built.  However, at the proposed build-out rate, that wouldn’t happen for at least five years from the start of the project.

Hearing the plea of nearby residents, Brookfield added $150,000 to its proffers, stipulating that at least $50,000 must to improving Catlett Mountain Road.  Land and cash proffers total about $3.7 million – the county would receive the cash per house, as it issues building permits.

Brookfield could legally build 80 homes without any proffers to the county.

The $50,000 toward Catlett Mountain Road improvements may be enough to install much needed safety devices such as a guardrail and warning lights, said Deputy Planning Director Taryn Logan.