By Joe Walton
Powhatan County Supervisor

Editor’s note: District 1 Supervisor Joe Walton submitted the following letter, concerning the motion he made at the July 12 Board of Supervisors meeting to defer a vote on the Walmart rezoning, after being invited to do so by Powhatan Today

Dear Powhatan Today Editor,

Per your request, I will elaborate on the action the Board of Supervisors took on Monday, July 12, regarding the Walmart application. I do so as the Supervisor who made the motion to defer. These opinions are mine alone.

In this case, the applicant had not finalized the application within the “ten days in advance of the meeting” deadline. As late as the morning of the meeting, the applicant made changes. The last minute changes of substance by the applicant automatically warrant a minimum of a 30-day deferral for two reasons. Primarily, it allows time to digest the substantive changes and, secondarily, such a deferral policy helps encourage applicants to ‘get their act together’ well in advance of the deadline for changes. The deadline is ten days in advance to avoid the essence of much of what I detail below. But in a case of this size, a 30-day deferral is not sufficient. I have forcefully expressed this sentiment numerous times in the past on both the dais and elsewhere. It should come as no surprise then.

There are two overarching issues with the Walmart application. The first issue is the concept of a Walmart store in Powhatan County. The second issue is the community planning effort associated with a potential new shopping center on the north side of Route 60. The concept of a Walmart is about what much of the community debate and public hearings to date have been.  The details, significance, and negotiation points of the community planning effort are complex, time consuming, and have potentially detrimental long-term effects….particularly if the process is rushed.

I moved to table the Walmart application to allow the applicant, the citizens, and the Board of Supervisors further time to understand the features and implications of the application. I did not consider a time limit to the continued consideration and deliberation because I felt strongly that such a limit would amount to an expression of intent that the community planning effort would be finished at such an interval. Taking all near-term time pressure off was necessary to give everyone involved a chance to think and consider carefully. Deadlines, even those that can be extended (as deferrals in 30+ day increments), create unneeded pressure and cloud clear and prudent judgment. People already thought the matter would be settled that very night. Taking all near-term time pressure off was necessary to give everyone involved a chance to think clearly.

The only deadline is per state code; and it is the requirement that the county decide a zoning matter within one year. It is not the Board’s intention to let the year expire before deciding finally the matter. When the application is brought back up, it will be advertised for weeks in advance and presented like any re-zoning case.

There is only one chance to get this right and, once done, it will forever affect many future development issues in that area specifically and in Powhatan generally. The Board of Supervisors’ decision requires clear and prudent judgment because the rezoning application for this potential new shopping center has already gone through numerous changes, revisions, alterations, and deletions in the several months since it was originally filed with the planning department.  What all those mean and the extent to which they satisfy the members of the Board of Supervisors’ development goals for Powhatan County takes time to discover. 

To reiterate, in light of all this, I moved to table the application. I have a duty to give our community time to reflect on the application and look for areas that still need work before the Board of Supervisors can be sure an acceptable development plan has been achieved. 

There are citizens who would have accepted the application in its original form months ago and there are citizens who will never accept the application in any form. My duty as a Supervisor is to examine the areas in between those two extremes.

During the July 12th meeting numerous citizens spoke about the application. Their concerns were almost exclusively about the concept of a Walmart in Powhatan County.  There was virtually nothing said about the community planning issues associated with a potential new shopping center. The Board of Supervisors must consider both the concept and the community planning issues.  Both points take time and careful study to ensure Powhatan County gets the highest quality development as conceived in the massive community planning effort that was adopted the very night of that first Board of Supervisors Walmart hearing – the 2010 Comprehensive Plan.

The 2010 Comprehensive Plan represents this county’s freshest first principles of future development based on hundreds of citizens contributing thousands of hours coupled with planning experts. The beauty of those first principles of future development is that they were conceived over the last several years without the pressure of a major commercial development application and without the modern confusion of emotion inherent in the concept of a Walmart in a rural community.

It is those first principles – harmonious development of land, future development that is the least possible burden to existing development, maintenance of an open-space focused community, general quality growth and development – that I will continue to pursue and exclusively support in the final stages of this application’s deliberation. As one resident indicated, those were the aspirations on which I campaigned in 2007 and they are the aspirations with which I continue to serve since election.

There are those who have commented that this issue is the first time in recent memory that the Powhatan County Board of Supervisors has taken a firm, deliberative stance on thinking thoroughly about a major rezoning application.  I will not argue whether that is true, but on behalf of this Board of Supervisors, I will accept the compliment nonetheless.

There are also those who have argued that delays in the application could result in the application being withdrawn and located elsewhere, possibly on another parcel in Powhatan County, but possibly elsewhere.  If the applicant so chose such an alternative, it would be wholly appropriate from a community planning perspective to have future development locate on previously zoned land.  That is the point of the land having been previously zoned – it is called compact growth and development when future development goes there.  Appropriate proffers for that previous speculative zoning should have been collected at the time of zoning so nothing would be lost.

The Walmart application is in a much better form than it ever has been despite howling calls for rapid and unquestioned adoption every step of the way. The Board of Supervisors will continue to negotiate community planning concerns with the applicant to make it even better.
To deny the application just because it is a Walmart would be just as foolhardy as accepting the application without vetting it according to and insisting upon this community’s needs from the Board of Supervisors perspective.  The community is stuck with the costs of mistakes or omissions for decades.

As a final note, I highly suggest all those with a great interest in the Walmart application obtain a copy of the Route 60 Citizen Work Group Final Report and, in particular, the Best Practices Subcommittee Report. Both explain in great detail this community’s highest ideals for development in the Route 60 corridor. The Board of Supervisors with the final ratification of the 2010 Comprehensive Plan adopted both.

I have been contacted by a great number of people about this issue.  I continue to request input from citizens. You can contact me at:  (804) 794-4437 or joe@joewalton.com

Respectfully,
Joseph B. Walton
Supervisor, District 1
Powhatan County Board of Supervisors