James City County cleared the way for 139 homes and 24,000 square feet of retail space near Eastern State Hospital in a narrow vote on Tuesday.
The Westwood Park development will be adjacent to New Town, a community of retailers, offices and 400 homes. When fully built out, it will include 82 houses and 57 townhomes or apartments; 23 will be made affordable for households earning up to 80% of the area median income of aboout $110,000 and six for people earning up to 60%.
The remainder are expected to cost between $475,000 and $600,000 for the townhomes and $700,000 to $1,000,000 for houses.
Board Member Jim Icenhour fears the project could worsen sewage issues in the area. The New Town pump station is operating near or at capacity and has backed up during storms, spilling sewage onto the ground.
“Fixing that problem is not going to be something that’s easy,” he said. “It’s basically unwise to keep adding to that inventory until we have a better idea of what the long-term solution is.”
The development is also expected to negatively impact Powhatan Creek. A streambank in the watershed in the northeast of the property has degraded during over the years under state ownership and Icenhour said development would only further harm a Powhatan Creek watershed that he said is becoming an “open sewage way.”
The developer, ABVA Development, has agreed to give $225,000 to collaborate with the county and state on stream restoration. The full cost is likely to exceed $2 million.
Board Member Barbara Null joined Icenhour in opposing the application, taking issue with plans for only one road into Westwood Park.
“You have to think about safety,” Null said. “If something happens back there, nobody has anywhere to go; they’re hostage.”
Westwood Park has been discussed for more than five years, and board consideration has been postponed by the developer five times since last October. Initial lans included a second point of road access, but it was removed after neighboring communities objected.
The road was one of several changes made after conversations with residents, including a drop in the number of homes, recreational amenities separate from New Town’s and more buffering from adjacent neighborhoods.
Board Chair John McGlennon, initially not enthused by the project, said the developer’s responsiveness to resident concerns helped sway him. Reducing the community’s density without sacrificing affordable housing options and money for addressing stream restoration were positives.
“It’s not perfect,” McGlennon said, but it’s “something that is of a size and scale that is not going to be overwhelming for our ability to incorporate it into the community.”
Westwood Park is the first of a pair of housing projects proposed on Eastern State land. The more contentious Cardinal Ridge development includes more than 1,000 homes. More than 1,800 residents have filed a petition to stop the 365-acre project, which they fear will choke traffic, burden schools and cut down hundreds of acres of woodlands.
Cardinal Ridge goes before the board on Sept. 9.
