Warren County Report

The “how much” in question is retail – mostly national chain – shopping and dining opportunities and the sales and property tax revenue they bring to the community. Also of great interest to a large number of speakers and observers at three Dec. 12 public hearings before the county planning commission were proffered improvements to two softball fields on agriculturally zoned land in the county’s near northside sought for commercial retail development.

At issue is expansion of the smaller of the county’s two new northside retail shopping centers, the Target-anchored Crooked Run Center. Crooked Run businesses began opening their doors in July as the first of what is forecast to eventually be over 800,000 square feet of under-roof shopping, dining and other commercial opportunities on both sides of U.S. 340/522 comes available to Warren County’s 40,000 or so residents.  Phase One of the Crooked Run project is conceived to have over 250,000 s.f. of commercial space. The Wal-Mart/Lowe’s-anchored Riverton Commons Center across U.S. 340 will eventually come in at around 500,000 s.f. of retail space.

Bigger is better

The proposed Phases Two and Three of the Crooked Run Center could triple its size. It includes space for the possible expansion of the Warren Memorial Hospital complex, though Valley Health is exploring other locations as well. However, Warren County Planning Commission Chairman Mark Bower’s job as a chief financial officer of WMH has led him to abstain from votes on the Crooked Run expansion request.

Bower’s abstention led to a 2-2 vote on the first of three requests presented to the planners and a full house of interested citizens at the planning commission’s meeting of Dec. 12. That vote was on a request to amend the county Comprehensive Development Plan to accommodate the second request, the rezoning of 86 acres west of the existing Crooked Run Shopping Center and just north of Interstate-66.

The planners deadlocked, with Harry Krum and Ron Mabry dissenting, on a motion to recommend changing the Comprehensive Plan’s description of the future land use of the 86 acres from Agricultural to Commercial.

However, only Krum opposed the subsequent motion to approve the rezoning of that 86 acres to commercial without changes to the Comp Plan. Krum, the Shenandoah District planner, recommended a Public Hearing on revisions to the Comp Plan prior to a vote on the Crooked Run rezoning request. During Glenn White’s successful campaign for the North River District supervisors’ seat, the former county planning commission chairman made an issue of strict adherence to the existing Comprehensive Development Plan as a precaution against setting precedents he believes could undermine county control of its future land use.

Following its 3-1 approval of Crooked Run’s specific rezoning request, the planning commission pulled the reigns back on forwarding a blanket recommendation of approval, voting 4-0 to table a request for a Conditional Use Permit for the expansion project.
Crooked Run Attorney and 18th District Delegate Clay Athey was not discouraged by the mixed bag of votes.

“I think in the final analysis in Warren County’s interest, the best thing that could happen happened tonight. What they did was stick to that commitment of not amending the Comprehensive Plan while at the same time allowing the rezoning to go forward because it made sense at this time. The planning commission agreed with our assertions that basically this is the next best place in Warren County for large retail users. And I think the fact we have performed in the past weighed heavily in their decision,” Athey said of his client’s past work with the county on access and other issues tied to Phase One of the Crooked Run Center.

During his October unveiling of the Crooked Run expansion plan, Athey described additional major road proffers tied to the new project as creating what he termed the county’s first “urban intersection.” At that time Athey identified businesses committed to or interested in an expanded Crooked Run location off the I-66/U.S. 340 intersection as Kohl’s and hoteliers Marriott and Hilton.

“Do we really want to look like L.A.?” Krum asked then.

Enough?

The approval of the existing Crooked Run and Riverton Commons Centers and another approved rezoning that would accommodate a third major retail development on the south side of Rockland Road have led Krum to suggest the county planners take a breath before forwarding recommendations on additional commercial development on the county’s northside.

Krum also pointedly questioned the necessity of the developer’s proffered softball field improvements that accounted for much of the public support heard on Dec. 12. Krum asked County Administrator/Planning Director Doug Stanley why portions of the county’s nearby 219-acre Fishnet property could not be developed into a Sherando Park-like athletic complex, including softball and other new fields and recreational amenities. Stanley said that with the amount of property available to the county at Fishnet all things were possible, if yet to be determined. In justifying the 2005, $2.1 million Fishnet purchase, county officials pointed to the property’s potential for multiple capital improvement projects from an administrative office complex, to school site and parks and recreation expansion.

The rezoning debate occurred in front of a packed Warren County Government Center meeting room of people, including landowner Tom Mercurio and project manager Ed Murphy, as well as others with a less direct stake in the project. That latter group included the parents of girl’s softball players and one girls’ softball coach, former Warren County Republican Committee Chairman and mid-to-late 1990’s county supervisor Matt Tederick.

Not enough!

Tederick dusted off his old, fire and brimstone political speaking style in urging the planners to send forward a recommendation of approval. Tederick, a financial services professional, harkened back to his tenure on the county board and lashed out at opponents of economic expansion.

“I sat there on the bench and listened to only a few, only a handful of people making irrational arguments as to why Warren County did not need to progress,” Tederick said warming to his task. “It’s now been 10 years and I’ve been listening to those, like one commission member, who do not want Warren County to progress … I’ve sat by and listened to those, like one individual, who believes Warren County has enough,” Tederick said, staring pointedly at Krum. “Well, I’m here to tell you tonight, we do not have enough. I’m tired of my wife and my mother driving to Winchester to shop and buy clothes. I’m tired of my daughters, [the] 8-year-old girls on my softball teams, the grandparents that come and watch these children … going to [the] bathroom in a Johnny-Blue during a softball game … We owe these children more. We owe our shoppers more …”

Tederick cited the ongoing expansion of the industrial and commercial tax base as the only way to fund the infrastructure improvements tied to growth without unduly raising the tax burden on citizens. Since the early 1990s the county has increased its commercial-industrial tax base from 7 to 15 percent, with 25 percent generally being considered an optimum figure.

But ultimately Tederick said what was before the planners wasn’t about ballfields, tax revenue or shopping opportunities, but rather best future land use. And continuing the county’s commercial expansion adjacent to what has already been approved is that best future land use, Tederick asserted.

Changing perspectives?

Asked if he was troubled by the potential the Crooked Run proposal will come before a more conservative board majority next year, Athey said, “Actually I am very encouraged by the makeup of the coming board of supervisors. You have two former chairman of the planning commission (Traczyk and White) on that board of supervisors. They will understand the same arguments that were made here tonight … In addition, I think the remaining members are people who for many, many years have been committed to Warren County’s future and to the future of the 522 Corridor. I think this incoming board will understand completely where we are coming from and work closely with us to accomplish that.”

Ultimately it is the classic debate of capitalism that will come before the board in 2008 – people need things and people need ways to pay for things, including an expanded marketplace for those things. In exchange for the right to profit from the community’s need for products and retailers’ need for space from which to market those products, developers offer tax income and infrastructure proffers designed to convince municipalities that more is, indeed, better.