A Day Late…

I received word from a number of residents that a scheduled meeting with Urban Development Areas consultants Rhodeside & Harwell was postponed from last night to Dec. 15 or 16, immediately after the Board of Supervisors plans to hold a public hearing on the Comprehensive Plan, which includes eight UDAs. Those UDAs will be designated upon approval of the comp plan.

According to Stafford Public Information Administrator Cathy Riddle, the meeting was postponed by staff because the board has not yet adopted the UDA locations. Contrast that with Spotsylvania County, where the same consultant has held a number of public meetings as part of the UDA designation process, to be concluded when UDAs are adopted by the board this summer.

Last night’s meeting in Stafford was supposed to be for local “stakeholders.” This is from the consultant’s scope of work:

Key stakeholder interviews: Conduct up to 10 interviews with key groups and/or individuals in the County (e.g. business and community leaders), identified in consultation with Stafford County planning staff, in order to understand planning and development issues and opportunities in the candidate UDA areas and countywide.

I asked Planning Director Jeff Harvey and Public Information Administrator Cathy Riddle to fill me in on the details of this meeting. Riddle sent me the following list of “stakeholders.”

School Facilities (Scott Horan)

Quantico Community Planning Liaison (Steve Hundley)

Parks & Recreation Director (Chris Hoppe), Soccer Association (Barry Hill), Baseball League (Robert Dreistadt)

Environmental Groups (Patricia Kurpiel-Friends of Stafford Creeks, John Tippett-Friends of Rappahannock, and a representative from Save Crows Nest)

Local land Use and zoning attorney (Charles Payne)

Historic Preservation Commission (Anita Dodd)

Citizens to Serve Stafford a citizen “watchdog group” (Ruth Carlone)

And this was Riddle’s response to why the meeting was postponed, and what other meetings the consultant has held in Stafford:

Rhodeside and Harwell had scheduled stakeholder interviews for today regarding the UDAs.  It is one of the tasks identified on the attached project schedule.  The specifics of the UDA consultant agreement are on the Planning and Zoning Department web page.

Staff had asked Rhodeside and Harwell to postpone the interviews because the Board has not adopted the locations of the UDAs to date.  It would be premature to discuss how the UDAs should be developed and implemented in advance of them being adopted.  Rhodeside and Harwell had proposed rescheduling the interviews for December 15 and 16.  Staff has requested that they hold off on any interviews until after the Comprehensive Plan is adopted.  You will need to verify with them as to who they had intended to interview.  Staff had provided them with a list of community stakeholders.  We do not know who made the final list and agreed to be interviewed.

County officials have had four meetings with Rhodeside and Harwell to date on this project.  They were June 1^st for a scoping meeting with staff; July 6^thrd and a study kick-off meeting August 13^th. presentation to the Board of Supervisors; tour of UDA sites with staff August 3

Click here for the revised UDA project schedule.

Here is a follow-up / addition. Riddle sent me more “stakeholders” who were to take part in the postponed meeting.

• Becky Reed, past chair of the executive committee of the Friends of the Rappahannock and currently on the Chesapeake Bay Local Assistance Board Linda Muller
• Clark Leming, local land use and zoning attorney (Leming and Healy)
• Bobby Crisp, Chair of Stafford County Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission
• Eddie Cottrell, Parks and Recreation department’s Sports Division Manager
• Airport Authority (Ed Wallis, Manager)
• Virginia Railway Express (Christine Hoeffner, Planning Manager)
• MPO, George Washington Regional Commission (Kevin Byrnes)
• VDOT (Angela Foroughi, Acting Director of Transportation and Land Use/ Area Land Use Engineer- North)
• Del Webb/Celebrate Virginia
• Pulte (Gary Leygraaf, VP)
• Khov (Gary Chandler)
• NVR/Ryan Homes (Lisa Fox-Culbertson, Administrative Manager)
• Hour Developemnt/Hour Homes (Michael J Stonehill, President)
• Silver Companies (Jud Honaker, Real Estate Development and Investment)
• Augustine Homes
• Fredericksburg Chamber of Commerce (Susan Spears, President)
• Economic Development Authority
• Jo Knight (Aquia Realty)
• Alex Long (CCIM)
• Phyllis Clark (Century 21)
• Jack Baker
• Rob Rochon
• Rich McDaniel (CB Richard Ellis)

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