Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 8, 1995 TAG: 9503080039
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAN VERTEFEUILLE, CATHRYN MCCUE AND TODD JACKSON
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
GREENE COUNTY
Gilbert Edwards had spent years searching for the ideal place to build his ideal development. In the early 1970s, the Florida condo builder finally found it: 289 acres of rolling pastureland and mountainside east of Charlottesville.
``It's such beautiful country, it would be a shame to just bulldoze it and make a conventional development,'' he said. His chief goal was to maintain a working farm. And 20 years later, there are still cows grazing, hay growing and trees bearing fruit.
``Farmcolony,'' the original promotions ran, ``in the Blue Ridge foothills, offers you an opportunity to enjoy all the benefits of living on a farm without the usual worries or responsibilities...''
Two-thirds of the land is preserved permanently as a working farm, with pastures and cropland, wooded hills, hiking and riding trails, a bird sanctuary and a pond - all owned by the homeowners' association.
The remaining 100 acres are divided into 48 lots, ranging from 11/2 acres to 21/2 acres, situated on unproductive land between the slope of Parkers Mountain and the fertile farm below, which has been cultivated for more than 200 years.
Farmcolony is the best example of creative development in rural Virginia, according to Randall Arendt, a nationally recognized land-use expert who features the project in his forthcoming book. The design allows country living without destroying the country.
Only 16 of the lots have homes on them. Many of the other landowners are content to spend weekends or summers at Farmcolony to ``see the cows, ride a horse - some of them just want to get their hands in the dirt,'' said Don Thurnau, manager of the farm until he retired last year.
The original farmer faced the same dilemma many do today. He overextended himself trying to keep the operation going and was forced to sell, Thurnau recalled.
Most of the lots were sold within the first couple of years, for between $14,000 and $24,000. Now undeveloped lots are fetching up to $36,000, he said.
Landowners pay an annual fee of $420 to the homeowners' association, which owns and maintains the roads, farm equipment, livestock and produce. Residents buy fresh eggs, beef, fruit and vegetables straight from their own farm, at half the price of retail. The 19th-century farmhouse is a central meeting place for neighborhood activities and overnight stays.
``That's the ideal way people up there should be living,'' Edwards said.
RIVER BEND
GILES COUNTY
In 1982, France and Judy Whitt bought an abandoned farm along the New River. The old farmhouse had been vandalized, and the Revolutionary War-era graveyard was choked in weeds.
``It was such a gorgeous place, all grown up,'' Whitt, a retired teacher, said. She and her husband, France, retired from the Radford Army Ammunition Plant, bought some cattle, resurrected the orchards and settled into what they thought would be their waning years on the farm.
Didn't quite turn out that way. ``We got to the point, well, it's difficult to get help, you know, and that sort of thing,'' Judy Whitt explained. ``Every time we'd go off, something would happen.''
They started thinking about subdividing the land. It so happens they attend the same church as David Rundgren, director of the New River Valley Planning District, who knows Randi Lemmon, a professional planner who expounds on the benefits of alternative developments.
One thing led to another, and soon the Whitts had a grand plan. They call it ``River Bend'' - 440 acres of bucolic pastureland and woods, with a mile of river frontage and three miles of land along Walker Creek.
The development will, if all goes according to plan, include a lodge, restaurant, townhouses and studio apartments, about 50 single-family homes, a ballfield, community center, some businesses, permanent open space, hiking trails and a park open to the public.
For now, they're concentrating on the first phase, which consists of 20 lots, each about 2 acres to 3.5 acres. All but one have sold, going for between $30,000 and $45,000, which makes them among the more expensive subdivision lots in the county. People mostly are paying to be surrounded by open space and undisturbed land.
``You see, people told us we couldn't do it, so that made it more of a challenge,'' France Whitt said. ``They didn't think it would fly.'' But the first lots went quickly - to a Hoechst-Celanese executive, a retired couple from Washington, a doctor at Giles Memorial Hospital, the Whitts themselves and Tom Miller, a real estate agent and part owner of the project.
A couple of homes are under construction, and people are starting to drive out just to see what River Bend is all about, Judy Whitt said. ``We watch them come to the top of the hill and then stop. And we know why - because they're getting that huge view of the New River.''
The Whitts have spent about $300,000 of their own money on roads, soil scientists, engineers, surveys, water lines and utility lines, which are buried. They don't intend to make a fortune from the development. Mostly, they want to have a community and neighbors with whom to enjoy the woods, streams and pastures.
MANDATORY CLUSTERING
CAROLINE COUNTY
Caroline County, next to Fredericksburg, is an hour's drive from Washington, D.C. A commuter train makes the trip even easier. The county is small, scenic, rural - and ripe for development.
For a county of less than 20,000 people, Caroline has come up with some progressive ideas for protecting its rural land.
One of them, which will soon go into effect: mandatory clustering of subdivisions that are built on agricultural land. No 1-acre or 5-acre lots carving cropland into tiny fiefdoms, unusable for farming. Instead, houses must be clustered in one part of the subdivision, with the rest of the land set aside as open space.
Mike Finchum, director of planning and community development, describes the reasoning behind the new ordinance.
``If somebody's going to buy these farms, they're going to at least protect the resource in one large parcel so someone could still use that resource. Maybe not now, but someday,'' he said. ``Ag land is not renewable.''
HAYMOUNT
CAROLINE COUNTY
Some builders are looking backward to find the cutting edge of development.
In Caroline County, a development the size of a small town is being designed like villages of old: on-street parking, mixed-use zoning, various prices on the houses and apartments on the same block.
``From the ground up, it's going to be constructed like older inner cities and towns,'' Finchum said. ``The idea is to go back to the roots, values that made small towns so attractive.''
Developer John Clark said he set out to create ``a model of responsibility'' on the urban fringe. Houses and businesses are built densely in the center of town, with about half of the 1,605-acre site left undeveloped by design.
According to the plan, only nontoxic building materials will be allowed, wildlife corridors and wetlands will be preserved, 14 sites will be donated for churches, and an affordable housing program will be started.
Haymount also is oriented toward pedestrians. Shopping and jobs will be within a five-minute walk of every house. A shuttle bus is planned to take commuters to the Virginia Railway Express station seven miles away so they can catch the train to Richmond or Washington.
The town, with brick and wood-sided houses, is being designed by the same architects who did Seaside, a community in Florida that has become a model for this type of development.
Construction is scheduled to begin this year.
LIMITING RURAL DEVELOPMENT
AUGUSTA COUNTY
Two years ago, Augusta County stopped to take a look at what was an alarming figure to the second-largest farm county in the state: More residential housing was going up on agricultural land than in residentially zoned areas.
The Board of Supervisors decided it didn't want the trend to continue. Instead, it approved a revised comprehensive plan that severely limited the amount of development on existing farmland.
Now, when people seek to develop agricultural land, they can have only one residential lot a year, according to the plan.
Commercial development can go only where water and sewer are available - now tied to commercial nodes designated in the plan - or where the developer is willing to pay for the services.
``We got a lot of negative reaction from developers and real estate people,'' said Supervisor Larry Wills about the revision. ``But what we said is: `We're going to monitor what's going on.'''
Wills said the county worked hard to sell the plan to the public. Close to 300 people showed up the night it was approved, and most were in favor.
``They looked at it as their plan,'' he said. ``They really did.''
The board now is revising the county's zoning ordinance to match the comprehensive plan.
by CNB