By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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Fredericksburg’s department of planning and building on Monday approved a site plan for the development known as Mary’s Landing.
Mary’s Landing is the proposed redevelopment of 3.87 acres—now mostly unused parking lots—between Fall Hill Avenue and Charles Street in the Canal Quarter section of downtown into 63 townhouse units and “related infrastructure.”
The project includes the demolition of two existing structures—2215 Fall Hill Avenue, a 1930s bungalow, and 435 Hunter Street, which currently houses the Rappahannock EMS Council and was the city’s first public health building, designed by J.J. Ballentine.
The Medical Arts Building structure at 2301 Fall Hill Avenue will remain, according to the city’s notification.
There have been at least four iterations of the site plan since January of this year. Along with the latest version of the site plan, the city approved an alternative landscaping plan request.
A group of residents have contended since the first site plan was submitted that the Mary’s Landing plan constitutes a “major subdivision” that requires approval by the Planning Commission and City Council, rather than an “administrative subdivision” that only requires staff approval.
Attorney Giff Hampshire, retained by some of the residents, has asked the city’s zoning administrator, Kelly Machen, to agree with their contention and issue a zoning determination finding that the proposed development requires a special use permit, “because it would create more than 50 lots that are new and different,” according to a letter from Hampshire.
Anne Little, one of the residents represented by Hampshire, said in an email to the Advance that “it is a sad day for our city when a project like Mary’s Landing is approved by city staff, even though it breaks many rules and regulations that were set by the city to ensure proper development.”
“Our city council has abdicated many of these responsibilities to staff and allowed our city to be over-developed,” Little wrote. “We have a city that talks about protecting affordable housing and yet approves condos that cost over $600,000 [the cost of the Mary’s Landing townhomes as estimated by the developer at a meeting in June]. That is not affordable in my book.”
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This reporting doesn’t include the city attorney’s position on the matter, which is (as I understand it): This is a by-right development… So attempting to prohibit it would expose the city to greater legal liability than would working through the process to make the project conform to the city's Unified Development Ordinance and the form-based code that applies.
This isn’t a case of council abdicating some authority, but instead a savvy developer working with the system. Staff literally cannot allow development that breaks ANY of the rules or regulations, so it is misleading to provide a quote which implies that they did.
But also and perhaps more importantly, Little’s quote complaining about the price of the townhomes amplifies a fundamental misunderstanding of a basic economic theory; the Law of Supply and Demand. Generally, increasing the supply of housing in our area should lead to price decreases. It is extremely challenging, if not impossible these days, to build new affordable housing, but that isn’t the point: Building new housing at any price point will decrease the demand and therefore the value of the existing housing stock because it will increase the supply. If Ms. Little truly wanted more affordable housing, she should be advocating for an even denser development at the Mary’s Landing site.
And I find it telling that Ms. Little and her organization aren’t so vocal about the proposed redevelopment at Greenbrier. Perhaps they aren’t as upset by that 173 unit development because it isn’t in their back yard.