City Planning Commission to Consider Eagle Village Rezoning
Proposed rezoning would be part of Small Area Plan for the area including the University of Mary Washington, Mary Washington Healthcare, and "central U.S. 1."
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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The Fredericksburg Planning Commission on Wednesday will consider a recommendation from staff to rezone the 13.2-acre Eagle Village Shopping Center from Commercial Shopping Center to Commercial Highway.
Along with the rezoning, the Commission will consider whether to recommend that City Council adopt a Comprehensive Plan amendment establishing the Small Area Plan for Area 5, which includes the University of Mary Washington and central U.S 1.
The proposed rezoning of Eagle Village to Commercial Highway also includes application of the “T-5 commercial transect,” which, according to the city’s Unified Development Ordinance, is meant to "foster the retrofit and redevelopment of automobile-oriented large-scale suburban and strip-mall shopping centers” into walkable, mixed use centers.
The transect application “transform[s] the organization of land from expanses of asphalt parking lots, commercial driveways, and separated single-use developments into a network of streets and blocks that include formal open spaces, mixed uses, and transitional zones,” according to the ordinance.
Promoting infill develoment of these “aging, inefficient surface parking lots” will reduce environmental impacts such as stormwater runoff.
The existing Commercial Shopping Center zoning, according to the zoning ordinance, provides for “community and neighborhood retail commercial and service uses in planned shopping centers,” with typical uses including supermarkets, drugstores, and service establishments like nail and hair salons.
The ordinance permits residential development in Commercial Shopping Center districts at a maximum density of 12 dwelling units per acre.
Commercial Highway districts also provide for commercial uses, but with the T-5 transect application, they foster infill development. This zoning allows for the same kind of by-right residential uses—multifamily, townhome, and vertical mixed-use buildings—as Commercial Shopping Center, except that it also allows duplexes.
“The main goal [of the rezoning] is to activate form-based standards for development / redevelopment of the center if it is to include residential use,” said Bailey Thompson, the city’s lead planner on the Area 5 Small Plan., in an email to the Advance. “This means better usable formal open spaces and a more consistent block / street pattern with tree-lined frontages.”
The Eagle Village shopping center is one of the few areas in Area 5 that planning department staff have identified as potential growth areas, according to a memo prepared for the Planning Commission’s Wednesday meeting. Staff’s estimate of where growth will occur is based on “ownership and investment patterns” on the relevant parcels, and on comparable projects in the city.
“There is the potential for major redevelopment of the Eagle Village Shopping Center (currently consisting of 127,000 commercial square feet),” the memo states. “Additionally, a less intense approach may include the construction of new commercial buildings in the existing parking area,” which would add 12,500 square feet to the commercial area.
The redevelopment could be mixed-use, the memo states. Mixed-use residential development is allowed by right in T-5 and Commercial Highway zoning at 12 dwelling units per acre, or at 24 dwelling units per acre with a special use permit.
Mixed-use residential development in Eagle Village could add around 200 new dwelling units, the staff memo states.
Thompson said there have been Commercial Shopping Center rezoning opportunities identified in each of the small area plans.
“The bulk of the remainder of [Commercial Shopping Center zoning] is in Area 4, which is the next small area plan we will undertake,” Thompson said. Area 4 includes the Mary Washington Hospital campus and Cowan Boulevard.
Thompson said the city has not been approached “recently” by residential housing developers with plans for Eagle Village.
In November, the planning department’s technical review committee reviewed a pre-application from NVR, Inc., the parent company of Ryan Homes, which proposed to construct 173 townhomes at the Greenbrier Shopping Center. This land was rezoned from Commercial Shopping Center to Commercial Highway in 2017, when the Area 3 plan was approved.
Thompson said the layout as presented in November “did not reflect the form-based standards and proposed 173 traditional townhouse units.”
The technical review committee last month reviewed another plan for the site, which proposed a mix of “two-over-two and townhome units,” Thompson said.
“No formal application has been submitted at this time,” he said.
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