OP-ED: Will the City of Fredericksburg Hear Its Residents?

The city is asking residents to get involved in updating its comprehensive plan. Some believe the city's reaction to concerns over Mary's Landing raises concerns over how closely the city will listen.

By Matt Kelly
GUEST WRITER

The city of Fredericksburg has embarked on planning its future development through the updating of its Comprehensive Plan. Branded “FXBG Forward,” the press release noted the City Council, “is encouraging everyone in our community to get involved.” Consultants have been hired, meetings planned, and multimedia efforts are being made to engage the community. But when all is said and done will the City Council really be listening to the public? Recent events would indicate that will not be the case.

In September of 2020 the city went through a similar process in the creation of the Creative Makers District. Running along the Princess Anne corridor the district was to include mixed-use development, walkability, increased open public spaces and to “encourage entrepreneurship and be affordable for small and first-time business owners.”

As reported in the Free Lance-Star, while most were supportive of the plan, concerns were expressed about increased residential density and the impact on schools and city services. To address this concern staff reduced by-right residential density from 12 to 8 units per acre. Any higher density would be allowed “only after a special use permit process with opportunities for public comment at the Planning Commission and City Council.”

The city is now reviewing the first significant project in the Creative Maker’s District — Mary’s Landing. In addition to not meeting the goals of the district, the townhouse project has a density of 16 units per acre which is double the by-right density in the district. So, per the process approved by City Council to address resident concerns about density, this project should go through a public special use permit process. It is not going to happen.

City staff has adopted the developer’s position that their project is by-right, based on the lots laid out in 1891, and therefore the project will be only subject to an administrative review. In addition, residents’ concerns about service and infrastructure, and who will cover the costs, will go unaddressed without the promised special use permit process.

Effort by residents to present legal arguments that would support the goals adopted by the city have been rebuffed. Even after incurring the expense of hiring an attorney, city staff and the city attorney will not consider options that would allow the city to fulfill the promises City Council made to residents when the Creative Maker’s District was created.

In addition to the process issue, the city seems prepared to reinterpret the zoning regulations. The city staff is considering that the entire project is in a transitional zone, which allows for a smaller minimum lot size.  The zone is defined in code as areas adjacent to, or across the street from, existing homes. A large portion of the project does not fall into the adopted definition of the transitional zone.

As a result of being in a transitional zone the lot size requirements are reduced.  Yet even with this reduction the project doesn’t meet the lot size regulations and city staff is considering granting the project an exception to this requirement. These are just a few of the issues with the project.

And what involvement have the Planning Commission and City Council had in this project? The Planning Commission has remained silent.

As for City Council, at the staff presentation on the Mary’s Landing project on January 23, no council member expressed concerns about staff’s position that the public process, as adopted by council in September 2020, would not be followed. Councilor Jason Graham expressed support for the project and Councilor Jon Gerlach asked when the project would be approved.

Today, the City Council refuses to address residents’ concerns or answer questions about the Mary’s Landing project. Instead, they have told residents to take their concerns to the developer.

The city of Fredericksburg will continue to develop. The question is where and in what form that development will take? In the end, residents should expect that the plans coming out of a public process should be followed.

Today, another question needs to be asked: Will the City Council actually listen to the concerns of those city residents who heed the call to get involved? If the handling of the Mary’s Landing project is any indication of how the council is planning to proceed, the answer is no.

Matt Kelly is a resident of Fredericksburg and former City Council member.

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