Church’s plans raise residents’ ire

A dust-up over proposed construction at South Plains Presbyterian Church is scheduled to come before the Albemarle County Planning Commission this month.

Today, the one-room church, located at the intersection of routes 612 and 22 in Keswick, is situated near an early-20th-century farmhouse known as The Manse, where the church’s offices, bathroom and classrooms are located.

Without adding onto the existing sanctuary, church officials are proposing construction of a new building that would house a nursery, fellowship hall, offices and Sunday school classrooms.

As part of its master plan, the church is also hoping to build a new, larger sanctuary in the next 10 years.

Jon Rintels lives behind the church and has balked at the proposed construction renderings done by Atwood Architects in Charlottesville.

Rintels said the new construction is proposed to sit forward on the lot in a way that makes the historic sanctuary — thought by some to have been built in the 1830s — look like an “outbuilding.”

“Let us preserve the postcard of Keswick, that’s the main message,” said Rintels, who met recently with neighbors about the latest rendering.

That latest rendering does include a change that orients the proposed sanctuary’s entrance so it faces the road instead of the church’s backyard. In addition, the revised plan moves a planned parking lot from behind the proposed sanctuary, and instead extends an existing lot next to the historic sanctuary.

“We’ve made some changes, we’ve listened to the critics,” said architect Bill Atwood, whose firm is working on the proposal.

According to Jeff Werner, a land-use field officer with the Piedmont Environmental Council, the church is part of the 39,000-acre Southwest Mountains Rural Historic District that includes 700 primary and contributing historical structures.

Rintels said he does not want to stop the church from expanding, but he would like to see the proposed fellowship hall and sanctuary reduced in size and pushed back next to the current sanctuary.

Atwood said pushing the buildings farther back would require tearing down, or moving, the Manse, which the church doesn’t want to do. According to Atwood, the current rendering calls for the historic sanctuary to remain the building sitting highest on the property. Atwood said the changes would accent its prominence, not diminish it.

“We feel like we’ve done what we have said we’d do,” Atwood said. “And we’re ready to make our case to the Planning Commission.”

Scott Clark, a senior planner with Albemarle County, said county staff has not decided on whether to recommend approval of a special-use permit for the construction to the Planning Commission, which will take up the issue at a public hearing at 6 p.m. March 24. From there the request would go to the county’s Board of Supervisors for final approval.

Should the supervisors approve the permit, church officials said they intend to break ground on the fellowship hall in the spring.