In Crozet, concerns over growth

Crozet residents will soon have a chance to weigh in on their concerns over growth in western Albemarle County.

One topic sure to emerge: the Crozet Master Plan’s estimate on the growth area’s long-term maximum population capacity.

The Crozet Community Advisory Council and county officials are finalizing a questionnaire for residents to share their thoughts on how growth and other issues should be handled in their area. The questionnaire will be out in late May, said Lee Catlin, county spokeswoman.

Answers will help steer officials’ effort to revise the county’s 2004 Master Plan for growth in Crozet. During its creation, the board agreed to revisit the plan after five years to see if changes needed to be made.

“This won’t be a scientific survey,” Catlin said. “It’s a way to get input from residents on where their areas of concern are.”

The Board of Supervisors must approve any changes to the Master Plan, and county officials hope to present a list of proposed changes to the board by next summer, Catlin said.

“We do anticipate there will be changes to the Master Plan,” Catlin said.

The original plan in Crozet supported major revitalization and improvements to the downtown area and addressed areas east and west of there.

County officials created the 15-member advisory council to help create the Master Plan, and the group of residents has met regularly for the last five years. But the plan has had its ups and downs, said Mike Marshall, advisory council chairman.

“Our problems with the Master Plan isn’t the plan itself, but how it gets interpreted,” Marshall said. “We’re hoping to tweak the language in the plan. … What people in Crozet have expected is that the main density would be in the downtown area. We don’t want density across from an empty lot.”

County officials expect the revision will include close scrutiny of the 20-year population estimate for Crozet, a figure that caused confusion and resident outcry after the Master Plan was created.

In the original plan, Crozet’s 20-year estimate for population growth referenced a figure of 12,000 residents.

But after the plan was adopted, Catlin said, the county obtained mapping software that allowed for more sophisticated projections of the development area’s maximum population, based on the hypothesis that the growth area would eventually develop to its fullest capacity allowed under the densities the county set for the area.

The new estimate climbed to 24,000, alarming many Crozet residents who already were anxious about the pace of growth and approval of large new residential developments at the time.

“That analysis was not done prior to the community talking about the plan and before it was considered for final adoption,” Catlin said. “That was a significant lesson learned by the county in terms of how we approach future master plans.”

Reviewing or changing the density levels in the Master Plan would be up to supervisors, Catlin said.

Ann Mallek, who represents the area on the Board of Supervisors, declined to comment on whether she would vote for changing the maximum projected growth of Crozet.

Mallek came onto the board in January 2008 and said she hopes the revision process will help people understand exactly why there is a discrepancy in growth numbers.

“I’m not going to interject myself into the numbers game,” Mallek said. “Once people understand the issues, the [original growth] map will either change or stay the same.”

Marshall agrees that one of the major concerns in the plan revision is the projected population growth.

There was community interest in the growth issues in Crozet long before the Master Plan was created, Marshall said.

He said the advisory council hopes the revisions will cap growth at 12,000 and keep most of the commercial growth in the downtown area.

“In 2002, a lot of the family farms started selling to developers,” Marshall said. “We realized we had a very short time to get rules on the ground before they started bulldozing.”

A major constituent concern is when and if commercial growth will come to the downtown area, Mallek said, adding that this issue brings more calls than concerns over major growth.

“They do not want the downtown to become a dead area,” Mallek said.

Although the board has approved major zoning to benefit the downtown area, officials said the economy has kept more new businesses from coming in. They hope the zoning and the other projects will boost the downtown area.

Other areas in Crozet — including the Old Trail development and a segment of U.S. 250 where a new Harris Teeter grocery store is poised to open and other businesses already are in place — have seen a burst of retail activity. Some see that growth as a complement to downtown Crozet, while others fear it will siphon business from the village’s center.

Mallek said she hopes the revision process will help “take away a cloud that hangs over” the Master Plan. She said the questionnaire is just one of the first steps in deciding what changes need to be made.

“I think we’re going to get wonderful responses [from the questionnaire],” Mallek said. “The people in Crozet are very involved in how their community is going to be. We expect that to continue as we go through this process.”

In the next six weeks, residents will be able to fill out the questionnaire online or on paper. They can pick up questionnaires, which will have 30 to 40 questions, at the Crozet Library or at a town hall meeting county officials plan to host next month.

“We want to make sure we’re representing majority opinions,” Marshall said. “We want to drive revisions with what the people want.”

Council members are hoping the Master Plan will help keep growth in Crozet at an even and steady pace.

“What people love about Crozet is its small-town attributes,” Marshall said. “They understand it’s a growth area, but let’s not mess up the great community we have going here.”