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Planning Commission recommends Kennedy plan for approval
Local
By Dan Roem
Source: Gainesville Times
TUESDAY, JANUARY 13 2009
It's almost over. On Monday, the Haymarket Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend the Haymarket Town Council recommend commercial developer Gerry Kennedy's $2.3 million proposal for the Haymarket Town Center. A final public hearing has been scheduled for Jan. 26. That same night, breaking with tradition, the Town Council plans to vote on the plan to turn the HTC into a series of small businesses and office spaces. Kennedy's proposal also calls for four historic nearby buildings be moved onto the property located along Washington and Jefferson Streets. If approved, the final stage would be for the town and Kennedy to settle on the property in escrow. After that, Kennedy would legally own the property, the town council would be without a permanent meeting place, and reconstruction, deconstruction and building-moving would commence. “I don't think it's going to derail,” said Kennedy Monday night as he stood outside of town hall with his real estate agent Bryan Garcia. “I mean, I think we're ready to go.” Only one member of the Town Council has publicly stated opposition to the project: council member Bob Weir. It would take two 'no' votes for the sale of the property to not be approved as a supermajority of the six voting town council members. Mayor Pamela Stutz, a Kennedy supporter, will not have a vote as the mayor only votes to break ties. "I don’t line up votes. I mean, I feel very comfortable. I feel very hopeful," said Kennedy with a laugh. “I feel very confident. It’s been expressed to us that this is what the town wants and I think that will be reflected in the vote.” The developer's plan has been approved, rescinded, resubmitted, reapproved and bounced all around the legal system since December 2007, when the town council sponsored its first public hearing on the deal. A vote was delayed to January 2008 after a vigorous debate between Weir and the council due to the unwritten protocol that the council does not vote on the same issue that was the topic of a public hearing that same night. When sent back to the Planning Commission for a final vote, Kennedy clashed with the commission, which Weir chaired at the time, about a turn lane. Because he would miss his goal and deadline of having everything operational by that fall, he then pulled the plan entirely and the Town Center property went back up for sale. Because of what Haymarket staffers and Kennedy alike called public outcry, Kennedy reinstated the plan and went through the rigors approval from scratch again. An August deadline then went to September. Then that date was pushed back to December. Then that went to January. Most of the delays the second time around could be attributed to Kennedy having to either deal with requirements from government agencies like the Virginia Department of Transportation, the Prince William County Service Authority and Soil and Water Conservation Authority or bureaucratic logjams with those same governmental agencies. Two public work sessions have taken place this winter featuring Kennedy, his engineering team, members of the Haymarket Town Council, Planning Commission and other town staffers. Those meetings focused largely on minutia, such as how many trees should be in place and how far apart certain buildings should be in place. Kennedy won an exemption from the planning commission regarding the trees - he was short by about two - on Monday as it was the last potential problem for his plan and its approval. “I don’t know what a freaking Q Factor is,” said planning commissioner Rich Gillan, referring to the engineering term ‘Quality Factor’ as he discussed final site plan details with the commission. “I can tell you how many parking spaces it’s supposed to have.”
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