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Official: no plans to bring back Avendale proposal
The controversial Avendale development proposal in Nokesville isn't coming back any time soon.
Fran Burnszynski, the county planner who worked on the Avendale rezoning and Comprehensive Plan amendment, said there are no plans to resubmit it to the Prince William Board of County Supervisors.
“There's no indication right now that it's going to be heard,” he said.
On Jan. 12, Brookfield Homes asked the board to approve a Comprehensive Plan amendment and rezoning request to build 295 homes in the Rural Crescent.
In exchange, the builder would essentially pay for the realignment of Vint Hill Road and would dedicate 77 acres for a school site in the area.
For two hours, residents lined up to speak for and against the request. Most, though not all, opposed the plan, arguing against development in the county's rural area.
Many, however, supported Brookfield because of its promise to fix Vint Hill Road and to give the county valuable land for a new school.
Brentsville District Supervisor Wally Covington (R), in whose district the property lies, indicated support for the plan, although it appeared as though Brookfield did not have enough votes to win approval.
In the end, supervisors voted 6-2 to defer a decision. The two who voted “no,” supervisors Mike May (R-Occoquan) and Maureen Caddigan (R-Dumfries) said they would prefer to veto the idea outright.
The deferral wins Brookfield the right to try again at a later date. Since the public hearing has already been held, the builder could theoretically make a few changes to the proposal and ask for a new vote without having another public hearing.
But Burnszynski said that doesn't seem likely at the moment.
“(Supervisors) didn't indicate what they needed to see done in order to reschedule it,” he said.
Usually, he said, if supervisors defer a request but are seriously considering supporting it later, they'll give the developer a list of problems to fix. The developer then knows what he has to do to win approval at the next vote.
Also, Burnszynski said, supervisors will give the county's planning staff an indication of when they will rehear the request.
Neither of those things happened this time, he said. Supervisors didn't tell Brookfield representatives what problems to fix and they didn't tell the county staff when they want to reconsider the plan. All they did was vote to defer it “indefinitely.”
“Staff won't put it on the agenda without some kind of direction,” from supervisors, he said. “We'd have to get some kind of determination that they're ready to hear it again.”
On Tuesday, Ali Ahmad, a spokesman for Chairman Corey Stewart (R),said only that the board will not bring the issue back up “without adequate public notice.”
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