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Last Updated: Nov 14, 2008 - 12:49:26 PM |
In what is being considered by some as an unprecedented move to stop a development, last week attorney Will Shemake represented the owners and residents of Wellington Farms in closing an access through their subdivision to a proposed 151-lot development. Fox Chappell Rd. is a planned stub road in the Wellington Farms development that could have been used to access The Wilton Company’s Centralia Station project.
The planning commission last Tuesday agreed in a 3 -2 vote to allow Wellington to close the stub road, waiving the county’s connectivity policy, thereby shutting down the Centralia Station tentative subdivision plan. Any development must have two access roads if it is to have more than 50 lots. Centralia Station needed access through Wellington to satisfy county policy.
After Centralia area residents cited concerns, the Centralia Station subdivision plan was put on the planning commission agenda. Typically, those types of plans are decided by planning staff. Wellington Farms hired Shewmake to stop the Centralia Station development on the grounds that it would put more traffic through Wellington and because the homes proposed to be built in the neighboring Centralia Station would be smaller and much less expensive.
Shewmake’s strategy was to have the access cut off (returned to open space), thereby crippling Wilton’s development. Both cases ended up on the same agenda. Bermuda District Planning Commissioner Sam Hassen asked that the Wellington case be heard first and motioned that the stub road be closed and the connectivity policy be waived.
When that motion was approved, the Centralia Station case was dead in the water. Planning Director Kirk Turner said that the planning staff would recommend that the Centralia Station tentative subdivision approval be deferred because it no longer fit the county’s subdivision ordinance now having only one access.
The Centralia Station case was deferred for 30 days after a motion by Hassen. Wilton will have 30 days to work out a compromise, redesign their subdivision and finding a different second access, or ask the courts to rule on the decision.
In the meantime, the board of supervisors may have to hear the Wellington Farms case because it involves the vacating of property.
The attorney for Wilton, John Easter of Williams Mullen, says his client is and has been willing to work with Centralia residents on a solution.
“We are still considering all options; it’s too early to tell exactly what we will do.”
Easter, who, along with attorney John Cogbill, represented Wilton on the Centrailia Station and Wellington Farms cases, says Wilton will continue its efforts to get the approval of area residents and the county.
“We have reached out [to residents] and are willing to be flexible; to see if we can find some middle ground.”
The Centralia Station tentative subdivision approval will be on the September 16 planning commission agenda.
mfausz@villagepublishing.com | 751-0421
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