On April 3,
2018 the Gloucester County Board of Supervisors will hold a public hearing on
changes to the previously approved high-end golf course, residential and
commercial development known as The
Villages of Gloucester. (Previously submitted under the project name, The Barrens)
The
following is an email I sent to the Board of Supervisors. Take a few minutes to
send the Board an email asking them to deny The Villages’ proposal. We have provided the Supervisors' email addresses and the link to the public hearing information at the end of this article.
Kenny Hogge,
Sr.
Greetings
Board Members,
The proffer
statement contained in The Villages of Gloucester’s proposal is lacking to say
the least. Once again, we have a developer who boldly expects Gloucester
taxpayers and utility customers to foot the bill for future infrastructure and
services upgrades that will be a direct result of the proposed development.
This road has already been traveled two times in the past.
When The Villages
of Gloucester was first proposed it was called The Barrens. That proposal was denied by the sitting board
of that time for, among other reasons, not offering reasonable proffers to
offset impacts on the community. One such example was the developers offer to
build a 350,000 water tower instead of a one million gallon tower. (A one million gallon tower that would be
turned over to Utilities was later approved when the proposal was resubmitted under
the new name.) The developers initial offer to build the smaller tower would
have been acceptable if Utilities only provided metered water to the tower and the
development retained possession of the tower and associated distribution
systems within the development. That would mean the development would have to retrofit
their tower to be compatible with Gloucester’s distribution system; not Gloucester retrofitting our system to be compatible with the development. They would also maintain,
repair and replace their tower and distribution system, read meters and bill
and accept payments for water usage within the development. Under such a scenario
there would be little to no impact on Gloucester’s public water system.
Unfortunately,
the current proffer statement eliminates the construction of a water tower all
together. A piece of land that must be claimed by the County within five years is
all that is offered; therefore, when buildout of The Villages reaches a certain
point, the burden of funding the construction of a new tower and associated
piping will fall completely on Utilities’ water customers and Gloucester’s
taxpayers, while the developer walks away with a fat profit. That is not how
free enterprise is supposed to work.
There are several
other items contained, or not contained, in the new proffer statement that will
result in future costly impacts on Gloucester taxpayers. The developer claims
the project will be cost prohibitive if the proffers contained in the
previously approved proffer statement are required to gain approval of their current
submissions. Then maybe Gloucester is not the right place for such a
development or the developer is not the right fit for Gloucester.
Just because
the developer’s project did not come to fruition during the time since it was initially
approved is no excuse for not providing reasonable proffers in their current proposals;
nor is it a valid excuse for the developer to expect Gloucester taxpayers and utility
customers to enhance their profit margin or reduce their losses, whichever may
apply.
The Villages
proposal should not be accepted as being reasonable on numerous levels. Please
deny the proposal.
Kenneth E.
Hogge, Sr.
Gloucester Point
Chris Hutson chutson@gloucesterva.info
Mike Winebarger mwinebarger@gloucesterva.info
Andy James ajames@gloucesterva.info
Robert Orth rorth@gloucesterva.info
Ashley Chriscoe achriscoe@gloucesterva.info
Kevin Smith ksmith@gloucesterva.info
Phillip Bazzani pbazzani@gloucesterva.info
Link to
public hearing information: http://gloucester.granicus.com/DocumentViewer.php?file=gloucester_e2bbe333f33513aa14c4f9877bcd4564.pdf&view=1
