Editor’s note: this email was sent out by Tim Tolson in Crozet:
Also, I want to alert you to a VERY IMPORTANT CROZET AREA MEETING next Thursday, January 21st at 7:00 PM at The Field School. This meeting is about the huge proposed industrial park at the Intersection of Route 250 and I-64, slated to be at least TWICE the size of Fashion Square Mall.
Please attend this meeting, YOUR input on this proposed project, that would expand the Crozet Growth Area, is essential.
The Yancey family has submitted a Comprehensive Plan amendment to rezone 84 acres on the southeast corner of the Interstate 64/Route 250 intersection to ‘light industrial’ for the construction of an industrial park that would contain from 1.1 million to 1.8 million square feet of buildings.
On January 21 at 7 p.m. at the Field School (the Old Crozet Elementary School across from the current Crozet Elementary School), the public will have a chance to react to a county study on light industrial land in the County, and give county staff you input regarding the study, which will include a section that addresses this proposed rezoning. This study will first be presented to the Planning Commission two days prior, on January 19.
As Mike Marshall, editor of the Crozet Gazette said in this month’s issue: “… [the] adoption of the Yancey proposal would likely shift the economic center of Crozet to Rt. 250 and result in a commercial highway build-up at the Interstate similar to what we see happening in Waynesboro, and many other Virginia towns that have sadly lost their traditional walkable downtowns to sprawl. Avoiding those mistakes was the whole point of planning in the first place. Crozet has plenty of light industrial space yet and a capacity for more. But the outcome of this question is fraught with politics and money. Crozet is at, as Churchhill would say, a hinge of fate.”
Pro or con, we need your voice on this matter. The Board of Supervisors last week adopted an “action plan” that included the following item regarding the Yancey property – “Yancey Mills and 250 East Corridor from 1-64 to Shadwell Store – The report on available light industrial zoning should be expedited and a report on the possibility of expansion of this type of zoning in these areas should be brought back to the board in the first quarter of the year for discussion and possible action.”
Please attend this meeting if you can! We are counting on the people of Crozet and friends in other parts of the to give county staff and supervisors their feedback about rezonings on Route 250.
Please feel free to call or email me (contact info listed below) if you have questions or need directions to the Field School.
Thanks and I hope to see you on January 21 at 7 p.m. at the Field School in Crozet!
Because of tonight’s forecast of ice and snow, the meeting has been postponed til next Thursday, January 28 at 7 pm, still at the Field School. Hope to still see a big crowd next week!