Plans scratched for development on Johnson Mountain

Plans for an expansive luxury housing development on Johnson Mountain have been scrapped and the owner, NASCAR Craftsman truck driver Stacy Compton, said he will sell off the land.

The roughly 1,200 acres that straddles Bedford and Campbell counties now makes up eight lots, ranging from 65 acres to 333 acres. Planning commissioners approved the new preliminary layout during Monday’s meeting.

“We tried several times to do something up there and it just hasn’t seemed to work out like we wanted it to,” Compton said. “After thinking about it and looking at what we’re trying to do without being very successful, we just elected to concentrate our efforts in another area other than developing a mountain.”

Compton unveiled plans for the project in November 2006, outlining a high-end residential project that spanned almost seven miles of Johnson Mountain. Plans called for numerous outdoor amenities and about 600 homes. When Campbell supervisors denied a request to rezone the land from agriculture to residential single-family, Compton said he would proceed with plans “by right” and set to develop about 400 homes.

In May 2008, Campbell supervisors rejected a request to extend public utilities to the property, which is in a remote part of Evington. Compton was working with a Richmond-based development group, and the utilities request was a pre-cursor to another rezoning effort on the property. Work was done on an elaborate entrance as well as parts of the property had been cleared, however Compton ran into trouble with serious erosion and sediment violations, almost having the $2,000 bond revoked.

Compton said he is focusing on his racing in Charlotte as well as preparing to open a restaurant in the Altavista strip-mall he developed.

“I guess the effort we were having to put into that property just didn’t make a lot of sense,” Compton said. “Instead of doing a real nice high-end development, (county planners) want to keep that area agricultural and OK, if that’s the direction they prefer.”