Lynchburg planned development to face public hearings again

City Council has decided to put a controversial town home proposal through a new round of public hearings after receiving a revised plan from the project’s developer.

The original design of the Holly Hill Townhomes project envisioned 75 town houses off Graves Mill Road, near the Bedford County line. The developer reduced that to 50 last week in hopes of quelling neighborhood concerns.

Residents of the adjacent Maple Hills subdivision have been passionately opposed to the project, believing it will negatively affect the area’s character and degrade their quality of life.

The zoning of the Holly Hill site requires the developer to secure a conditional use permit from City Council before moving forward. Council had the option to vote on that request Tuesday, but felt it first needed to hear from both neighbors and planning commissioners.

The commissioners voted against the original plan when it came up for review earlier this year.

“I’m not going to feel comfortable going forward without the input of the planning commission,” Councilman Mike Gillette said.

Gillette, the ward representative for this part of the city, has spoken against Holly Hill before and continued to voice concerns Tuesday.

Council kicked the issue back to the planning commission with the understanding that it will come back to council in August, at which time it will be put to a vote.

Officials do plan to hold another public hearing then to allow for additional community comment. The planning commission also has the option to hold its own hearing.

Additional hearings are not strictly required in this case because the revised plan is less intensive than the original.

In other news from Tuesday’s meeting:

w Council decided by a narrow margin to revisit a defeated proposal for affordable senior housing.

The John H. Wellons Foundation, a North Carolina-based nonprofit, hopes to build an apartment complex for low-income seniors on Old Graves Mill Road, next door to the Kroger.

The proposal drew vocal opposition from the neighboring Stonegate Villas development and was voted down by council in April.

Councilman Turner Perrow, the ward representative for the area, asked that the matter be reconsidered. Perrow originally voted against the proposal, but said he has since learned more about the project and changed his position.

Council decided by a 4-3 margin to allow the issue to come back for another vote. It’s expected to return during the July 14 meeting.

w Council did not issue a decision on the potential sale of the Main Street Galleria, a prominent downtown building connected to City Hall.

The city has the first-right-of-refusal any time the Galleria comes onto the market, an arrangement that dates back to the development of the three-story commercial building in the 1980s.

The city has been notified that a sale of the property is now in the works. Council met in closed session to discuss the issue, but did not announce any decision.

w Council revised the permit for the controversial Cornerstone development to correct what some said was a clerical error.

Cornerstone is a massive mixed-use development covering 113 acres off Greenview Drive. Its construction was ardently opposed by the Windsor Hills neighborhood.

The project’s permit limits the number of multi-family units it can include. When that document was last revised in 2008, a new restriction was written in that defined multi-family housing as condominiums only.

A majority of council said it was never their intent to impose such a condition. The term multi-family housing would usually be more broadly construed and include both condominiums and apartments.

Officials voted 4-2 to remove the restriction. Perrow abstained because he was not in office when the earlier deliberations took place. Councilmen Scott Garrett and Jeff Helgeson dissented.

Helgeson, the ward representative, said neighbors had been told the project would not include apartments. Changing the language now was unfair, he said.

w Council amended the city code to reflect a new procurement agreement struck with the city schools.

The city will now be responsible for making all school purchases exceeding $30,000 — an arrangement that marks the first step in what officials hope will be a serious consolidation effort between the two operations.

Consolidation of certain administrative functions has been suggested periodically in the past, but never aggressively pursued. That’s changed in the wake of the school division’s controversial 2008 deficit and the onset of a recession that has officials searching for new ways to maximize efficiency.