WILLIAMSBURG — Cale Development LLC has withdrawn its application to rezone a city-owned parcel on Strawberry Plains Road.
The rezoning would have allowed for the construction of a high-density townhome development called Landmark Village on the 13.91-acre parcel. An initial site plan called for the construction of 120 homes, 15 of which would have been designated as affordable housing.
The plan was met with resistance early on, when some opponents questioned the effects of more vehicles on Strawberry Plains Road, particularly during the pickup and drop-off times at nearby Berkeley Middle School. Others said that developing the property, which backs up to William & Mary’s 1,200-acre College Woods, would do irreparable harm to topography and ecosystems, and compromise the school’s ability to use the College Woods for education.
Cale Development manager John Cale spent months talking to stakeholders and addressing their concerns. Consultants met with Berkeley Middle School administration to devise traffic mitigation strategies. Cale reduced the number of homes in Landmark Village to 112, removed some of the side streets and added greenspace and environmental protections.
But, Cale said, ultimately the project lacked the needed support.
“It has become abundantly clear that City officials will not support this project,” Cale Development attorney Lindsey Carney wrote in a May 2 email to Williamsburg Planning and Codes Compliance Director Tevya Griffin.
Carney said Cale Development’s vision included a commitment to add to the city’s insufficient inventory of affordable homes.
“It was a perfect project for the City of Williamsburg — the city that commissioned a housing study that confirmed the lack of workforce housing and deemed said housing product a priority,” Carney wrote.
The difficulties that his firm encountered mirrors larger trends, according to Cale. Housing affordability “is a nationwide problem and one of the biggest contributors to this problem is opposition to new development in local municipalities,” he said.
While Landmark Village met a demand identified by the city, aligned with the comprehensive plan, had planning staff support and a unanimous vote of the City Council to sell the property, the rezoning still proved unattainable, Cale said.
“That certainly doesn’t send a good message to developers looking to invest time and capital into the city to help address this problem,” he said.
William & Mary biology professors Randy Chambers and Helen Murphy lauded Cale’s willingness to address traffic and environmental issues. They also commended city policymakers and staff for welcoming and responding to citizen feedback.
“But in the end, it became clear that a high-density development was just not what the residents wanted to see on their land,” Murphy said. “For those of us with environmental, teaching and research concerns, we don’t want to see any development at all on that parcel.”
Murphy said she hopes to find a way to preserve the property.
Now that the rezoning application has been withdrawn, a new application to develop this property would require navigating the entire review process from the beginning, said city spokeswoman Nicole Trifone.
City Council is open to considering any proposals for the parcel but has no plans to market it, she said.
Ben Swenson, ben.swenson05@gmail.com
