If you live in District 3 and are concerned about runaway development, Independent candidate Bill Burnet deserves your vote to serve on the Board of Supervisors. At Wednesday's Meet The Candidates event at Goochland High School, Burnet made a strong showing by demonstrating a clear understanding and vision for how our county should develop. A Mechanical Engineering graduate from Virginia Tech with an MBA from Carnegie Mellon, Burnet ran circles around the two other candidates in District 3. So far, Burnet is the only candidate to take us up on our offer to share his views on how to Keep Goochland Beautiful. Following is his essay:The current pace of rapid residential development is on the verge of overwhelming our fragile infrastructure. The impacts that this residential development is having on the county is manifesting itself in myriad ways with symptoms becoming more and more apparent. The recent spurt in residential growth is already straining our county’s fragile infrastructure in our public schools, volunteer fire/rescue, sheriff’s department, county administration and roads. The county currently targets population growth of between 2-2.5% annually. In 2005, the county’s population growth was in excess of 5%, which is completely unsustainable going forward. As growth continues, it should be focused within the identified villages to help preserve open space in the surrounding rural area and we must ensure that our infrastructure is adequately funded to keep pace with the growth that the county is experiencing. This is exactly why we need to diversify our tax base, to help fund the county’s growing infrastructure needs while subsidizing the impact on county taxpayers and allowing for the purchase of open space to preserve the county’s rural character. 
Evidence of the strain of residential growth and its impacts are readily evident with our volunteer fire/rescue already filling gaps in volunteer staffing coverage with contract EMS support during the day and on some nights/weekends where staffing shortages may jeopardize public safety. I believe that career fire/rescue will be required in the future (this is not a question of if but a question of when). This must be done delicately so as to ensure that the volunteers are not “run off” as they are the lifeblood on the firehouses around the county and must be kept in the fold. I believe that the county should pursue a hybrid staffing model where we augment our volunteer staff with career fire/rescue employees to ensure adequate staffing, reduce response times and ensure that all calls are answered. Our sheriff’s department is also being stressed by the continued growth and increased traffic that occurred with the opening of 288 through West Creek. Increased traffic from 288 having opened is causing increasing nu
mbers of accidents requiring a deputy to respond.
The impacts that the residential development is having on our roads is a public safety risk. Our board says that public safety is their number one priority; however they continue to allow new cuts to be made in our roads without ensuring the safe flow of traffic by not requiring left and right turn lanes at these cuts from developers. I will ensure that any new developments protect the current and future residents of the county by ensuring that both left and right turn lanes are built when new entrances/cuts are made in our roads. I would point to “The Parke at Centerville” (Hockett Road, Rte 623, ~0.5 miles south of Broad Street) as the gold standard in providing both left & right turn lanes as well as a bike lane when constructing the entrance to the new subdivision. I would point to Bridgewater East and West as something significantly less than that (Route 250 ~1.5 miles west of Fairground Road). In this case, only a right turn lane was required for westbound US 250 traffic at the East entrance, and no turn lanes were required for Bridgewater West. Both of these cuts occur in a 55 mph zone near the bottom of a very large hill around a significant, blind curve. This is a public safety nightmare waiting to happen, and it was approved by our current Board.
To preserve the county’s rural character and open space under the onslaught of residential development, the county needs to be acquiring tracts of open land throughout the county (note that the Board of Supervisors currently sets aside $0.01 of the tax rate annually for land acquisition, yet has not announced a single purchase to date). In addition, the county needs to do everything that it can to help the farmers and agricultural producers preserve their land for agricultural production. Once that land is developed it will never become open space again. The “land use” taxation category is one means to help farmers pay a much lower tax rate on their agricultural lands and should be continued. If these lands were taxed at the normal “land” tax rate, the large tax bill could immediately force these farmers to sell their land to developers. The use of preservation easements and land trusts should be encouraged by the county to further help preserve open space through preferential tax treatment while maintaining right of agricultural use of the land. Without agricultural production in the county, Goochland will lose one of the major components of its rural character as well as significant chunks of open space and that would be a terrible shame.
Evidence of the strain of residential growth and its impacts are readily evident with our volunteer fire/rescue already filling gaps in volunteer staffing coverage with contract EMS support during the day and on some nights/weekends where staffing shortages may jeopardize public safety. I believe that career fire/rescue will be required in the future (this is not a question of if but a question of when). This must be done delicately so as to ensure that the volunteers are not “run off” as they are the lifeblood on the firehouses around the county and must be kept in the fold. I believe that the county should pursue a hybrid staffing model where we augment our volunteer staff with career fire/rescue employees to ensure adequate staffing, reduce response times and ensure that all calls are answered. Our sheriff’s department is also being stressed by the continued growth and increased traffic that occurred with the opening of 288 through West Creek. Increased traffic from 288 having opened is causing increasing nu
mbers of accidents requiring a deputy to respond.The impacts that the residential development is having on our roads is a public safety risk. Our board says that public safety is their number one priority; however they continue to allow new cuts to be made in our roads without ensuring the safe flow of traffic by not requiring left and right turn lanes at these cuts from developers. I will ensure that any new developments protect the current and future residents of the county by ensuring that both left and right turn lanes are built when new entrances/cuts are made in our roads. I would point to “The Parke at Centerville” (Hockett Road, Rte 623, ~0.5 miles south of Broad Street) as the gold standard in providing both left & right turn lanes as well as a bike lane when constructing the entrance to the new subdivision. I would point to Bridgewater East and West as something significantly less than that (Route 250 ~1.5 miles west of Fairground Road). In this case, only a right turn lane was required for westbound US 250 traffic at the East entrance, and no turn lanes were required for Bridgewater West. Both of these cuts occur in a 55 mph zone near the bottom of a very large hill around a significant, blind curve. This is a public safety nightmare waiting to happen, and it was approved by our current Board.
To preserve the county’s rural character and open space under the onslaught of residential development, the county needs to be acquiring tracts of open land throughout the county (note that the Board of Supervisors currently sets aside $0.01 of the tax rate annually for land acquisition, yet has not announced a single purchase to date). In addition, the county needs to do everything that it can to help the farmers and agricultural producers preserve their land for agricultural production. Once that land is developed it will never become open space again. The “land use” taxation category is one means to help farmers pay a much lower tax rate on their agricultural lands and should be continued. If these lands were taxed at the normal “land” tax rate, the large tax bill could immediately force these farmers to sell their land to developers. The use of preservation easements and land trusts should be encouraged by the county to further help preserve open space through preferential tax treatment while maintaining right of agricultural use of the land. Without agricultural production in the county, Goochland will lose one of the major components of its rural character as well as significant chunks of open space and that would be a terrible shame.In conclusion, the rapid residential development is on the verge of overwhelming our fragile infrastructure. Without swift and significant action, the unfunded service needs from all of this residential construction will be left to be paid for by all of the county’s residents in the form of rapidly escalating tax bills and further deteriorating infrastructure. To combat this, the county must diversify its tax base to become less reliant upon residential real estate tax revenue and personal property taxes by bringing additional business and commercial tax base to the county.
Bill Burnet
Candidate for Goochland County Board of Supervisors, District 3
http://www.voteburnet.com/
voteburnet@comcast.net
Bill Burnet
Candidate for Goochland County Board of Supervisors, District 3
http://www.voteburnet.com/
voteburnet@comcast.net
No comments:
Post a Comment