I am writing in response to the recent coverage of the development issues pertaining to the Criglersville School property in Madison County, and specifically today's article by Gracie Hart, “Crigersville Denied”.
For starters, your headline is wrong. It should have read “Board Supports Criglersville Residents by Denying Rezoning Proposal”. The Board of Supervisors (BOS) are voted into their positions by the residents of Madison County with the responsibility to deeply consider the wishes and well-being of those residents. That responsibility makes for some hard decisions. Last week, the BOS made the right decision to turn down a developer’s application to rezone the Criglersville School property as M-1 Industrial. To reach that decision, supervisors talked to many residents, held multiple marathon public meetings, and considered the issues at stake carefully.
The developer's proposal for the Criglersville School property was inappropriate for the site and the community in every way. It would have been nice if the Daily Progress actually gave equal ink to our community's seven page letter of reasonable objections instead of just cutting and pasting the developer's proposal into every article. The suggestion that our objections were some kind of superfluous "NIMBY" reaction is deeply offensive. The majority of residents in Criglersville adamantly objected to the property being turned into an event site, especially one that included 20,000+ square feet of new buildings and amplified music 7 days a week. Imagine if someone wanted to put an event hotel in your back yard—literally. The developer was trying to stuff a high density commercial operation onto 5 acres in a FEMA floodplain wedged between a small family farm, a church and a historic cemetery in the middle of one of the most beautiful valleys in the state.
There is no M-1 designation within at least 7 miles of Criglersville. The request to make the school property M-1 was textbook "spot zoning", which is illegal and sets a terrible precedent for land use planning. The developer's only defense was that it would provide a "public benefit”-- meaning tax revenue. Yet Supervisor Hoffman argued that "supervisors aren’t tasked with judging the solvency of the business, but are there to make sure the conditions are followed and the project is done correctly.” However, if the development isn’t solvent, there are no tax dollars and no “public benefit.” So the BOS was being asked to approve spot zoning on the hope and a prayer that the developer would one day make a profit that might contribute some small sum to the County coffers at the expense of the residents of Criglersville.
It is common knowledge that hospitality is a tough business. Industry experts say that 60% of hospitality companies do not make it past the first year and 80% go under in five years. The developer in this instance has no experience in hospitality. The whole plan was wishful thinking from the start. The BOS tried to find a path that would satisfy all parties, however, the “conditions” regarding noise, traffic, and density that the County considered were unenforceable. The BOS knew it and the developer knew it. The contract expired in September.
The developer got a more than his fair shot at it. The community now welcomes the opportunity to work with the County next spring to find a new proposal that doesn’t corrupt our zoning regulations and irrevocably disturb our lives. We will find a solution that fits with the Criglersville area and genuinely provides a public benefit to the citizens of Madison County.
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