The Gloucester County Planning Commission has recommended converting a proposed Planned Unit Development to another zoning designation.
Timberneck, LLC, the owner of the property at Coke, filed an application to amend the Gloucester County Zoning Map to reclassify approximately 645 acres from PUD-1 (Planned Unit Development District) to SC-1 (Suburban Countryside). The property is located in the York Magisterial District at the end of Borden Road.
Following the recommendation of the planning commission, the Gloucester Board of Supervisors voted May 5, 2008 to approve the PUD. Since then, little has been developed on that site, planner Sean McNash said, with only a road, gate house and a dock being built. The property was never subdivided into home lots.
The only house on the property is the historic Catlett house, McNash said, and no other houses have been built. He said the PUD might not have been well received at that time because of tight economic conditions and the strict building standards proposed for the project were not popular with potential home buyers.
The applicant is proposing to develop a total of 49 residential lots—the same number as in the PUD, McNash said.
The application said Timberneck, LLC, wants to limit the overall density to a maximum of 49 lots. However, the SC-1 designation usually would have a maximum of 300 housing units, he said.
The rezoning request contains voluntary proffers, including restructuring the non-residential uses permitted on the property and requiring conformance with a master plan.
A public notice said the county’s Comprehensive Plan’s Future Land Use Plan identifies this area as Suburban Countryside and Conservation within the Development District where residential development with extensive open space of a more rural nature than typical suburban development occurs and existing wetlands and other natural features are protected through conservation easements and similar measures.
An archaeological study of the site was conducted earlier, McNash said, and there are some graves on the property.
Earlier, some of the conservation lands were donated to the College of William and Mary, he said. Some of the property is farmland and long leaf pine.
After the rezoning hearing Thursday night in the colonial courthouse, the commission held a subdivision review on the Timberneck plat. The commission granted some design waivers, he said, which are contingent upon the Timberneck rezoning being approved by the Gloucester Board of Supervisors. Only a couple people spoke during the hearing, with no opposition.
In other matters, McNash said the commission will hold a work session on the Capital Improvement Plan at 7 p.m. next Thursday, Oct. 19.