Commission hears corridor plan

Waynesboro City Planner Michael Barnes on Tuesday night debuted a potential long-term plan to develop more than 300 acres along the city’s southern border and pave a new road connecting Rosser and Delphine avenues.

The Waynesboro Planning Commission for the first time heard Barnes summarize a two-month, $15,000 study of the corridor, which hugs Interstate 64, is bordered on the west by the TownCenter and traverses eastward to include Coyner Springs Park, a neighborhood and undeveloped land near Delphine Avenue.

Questions came quickly from commissioners, who sought cost estimates for road paving and details on topography and traffic flow. They also questioned the ability of a city plan to dictate what developments crop up.

“It’s a good plan, but it has a lot of obstacles,” Vice Mayor Frank Lucent said, echoing others’ concerns.

As suggested by Barnes, the southern corridor includes five tracts of land.

First, in the west, are 80 acres of “TownCenter residue” land behind the shopping center and a potential 50-acre business-technology park near nTelos headquarters on Shenandoah Village Drive. The corridor continues east to the third swatch, Coyner Springs Park, which includes wetlands and a water treatment plant. Tract four spans between Lyndhurst Road and the South River. The final 180 corridor acres span from the river to Delphine Avenue.

“It hasn’t been well-integrated into the city,” Barnes said of the land.

Starting in June, independent consulting firm LandDesign surveyed the area with the directive to connect Rosser and Delphine without weaving a road into nearby Augusta County land, Barnes said.

Consultants emphasized the land span as a cohesive corridor, said Barnes, who reiterated that attitude to the commission. Barnes described a corridor as cohesive, with a name brand.

To date, the Shenandoah Village Drive area has been “opportunity-focused,” Barnes said.

“When an opportunity came along, we put it there,” Barnes said of nTelos and Polymer Group Incorporated, now located on the drive. “It’s a little bit disjointed.”

Barnes repeatedly reminded the commission of the corridor study’s long-term approach.

Yet nuanced, practical engineering questions persisted. The suggested road, which could take a number of paths, would cross a railway, the South River and wetlands. Road engineering was not considered in the study, Barnes said.

Commissioner Terry Short questioned why $13,000 was spent on the study when any city planner could have imagined a road through the area.

“It’s not new information,” Short said, asking the value of such a plan.

“If you don’t tell people what you want and you don’t imagine what the future is, you’ll have less control over what it will be,” Barnes replied.

Short questioned how the city could regulate aesthetics or the specific businesses that could occupy the corridor.

Commission Vice Chairman David Bihl also asked if Lyndhurst Road would feel like a divider in the corridor, thereby negating cohesion.

“I think you’re asking the right questions,” Barnes said. “I think it is the idea that if you can create a more attractive area in the city-owned property it helps support and create the environment.”

Barnes estimated the road cost at $5 million, plus as much as $4 million for a bridge crossing over the railway.

In other commission business, Gregory Bruno was voted chairman and former chairman Bihl became vice chair.

Bruno, addressing Barnes and the southern corridor’s development cost, said “not spending money is a good thing in these times.”

“Let’s take the long view on this thing,” Barnes replied, stepping back from the podium. “It’s a 20-year plan.”