By John Wayne – December 2021
The Land Use Committee is charged with continually understanding new and proposed developments at the Lake, keeping our membership apprised of what is happening around the Lake. In the next few months, we will provide the latest information on developments occurring on or near the lake in Spotsylvania and Louisa Counties. For this month however, we wanted to provide an update on the status of the Special Use Permit for Four Seasons RV Park.
As I hope you are already aware, the largest and most controversial proposed development on the Spotsylvania County side of the lake is the Four Seasons RV Park. 
The current proposal has the developer seeking a Special Use Permit (SUP) under the existing Resort-Agricultural zoning of this combined 135-acre tract located in the northeast corner of the lake on Pamunkey Creek. The proposal includes 300 RV Sites, 90 of which may be permanent “Park Model RV’s”, a restaurant, lounge, pools, gyms, an amphitheater, a marina with 49 slips and bait shop, and many other amenities. LACA polled its membership early in 2021 and determined that over 90% of our responding membership are opposed to this development on Pamunkey Creek. Based on this data, LACA has continued to be in active opposition to this development, the first time in our history we have done so. Your LACA representatives and many other concerned citizens have met with County Planning Commission staff and members, County Supervisors, and other officials voicing our concerns and opposition.
On November 17th, a public hearing was held by the Planning Commission where over 200 of your neighbors were in attendance. The Public Comment period was led off by our President Greg Baker, who provided the top four reasons why the SUP for the RV Park should not be approved. Greg was followed by 48 other concerned citizens, who for two- and one-half hours provided reason after reason why the Four Seasons RV Park will be significantly detrimental to the Upper Pamunkey Branch, the citizens who make up the communities in that area, and Lake Anna as a whole. Next, statements that had been sent to the Planning Commission by over 250 concerned citizens began to be read into the record of the hearing. This continued until approximately 12:30 AM when the reading was suspended until the next Planning Commission Meeting, scheduled for December 1, 2021.
On December 1st the Planning Commission met to resume reading of the statements sent by concerned citizens. As there remained many statements to be read, an agreement was reached early in this meeting that, if necessary, reading would conclude at 10:00 pm, and commence again with any remaining statements to be read at the Planning Commission meeting scheduled for January 5, 2022. Reading continued until close to 10:00 at which time two individuals who had requested to make in person statements were heard, and with no other business to be conducted, the meeting was adjourned.
We will want to continue to pressure our elected officials to deny this SUP. By the time you read this article the Board of Supervisors meeting scheduled for December will have occurred and while they will not be considering this development at that meeting, I hope that some from the community will have taken advantage of the public comment period, available during every Board of Supervisor meeting, to let the Supervisors know the depth of the public opposition to this RV Park. It will be important that a good representation from the concerned citizens be present at all meetings until this SUP is defeated.
Please plan to attend the next Planning Commission meeting on the 5th of January. Continued Statement reading should take about an hour or so, and then the Commission will hear a rebuttal from the Developer, followed by questions from the Commission. A vote at the Planning Commission level is likely at this meeting. There are currently no updates on the calendar for the Supervisors meetings for 2022. Normally they meet on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of the Month and presuming a Planning Commission vote in their January 5th meeting, the earliest the Board of Supervisors could act on this decision is their first meeting in February. If this occurs, we will want to have a large contingent of folks there to make statements in opposition to this SUP. Please continue to watch the LACA - Land Use – Four Seasons RV Park web page, https://www.lakeannavirginia.org/page-18174 , for information on opportunities to continue to indicate the community’s opposition to this development on Lake Anna.
john.wayne@lakeannavirginia.org
