A public hearing for the Hickory Grove cases – a comp plan amendment and a rezoning – is scheduled for the August 24 Board of Supervisors’ meeting in their evening session at 6:00 p.m.

Applicant Hickory Hill II, LLC is seeking a comprehensive plan amendment (CPA2021-00001) to change the land use on 52 acres at the intersection of Rte 54 and Providence Church Road to Commercial, Suburban General and Suburban High for a massive, suburban-style development.

The proposed rezoning (REZ2021-00014) features a total of 203 townhomes (RS, single-family and RM, multi-family) crammed on approximately 43 acres and three speculative commercial pad sites on 9 acres fronting on Rte 54.

The Hickory Grove development would create a hardened, suburban-type boundary east of Ashland with all the thorny issues: increased traffic on overburdened Rte 54, cut-through traffic on Jamestown Road, leapfrog interstate commercial a mile from the I-95 corridor, light and noise pollution, increased impervious surface, environmental degradation and loss of rural character.

This type of aggressive development fractures the gentle transition between suburban and rural, the very characteristic undergirding the rural character that Hanover citizens value. This development is unacceptable, grievously so, especially in light of the ongoing Comprehensive Plan update when energy and attention need to be focused on comprehensive, not piecemeal, land use planning.

To the west of Ashland, another festering set of cases . . .

Ashland Planning Commission will conduct public hearings August 10, 6:00 p.m. in Town Hall on three connected cases from applicant Todd Rogers, Rogers-Chenault, Inc., involving a 3.642-acre parcel for Luck Farm Market, a proposed restaurant and farmers market-style grocery store development.

CPA2022-03 seeks a Comprehensive Land Use change on the parcel from Open Space classification to Neighborhood Commercial.

REZ22-0414 & ORD2022-04 request rezoning of the parcel from Residential Rural to Neighborhood Commercial.

CUP22-0627A & CUP22-0627B request conditional use permits, respectively, for the farmers market-style grocery store and restaurant over 2500 square feet. Both are permitted uses within the Neighborhood Commercial zoning district.

Many residents are dismayed by the jarring changes Luck Farm Market would bring. Loss of open space buffer; hardening of a transition into a residential area previously developed as Rural Conservation; more traffic, light and noise. At its core, the development would damage the transition between suburban and rural.

Be in contact with your elected and appointed officials of Town and County. https://hanoversfuture.org/Contacts/

Don’t allow your future to be handed to you.

The citizen voice matters.

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