Public Hearing for Proposed Gas Station/Convenience Store on Route 250 – Before the Albemarle County Planning Commission
There will be a public hearing for the proposed RestoreNStation gas station/convenience store looking to be located on Route 250 on April 20 at 6 p.m. at the Downtown County Office Building, Lane Auditorium, on the 2nd floor.
Please be aware that sometimes agendas for these meetings can change, so check this website for any possible changes. (check here). This e-mail list will be updated if there are any changes to the agenda for the evening.
The public hearing will give citizens a chance to express their opinions about the proposed RestoreNStation gas station/convenience store, which, if approved, will be the second largest gas station in the county. The proposed project is on a lot near the Brownsville Market and the high school, and in front of the community known as Freetown. The proposed gas station/convenience store will service cars and diesel semi-trucks, both from local traffic and traffic on Interstate 64. There are several issues being reviewed by the County with relation to this proposed gas station/convenience store, some of which have been taken up by the Architectural Review Board. A VDOT traffic study is currently completed in order to fulfill a legal requirement for the project, as the applicant projects that the project will generate at least 2,500 additional trips on Route 250 per day- 25% more trips than are currently recorded on that section of Route 250. This increased tra ffic projection currently does not include diesel trucks coming from the interstate.
This public hearing will be on the water aspects of the project. For background, you can read the Crozet Gazette article about the project from its January issue, if you haven’t already. It can be found online at:
The applicant for this project is looking to build on land that is zoned Highway Commercial, (from the old pre-Master Planning days). However, the project is not connected to water and sewer, and the County Zoning Administrator has determined that the applicant needs a special use permit, given the size of the proposed development and its water consumption. Any applicant needs to get a Special Use Permit to build when the County determines that you are going to pull more than 400 gallons of water per site acre per day for a project. The site is approximately 4 acres in size, which would give the applicant an allotment of 1,600 gallons of water per day to pull from the ground, (4 acres x 400 gallons per site acre per day).
The County has determined that the project will use more than the allotted 1,600 gallons per day. So, the applicant has asked for a Special Use Permit to use more than their water allotment. Although the applicant maintains that they won?t use their full allotment of water, he did not make an appeal to the County on this matter, so the Special Use Permit requirement will be addressed at this Planning Commission meeting.
Public Hearing for RestoreNStation – April 20 at 6 p.m. at the Downtown County Office Building, Lane Auditorium, on the 2nd floor.
Do we really need the second largest gas station and convenience store in the county on 250???? We already have more than enough gas stations on that stretch! This is totally being placed to attract semi trucks off of 64. Like we can really use the added traffic there!
Show up at the CCAC meeting and voice your opinion on this!
Sounds like a good way to raise the tax revenues of the county without taxing the residential home owners. That section of Rt. 250 is more than big enough to handle the traffic….VDot will make sure of that.
The BIGGER question to me is why the county can hold up a by-right use that is within the water/sewer service district based on usage. This is just another example why businesses (insert JOBS & TAX REVENUE) shun Albemarle County and locate just outside the counties borders.
Those fringe businesses still impact the county. Our residents go to shop there (Target/Martins/Lowes/Wal-Mart/Home Depot). Albemarle residents drive our roads, live in our communities, use our services (Fire/Water/Police/Rescue) go to our schools but spend their tax dollars in other counties. Albemarle has all the cost but not the sales and commercial property taxes to support county services. The last 12 years are coming home to roost.
The amount of commercial tax revenue lost over the last few years are almost exactly the same in dollars as the combined increase of commercial tax revenue of Augusta, Greene and Louisa combined.
Does anyone want to argue the impact of those fringe business have not impacted traffic, schools and services provided by Albemarle County. Obviously they have but not a dime in TAX REVENUES has come to Albemarle County to offset those impacts.
I would like to know how big the first largest gas station/convenience store is and where it is located so we could have a look see.
I am interested in how large of a highway sign with light pollution is going in along 64 or on 250 to advertise something of this size. How tall will it be? How large?
I am interested in how the additional traffic on 250 will be handled with large semi-trucks when there is already a huge traffic jam there during school and rush hour combined.
There are more ways to bring in tax revenues than to have something like this go in.