Chancellorsville Developer’s Changes Don’t
Satisfy Critics
By Deborah Fitts
November
SPOTSYLVANIA COUNTY, Va. — Apparently heeding
a chorus of objections to his plans, a developer in late September
said he would reduce the size of a major residential and commercial
development pro-posed at the doorstep of the Chancellorsville
battlefield.
Ray Smith Jr. trimmed his request by several hundred homes,
from nearly 2400 to 1900. He similarly reduced his planned commercial
and retail space.
But preservationists weren’t buying it. “This is
something we’re not likely to be fooled by,” said
Jim Campi, spokesman for the Civil War Preservation Trust. “He
made a humongous and inappropriate plan slightly less hu-mongous
but still inappropriate.”
Smith as Dogwood Development Group of Reston, Va., is seeking
a rezoning to allow the project, which adjoins Fredericksburg
& Spotsylvania National Military Park on Route 3 just east
of the battlefield.
The Trust is spearheading a coalition of preservation groups
that has cited devastating traffic and other impacts on the
battlefield from the development.
John Hennessy, acting superintendent at the park, also was unimpressed
by Smith’s reduction. “It’s still a daunting
proposal,” he said.
Campi said Smith and his colleagues in the development industry
had sent out a mailing to residents and were mounting a “disinformation
campaign,” charging that preservation groups had been
given the chance to buy the 800-acre property but turned it
down. “Which is definitely not true,” Campi said.
The pro-development groups were also asserting that support
for preservation came from outside the county. Campi noted that
a poll commissioned by the Trust showed that 66 percent of county
voters polled oppose the Dogwood plan, while fully 90 percent
felt that the county had a responsibility to protect its historic
resources.
Campi said the coalition would continue to voice objections
to the Dogwood plan. “We’re going to continue fighting
this thing till we find a way to preserve this battlefield,”
he said.
