State Reneges On Spotsylvania Bypass

By Deborah Fitts

September 2005

SPOTSYLVANIA COURT HOUSE, Va. — Officials at Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park have a summer mystery of their own to ponder — that of the appearing and disappearing bypass.

The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) was expected to begin building this fall a mile-long highway just south of the Spotsylvania unit of the park. The road would bypass traffic to the north of Spotsylvania Court House and connect two historic roads, Spotsylvania Courthouse Road, running to Fredericksburg, and the Brock Road, from the Wilderness.

But in March VDOT scrapped a measure that would have barred development from springing up along the new roadway. The park objected, and the $22.2 million four-lane went into limbo. Months passed.

Plans call for the bypass to nearly touch the park. Outside of the park boundary, it would run right through a portion of the Confederate line known as Heth’s Salient, for commander Henry Heth. Here on May 12, 1864, Union Gen. Ambrose Burnside attacked a protrusion in the Southern line.

When the bypass deal was hammered out a decade ago, according to park superintendent Russ Smith, the park gave grudging approval. But VDOT agreed in return to certain mitigating measures, among them a promise to provide only “farm access” to a 144-acre farm property.

The restricted access, a farm lane only 10 feet wide, was intended to ensure that the private property — a wedge of land bounded on two sides by the park and the bypass on the third — would not sprout development along the new road.

But the landowners objected that the narrow access would deprive them of the value of their property. VDOT, concerned that damages, the cost of buying the right-of-way and other expenses could top $1 million, backed down and agreed to give the family unrestricted access.

Smith said that VDOT then simply informed the Federal Highway Administration (FHA) of the change, ignoring their own Memorandum of Understanding with the park that spelled out the restricted access.

FHA, which is involved because federal funds will be employed in building the road, OK’d the change.

“That is not the way the game is supposed to be played,” Smith said. Before making any changes, VDOT was “supposed to talk to us,” to the public, and to the State Department of Historic Resources as part of a federal requirement to protect historic property.
The park objected to FHA, and in March the federal agency voided its approval for the unrestricted access. “They called their approval ‘premature,’” Smith explained. He said he hoped that VDOT would come up with “some creative alternative” that would protect the park but give the landowner the right to develop a portion of the property.
But VDOT came back in August with the same plan to give the farm unrestricted access.

Dave Ogle, VDOT district administrator, said the department was simply going through the steps over again to get the necessary approvals for the one change in the original plan. A public meeting was set for Aug. 31.

“I don’t imagine the park is going to like this much,” Ogle admitted. But he said he couldn’t afford to restrict the landowner’s ability to develop. “I don’t want to pay for development rights,” he explained. “I hope everybody understands.”

Ogle also noted that the landowner would still have to obtain the necessary zoning approvals from the county before carrying out a development plan.

Smith’s reaction was to vow to oppose the unrestricted access. If FHA sides with VDOT in agreeing to the access, he said, the park would pursue an appeal.

Meanwhile, the Civil War Preservation Trust is watch-dogging developments. “We’re not opposed to the bypass,” said Trust spokesman Jim Campi, “but we’re opposed to using it as an excuse to open up the northern part of the farm for development.”

Campi suggested preservation of the 144 acres north of the bypass, but allowing the roughly 50 acres of the farm south of the bypass to be developed. “In other words, give the owner a way to make a substantial profit, and still see that the area closest to Heth’s Salient is preserved,” he said.

Campi added, “We hope this won’t become a battle.” But if it does, he said, the Trust has the pro bono support of the Washington firm of Hogan & Hartson.

No matter the outcome, the four-lane bypass itself is bound to degrade the visitor’s experience in the park with noise and other intrusions, Smith predicted. Back when the roadway was approved, “The National Park Service didn’t think it was a good idea to have a bypass on the boundary or go across historic property, but it was not a battle that the park won.”

Today’s local officials are far more sympathetic to historic preservation, Smith noted. “This time there might be more support for an alternative.” Smith came to the park as superintendent in 2003.

In other news at the park, Smith noted that in July developers purchased two parcels totaling 100 acres inside the boundary of the park’s Wilderness unit, in Orange County. The tracts, located on either side of a Union trench line, sold for $1.5 million.

“When it came up for sale our lands office was trying to buy it,” Smith said, “but we can only offer fair market value.”

He said that the developers already own 3,000 acres near the intersection of routes 3 and 20, within a quarter-mile of the battlefield, and the new purchase may somehow figure into their plans.

“It looks like Orange County is going to be one of the next areas of intense development,” Smith said, noting that 2,000 residential units have already been approved for the Route 3 area.