Condo projects no longer pursued

The Culpeper Town Planning Commission should have a shorter-than-usual meeting tonight.

That’s because two separate rezoning requests for condo-like developments have been withdrawn from consideration, one of them for good — the victim of a weak economy.

Moorefield Station
Landowner Richard Dwyer of Culpeper said Monday that he withdrew plans and the rezoning request for a multi-family housing and commercial project along Route 3 because “the guy who was going to develop it backed out.”

“His finances fell through,” Dwyer said. “What it really was is the market.”

The request was to rezone 3.7 acres from residential-2 to commercial-3, making way for Moorefield Station — 32 apartments in two, multilevel buildings with shops, up to 60,000 square feet worth, on the bottom. The project was to be located along Route 3 in town near Broad Street on a triangular piece of property near the railroad.

Town staff recommended denial of the rezoning application because of an “unacceptable” proffer statement and the lack of a traffic impact analysis.

Dwyer said in the future, if and when he decides to develop the property, he would do so by-right — that is, as residential-2, and without a land rezoning.

“Something else will eventually be brought forward,” he said. “It won’t just sit there.”

Fletcher’s Glen
In another area of town, on the east side of Madison Road, a 224-unit condo project planned for several multi-story buildings is being postponed — for now.

Culpeper homebuilder Kenton Dunn, a member of the Town Planning Commission and managing member for Fletcher’s Glen LLC, submitted a letter to the planning department this month withdrawing the project’s rezoning application.

“We will be filing a by-right application to re-plat our (residential-2) zoned area shortly from town homes to multi-family condominiums,” he wrote.

The request from Fletcher’s Glen LLC was to rezone about 23.2 acres from residential-1 and residential-2 to the more dense residential-3 zoning.

No word on what the new development will look like or when it will be resubmitted.

The commission held a work session May 8 to consider Dunn’s project, at which time staff raised issues regarding increased traffic, how the development mitigates the increase in density and the lack of proffers to address the impact on schools.

Lakeview
One residential project that’s still moving along is Lakeview, the town’s largest new subdivision along Sperryville Pike.

At Tuesday’s meeting, the Planning Commission will consider a request from McLean-based K&M Properties to build another 16 houses on 2.7 acres along Virginia Avenue between Fairwood Drive and Deer Chase Road. At build-out, which it is nearing, Lakeview will span nearly 210 acres and has 580 homes.

Town staff recommended approval of the latest, smaller-type “village house” units, even though the area in which they will be built was originally planned for neighborhood shops.
In its report, town staff notes issues with the site:

“Its current condition is an eyesore to the neighborhood. It appears to have been used as a dumping or fill site for the rest of the development. Due to the housing economy at this time, or until such time as the developer starts construction, efforts must be made to level, seed, and/or stabilize the site.”

Allison Brophy Champion can be reached at 825-0771 ext. 101 or

Want to go?
The town of Culpeper Planning Commission meets tonight at 7 in the county boardroom, 302 N. Main St