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At a recent work session Nelson County officials reviewed some of the last — and arguably most important — draft chapters of the county’s new comprehensive plan: chapters addressing land use and future development, and transportation.
The plan is a framework for future growth, and Nelson County has contracted with Bridgewater consulting firm the Berkley Group to help author a new document to guide county decision-making up until 2042. Virginia code dictates that a county have a comprehensive plan and that it be reviewed every five years; Nelson’s current plan was adopted in 2002 and last updated in 2014.
The draft land use chapter, chapter six of the comprehensive plan, identifies assets and constraints to development in 16 Nelson areas. Lovingston and Nellysford are both listed as having the most development assets but some development constraints. Colleen, Gladstone and Schuyler have water and sewer service but fewer assets, and few to none of the identified constraints to development (steep slopes, floodplain, limited or untested septic suitability, and protected landscapes).
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The consultants group Nelson areas together into categories to guide future land use. Consultants grouped Nellysford and Lovingston together, calling them Nelson’s “largest communities” with the highest concentrations of current development. Their primary future land use types include single-family detached and attached residencies, apartments, duplexes, hotels, offices, businesses, parks and retail among other uses.
Officials took issue with lumping these two communities together.
“The people that I know in Nellysford think that they are overdeveloped, but that’s not true for Lovingston. I would say that part of the plan should be concentration on Lovingston and not so much Nellysford…” Supervisors Skip Barton said.
Board Chair Jesse Rutherford and Supervisor Ernie Reed, who have the two communities in their districts, weighed in.
“…[T]hese are all really great options with our proximity to the 29 corridor … I think all this is pretty reflective of Lovingston and what Lovingston would want,” Rutherford said of the county seat.
“The problem is that our goals for them are very different, and so to have them lumped together appears that the goals are the same…” Reed said.
Berkeley Group Principal Planner Catherine Redfearn asked the group if it wanted to promote growth more in Lovingston than Nellysford, and officials responded yes.
The group also reviewed draft transportation chapter four, which includes maps of existing roads and their annual average daily traffic volume.
U.S. 29 unsurprisingly has the greatest volume of traffic at more than 10,000 average daily vehicles; the Nellysford to Beech Grove Road portion of Virginia 151 gets 2000 to 4,000 daily vehicles; and Virginia 6 averages 4,000 to 6,000 vehicles daily. Most other county roads are at 0 to 2,000 daily vehicles on an annual average.
A map of the 2,327 automobile crashes that occurred in Nelson County between 2015 to 2022 shows the the highest volume of crashes occurred at intersections along U.S. 29: with Virginia 56 in Colleen, at the Lovingston traffic light, and at River Road; and a fourth high volume spot at the Virginia 250 and Afton Mountain Road intersection. Of those crashes, the Berkley Group reported 184 involved drivers or pedestrians who had been drinking alcohol prior to the incident.
The top three priority transportation projects in the draft chapter are the roundabout at River Road and Virginia 151 — currently ranked ninth in the Lynchburg VDOT District ranking of priority projects and slated for funding — followed by safety improvements to Route 29 (widening the shoulders at sections and adding rumbling strips), and a Route 151 traffic study to evaluate for traffic and pedestrian safety improvements. VDOT is currently conducting a study of a 14-mile section of the corridor around Nellysford to develop updated safety improvement recommendations.
Officials set a final work session for June 29 at 6 p.m. The Nelson County Planning commission, board of supervisors and county staff will review draft chapter nine of the comprehensive plan, which provides a framework for implementing the plan, and will also review the plan in its entirety.
All chapter drafts are available for view on the Nelson comprehensive plan website, nelson2042.com under the “Document Library” tab.