Defraying the costs of sprawl

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				THE
Column Archive				VIRGINIA GAZETTE
				WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA
Defraying the costs of sprawl				December 22, 2004

In his second Epode, the Roman poet Horace glorifies the life of the man who, like his ancestors, works the fields and is unencumbered by debt. Far from the grimy city, he can lie under ilex trees in the lush grass, listening to the water glide by in a nearby stream and hear the moaning of birds all around him. In autumn, “he hears the leaves speak out against the flowing stream, and every sound invites an easy sleep.”

Decades ago Horace might well have been speaking of any number of places in rural Virginia, including James City County. Here farms abounded, and crops such as potatoes, corn, melons and other produce were loaded onto trains that stopped several times a day in Toano, Norge and Ewell before heading on down the peninsula or up to Richmond.

But somehow we’ve allowed all that to get away from us. Our farms have been turned into industrial parks and developers’ dreams. Shopping centers that look like something out of Third World countries and malls that promote nothing but congestive economics have joined with land-gobbling gated communities to turn what were once the sweet sounds of the country into the atonal dissonance of earth groaning under the weight of interminable sprawl.

Yet, there seems to be no end in sight. What few open spaces or treed areas are left in the county are now under attack. Next to the Dodge dealership in Norge trees have fallen to still another development, and the once quaint shops in Wythe Green have been sacrificially bulldozed in obeisance to the great god Mall.

Cranston’s Mill Pond Road, one of the county’s most scenic byways, was opened last year to a logging operation that left a large chunk of it looking like desiccated craters on the moon. And an equally tranquil drive along countrified Jolly Pond Road will soon be a thing of the past as the woods around the Boy Scout camp there are raped and mauled to a degree that even Isabel couldn’t contemplate. And this for the erection of $850,000 starter mansions.

In upper James City, Forge Road, which has been designated a “Community Character Corridor” and hence allegedly subject to preservation, is also under the gun. Attempts were foiled to transform a large tract adjacent to a horse stables into 70 or more condos. Farther down the road, once productive farms are being lacerated and carved up into farmettes. So much for preservation.

The primary effects of rampant, unchecked growth are obvious to us all. Schools are proliferating faster than rabbits, and water usage is at an all time high thanks to uncontrollable sprinkler installations and chemically driven lawns. Driving on major thoroughfares in both the county and the city has become a life-threatening experience.

We are on the verge of strangling ourselves to death.

Even more troubling are the secondary and tertiary effects of the growth juggernaut. I wonder, for instance, if the planning commission ever considers the disposition of wildlife when granting permission to tear up the land and destroy our woods. Does it know that record numbers of deer have been killed on Route 60 in Norge as a result of their displacement from land lost to yet another huge gated community? Do they care that acres of crops at Hunt’s Hill Pleasant Farm were decimated last summer by the deer that did make it across the road? Do they give two twits about the hawks, partridges, grouse, raccoons, hedgehogs, snakes and other fellow creatures that depend on the woods and fields on Forge Road for their livelihood? I suspect not.

Yet their strangulation is assured no less than ours as we apparently attempt to compete with Northern Virginia for the dubious prizes being awarded for land rape, clog and smog.

Nor do our planning wizards seem to have the slightest concern for the effects of their unhesitatingly approved insidious growth packages on facilities that are already bulging at the seams.

Just ask the people at the James City-Williamsburg Community Center, who have seen their memberships skyrocket. Or the pool coordinators there who are trying to juggle schedules for three high school swim teams, fourth grade swimming lessons, alternate education swimming classes, summer camps, aerobics, private swimming lessons and Williamsburg Aquatic Club practice times. And all this while trying to keep lap lanes open for regular patrons who, if items in the Last Word are any indication, are growing ever more restive about lanes being unavailable for lap swimming.

Last month, almost 13,000 people visited a pool that is now 18 years old and was designed to accommodate but a fraction of the swimmers who now use it. With more schools will come more swim teams and fourth graders to be jammed into the schedule.

Yet, for whatever political reasons, the School Board and county administrators have ignored completely the need for a new competitive swimming pool that would free up the rec center pool for patrons.

Since the days of Horace are long gone, our struggle now is to preserve what qualities of life still remain. To that end, and given the ataxia of our administrators, perhaps it’s time to require from developers hefty proffers that would help defray the expenses of dealing with the results of their incursions. Either that, or take a much harder look at land conservancy.