Developer pulls plans for community at Varina Civil War site

Following months of opposition, a Texas-based developer has apparently abandoned plans to build a 650-home development at a Civil War battlefield site in Varina – potentially clearing the way for preservationists to purchase and protect the land.

Homebuilder D.R. Horton, Inc. has withdrawn its contract to purchase the 420-acre site at the northwest intersection of Yahley Mill and Long Bridge roads from the estate of Bob Atack, a late developer who originally planned to build The Ridings at Warner Farm there, according to several sources with knowledge of the project.

Horton hoped to build its own version of the development – to be know simply as The Ridings – but opponents from a number of preservation groups and the adjacent Camp Holly Springs argued that the development would stain the land’s history and potentially damage the aquifer that supplies water to the springs, which have served as a water source for generations. (Since 1967 the springs have supplied water for the Diamond Springs bottled water company.)

Officials from D.R. Horton’s Midlothian office could not be reached immediately for comment.

About 200 acres of the site were witness to the Civil War’s Battle of New Market Heights, which is viewed as the most significant for Black troops in the entire war; 14 U.S. Colored Troops earned the Medal of Honor for their bravery during the battle; only two other Black soldiers earned the medal during the war. Preservationists want the land saved and turned into a historical site to commemorate its significance, and they’d imparted those desires to the developer and county officials for nearly a year.

The rest of the proposed Ridings site sits adjacent to the Deep Bottom I and II Civil War battlefields.

Atack Properties bought land at the site in 2005 and earned approval for the development, but a downturn in the economy stalled his plans. Once the land was rezoned in 2012, Atack planned to begin construction the following year, with the first completed homes occupied by 2014 but ultimate buildout taking perhaps a decade.

But Bob Atack died of pancreatic cancer in May 2014 and the development never took shape. Horton entered the scene with updated plans last year and initially sought another rezoning of the site that would have allowed an additional 120 homes there.

But the builder ultimately withdrew those rezoning plans last December and opted to proceed with the originally approved plans. Though the land as rezoned would have permitted Horton to build the community, a number of traffic and environmental plans still needed to be worked out to the satisfaction of county and state officials.

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Horton’s withdrawal could now present an opportunity for the Capital Region Land Conservancy to make an offer for the site, which it wants to add to the other 8,000 or so acres of Civil War battlefields in the region that already are preserved.

Officials from the informally assembled Coalition for Protection of the New Market Heights Battlefield believe that the Atack estate is willing to sell the land (assessed earlier this year for nearly $2.5 million) to a group that would preserve it, and funding mechanisms in place suggest that half the possible purchase price of about $7 million would be covered by the federal government, leaving the group or groups that purchase the site to fund the other $3.5 million or so themselves. That’s an amount they believe they could collect in relatively quick fashion.

The importance of preserving the site was the focal point of an Oct. 28 letter to Horton officials on behalf of the coalition from Mark Perreault (vice chairman of the Shenandoah Valley Battlefield Foundation). Perreault wrote that the development “would destroy this part of the battlefield, including its escarpments and other topography, and thereby permanently preclude gaining a first hand understanding of this battlefield. Moreover, it would cast a development shadow over the rest of the battlefield, including where the USCT charged, and almost certainly frustrate any effort to create a worthy and complete battlefield park properly memorializing and telling the story of the USCT valor at New Market Heights.

“Would America consider such a development on the Gettysburg or Antietam battlefields? We think not. The greatest victory for African-American arms in the American Civil War deserves no less respect.”

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In recent months, members of the coalition had lobbied county and state officials, seeking any available assistance to block the development. A small group of coalition members gathered in late October at the Camp Holly Springs property to discuss their plans and tour the aquifer, which has supplied water to the springs for thousands of years and is currently owned and operated by the Dowdy family. Nearby development could threaten the aquifer (an underground layer of permeable rock, through which water travels before resurfacing through springs) by damaging its fragile nature or polluting it and potentially rendering it useless.

Present at that gathering was Damon Radcliffe, a lieutenant with the York-Poquoson Sheriff’s Office and descendant Edward Ratcliffe, of one of the 14 Black soldiers who earned a Medal of Honor at the Battle of New Market Heights (the spelling of the family’s last name has changed through the years). Radcliffe told the group that his great-grandfather’s service had inspired other generations of the family to follow his path.

“Our family legacy is community service,” Radcliffe said at the time, with a nod to his brother (a U.S. Marine), a cousin (who served in the U.S. Army) and others family members.

Radcliffe beamed at the idea presented by coalition members, who envision the preserved battlefield becoming a historic site that could attract visitors who otherwise might never have known of its significance.

For years, even Radcliffe and his family were unaware of the site.

“Now I’m like, ‘How many other people don’t know?’” he asked.

Radcliffe grew up assuming that his great-grandfather was part of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment (the first U.S. military unit consisting of Black soldiers raised in the North) – even going so far as to have a tattoo of the number 54 on his right shoulder and using the number as his football uniform number at Denbigh High School in Newport News.

But after researching his grandfather in the late 1990s, he learned that Edward Ratcliff actually had served in the 38th Regiment U.S. Colored Troops.

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Several members of the coalition working to protect the site, including Aileen Rivera of the Route 5 Coalition, addressed the Henrico Board of Supervisors at a Feb. 22 meeting. Rivera told the board that the originally approved standards for the development were no longer applicable and urged county officials to negotiate with Horton to convince the company not to build on the site – or to sell the land to the county or preservationists instead.

“You are being asked by an out-of-town developer to change the current standards for density in an already rezoned case that was laid out 17 years ago and that doesn’t take into consideration all of the changes that have taken place in 17 years environmentally, historically and traffic-wise,” Rivera said.

But legally, once a development is approved, the county had no ability to prevent it from occurring; rather, it could only enforce the proffers (developer-offered design and development standards) that were attached to the 2012 rezoning, then-County Attorney Tom Tokarz said at the time.

“This is my first time in 10 years on this board where I’ve been continuously asked to look back at a case that was approved,” Varina District Supervisor Tyrone Nelson said at the meeting. “I don’t know what else to do. It’s up to our planning department, whom I trust to determine whether or not the developer is following all of the procedures.”

Now, it appears the developer has opted to abandon its plans altogether.

– Cortney Klein contributed to this article.