Varina residents review Route 5 study

Cynthia Epps has lived in Varina with her family for the past 14 years. The family initially moved to Henrico’s easternmost district to get away from more crowded conditions in Richmond, she said.

“You can tell a difference when you leave the city,” Epps said. “You start coming up the hill, and the temperature just automatically changes from being hot to cool, and it’s because of the trees and the vegetation around. That’s the reason why I moved to this rural area in the county, because it is different.”

Epps and other Varina residents are hopeful that it will remain that way. She was among the several dozen residents who attended a June 4 open house about Henrico County’s Route 5 corridor study.

Hosted by the county’s Planning Department, the event invited residents to speak with county planners and to provide feedback on the revised study of Route 5.

The county identified the Route 5 (New Market Road) corridor as a special focus area in its 2009 Comprehensive Plan, which serves as a guide for the county’s long-term future. Within the plan, about 30 different areas in Henrico were identified as special focus areas to be studied more in-depth in the future.

After several requests from Varina residents, the county’s Board of Supervisors directed the planning department to study the Route 5 corridor, said Henrico Planning Department staff member Rosemary Deemer, who was present at the open house.

“Basically, it is to look at whether or not there is a way we can preserve and protect the character of the area,” Deemer said. “It has nothing to do with widening the road. It has nothing to do with encouraging future development.”

The study encompasses 500 feet on either side of the corridor, Deemer said, and it identified three primary areas along the road: urban, suburban and rural. Deemer and other staff members examined the ways in which each subsection of the corridor could be protected and enhanced if future development were to occur.

It will recommend an overlay district for the Route 5 corridor – a regulatory tool that is used to place a special zoning district atop an existing one to protect and guide development in designated areas, Henrico Planning Direcotr Joe Emerson said.

“Hopefully we’ll be able to move forward with a document that reflects the community values,” Emerson said, “and it can be adopted by the Board of Supervisors, and they will be able to successfully put in place a zoning overlay that will provide concrete regulations based upon these documents.”

On poster boards placed around the room, sketches, photographs and information helped convey design guidelines, such as recommendations for future site design, landscaping, signage and streets and access.

Some of the recommendations for potential development included preserving the current vegetation, preserving existing scenic views and ensuring that signage and lighting remain consistent with the corridor’s existing character. For example, the heights of new buildings and structures cannot block views of the city skyline from Route 5.

The planning department’s job is not to propose future development, Deemer stressed, but to instead provide guidelines to be used if change does occur.

The proactive approach was one Epps and other Varina residents appreciated.

“It looks like the committee is trying to make sure that we not lose the character on Route 5,” Epps said. “I think that with the studies that they did, you can tell that they put a lot of thought into how it should look.”

Some residents, however, expressed fear about the land becoming too developed, or Route 5 eventually having to be widened due to increased traffic that results from new development.

Robin Perilli, a Varina resident since 2004, worries that the area will become another Short Pump, she said.

“The American dream used to be to not have to pay $500,000 for the privilege of living over the store in West Broad [Village],” said Perilli, who once protested the state’s decision to build a nuclear reactive waste plant in her small Massachusetts village. “I don’t know a single soul in Varina, unless you have a vested financial interest, that wants this.”

Despite some pushback from residents, the project has now entered its final stage of design guidelines, Emerson said. After it’s approved by the Board of Supervisors, the study’s guidelines will be adopted into the comprehensive plan for Henrico County.

Epps remains hopeful that the county will be able to preserve Varina’s rich history and agricultural charm, based on the community’s feedback from the study.

“We can’t stop the change,” she said. “It’s coming. But we can definitely influence how the change should look.”