A map included in materials submitted to the county by the Haddock family showing points at which their land has been blocked from road access.
A disagreement between major property owners in and around Goochland’s West Creek area is coming to a head this week.
On one side is Pruitt Associates, the managing developer of the mixed-use, Capital One campus-anchored West Creek that spans 3,000 acres.
On the other side are members of the Haddock, Stern and Arenstein families, among others, who collectively own 1,000 acres adjacent to West Creek and have pondered how they might one day combine their properties for an overall project in what’s considered by the county as a “prime economic development” area.
But the families claim that Pruitt Associates, namely managing member Tommy Pruitt, is using a seemingly minor rezoning of 7 acres of leftover land in the Mosaic at West Creek residential neighborhood as a vehicle to intentionally box out or “landlock” them from getting proper road access to their property and thereby diminishing its development potential.
The rezoning is up for a deciding vote at tonight’s Goochland County Board of Supervisors meeting. The outcome could prevent the landowner families from having the chance to connect their properties to Broad Branch Boulevard, thereby cutting it off from the nearest access point to Route 288. That strip of land is the only remaining way for them to connect to Broad Branch.
“It just seems like you have a developer who’s done a really good job in the area that for some reason has a grudge against these next thousand acres and is doing everything they can to cut them off,” said Rick Cavenaugh, who represents the family of Ed Haddock, who owns around 300 of the 1,000 acres and is the most immediately adjacent to the 7 acres in question.
The families also claim this is one of multiple instances by Pruitt to create a “spite strip,” a sliver of land that prevents them from connecting their properties to certain areas.
“I don’t know the Pruitts. What I do know is that they’ve built spite strips and blockages so Haddock’s land can never get access,” Cavenaugh said.
Maps included in the rezoning case from HHHunt.
The rezoning case is officially being led by Mosaic developer and homebuilder HHHunt. It asks for a rezoning that would allow for three additional townhouse lots to be tacked onto the neighborhood at the western side of the 7-acre area. It also includes what’s referred to as a “negative proffer,” asking the county to memorialize a clause that states no future road could ever be constructed through the site that would connect the adjacent properties to Broad Branch Boulevard near Mosaic’s entrance.
However, the neighboring families claim the rezoning is ultimately being steered by Pruitt to prevent competition to West Creek.
Tommy Pruitt, who doesn’t deny his involvement in the effort, argues that it isn’t about competition. He claims it’s about traffic, specifically preventing too much traffic in that section of West Creek.
“I’ve been in the development business all of my life. I appreciate good development. I think (the families) would be responsible developers,” Pruitt said. “Our problem is if you look at the magnitude of these 1,000 acres, when you force 1,000 acres of development into that interchange, you’ve absolutely shut it down.”
Pruitt said traffic from the thousands of commuters to the neighboring Capital One corporate campus already strain the roads in that part of West Creek.
The rezoning already sailed through the county planning commission last month with a unanimous 5-0 vote, despite county planning staff maintaining that the proposal does not comply with the county’s comprehensive plan and stating that it goes against zoning ordinances because it “may restrict future investment in the area.”
The family collective claims that blocking their access to Broad Branch would make it exceedingly difficult to connect anywhere near 288. Their only other options would be to build roads to connect to Hockett Road to the west and Patterson Avenue to the south.
Pruitt argues they should do just that.
“They say I’m landlocking them. That’s almost a legal term in that you don’t have legal access to your property. If you’re talking about being landlocked from 288, yeah they are,” he said. “They have frontage on Patterson and Hockett. They just need to work off of those two interchanges and not try to force themselves into this. We’re trying to protect West Creek.”
The parcels in yellow and the strip just to the east are the subject property.
The families claim the distance to connect to Patterson and Hockett is too far and wouldn’t give them immediate access to 288. They claim over the years they were verbally promised proper road access by West Creek’s original mastermind CB Robertson, and more recently HHHunt during the initial overall Mosaic rezoning process.
An HHHunt representative speaking at last month’s planning commission meeting said the matter of road access was “left up in the air.” HHHunt declined to comment for this story.
The family collective is also worried they’ll be cut off from connecting through West Creek into the Tuckahoe Creek Service District, the main water and sewer connection in that part of the county.
The families have been paying a special tax into that service district for two decades on the belief they’d eventually have water and road access to their property to make it attractive for development.
“These landowners have paid over $1 million into the sanitary district,” Cavenaugh said.
The families intend to speak out at tonight’s supervisors meeting. Included in the materials they plan to present is a letter from Haddock, which was shared with BizSense.
“In my opinion, the three lots are a smokescreen for this true objective by West Creek as a final coup de grace to ensure the landlocking of my Prime Economic Development Property from all directions,” Haddock states in his letter. “Landlocking my family’s land goes against proper legislative procedures.”
Cavenaugh said a legal challenge is a possibility if the vote doesn’t go the families’ way. He said they hope the board will see the bigger picture and look past the influence and clout wielded by the Pruitts.
“First movers deserve to be rewarded but I don’t think they should get to be the Wizard of Oz,” Cavenaugh said of the Pruitts. “Does a governing body have enough guts to do what’s right in the long term for the county or are they just beholden to West Creek?”
While I agree there is major congestion at rush hour, it would be a stretch to say this area is at capacity—Pruitt says this as if he owns a private road. Employers could stagger arrival/departure times or provide other modes of transit, too.
Has “economic development” in Goochland turned from corporate office parks and light industrial to age restricted communities and apartment construction? It seems that way. I know the commercial RE world has changed radically since the Pruitts bought into a managing role at West Creek and devised a monopoly over apartment development in the County. And I recognize that they’ve created a beautiful 3,000 acre “industrial park”. But what’s the plan going forward for Goochland? More of the same? If 1,000 more acres are being considered for these purposes, proper planning to accommodate the traffic is warranted.
Maybe I’m not seeing right, but the maps don’t appear to show frontage of these parcels on either Hockett or Patterson. That said, shame on everyone if access was “promised” by CB Robertson, but never given in writing or by deeded easement. Additionally, congestion and capacity are typically under the purview of VDOT, unless roads in West Creek are somehow excluded from VDOT’s management. Somethin’ ain’t right here.
Bottom line, traffic out there is a mess (maybe even a dumpster fire at times), and needs to be resolved. -288 needs a 3rd lane. – the backups on 288 force more traffic than ever imagined onto 623 and 621 at times. People even cut through west creek to try to leap frog the backups west bound, drive the wrong way on Patterson to cut over to the on ramp, etc. – West Creek is not a public road at 5pm, but a crit race training track for cyclists. No cars allowed. – the cloverleaf at 288 and Patterson was… Read more »