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It’s a fair guess that most Stauntonians have never heard of the city’s comprehensive plan, much less seen it, and that’s not really surprising. The 450-page document states quite explicitly on its cover page that it was prepared for the Staunton Planning Commission, which makes it sound more arcane than it is. The current version is five years old, so a whole lot of water has gone under the bridge—quite literally, in the case of downtown—since it was drafted. And all the people who you might expect would be most involved in its implementation are no longer there: every city council member, the city manager and the city’s director of community development have moved on since the plan was completed.
Then again, much of Staunton’s Comprehensive Plan actually doesn’t, well . . . plan anything, so it’s easy to ignore. While the Commonwealth of Virginia requires every municipality to prepare such plans “with the purpose of guiding and accomplishing a coordinated, adjusted and harmonious development of the territory,” the Commonwealth Code also states that that the plan should be a survey of that municipality’s assets and challenges—and that’s the basket in which Staunton placed most of its eggs. The result is more descriptive than prescriptive, an inventory of the Staunton that existed in 2018 but with few attempts at guidance for the near future, never mind to the plan’s supposed end date of 2040.
But now we have a chance for a do-over. Starting last year, city staff, consultants and a small group of Staunton residents have been revising the plan to make it more up-to-date and, we can hope, make it more of a planning tool than it has been. That process has included seeking input from Stauntonians as to what they think should be in the plan, through online surveys and a series of public meetings, and the next such meeting—an open house at Staunton High School—is less than a month off. Anyone concerned about the city’s future should make an effort to be there: Wednesday, June 25, between 5:30 and 7 p.m.
That said, I wouldn’t be my usual curmudgeonly self if I didn’t add a cautionary note. Despite the city’s apparently diligent attempts to solicit public opinion about various plans, these efforts often have an unfortunately performative aspect to them. The ritual involves lots of easels covered with large white sheets of paper, lots of small stick-on dots in various colors, and an abundance of post-its of obviously limited size on which to scribble fresh ideas. Those in attendance are asked to respond to various questions about whatever the city thinks should be of greatest concern to them, and the answers are subsequently collated, summarized, mentioned in final plan documents—and, generally, thereafter ignored.
Does that sound harsh? Consider, then, the West End Revitalization Plan, completed last summer and subsequently adopted by the city council. That plan also went through a pro forma attempt to get input from West End residents, including public meetings and an online survey. The meetings made it abundantly clear that public “concerns about property upkeep and affordable housing” were among the area’s most notable “challenges.” The online survey disclosed that of eight possible concerns, West End respondents thought that “improved upkeep of existing housing” was the second most “important” or “very important,” just four votes behind the 194 cast for “adding new shops, stores and services.”
How seriously were those views taken? The final, adopted plan is big on retail improvements but scarcely gives a nod to housing concerns. Indeed, only one of 17 proposed actions in the plan directly addresses housing rehabilitation, and does so in the most dismissive way possible by suggesting simply that the city “connect residents to existing resources.” Which is to say, the West End doesn’t have a problem with property upkeep and affordable housing, it has a communication problem.
It therefore will be interesting to see to what extent public input registers in this far broader, city-wide planning document. One possible marker was provided by the Jan. 22 open house, the first of three, when 106 local residents registered their attendance (although city officials believe the actual number attending was higher) and repeatedly voiced support for mixed-use development. Attendees emphasized “the need for mixed-use areas that integrate homes, shops, and parks to create vibrant neighborhoods,” according to a summary of comments under “land use.” Similarly, in a summary under “economic resources & development,” attendees “highlighted the need for increased mixed-use development and support for small businesses in less densely populated areas.”
The summarized comments about housing, meanwhile, illustrate an increasingly sophisticated understanding of what it takes to create a truly dynamic community. Attendees “highlighted the need for affordable housing for their workforce, concerns about rising prices, the lack of options for low-income and middle-income households, and . . . a pressing need for better connectivity between residential areas [and] increased density of housing.”
The emphasis on mixed-use developments and increased housing density, in a city largely mired in a century-old land-use philosophy known as Euclidean zoning, is in some ways revolutionary. Euclidean zoning (the name comes from a village in Ohio, not the Greek mathematician) separates land uses by type—residential, commercial, retail, industrial, etc.—each into their own zones or areas. That may be desirable in preventing a factory or a slaughterhouse from being plopped down next to a church or apartment complex, but it also creates the largely fragmented land-use pattern we have today, with the notable exception of downtown. Add to that a residential zoning preference for detached single-family homes, with broad swaths of the city’s 20 square miles zoned R-1 (maximum of three homes per acre) and R-2 (maximum of five), and the result is a pleasantly bland, dispersed suburban landscape on which builders can’t afford to build homes for low- and middle-income families.
One possible work-around for developers is to seek special use permits so they can build the mixed-use and denser housing that city residents attending these sessions say we need—but for several presumably obvious reasons, that’s not an attractive option. Nor is it happening in any meaningful way. The alternative, therefore, is for those working on the comprehensive plan update to rework the city’s zoning code—to revise the rules and maps that keep things the way they are—so that standards for higher density and mixed-use developments are written into the code, creating “by right” options for developers. No more having to say “Mother, may I please?”
Whether that in fact will happen is . . . let’s just say not likely. One problem with these sounding-board sessions with the public is that they come at a time when the plan revisions are already well underway, so there’s a natural resistance to taking on big new projects—and rewriting zoning ordinances is just about as big as they come. Then there’s the problem of public backlash. Although the Stauntonians attending these open houses may be largely in favor of such changes, they also tend to be more actively engaged in civic affairs than the majority of the population—and a lot of those folks would be aghast at the idea that there could be a wholesale reordering of the land-use landscape ( just one of the problems facing developers seeking special use permits). Winning them over, or at least muting their resistance, would take time, public education and reassurance.
So I’m not optimistic that these open houses and other attempts to solicit public input will make any meaningful difference. The ship’s course is fairly well set, and any comments that might adjust its bearings are no more likely to change the outcome than occurred with the West End Revitalization Plan. But still. The arguments are worth making, if only to lay one more brick against the day when they finally will make a difference.
Looking askance 