Planning Commission backs 31-townhouse development in Randolph
Richmond’s Planning Commission gave its support Tuesday to a plan that would add 31 townhouses to a vacant block in Randolph.
The proposal by developers Audeo Partners for the 0.75 acre property that lies on the eastern side of the 900 block of South Meadow Street would add 15 three-story attached homes to Meadow and 16 to the alley that runs parallel to it, which would be paved, improved and renamed Field Way.
The clusters of houses would be separated by three swaths of land that the developer intends to plant with pollinators and native species.
“In the spirit of increasing density according to the master plan, I think this is a beautiful project,” said Commissioner Dakia Knight.
But Commissioner Rebecca Rowe, who cast the lone dissenting vote against issuing a special use permit for the plan, argued that 31 homes was “too much for this lot” given surrounding development patterns that have much lower intensities of use.
“I’m very much in favor of increased density, but I think this is exactly the kind of project that scares people when it comes to the refresh,” she said, referring to Richmond’s ongoing rewrite of its zoning ordinance. “It is not a gentle increase.”
The plan will still need to get the blessing of the City Council to receive an SUP and move forward.
On Tuesday it received significant pushback from neighbors, who worried that despite the one- or two-car garages each home would have, the number of new units proposed was too high for an area with narrow streets that they said already suffer from parking and traffic congestion.
“The streets just weren’t made wide enough,” said John Smith, a resident of the adjacent Blair Street. “There is just no parking.”
Toni Mounce, another neighbor on Blair Street, said that the narrowness of the roads has “on more than one occasion” made it difficult for first responder vehicles to access emergencies.
In one instance, “a neighbor’s car was hit by a fire truck that could not get to a house that was burning down,” she said.
Sarah Vogelsong
Not every neighbor agreed: Charlie Trochlil, a resident of Powhatan Street who told the Planning Commission he could see the site from his backyard, said that he doesn’t share concerns about either traffic or parking and would welcome the new development.
“Winder [Street] and Powhatan have an incredible amount of available parking,” he said. “My wife and I got married in our backyard. Fifty people swarmed our house on a Friday afternoon, and nobody had to go more than a block away to park their car.”
Both Richmond Planning Director Kevin Vonck and Lori Markham, a development consultant representing Audeo Partners, told the Planning Commission the townhome plan had been reviewed extensively by multiple city departments including Richmond Fire and the Department of Public Works, and that officials had signed off on it.
As part of its special use permit, Audeo would install a new fire hydrant as well as sidewalks, curbs and gutters in the newly renamed Field Way alley. The developer would also be required to install eight wheelchair-accessible ramps around the site and plant 15 street trees on South Meadow, Blair and Winder.
Sarah Vogelsong
Sale by Virginia Home
Currently, the South Meadow properties are owned by the Virginia Home, a nonprofit that runs a residence for adults with permanent physical disabilities in a six-story building diagonal from the site. The group acquired the eight parcels comprising it more than a decade ago with the thought of using it for additional parking, but those plans never came to fruition.
After discovering what CEO Doug Vaughn described as “pressing maintenance needs” at the residence facility and receiving a $25 million donation, the Virginia Home decided to relocate to Hanover County, where it could expand its capacity. The organization broke ground on that $128 million project in November.
As a result of the relocation, the Virginia Home decided to sell both its Randolph properties to Audeo Partners for redevelopment.
Markham said that Audeo plans to sell the townhomes, which would be between 1,400 and 2,000 square feet, for “the high $400s to the $600s,” a price range she characterized as the “missing middle.”
As of April, the median sales price for a condo or townhouse in the city of Richmond was $325,000. For a single family home, the median was $425,000.
“They’re not the subsidized housing, and they’re not the million-dollar townhouses,” Markham told the Planning Commission.
Several neighbors said they would welcome the addition of homes to the property but thought 31 was too many given its most recent division into eight lots for detached single family homes. One resident said 12 to 15 units would be more reasonable, while another floated a total of 15 to 18 as long as they were priced for first-time homebuyers.
Chris Walsh, an adjacent resident on South Meadow, said reducing the density would provide “at least some nod to the neighborhood,” although he acknowledged it might not be financially viable.
Markham told the Planning Commission that building fewer townhouses on the site would require them to be sold at higher prices.
In either scenario, “it’s the same amount of infrastructure work,” she said. “So that cost, spreading it over 31 houses allows the houses to be marketed at a lower price.”
Sarah Vogelsong
Ahead of the vote to recommend approval of the project, several commissioners acknowledged both the density and road congestion issues neighbors raised but nevertheless concluded that the plan ought to receive a special use permit.
The developers “have made attempts to meet the issue with parking by delivering garages,” said Knight. “We can’t change the width of the streets, and as we grow as a city, we have to grow and accommodate through those changes.”
Commission Chair Rodney Poole said that while the proposed density was “on the upper end of where I personally would like to see,” Richmond had committed itself to greater density in its master plan.
“They can’t solve the congestion on the streets; that’s just not possible,” he said. “This is Richmond. It is an older city. And that’s a problem.”
Contact Reporter Sarah Vogelsong at svogelsong@richmonder.org
