Bloggers can argue until they’re blue in the face about what kind of development Virginians prefer — low-density subdivisions and shopping centers, compact small towns, or dense urban environments, but the marketplace is speaking very plainly. Virtually every major development project proposed today entails mixed use on a small-town scale and density.
Projects highlighted in today’s headlines offer two cases in point:
Suffolk. Suffolk City Council has approved plans for a community of homes and businesses, “where people can walk to work and to stores,” reports Kathryn Walson with the Daily News. Similar to City Center at Oyster Point in Newport News, it would be the “first of its kind” in Suffolk. The project on a 132-acre plot of land south of the city will include 600 condominiums, two hotels and office and retail space. Two thousand, four hundred people will work there.
Chesterfield County. A local developer has filed a rezoning application to develop 1,394 acres in northwestern Chesterfield County. At full build-out the Roselawn project would have 5,140 residential units and more than 1.5 million square feet of retail, office and commercial uses. Writes Julian Walker with the Times-Dispatch:
Current plans describe the Roseland property as being a self-contained townlike entity, rather than a subdivision, that would be developed as five distinct districts with its own charter.
“Everything about this project is different from what Chesterfield is used to,” said Casey Sowers, one of the Roseland developers.
The development plans call for a town center, which would be the heart of the development, with a main street featuring shops, lofts, apartments and condominiums; a regional office park with retail establishments; a village with single and multifamily uses; and two other residential neighborhoods with tree-lined streets and green space.
“At Roseland, someone can leave his or her home in the morning, have coffee at the corner cafe, go to work, go for a run or bike ride, go out to dinner, all without ever getting into a car,” Sowers said. “This should be the model for any large development in our county, to reduce dependency on the automobile.”