(Danville) — Developers looking to build a large housing complex in the west end of Danville have run into a delay.
Danville City Council this week voted to indefinitely postpone a rezoning request from Juan Rivera. He wants to develop 27 acres on Longview Avenue off of Westover Drive near the city limits, building a neighborhood with 84 single-family homes.
Jamie White, representing Rivera, told the Planning Commission last month they could only build 54 homes under the current Threshold Residential Zoning. Changing that to Neo-Traditional Residential would boost the maximum density from two units per acre to seven, and reduce the minimum lot size.
White says the location is ideal. “We’ve got public water access there even though we might have to make a few upgrades,” White told the Planning Commission. “A public sewer line that’s accessible.”
White says they want to build homes that selling in the 200-to-250-thousand-dollar price range. But they won’t be able to do that unless they get the rezoning which would allow for smaller individual lot sizes. “These will be single-story, three-bed two-bathroom homes on a public street,” White said.
But dozens of neighbors opposed the idea. Several spoke during a public hearing on the rezoning request last month before the Planning Commission. Residents say the dense development would be a poor fit in one of the Danville’s most rural areas.
J.C. Aguilar said he and his neighbors would be more than inconvenienced by a development of this size and density. “This area was Pittsylvania County before it was annexed by the city,” Aguilar said. “That changed our lives. Now we’re being asked to change our lives completely, again.”
Commissioner Jimmy Bolton said the new Neo Traditional Zoning should not apply here. “It was designed to limit urbanization. It was designed to limit automobiles,” Bolton said. “When I think about it, I think of downtown or the Monument-Berryman area where houses can be squished in.”
The Planning Commission last month voted to recommend City Council deny the request.
