The owners of Crozet’s Beaver Hill Mobile Home Community (MHC)—on the north side of Rt. 240 across from the Highlands—have proposed an expansion of the MHC from 43 to 92 units to be built on adjacent rolling acreage northeast of the current site. The project would expand Beaver Hill on land in the bordering Rural Area with an expected housing density of R4 (4 units/acre), a move that is prohibited by Albemarle’s Comprehensive Plan. Crozet’s Sprouse family, which has run the Beaver Hill operation since the mid-60s, predating much of the surrounding development, is asking for a rezoning of the land that would effectively add it to the Crozet Development Area.
At the April 28 Planning Commission meeting, project engineer Justin Shimp framed the request as a practical response to an affordable housing shortage in Albemarle County. “Aside from food, housing is the most critical item for humans to have, particularly secure housing they can afford,” said Shimp. “When I look at what the purpose of zoning is, you have to give a high weight to what makes people’s lives better.” He cited data showing that many county residents are “cost-burdened,” spending a high percentage of their income on housing, even those earning $80,000 per year or more.
Shimp argued that alternative means of building affordable housing have to be established, “and frankly, it can’t be done in the Development Areas. The land is too expensive and would be developed as town homes or single-family houses, and folks who can afford it will sweep up that land.” He called Beaver Hill “a unique opportunity” as it would allow the expansion of an existing local business already situated on Crozet’s boundary and served by public water and sewer.
“This is a very specific addition of a specific housing type,” he said, emphasizing that the rezoning would be restricted to the mobile home park and would not open the door to broader suburban development. The proposal includes replanting stream buffers and improving land conditions in the watershed to address environmental concerns. “Something has to be done,” about the county’s housing needs, he said.
The Use of Land
The Beaver Hill proposal is a proxy for the broader debate about county land use: how or whether Albemarle should make exceptions to its policy of concentrating growth within designated development areas, which are limited to about 5% of its 726 square miles. County planning staff advised the Planning Commission to vote “no” on the project because it is inconsistent with the Comp Plan and growth management policy, and is located within a water supply watershed protection area for the Beaver Creek Reservoir and provides “inadequate riparian protection.”
While a majority of attendees who spoke during the public comment period asked the Commissioners to recommend denial of the rezoning request, several echoed Shimp’s affordable housing concerns. “I would honestly find it unconscionable to reject this proposal on the basis that we are protecting the rural area,” said Crozet resident Michael Crenshaw. “This is the type of diverse housing we don’t get often in Crozet—we’ve got a ton of town homes, we’ve got a ton of McMansions, but these [manufactured homes] would be resistant to that demand.”
Crozet Community Advisory Committee Chair Michael Monaco framed the project as rare, unsubsidized “naturally occurring affordable housing” and argued that the site is unique and will not set a broad precedent. He expressed frustration with the slow pace of state adoption of strategies to promote manufactured housing as a source of affordable housing. “AC44 is done now, [but] we have to wait for zoning modernization, then the Rural Area Plan, all the while we will be delaying 50 badly needed affordable homes. If our plans do not allow this project, that’s more of an indictment of the plans than the project.”
Expressing environmental impact concerns, adjacent landowner Emily Luebke talked about the watershed area of the property, which feeds into Crozet’s water supply. “It’s less than 1,125 feet to the Beaver Creek Reservoir, and we all should be concerned about the sediment, pollution and impervious cover that would create a conduit for that to get into the stream and directly into the reservoir,” she said. She noted that many large oaks and other native trees have recently been removed along the steep slope in the critical zone, reducing her confidence in the developer’s promised protection of the watershed.
Concept plan for the proposed Beaver Hill Manufactured Home Community expansion, from the current 43 units in the lower left section of the parcel to a total of 92 units by adding sites to the northern section.Rob McGinnis of the Piedmont Environmental Council pointed to sections of the Comprehensive Plan related to expanding the Development Areas that state that priority should be given to protection of natural resources and public water supply watersheds. “Construction of the proposed roads, utilities and home sites will require mass grading, resulting in substantial areas of soil disturbance only 1,500 feet away from the edge of the reservoir,” he said. “The proposed greenfield portion of the project may be a good project, but it’s in the wrong space.”
The commissioners also wrestled with both sides of the question. Catherine Brown said the application lacked sufficient attention to both water quality protection and rural character preservation, and it prioritized scenic views of the pond over environmental health. “There is a way [this proposal] could be made much more compelling—it is a very difficult site to make this work, but I just don’t feel like the commitment is there.”
Commissioner Karen Firehock, who is a watershed expert, said that a 100-foot wooded buffer (not something included in the proposed project) could remove a large majority of potential water contaminants. “I would like to see mobile home parks being allowed in the county,” she said. “I’d like to see tiny houses and tiny lots be embraced, but I am not willing to sacrifice the health of our watershed.” She added that she did not appreciate the proposal’s nonchalance regarding county Comprehensive Plan rules. “After the almost six-year process to adopt the [revised] Comp Plan, I’m not willing to say, ‘Oh but if it’s an affordable housing project then we’ll just redraw the lines.’ That is not the process that we follow.”
Commissioner Nathan Moore, in support of the project, likened the Beaver Hill expansion to using a land use scalpel instead of a cudgel. “We can make a minor change to a bigger plan, expanding an existing use of what’s already a mobile home park in a way that’s sorely needed,” he said. “It’s homes for people, that’s my guiding light. It’s literally right next door to the Development Area, and I feel like it’s an acceptable scalpel exception to the norm.”
Moore also suggested that the Development Areas boundary lines were drawn arbitrarily and didn’t always make obvious sense. “They used to be 10% of the county’s land but got cut in half in the early 80s,” he said. “We’re hemmed into this really small space, and more and more that’s putting a real burden on the housing supply, a supply that’s not keeping up demand. Housing costs are ballooning and then people have to come in for work but live somewhere else, and that’s not a community.”
The Planning Commission ultimately voted to recommend denial of the rezoning request on a 4-2 vote. Should the Beaver Hill MHC owners move forward with their proposal, the next step would be a hearing before the Board of Supervisors for a final decision on the project.
