Several months ago, the Capital Region Land Conservancy scored a win for conservation when it arranged the purchase of Mayo Island. The 14.5-acre island in the James River near downtown Richmond will be rehabilitated and knitted into the parks system to offer green spaces and to prevent erosion and reduce flooding.
Around the same time, in Henrico’s Varina District, the Arcadia development gained approval amid mixed reviews. The Route 5 Corridor Coalition, a community defense organization that seeks to keep suburban sprawl away from its scenic and historic community, perceives the project as a difficult setback. However, the project also was credited as a step forward by others because a handful of the planned residences will be affordably priced and the whole is somewhat designed to meld into the district’s rural character.
These events are the latest factors in Richmond’s ever-changing conservation-versus-living space equation. Contributing to the discussion are planning advocates such as the Partnership for Smarter Growth, which suggests mitigating the expansion of the suburbs by improving existing infrastructure or rehabilitating older suburban corridors.
And these conversations are complicated by increasing extremes of weather and the threat of rising water.
Parker Agelasto, director of the nonprofit Capital Region Land Conservancy, on Mayo Island (Photo by Monica Escamilla)
Remaking Mayo
Once upon a time, two and possibly more pieces of land formed what is now called Mayo Island. The Mayo family previously owned the property and the 14th Street — or Mayo — Bridge.
United into one land mass, today’s Mayo Island resembles a ship stranded in the James River below downtown Richmond. The source of the unifying fill is unknown. Parker Agelasto, a former Richmond city councilman and the director of the nonprofit Capital Region Land Conservancy, speculates that it came from excavations for the James River and Kanawha Canal. He shakes his head, asking, “Can you imagine putting all that stuff in the river today?”
Finding literal common ground can be challenging when confronting the challenges of conservation and preservation.
Agelasto has learned the evolution of Mayo Island and its varied uses over the past 200 years — industrial, baseball, boating, industrial again, military and entertainment — because the conservancy is purchasing most of the island and blanketing the property with a protective conservation easement. The purchase will exclude property west of the bridge where now gather food trucks and vendors that serve the fisher folk and passersby.
“We’re going to move 7 acres of asphalt off Mayo,” Agelasto says. “We’ll restore hydrology. Currently there’s no permeability for rain or even flood waters. All that,” he says while swiping one hand off another, “shoots right off into the river.” Thanks to partners like the James River Association, suitable trees will arise amid meadows to form riparian barriers.
“Mayo has fresh water flooding downriver, and it’s also subject to sea-level rise in the tidal portion,” he adds. “One of the things getting looked at are opportunities to address sea level rise and habitat migration.”
Models indicate that rising sea levels in the coming half-century will inundate nearby marshlands, such as along the Presquile National Wildlife Refuge in Henrico and Jones Neck in Chesterfield. Surviving wildlife needs places to go.
Folding the island into the city’s riverfront parks has been a regular feature of assorted projects and plans going back four decades, but no agency or group possessed either the wherewithal or financial backing to purchase the land. Until now.
This isn’t new territory for CRLC. Since its founding in 2005, the nonprofit has secured 12,000 acres, including more than 44 miles of stream and river frontage. Its goal is to protect a minimum of 10% of the region’s 1.5 million acres and 100 miles of James River riverfront. To purchase Mayo Island from its most recent owners, the Shaia family, the conservancy had to navigate the Class V rapids of negotiations with stakeholders, regulatory examination, grant writing and fundraising. It has secured about 80% of the funding but has another $2.6 million to raise. It anticipates closing on the purchase in May 2023. The funds for restoration will be drawn from local, state and federal sources.
The island and its bridge will be redeveloped in concert. The 1913 bridge, which has been judged “structurally deficient” by federal engineers, will be replaced in an $80 million project that includes wider sections for cyclists and pedestrians and bumped-out cantilevers for observation and fishing. In March 2022, city engineer John Kim estimated a four-year process: two for planning, two for construction. Agelasto thinks the island may serve as a staging area for construction materials and equipment, offering better access. “It’s my understanding that it could accelerate the construction timeline by about a year,” he says. “Plus, I have all this asphalt I’d like to see recycled.”
From Small Acorns …
The Mayo Island acquisition grew from a series of successes. Conservation land trusts typically receive gifts of an easement on private land. That changed for CRLC in 2017 when its board exercised a proactive option to protect 871 acres of Malvern Hill Farm, a working family farm with a historic impact dating to the 17th century. When the Seven Days Battles of the Civil War swept through in June 1862, the property was the gruesome high point of the Battle of Malvern Hill and inspired Herman Melville to write his poem “Malvern Hill.”
In February 2018, CRLC purchased the land for $6.56 million, using funds from more than a dozen groups and agencies. A portion of the land went to Richmond National Battlefield Park, another was transferred to Henrico County for a public park, and the James River Association will use another for trails and river access.
Encouraged by its success at Malvern Hill, Agelasto says, CRLC paid attention when a small piece of land on Dock Street went on the market several years ago. The wedge-shaped, less-than-an-acre parcel at the bottom of Libby Hill could’ve become a five-story building. Instead, the principals of Shiplock East LLC, Louis Salomonsky and David White, sought a conservation easement. CRLC responded by working with partners to buy the land and create one of Richmond’s most attractive parking lots, served by water collection buffers to control runoff, landscaped with native plants and fitted with dark sky-compliant lighting fixtures.
The Dock Street preservation grew out of an effort to save “The View That Named Richmond.” The appellation refers to the view from Libby Hill Park of a bend in the James River. It’s generally held that Richmond’s founder, William Byrd II, thought the panorama resembled the Thames River as seen from Richmond Hill outside London and was thereby inspired to name the city. With the purchase and the parking lot, “The View That Named Richmond” was preserved, and a section of riverfront was improved.
But CRLC didn’t stop there.
In an ongoing effort, the group is trying to conserve 6 acres on the south bank of the river near Ancarrow’s Landing. The area is part of the Richmond Slave Trail, but the Norfolk Southern Railway owns the land. CRLC and the railroad started negotiations two years ago; the price remains under consideration.
CRLC, JRA, The Conservation Fund and the city of Richmond together intervened in the controversial Echo Harbor project, which would’ve loomed over Great Shiplock Park and brusquely broken the founding viewshed. As of August 2021, the 5.3 acres located at 3011 and 3021 Dock St. became protected public land. JRA purchased almost an acre to establish the James A. Buzzard River Education Center for environmental education. The James River Park System will administer the remainder, adding canoe and kayak access and moving a portion of the Virginia Capital Trail from the street and onto riverfront parkland.
Laura Thomas, director of the Office of Sustainability for the city of Richmond (Photo by Ash Daniel)
In addition to forming the Office of Sustainability, the city of Richmond undertook a Climate Vulnerability and Risk Assessment in 2019 that evaluated “heat and flooding risks to Richmond communities, built assets, and natural features.” The results were used to draft the RVAGreen 2050 initiative, with goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 45% by 2030, reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and assisting especially underserved communities in adapting to Richmond’s increasing heat, precipitation and flooding.
In a similar vein, the city’s public utilities department promotes RVAH2O for maintaining safe water, improving drainage and increasing the percentage captures of the combined sewer overflow.
Richmond, Naturally
The city is separated from the surrounding counties by tradition and statute, so finding literal common ground can be challenging when confronting the challenges of conservation and preservation.
The lead role has been assumed by developers, nonprofits, neighborhood associations and agencies in vigorous support of either development or its mitigation — each working toward its own greater good.
However, a new player is on the scene to help coordinate efforts. “The Office of Sustainability is new; the team is not,” says Laura Thomas, Richmond’s director of sustainability, whose office became official less than five months ago. She’s a Henrico native who left a sustainability post in Largo, Florida, last year to come home. “There are people who’ve been working in the organization for years, along with the community.”
Thomas sees her office as a hub for connecting and convening the players throughout the region to accelerate action and reduce redundancy. “Floodwaters do not respect jurisdictional boundaries,” she says. “I’d like to see us prevent cross-purpose logjams. We can’t continue to work in silos if we want to effectively address [environmental] issues. It’s difficult when these entities each have their own momentum, their own goals, to achieve that kind of collective direction without those dedicated conversations.”
While having an effective regional body to oversee important environmental challenges is helpful, having a variety of voices around a table is also necessary and perhaps more effective, Thomas says. “We tend to listen to the loudest voices in the room, and the ones most ready to take action don’t always bring in the individuals who’ve been doing the work for years and years,” she says. “If we continue to have those conversations and take away the silos but we have the same people at the same table, we’re also not going to advance ourselves in a way that is beneficial to our communities.”
In Suburbia
Over in Henrico County’s Varina district, a decades-long effort by residents to maintain the scenic and historic aspects of their community received a powerful setback in late January. The county Board of Supervisors unanimously agreed to rezone 253 acres of former farmland at the northeast corner of Pocahontas Parkway and Route 5 (New Market Road) for Chesterfield-based East West Communities, the builders of the Brandermill and Woodlake developments, among others.
The developers are envisioning Arcadia, a large project divided by Willson Road into two neighborhoods, Arcadia East and Arcadia West. The plans call for 795 residential units, built in phases over the next decade, a central park, and 80-plus acres of open and recreational space, with bicycle and pedestrian connections to the Virginia Capital Trail. The residences will comprise a mixture of single-family homes, townhouses and condominiums, including 20 affordable residential units built in cooperation with the Maggie Walker Land Trust and selling for $200,000.
The approval resulted from a contentious four-hour meeting held before the supervisors and featuring defenders and opponents arguing the need — or lack thereof — for Arcadia.
The Route 5 Corridor Coalition wanted the supervisors to consider the historic and natural aspects of the land, which attract both tourists and people seeking a rural life in proximity to the city. “Somehow, the county isn’t fully aware of these assets and how they can make money,” observes Aileen Rivera, who recently stepped down as the Route 5 Coalition’s leader. “We’ve never said we were anti-development. We want smart growth. … What works in Fairfield, what works in Glen Allen doesn’t work in Varina.”
In public meetings leading up to that final vote, the Varina defenders were encouraged that their views were receiving thoughtful consideration. “Then as soon as the meeting started, we knew things were going the other way,” Rivera says. The number of housing units was reduced by nearly a quarter, and other adjustments were made, but she and others were disappointed by the outcome.
Rivera, who is also with the Henrico Conservation Action Network, sees younger people coming into Varina who want to get their hands dirty, in the physical sense, through community-sustained farming. Rivera cites families who want to farm but are challenged by the cost of land. She and others are working toward better communication. “What we hope for is that when these big lots are being sold, that we can get first dibs, and the community [can] come up with the money to put it into farming,” she says.
An example is the 2017 “Route 5 Farm Campus Visioning Study,” created by 3North for the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay and pertaining to 530 acres of the Reynolds Farm property along Route 5 between Midview and Messer roads. The plan proposed a high-density “farm village” created by setting aside for agricultural usage approximately 72% of the property “while conserving existing wooded areas and restoring native woodlands.” At the same time, with conservation easements, “facilities will allow for hands-on tours, weekend events, farmers markets and the teaching of best management practices to Virginia’s current and next generation of farmers.”
Stewart Schwartz, founder and president of the Richmond-based Partnership for Smarter Growth, finds the Arcadia approval troubling. He notes that the county is still creating its comprehensive plan and hasn’t completed the small area plan from the previous comprehensive document. “I think these process arguments are significant, with the county not waiting for the comprehensive plan to play out,” he says.
Chart source: Data published by American Farmland Trust; “Farms Under Threat 2040: Choosing an Abundant Future,” 2022
Growth Is Good?
Saving scenic and historic lands is one matter. Shepherding new or expanding residential and commercial projects is another.
Richmond urgently needs more housing. According to Virginia Realtors, the region’s available housing supply is less than a third of what it was eight years ago, and, although higher interest rates are slowing sales, prices are still climbing. Redfin reported that the median sale price for a home in the region in December was $327,000, and houses were on the market an average of just 17 days.
The median income in the region is $66,719, while the median housing price is $292.885.
Affordable housing is even harder to come by. According to an analysis released last year by PlanRVA, the median income in the region is $66,719, while the median housing price is $292.885. Households that spend 30% or more of their income on housing, or $20,015 per year for the median income, are considered cost burdened. Richmonders Involved to Strengthen Our Communities research shows a shortage of 25,000 units of affordable housing.
Despite the need, growth can’t go unchecked as it did in parts of Northern Virginia during the region’s boom years. Some localities are recognizing the need for change and affirming a sense of place rather than development. Fairfax County, for example, is retrofitting the auto-centric suburb of Tysons Corner with shared-use trails and connections to transit.
“We’re trying to prevent the Richmond region from making the mistakes that Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia made 30 years ago,” PSG’s Schwartz says. He’s quite familiar with D.C.’s mistakes, as he’s also the founder and executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, which operates in the capital region.
PSG participated in discussions of the Richmond 300 Master Plan and advocated for improving transit options and affordable housing, especially regarding the newer crop of apartment buildings and prospective redevelopments including the Diamond District, Jackson Ward and Gilpin Court. Public input and government transparency are keys to thoughtful planning but haven’t always been evident — witness the widespread, leapfrogging sprawl across Richmond and the commonwealth.
An attitude exists on the part of some builders and allied politicians that, to paraphrase Gordon Gekko of “Wall Street,” growth is good, and good no matter the impact or cost.
Use What You Got
Amy Guzulaitis, lead coordinator for policy and administration for the Partnership for Smarter Growth, describes a possible alternative for aging arterial roadways, such as Midlothian and Mechanicsville turnpikes, Broad and Hull streets and Chamberlayne Avenue. Although they are not blank canvases or green fields, their structures can permit change. What it takes is a little imagination, a decent amount of gumption and municipal will, and a lot of funding.
“They have the space to support dedicated bus lanes, safer pedestrian and cyclist infrastructure, commercial and retail redevelopment, mixed residential,” Guzulaitis says. “You can put in resilient trees and other landscaping.”
In other words, these nearly worn-out parts of town can be transformed into actual places where people want to live and work. There should be provision, too, for an equitable assortment of residences.
PSG’s Schwartz cites the well-known urbanist Peter Calthorpe on the matter of California’s 2-million-unit housing shortage. Calthorpe advocates against “upzoning,” or placing higher-end residential in older neighborhoods, in favor of locating housing in former commercial districts that could be born again as attractive boulevards. Writing for “Livable California” online, Calthorpe states, “While not invading residential areas or tearing down affordable apartment buildings, this commercial land could be rebuilt with mixed-use structures, keeping retail businesses on the ground floor while adding condos and apartments above. Massive infill, but not as politically toxic as residential demolition or new densities in old neighborhoods.”
For Richmond, Schwartz sees some good news in recent residential construction adjacent to the city. He gives Libbie Mill – Midtown as an example. “Libbie Mill has mixed use, and it’s walkable. We don’t get all the design details right, but it’s close to retail options and future transit expansion. If you’re going to have better transit while saving the farms and forests, that’s to the good.”
