Business group knocks Rappahannock plan

August 9, 2005 1:06 am

By RUSTY DENNEN and EMILY BATTLE

The Fredericksburg Regional Chamber of Commerce has objections to some major components of Fredericksburg's plan to protect 4,232 acres it owns on the Rappahannock and Rapidan rivers.

Its suggestions reflect differences among City Council members over how the river land should be preserved.

The chamber's July 27 letter to Mayor Tom Tomzak states that the pro-business group supports the goals of the easement, but would like the city to find "a vehicle other than an easement" to accomplish those goals.

The letter says the chamber board is pleased that the city is talking with officials in Spotsylvania and Stafford. A lot of the river land lies in these localities, and they would be affected by any easement.

But the letter goes on to say that the chamber is "adamantly opposed" to a third party such as the Virginia Outdoors Foundation or The Nature Conservancy being part of the agreement. The letter also asks the city to look at other ways of funding a river steward.

Chamber President Linda Worrell said yesterday that the chamber expressed similar concerns to the City Council in April 2004.

She said in an e-mail response to The Free Lance-Star that the chamber has been pleased with the city's response to its concerns about preserving transportation and utility options on the land. "We still have the concerns about granting a broad-based easement to the Virginia Outdoors Foundation and The Nature Conservancy whose roots are not in the Fredericksburg region."

The proposed easement was hammered out by the foundation, The Nature Conservancy and Friends of the Rappahannock, a local conservation group. It would create a comprehensive framework to protect the land, while allowing access for recreation, and to local governments. The Nature Conservancy would chip in more than $1 million to create an endowment to fund a permanent river steward to patrol the land.

Officials in upstream localities have worried that they could be restricted in the use of the land for future projects such as roads and water supplies, and that a third-party easement holder would tie their hands. The city's river holdings extend into Orange, Culpeper and Fauquier counties.

Spotsylvania County has offered up one alternative: buying 60 acres for a nature park and working with the city on a perpetual conservation easement for more than 1,000 acres of city-owned land within the county.

Members of the City Council and the Spotsylvania Board of Supervisors are still working out the details of that potential agreement.

Chamber representatives met two weeks ago with Tomzak and Vice Mayor Billy Withers for an update on the proposal.

Withers said that based on what he heard in the meeting, the chamber's letter surprised him.

"I didn't see as much opposition in the meeting as I saw in the letter," he said.

Withers said he thinks that if the city continues to work with other localities on the finer points of a permanent easement, a third-party agreement could succeed.

Councilwoman Kerry Devine said that would be a boon, because a third party would bring expertise and resources to enforce the conservation guidelines.

Councilman Matt Kelly said he was perplexed by the chamber's letter because it provides no alternatives or solutions.

"If they're adamantly opposed to third-party [involvement], why? If there are other options, what are they? If they've got problems [with the easement], what are they?"

Worrell wrote in her e-mail that an easement might end up being the right solution, but, "We are trying to encourage a broader approach to the issue to make sure that no stone is left unturned."

Devine said she hopes to sit down with chamber officials to clarify what their concerns are. She said she fears the opposition to a third party managing the easement is based on a misunderstanding of what that third party's role would be.

"To me, one of the goals of the easement is that we are able to enforce it, long term," she said, and to her, a third party is the best way to do that.

Councilwoman Debby Girvan said she agrees with a lot of the chamber's suggestions.

She supports an arrangement by which the city does not sell any of its land, as Spotsylvania has proposed, but rather gives other localities a long-term lease on the land for carefully planned, environmentally sensitive recreational use.

The revenue from those leases could provide money for a river steward. Girvan said she fears the endowment offered by the current third-party proposal isn't big enough, and that the enforcement expense would eventually shift to the taxpayers.

Worrell echoed this concern in her e-mail.

Girvan said she prefers using scenic-river designation and historic-resource overlay districts to protect against development, and supports requiring two super-majority votes of the council--with an election in between them, or even a voter referendum--before any roads or other development could be built on the land.

Devine said other options like the scenic-river designation had been considered as extra layers of protection, but, "they were never intended to take the place of the easement."

Steve Robinson, chief executive of Friends of the Rappahannock, said an easement would be pointless without key provisions like the third-party oversight. It's important to have an independent arbiter protect the land, "to make sure it is available for future generations in the state it's in," he said.

A protected river corridor, Robinson added, is beneficial to developers and business interests.

Many people move to the area "because of the river, because it's protected and not polluted. I, like many others, came to this area specifically because of the Rappahannock River," he said.

About 114 parcels, ranging in size from less than an acre to 266 acres, make up the 4,232 acres that would be included in the easement. Several hundred acres are excluded because they are not on the river or adjacent to land that is. The city would be free to use or sell that land.

Fredericksburg purchased the land, which runs 25 miles upriver into Fauquier County, from Virginia Electric & Power Co. in the 1960s.