Isle of Wight County has proposed another option for funding a single-lane roundabout on Turner Drive in 2029, one that would entail the county and Smithfield each putting up nearly $1 million.
The town attorney, however, has raised concerns over the legality of passing the town’s share onto prospective developers and several Town Council members are opposed to committing taxpayer dollars to the project.
The county has until Nov. 1 to accept or decline a $2.2 million Virginia Department of Transportation revenue-share grant. Acceptance would require the county to match the amount dollar for dollar. VDOT has allotted Isle of Wight an additional $972,000 for Turner Drive through Smart Scale, the state’s cost-to-benefit formula for funding roadwork based on regional need, leaving Isle of Wight on the hook to come up with the remaining $4.5 million, or 60%, of an estimated $7.6 million needed to fund the roundabout and dual turn lanes from Benns Church Boulevard onto Turner.
In August, county Transportation Coordinator Jamie Oliver presented two options for the $4.5 million share, each proposing to pass the cost on to developers looking to build at the Benns Church and Turner intersection proportionally based on the estimated daily vehicular trips each development would generate.
What’s changed since August?
The 2029 master plan created by a stakeholder group of landowners, commercial and residential developers and representatives from the county, its school system and VDOT had divided the currently three-way Benns Church and Turner intersection into four quadrants. The southeast quadrant, dubbed “Turner South,” encompasses 28 acres, including the 3.8-acre site of a stalled Wawa gas station and convenience store Miami-based Frontier Development and landowner Henry Layden had proposed in 2021.
The southwest quadrant includes “Cypress Run South” and “Turner North,” which overlap with the respective residential and commercial phases of The Promontory, a 2023-proposed – but still unapproved – mixed-use development that would add 262 homes and five commercial parcels at the intersection. An earlier draft of the 2029 master plan had reversed the “Turner North” and “Turner South” labels.
In the northeast quadrant is “Sweetgrass,” a 615-home mixed-use development county supervisors approved for rezoning in May. In the northwest quadrant is a 178-acre farm labeled on the 2029 plan as “other Smithfield development,” though, according to town officials, no rezoning application has been proposed for the land.
The two quadrants west of Turner Drive are in the Smithfield town limits, and as such, any rezoning or proffered agreement to pay for the roundabout would be subject to Town Council approval.
The dueling August proposals by county staff and by Layden, and the September option, each call for passing just under $600,000, or 13%, of the $4.5 million needed for the roundabout on to any developers that build within the “Turner North” quadrant.
Turner South would be on the hook for just under $500,000, or 11%, under the September proposal, up from the $400,000, or 9%, share Layden had proposed in August but down from the $767,256, or 17%, share county staff had proposed in August.
Cypress Run South, under the September plan, would pay just over $900,000, or 20%, up from the $586,725, or 13%, share staff had proposed in August, but down from the $1 million, or 24%, share Layden had proposed.
Sweetgrass would pay $541,592, or 12%, down from the $1.4 million, or 33%, share county staff had previously proposed but up from the $500,000, or 11%, share Layden had proposed in August. According to Oliver, the updated dollar amount for Sweetgrass is more closely aligned to the agreement Ryan Homes parent NVR Inc. proffered ahead of the development’s May 16 rezoning vote.
A proffer document dated March 5 of this year does not list a dollar amount for NVR’s contribution to the roundabout project, but it stipulates that Sweetgrass is to pay “an amount of cash equal to the then estimated cost to complete the affected improvements” determined by “the project’s proportionate share” no later than 90 days after the award of a construction contract for the Turner Drive work, provided Sweetgrass has been issued at least its 50th certificate of occupancy for its residential phase by that date.
A proposed middle school to replace the 1960s-era grades 4-6 Westside Elementary, which Isle of Wight County Schools has slated for land opposite Turner from the existing Smithfield High School and Smithfield Middle School complex, would bear a $180,531, or 4%, share of the $4.5 million cost under the September plan. The amount is identical to what county staff had proposed in August but lower than the $785,000, or 17%, share Layden had previously proposed.
Rather than require a hypothetical future developer of the so-called “other Smithfield development” shown adjacent to Sweetgrass on the 2029 plan to foot a roughly $1 million or 21% to 26% share of the roundabout project cost, the September update proposes Smithfield and Isle of Wight County each put up a $902,654, or 20%, share.
Why involve Smithfield?
“This is a unique situation because we have so many private partners,” County Administrator Randy Keaton told the supervisors on Sept. 5. “We’ve got the town on one side of Turner Drive, the county on the other side of Turner Drive. There’s a lot of traffic there existing, so the dilemma is how to crack this nut of $4.5 million and I think by taking this approach it does involve the county and the town both putting in some money but at the same time it acknowledges that there is traffic, a significant amount of traffic there already.”
Oliver said “background growth” outside of the half-mile radius of the Benns Church and Turner intersection, such as traffic from the town’s 2023-approved 267-home Grange at 10Main mixed use development at the western edge of Smithfield’s historic district, other developments in the county and new houses that get built outside of large subdivisions are collectively projected to account for roughly 76% of vehicular trips expected under multiple growth scenarios to use the Benns Church and Turner intersection by 2045, regardless of whether the prospective developments within a half-mile radius of the intersection are built. As of 2022, Turner saw 3,000 vehicles daily and Benns Church saw upwards of 20,000, according to VDOT data.
Town Attorney Bill Riddick contends the town would have to foot not only its $902,654 share but the $1.4 million the 2029 plan allocates to The Promontory’s residential and commercial phases, for a total of $2.3 million.
“Based on current proffer law, we would not have the ability to require a developer or could even accept proffers from them for off-site improvements that are not directly related to their developments,” Riddick said.
State law changed in 2016 to prohibit localities from requesting or accepting “unreasonable” proffers, defining the term as any condition not “specifically and uniquely attributable” to the requested rezoning.
“The council can agree that our share is $2.3 million and we’re going to pay it, we’re going to come up with it somehow, but I don’t know how we get it from a developer,” Riddick said.
The county’s request for participation by the town comes amid the council’s ongoing discussion of a policy that would limit when taxpayer dollars can be put toward private residential and commercial developments.
“We are not really looking to promote development in the town of Smithfield and we’re certainly not looking to put public money into private development,” Councilman Randy Pack, who serves with Councilmen Michael Smith and Raynard Gibbs on the committee Mayor Steve Bowman has tasked with drafting that policy, said at the Sept. 23 meeting
The legal issues Riddick has raised, coupled with the county’s looming Nov. 1 deadline to accept the fund and commit to a plan to fund its share of the project, is “putting us in an untenable position to have to make a decision to expend these type of funds without ample policy discussion,” Bowman said.
“I feel like we’re being pushed into a decision,” said Councilman Jim Collins.
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