The Botetourt Board of Supervisors will hold a public hearing Tuesday, Oct. 23 on revised plans in a rezoning request for a proposed subdivision on Greenfield Street in Daleville.

The property owner and developer have reduced the number of lots in the proposed Magnolia Meadows from 170 to 140 lots as part of the revised plan in an attempt to appease nearby residents in and around Ashley Plantation.

The developer, Robert Fralin with Magnolia Meadows LLC, wrote in a summary that went to the county Planning and Zoning Office on October 8 that company representatives met again with neighbors about the development and did an online survey in an attempt to address concerns that came up during the Botetourt Planning Commission’s July public hearing and in letters to the commissioners about the proposed development.

In the narrative about the proposed changes, Fralin said, the proffered changes “overwhelmingly meet the requests of the vast majority of the community.”

Those changes include:

• Increasing the size of “estate lots” to the minimum square footage allowed in R-1 Residential Zoning Districts, and increasing the minimum home size to 3,000 square feet for those 26 lots that front Greenfield Street and are along the property boundaries. Those homes will also have to have a minimum 2-car garage and specific landscaping.
• Increased the number of “luxury lots” from 64 to 95 lots. Homes on those lots will have a minimum 1,600 square feet of finished space and have brick fronts. All of those lots front on new interior streets.
• Reduced the number of “premier lots” from 64 to 19 lots. Those lots near the rear of the development will be buffered by Leyland Cypress trees at the neighboring communities’ request.
• Added nature trails throughout the development, and a paved walking trail with connections to Greenfield Street at each end of the community.

Fralin also noted in the narrative about the changes that the company will proffer that any auxiliary building or structure be approved and match the exterior finishes and colors of the original structure; fencing may only be installed in the backyard of a lot, and no link fences, nor above-ground pools.

The narrative notes that the density with the changes in the proposed development is now 1.8 homes per acre. He says that is “significantly less dense than R1 density of 2.18 homes per acre.”

He also notes the reduction in the number of homes will reduce traffic by 283 vehicle trips per day— about 1,521 a day from 1,804 under the original proposal. A 2016 traffic study showed there were 870 vehicles per day on Greenfield Street between US 220 and Trinity Road.

Fralin also included Declaration of Covenant and Restrictions of Magnolia Meadows that he said includes restrictions on the development that neighbors also asked for.

At the property owner’s request, the Board of Supervisors agreed to table a public hearing on the proposed rezoning for Magnolia Meadows at its July meeting. The supervisors got a “no recommendation” on the proposal from the Planning Commission after it deadlocked 2-2 over whether to recommend approving or denying the rezoning request.

VJL LLC’s and Courtland Meadow LLC applied to rezone the 78.95-acre parcel from Agriculture A-1 to Residential R-3 Medium Density for the single-family home development.

The supervisors will hold the public hearing at 6 p.m. at Greenfield Education and Training Center.

— Ed McCoy