by Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
The Mary’s Landing project, which proposes to build 63 townhouses on existing unused parking lots across Fall Hill Avenue from the old Mary Washington Hospital building, does not require review by the Planning Commission or approval by City Council because it likely does not qualify as a major or minor subdivision.
According to a memo from Marne Sherman, senior development administrator, and Chuck Johnston, director of community planning and building, which was posted today with the preliminary site plan for the proposed development, “no formal decision” has been made on whether the project qualifies as a subdivision, but it is “being approached as qualifying for treatment as an ‘administrative subdivision’ upon future submission of a final subdivision plat application, since no new lots are created.”
The memo answers questions posed by members of the public during the comment period on the first site plan, which ran from January 19 through February 20, and at the February 27 City Council meeting, at which Council asked staff to respond to the comments.
Fredericksburg’s Unified Development Ordinance identifies three types of subdivisions—administrative, which involve no more than nine lots or shifts in lot lines, or other boundary changes where no new lots are created; minor, which is a subdivision of land involves 10 to 50 lots; and major, which is a subdivision of land involving more than 50 lots.
Mary’s Landing involves 63 units but does not create any new lots. Even though individual lots were sold in groups together to Mary Washington Hospital or Medicorp Properties, the hospital system’s real estate arm, in the 1960s and 70s, there is no record showing they were ever legally consolidated, according to research conducted by Kristin Shields, an attorney with Hirschler Fleischer, which represents the developer.
“Based on the chains of title as described herein, the Property contains a total of eighty-two (82) by-right subdivided lots,” Shields wrote in a January 8 letter to Sherman.
According to the posted memo, the original lots were first created in an 1891 plat of the area made by von Schon and Garner and recorded in the Circuit Court Clerk’s office.
“The Mary’s Landing major site plan anticipates adjustments to the lot lines created by the von Schon plat and subsequent recorded instruments, but these adjustments would not create additional lots,” the memo states. “Therefore, the project in its current concept would be treated as an ‘administrative subdivision’ under the City Code.”
The owner/developer, Mary’s Landing, LLC, will have to submit a subdivision plat application for staff approval, but has not done so yet.
The only application that has been received so far is the major site plan application, which planning department staff “disapproved” on February 21, “based on a number of technical deficiencies that the developer must address in order to bring the site plan into compliance.”
Staff have asked the developer to more clearly address the inclusion of the 1964 Medical Arts Building at 2301 Fall Hill Ave as part of the overall project. The original site plan requests “open space credits” for preserving this building, which is a listed Character Structure in the Unified Development Ordinance.
The plan calls for the demolition of another 1960s building on the property, the former public health building designed by local architect J.J. Ballentine, which now houses the Rappahannock EMS Council.
Mary’s Landing, LLC and city staff held a meeting on February 1 to discuss the project and are planning a second public meeting, according to the memo.
The staff memo addressing all public comments is posted on the Public Notices page of the city’s website, under “Development Review.”
