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Goochland County planners are expected to present a comprehensive plan that revisits which designated growth areas are likely to grow.

Goochland County planners are expected to present a comprehensive plan that revisits which designated growth areas are likely to grow.

The current plan lumped all crossroads hamlets into the same category of growth villages—eight locations to which leaders want to channel residential growth to keep the rest of the county rural.

The proposal that planning staff will show to the Board of Supervisors tomorrow separates villages into majorand rural-growth areas. The plan recognizes that major villages—Centerville, Manakin, Oilville and the Courthouse area—have or will have the infrastructure to support residential development.

The rural villages—Crozier, Hadensville, Georges Tavern-Fife and Sandy Hook—don’t have the utilities for that type of housing density.

Crozier resident Ann Casey helped organize a movement of her neighbors to let planners know that high-density development was unwelcome where they live.

Although Crozier sits between the Courthouse and Manakin, the hamlet has no municipal water and sewer. Casey’s group let it be known at the public hearings leading up to the comprehensive plan draft proposal that it wanted to keep Crozier rural, she said.

“We don’t want to be as crowded as the Courthouse or Centerville because that’s not the way we see Crozier developing,” Casey said. “I’m just very grateful that I think they listened to us.”

For most of its recent history, Goochland grew at a 2 percent annual growth rate. But as development in Henrico County reached Goochland’s eastern border, that rate jumped. Goochland added about 4,000 residents between 2000 and 2006 to reach about 20,000 residents. That reflected a 3 percent annual growth rate, the plan states.

The new designated growth plan would allow up to 2.5 houses per acre in the major villages that have or will have the water and sewer lines available to support such densities. The plan also anticipates channeling apartment and town house development to those areas.

The rural villages would require that homes be built on lots that are a minimum of 2 acres, and houses would require their own water sources and septic systems.

Aside from the major villages, the proposal designates as growth areas the Tuckahoe Creek Service District, the areas around the Interstate 64 interchanges and the River Road communities in the southeast part of the county.

Comprehensive plans project for 20 years, but they must be revised every five years. Goochland planners are to present the proposal at the supervisors’ workshop tomorrow, said Don Charles, director of Community Development.

Before it’s adopted, the board would have to refer the draft comprehensive plan to the Planning Commission for a public hearing and recommendation before it came back to the board for another hearing and a vote.