Oakwood Club Must Work With Its Neighbors

The News & Advance
Published: September 8, 2008

If the members of the board of directors of Oakwood Country Club aren’t careful, they could well have Lynchburg’s version of World War III on their hands with their property at ground zero.

The News & Advance reported last week that the club has officially put its course on the market and is soliciting development proposals through Dec. 1. The club’s 85.5 acres sit in the middle of the Boonsboro section of the city; the club’s real estate agent said 65 acres are for sale.

In 2005, the club spent a couple of million dollars to refurbish the golf course and turn it from an 18-hole course to nine. At that time, the directors also entered into a course management contract which expired at the end of 2007. Since Dec. 31, the course has lain dormant while the club’s directors pondered its future.

At the time, neighbors of the course speculated that the sale and development of all or part of the tract was in the works, something which club President Bill Martin confirmed last week.

The course itself is hilly with ravines, dips and trees strewn across it, somewhat barren today after nine months of minimal upkeep. The tract’s zoning is currently the most restrictive on the books. It’s bordered on one side by the windy, curvy, two-lane Link Road, and within a couple of hundred feet, there are two traffic lights where V.E.S. Road, Rivermont Avenue, Boonsboro Road, Link Road and Peakland Place all converge.

The site has no roads, no water and sewer lines, no infrastructure whatsoever, meaning that any developer would have to install those amenities in order to market the land. The lay of the land also could necessitate grading and excavating prior to any construction beginning.

There is the very real possibility that any development of the tract would require a higher density of structures than current zoning allows simply in order to make any project work financially.

And if rezoning of that large a tract of land in the middle of that section of the city comes up, you can count on major fireworks. (Just ask last year’s would-be developers of the proposed McKenna Place, on a 3-acre plot across from James River Day School about that.)

But a knock-down, drag-’em-out fight doesn’t have to happen.

It all depends on how the club and its management team proceed in the coming weeks.

What they need to be doing — and doing right now — is engaging the residents of the area in all of their planning work and discussions. Involvement shouldn’t just be limited to adjacent property owners, but folks from throughout the region, as a major development would have a wide-ranging impact.

It would serve no one if residents woke up one morning to read in the paper that a large-scale, high-density townhome and condominium project was coming across the street from them. That would the perfect recipe for World War III.

Proper planning and good advance work on the part of the club and its representatives could also avoid another nasty flare-up of the ZIP code wars for which Lynchburg is so infamous. Last year’s McKenna Place controversy dragged on for months with anti-development activists in other parts of town blasting City Council for showing deference toward the 24503 crowd while shunting major development projects off to the 24502 side of town.

No one needs a replay of that.

Right now, folks are wary and apprehensive; if Oakwood doesn’t fully involve the neighbors, that could easily turn into white-hot anger with everyone involved getting burned.