ROANOKE, Va. (WDBJ) – A real estate developer is suing the Lynchburg City Council. This comes after four members voted against an approval to rezone property for housing.
WDBJ7’s Kaira Willis spoke with the developer to learn about the decision to take legal action.
Real estate broker Tom DeWitt hopes to build 20 affordable housing units on Wards Ferry Road. Back in March, the city council voted 4 to 3 against the rezoning proposal, and now DeWitt is taking them to court.
“We went through all the process, we got the Board of Zoning Appeals… was for us. The Planning Commission was unanimous. The planning staff was for us. So everybody involved at City Hall or in the staff was for the project, and then somehow City Council managed to vote four-to-three against our project,” DeWitt said.
DeWitt wants to rezone the two-acre property on Wards Ferry Road to build 18 townhomes and 2 duplexes. He’s been working to develop this property for the last two years.
“This is a great place. It’s a great location. All the utilities are in place. Everything’s in place, but the zoning and the problem there is we feel like we’re being held hostage by this B-1 zoning,” he added.
DeWitt feels it is unfair for city council to vote against his proposal but approve an over-700-unit housing development on Wiggington Road.
“We have 20 units on two acres. That same night, they approved a project with 750 units on 75 acres. So the exact same density, but 37 times the size.”
At the March meeting, city council members expressed safety concerns over the location of the development, saying adding a new traffic pattern to an already highly congested area is troubling for them.
DeWitt wants the judge to hear their case and allow the project to move forward.
“They didn’t seem to understand the two traffic reports that we had given them. They wanted us to do a further traffic study. We tried to do that. And again, what we did didn’t make sense to move the entrance to another place. So here we are,” DeWitt closed.
WDBJ7 reached out to the members of city council who voted against the rezoning; they said they cannot comment with new information while under litigation.
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