Augusta planners highlight fruits of their comprehensive plan labors

Yahoo

08-08-2025

County Planners Julia Hensley and Kaitlyn Savage took the stage at Blue Ridge Community College, ready to give a well rehearsed speech.
On Aug. 5, it was the fourth time the planners would be introducing a group of civilians to the current draft of the upcoming Augusta County Comprehensive Plan.
'This is a guiding document that helps us prepare for any development that is potentially going to come forward over the next 20 years,' said Hensley. 'We deal with all sorts of different topics, housing, transportation, utilities, infrastructure, land use, etc., and so forth. These documents were very general. They are required by Virginia State Code, so every 20 years, we need to do a full update. Our last full update was done in 2007. So, here, we are going to kind of show you the proposals that we've done in an entire rewrite.'
Hensley and Savage are the entire Augusta County Planning team, and work on the plan has fallen on their shoulders. They have been taking in feedback, holding focus groups, and coordinated a county-wide survey in order to draft the new 20-year plan.
'It was a labor of love, and I mean, both labor and love,' Hensley joked.
In November 2023, the planners held five similar town halls in person and two virtually. Then, 10 focus groups were held, comprised of groups of 10 to 15 people answering questions on economic development, housing, transportation, energy, and agriculture. The planners continued to take feedback as they worked on the draft.
The result was a comprehensive plan with five priorities: balanced growth, environmental stewardship, quality of life, sense of place, and transportation network. Each of these priorities have goals clarifying what the county would like to see happen as more development happens in Augusta County.
Hensley excitedly introduced the crowd the many maps posted on the auditorium walls, the largest scale of which is the planning policy area map.
The draft plan divides Augusta County into four broad use categories
Urban service area tends to run through the main corridors and are expected to take on about 80% of the development in the county over the next 20 years.
'Urban service areas are also the priority locations for a lot of your bigger ticket items,' Hensley said 'This is where you're gonna see things like hospitals, other public facilities like that. You're going to have significant expansions of public water and sewer facilities into these urban service areas. You're also going to see a large amount of the future residential and commercial growth, like I said, approximately 80%.'
Then there are community development areas, which tend to be grouped around towns, expected to take on 10% of the growth.
'You're more likely to see something like a post office or something like that in a community development area, [although] they can be an urban service areas," Hensley said. "… You're going to have some moderate residential growth, but it's usually going to be smaller in scale in terms; of you're not going to see a 400 house subdivisions in a community development area, you're more likely going to see some rural residential development, lower density, where people have larger lots, things like that. Then some lower intensity commercial that basically supplements that mobile community. So it's not necessarily going to draw people from outside of the immediate area, but it will serve those the close by.'
The plan goes into more detail with these two categories with the future land use maps, breaking down into 13 more categories like industrial, community mixed use, and several types of residential.
More: Augusta Comprehensive Plan draft now available, county calls for feedback
The final two planning policy area map categories, rural conservation areas and agricultural conservation areas, are anticipated to take on about 5% of the growth apiece.
Hensley encouraged those with questions to reach out to the planning office as the new plan is written.
Over the three community meetings so far, about 100 people have came out to give feedback and see the plan for themselves. At Blue Ridge on Aug. 5, there were about 15 more in attendance.
'This is our fourth of five community meetings, so if you know anybody that's interested in hearing what we have to say, hearing what we're putting forward, they got one more shot after tonight,' Hensley said. 'That will be at Buffalo Gap Middle School next Thursday, Aug. 14, at the same time, 5 to 7 p.m.'
The full Augusta County Comprehensive Plan draft is on the county's website for anyone to review. Feedback can also be given in Comprehensive Plan & Economic Development Strategic Plan survey available on the comp plan hub page of the county's website.
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Lyra Bordelon (she/her) is the public transparency and justice reporter at The News Leader. Do you have a story tip or feedback? It's welcome through email to [e-mail]. Subscribe to us at newsleader.com.
This article originally appeared on Staunton News Leader: Augusta planners highlight fruits of their comprehensive plan labors
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