New Store At Chancellorsville Receives Special Permit

By Scott C. Boyd · Originally published March 2016 · p. 7

New Store At Chancellorsville Receives Special Permit By Scott C. Boyd SPOTSYLVANIA COUNTY, Va. - The Spotsylvania County Board of Supervisors on Dec. 8 approved the special use permit (SUP) required for a 9,000-square-foot convenience store to be built on core battle land across state Route 3 from the First Day at Chancellorsville battlefield. The vote was the last step in the county’s approval process. The First Day site, also known as Mullins Farm, is the 140-acre tract where Union Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker’s troops clashed with Confederates on Orange Turnpike (today’s Plank Road or Route 3), determined to stop them on May 1, 1863. The spot was the epicenter of a struggle between developers and preservationists that culminated in a 2004 compromise between county officials, developer Tricord Homes, and a coalition of preservation groups led by the Civil War Preservation Trust (now Civil War Trust) to preserve the 140 acres. The supervisors’ recent decision drew disapproval from two significant historic preservation groups involved in saving the First Day site. “The Trust maintains that limiting development along Route 3 between the First Day at Chancellorsville sites and the Wilderness Battlefield is critical for protection of these battlefields,” said Meg Martin, communications manager for the Civil War Trust. “We are disappointed by this latest project, but remain focused on the larger issue.” “Central Virginia Battlefields Trust (CVBT) is disappointed that Spotsylvania County appears to have forsaken the commitment to historic preservation that was a prominent feature of its last Comprehensive Plan, adopted in 2013,” according to a CVBT statement. It continued, “In that document Spotsylvania acknowledged the national importance of the Chancellorsville battlefield and says this of the preservation of the battlefield property directly across

Plank Road from the proposed “country store”: ‘Possibly (one of) the most important successes in the past several years has been that of preserving over 200 acres north of Plank Road, near Lick Run and the “First Day” fighting of the Battle of Chancellorsville.’” The Board of Supervisors’s decision in favor of the special use permit was preceded by the Nov. 18 county planning commission approval of the permit, despite concerns raised in a National Park Service (NPS) letter. “The development of this property for commercial use is a concern,” Eric Mink, local NPS historian and cultural resources manager, wrote in a Sept. 21 letter.

The red star shows where the store on battleground is proposed. The First Day at Chancellorsville battlefield is across the highway. “This could set a precedent for future special use and rezoning requests that would bring development of this type closer to NPS lands at Chancellorsville Battlefield.” Like the Mullins Farm, the proposed store site across the road is in the “core area” of the Chancellorsville battlefield as defined by the 1993 congressionally-authorized Civil War Sites Advisory Commission. Culpeper, Va. businessman Alvin Esh completed his application to the Spotsylvania Planning Commission on Sept. 4 for the store to be built on two parcels totaling 6.12 acres on the south side of Route 3. Esh owns and operates The Ole Country Store in Culpeper. The proposed Spotsylvania store would be similar. The planning commission staff report quotes Esh as saying his store is designed to replicate “traditional agricultural communities in the pioneer west of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.” The report said Esh identifies the store as “a marketplace… of high quality goods…derived from the Amish and Mennonite cultures.” The land is owned by the small Fredericksburg Wesleyan Church. Its rural zoning requires a special use permit to construct a store there. Although county documents use the name “The Ole Country Store” for the project, Esh clarified for Civil War News that the name of the store in Spotsylvania will be “The Battlefield Country Store.” The permit process included a community meeting to discuss the proposal. It was held Aug. 27 at a nearby Ruritan Club building. About 20 people attended. The planning commission report states that attendees “noted concerns regarding traffic, impacts on historic resources and westward expansion of commercial activities” on Route 3. A public hearing was held Nov. 18 before the planning commission. The published minutes of the meeting indicate that three members of the public spoke about the special use permit, with one opposing, one supporting, and one not clearly taking a position.