DEVELOPER RAY SMITH RESORTS TO LAST MINUTE DESPERATION TACTICS

For Immediate Release
February 21, 2003

DEVELOPER RAY SMITH RESORTS TO LAST MINUTE DESPERATION TACTICS

(Chancellorsville, Va.) - The Coalition to Save Chancellorsville Battlefield released the following statement today in response to a telemarketing campaign conducted by proponents of the controversial rezoning of the Mullins Farm. On May 1, 1863, the Union and Confederate armies collided on the Mullins Farm in the opening clash of the historic battle of Chancellorsville.

"Dogwood Development Group President Ray F. Smith is running scared. He knows the tide is turning against his effort to develop the 790-acre Mullins Farm. Smith is now resorting to 11th hour desperation tactics to save his development plan — a plan jeopardized by his own misleading statements, accounting gimmicks, and clumsy political maneuvers.

"Smith and his backers have launched a slick telemarketing campaign to confuse the public and save his plan. The campaign includes several false and misleading questions written to elicit a favorable response disguised as a survey.

"For instance, Smith continues to claim that his development scheme will generate millions in revenue for the county. However, a fiscal analysis commissioned by the Coalition to Save Chancellorsville Battlefield has proven otherwise. The analysis, released in December, explains how Smith is juggling the numbers to create grossly inaccurate revenue generation numbers. Moreover, county planners are continuing to question Smith about the true value of his inflated proffers.

"A recent review by the Virginia Department of Transportation further bolsters this view. The report questions Smith's claims that the development will not contribute to congestion on Route 3. Further, the review states that Smith's housing proposal includes more than a thousand town homes and apartments. These types of housing units typically exacerbate traffic problems while costing municipal governments far more than they produce in tax revenue.

"The telemarketing campaign comes at a time when Smith's own financial stability has been called into question. He recently had to abandon his Idlewild project because of strained resources. In addition, recent press reports disclosed that Smith filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 1995 after his then development company, the Sequoia Building Corporation, went belly up. According to the Fredericksburg Free Lance Star, his bankruptcy filing 'discharged debts of about $80 million.'

"Those concerned about Smith's inability to make good on his promises need look no further than his Shenandoah project, a 2,130 unit development in Frederick County, Va. As he is doing in Spotsylvania County, Smith has pledged to build a beautiful village center development that one engineer claims would 'improve nature.' However, since the county board of supervisors approved Smith's plan in August 2000, little has visibly been accomplished at Shenandoah. The property remains undeveloped, allegedly because of financial uncertainties — a silent testament to Smith's inability to fulfill his promises.

"In August, the Coalition to Save Chancellorsville Battlefield commissioned a legitimate survey to determine voters' attitudes about the Smith proposal. The poll, conducted by Mason Dixon Research and using professional polling techniques, revealed 66 percent of Spotsylvania County voters indicated their opposition to the development of the Mullins Farm. In addition, 80 percent of county voters indicated that Dogwood's plans will put a strain on county finances. New web-based polls echo those sentiments."

The Coalition to Save Chancellorsville Battlefield is an informal group of 12 national and local preservation, conservation and civic groups representing more than 600,000 members nationwide. The coalition is dedicated to preserving and protecting Chancellorsville battlefield. Its website is located at www.chancellorsville.org.

Contact: Jim Campi of the Civil War Preservation Trust at 202-367-1861 or Beth Newburger of the National Trust for Historic Preservation at 202-588-6141.

After doing a few searches on Google I found this:

"The National Park Service owns 1,600 acres of the Chancellorsville battlefield. The land proposed for development is outside the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park's congressionally approved boundary."

"Dogwood has offered the county 34 acres to preserve as a battlefield park, including 20 acres where the first-day fighting occurred. The developer is now offering to build a parking lot and make other improvements to the park."

"The town would also have a 200-foot buffer east of the Outer Connector and a 100-foot buffer west of the connector in an attempt to preserve the scenic view along Route 3."

It sounds like the developer is willing to preserve the battlefield in his development plans, which sounds good to me.

It's not a matter of private property so much as a matter of public funds. The proposed development would depend, for its commercial success, on a LOT of public money spent on infrastructure -- including highway funds to cope with the additional traffic pressure on Rt 3, road, water and sewerage and other infrastructure for the development, and substantially increased demand on local school systems.

The developer is trying to "sell" this concept to the Spotsylvania Board of Supervisors and the local electorate on the basis that it will supposedly be a net generator of local revenue because of the shopping center and office element to the development but the numbers just don't crunch. Plus, the elements of the development that will COST taxpayers money will (of course) come on stream before those that are supposed to generate (unproven) revenue.

To suggest that support of the developer is purely a matter of free markets and private property is naive. The property in question was originally zoned agriculture. The market value soars when it's re-zoned (as was done in the current master plan but the developer proposes to up the density considerably). The re-zoning is in the gift of local government. If you're into Ayn Rand, this is Wesley Mooch at his best -- business trying to induce government to line their pockets.

Opinion polls show that local people don't want this development. If I were paying taxes in Spotsylvania County, I wouldn't either!

This is also supposed to be a Conservative website -- one that is mindful of issues such as heritage and history. The area around Chancellorsville battlefield is among the most historic in the country and under the greatest threat as the DC to Richmond metroplex continues its sprawl. A lot of people fought and died here, on both sides of a conflict that, to this day, still defines to a large extent who and what we are as a nation. I'd like to think that their sacrifice counts for something and should not be forgotten simply because some developer wants to make a buck at the taxpayers' expense.

For more information, go to http://www.chancellorsville.org

Este Nihil Sacre?

-- Kathryn Coombs
King George County, VA

"In great deeds something abides. On great fields something stays. Forms change and pass; bodies disappear, but spirits linger, to consecrate ground for the vision-place of souls. And reverent men and women from afar, and generations that know us not and that we know not of, heart-drawn to see where and by whom great things were suffered and done for them, shall come to this deathless field to ponder and dream; And lo! the shadow of a mighty presence shall wrap them in its bosom, and the power of the vision pass into their souls.
-- Gen. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, October 3, 1889, Gettysburg, PA

Private property is private property and the man ought to be able to develop it as he wants.

Land is an investment. A landowner or developer has the right to try to make a profit from his investment, but the Constitution does not guarantee that he can make a profit on this investment. It's not reasonable for a developer to expect local government to rearrange its laws, for the taxpayers to cough up money for more roads, schools, hospitals, and support services for the people his development will bring in, or for the people of Virginia to sacrifice their hard-won heritage of history, just so that he can get rich(er).

Trying to develop land that is precious to millions, and wreck it forever with "office parks" and endless ranks of fragile townhouses, is simply a bad business gamble. The developer had to be very foolish to think he wouldn't encounter stiff opposition from those of us who believe that if yet another indistinguishably ugly development simply must be built, it can be built elsewhere, on land that has not been consecrated with the blood of heroes.

Further, the construction of a project like this one is a bad business move on the part of the county and state. One of Virginia's greatest sources of revenue is the money that comes from tourism. People come from all over the United States, from all over the world, to see the historic sites of Virginia. But if vast tracts of historic land are bulldozed and built up, tourists won't come here, and they won't leave their money here. Permitting development on historic land like the Chancellorsville battlefield would not only be an ethical horror but an economic disaster.

Private property is private property and the man ought to be able to develop it as he wants.

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