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As expected, Wal-Mart won approval this week to build a store a quarter-mile from a national park commemorating the 1863 Battle of the Wilderness. But the fight to protect the land isn’t over yet.
At 1 a.m. Tuesday, the Orange County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 to grant a special-use permit for the project west of Fredericksburg, despite opposition from preservation groups, noted historians David McCollough and James McPherson and various political leaders, including U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, Gov. Tim Kaine and House Speaker Bill Howell.
Some county officials bristled at the advice pouring in.
At this week’s meeting, Supervisor R. Mark Johnson declared, “The history of Orange is not dirt. If Mount Vernon just got blown off the face of the Earth, would we think any less of George Washington?”
Well, no. We wouldn’t. But we wouldn’t think much of the people responsible for destroying Mount Vernon — or, more to the point, the people responsible for allowing the Wilderness to be overrun by development.
Orange officials clearly weren’t up to the challenge of protecting a state and national historic asset. But it’s not too late for Wal-Mart executives to do so, as they have in the past — notably at George Washington’s boyhood home outside Fredericksburg, where a public outcry prompted them to alter plans for a store in the mid-1990s.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation and other groups vow to continue the battle to protect the area around the Wilderness. To do so, they need to put money behind their convictions. They should work out a deal to buy the land where Wal-Mart intends to build and help secure a suitable site for the store elsewhere in the county.
All interests — historic preservation, property rights and economic growth — can be served here, with some creativity, compromise and cash.
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Buying the Wilderness
I attended the Board of Supervisors public hearing last week, staying until after midnight. One member of the family who owns the property spoke and pointed out that this land has been "for sale" for literally decades - shortly after the 1973 commercial zoning.
Walmart has been the only company or organization to make an actual bid. If this land was truly as historically significant as the preservation groups claim it is, then why haven't they found the cash to preserve it permanently?
Facts on Orange Wal-Mart
It's telling that nearly 70% of the Orange County residents, a majority of the Planning Commission and and a 4-1 majority of the Board support the project at it's proposed location and do not think it will negatively impact the Wilderness Battlefield. The site is nearly two miles from the nearest area of actual fighting (Saunders Field). There are two strip malls, a gas station, bank, convenience store, car lot and a four lane highway all in between the Wilderness National Park and the proposed site. Wal-Mart dedicated the 17 acres closest to the site as a conservation easement and moved the site back 1/4 mile from the highway. They buffered the site with trees so it cannot be seen from the highway or Park property. The Board of Supervisors was actually up to the challenge - they passed a Big Box Ordinance and some of the strongest retail guidelines in Virginia to properly manage the site. The real story here is that the preservation groups are raising an enormous amount of money by stirring up this issue. At some point people need to wake up and hold them accountable as well.
Walmart SUP
It is unfortunate that this paper chose a single line out of about 25 minutes of my comments and then used it out of context as a straw man.
The site in question has been zoned commercial since 1973.
The only reason Walmart was required to get a Special Use Permit is due to the size of their building. Orange County's so called "big box" ordinance requires that any building 60,000 square feet or larger must get an SUP. Quite literally, the landowner could put ten 55,000 sq ft buildings on the same property without any permission from the County.
The property where the Walmart is located is not on the "core battlefield" and in fact no evidence beyond speculation has been produced to show that it had any part of the Battle of the Wilderness. While it quite possibly had a few soldiers run across it or perhaps some wagons staged there, NO EVIDENCE of this exists in any of the several histories of that battle.
This area has not been "wilderness" for decades. Today there are roughly 10,000 homes with-in a three miles radius of the site that are either closer to or in many cases ON the "core" battlefield. Additionally there are over fifty businesses located up and down both