Representatives of Suffolk-based Quality Homes say they’ve created three alternative plans for the Cottages at Battery development they proposed last year at Battery Park Road and South Church Street.

After Smithfield’s Planning Commission voted Nov. 12 to postpone its recommendation on the 130-home concept Quality Homes submitted last year for 14 acres behind the Royal Farms convenience store, developers Brian Mullins and Nathan Diehl agreed to waive the 90-day window for the body to recommend either approval or denial of Quality Homes’ application for six special use permits.

Per Town Code, that window began Sept. 10 when the Cottages application first reached the Planning Commission. Had Quality Homes not agreed to waive the deadline, the application would have automatically advanced Dec. 9 to the Town Council with a default recommendation for approval.

Diehl and Mullins appeared before the Town Council at its Feb. 24 committees meeting seeking guidance on which, if any, of the three alternatives the body preferred. One alternative, Mullins said, would reduce the scope from 130 homes to 117, or from 10 units per acre to nine. Another, he said, would go down to 104 homes, or eight units per acre, eliminating two of the six requested permits. 

Quality Homes acquired the land in April from Virginia Beach-based developer John Mamoudis, who in 2020 had received Town Council approval for multifamily residential zoning to construct 150 condominiums spread across 15 two-story multifamily buildings, each containing 10 units. 

Building something as similar as possible to what Mamoudis proposed is “our fourth option,” Mulins said. “It’s not necessarily what we want to do, but that’s the business that we’re in.”

The existing multifamily zoning allows up to 12 units per acre but stipulates an eight-unit-per-acre limit for any attached housing, which is what the town has deemed Quality Homes’ proposed 1,000- to 1,300-square-foot one- and two-story detached homes because they have adjoining garages. Community Development and Planning Director Tammie Clary said the 130-home plan currently stalled at the Planning Commission calls for retaining the existing zoning but would modify the proffers to which Mamoudis had agreed in order to conform to what’s now being proposed. 

Mullins said the 104-home alternative would eliminate the need for the special use permit that would allow up to 10 units per acre, and the permit that would allow homes to be 17 feet apart, down from the minimum 24 feet otherwise required.

The other four permits would allow fewer than the minimum three attached units required under the town’s definition of attached residential, exempt Quality Homes from needing one recreational vehicle parking space per four dwelling units, waive yard requirements to allow the abutting garages and waive parking and loading requirements to allow three spaces per unit and 11 visitor spaces.

Quality Homes’ development would be the first in Smithfield to operate under a unique form of condominium-style ownership in which the homes’ exteriors and all the surrounding land, including individual yards, would be owned and maintained by a homeowners association. The concept is similar to the age-restricted Landings at Bennetts Creek development in North Suffolk, though the Cottages would not be age restricted.

“If this product is not a product that you like, then maybe we could have some clarity as to what would be,” Mullins said.

Council members, however, declined to weigh in on which of the four options they preferred, stating that the Planning Commission should first complete its review.

“This is what Planning does,’ said Councilwoman Valerie Butler.

“I think we’re usurping the Planning Commission by sitting here having this dialogue,” Councilman Steve Bowman said.

“We talked before we even put our concept in; we keep going back to the well or being asked to come back to the well, and so today we’re here looking for a direction and if that direction is going back to Planning Commission, been there, done that, happy to do it again,” Mullins said. “But I’d like to be able to know that when we go back to them we’re doing what you all want, because ultimately you’re going to be the ones who are going to make that decision. If a 10-plex is exactly what you’re looking for, it’s done. I don’t think that’s asking to step out of the line.”

Councilman Darren Cutler said Mullins’ request for direction is not without precedent. Last month, the council gave feedback to developer Joseph Luter IV on a revised concept for the Grange at 10Main that would reduce its density from the 267 homes approved in 2023 for 57 acres at the western edge of the town’s historic district to 93.

“To be honest with you, I think a lot of the citizenry objects to the density,” Cutler told Mullins. 

Cutler, Mayor Mike Smith, Councilwoman Mary Ellen Bebermeyer and Councilman Bill Harris each ran for their council seats in last year’s election on a platform of reining in growth.