Smithfield’s Planning Commission voted 4-1 on April 8 to recommend approval of a lower-density version of the Cottages at Battery development proposed for 14 acres behind Royal Farms convenience store at Battery Park Road and South Church Street.

Commissioner Charles Bryan cast the dissenting vote. Commissioner Darren Cutler, who also serves on the Town Council, and Commissioner James Yoko were absent.

After the commissioners voted in November to postpone a recommendation on Suffolk-based Quality Homes’ original 130-home concept, developers Brian Mullins and Nathan Diehl agreed to waive the 90-day deadline for the body to recommend approval or denial of the company’s application, which at that time sought six special use permits.

The two returned on April 8 with a 104-home concept that reflects a 20% reduction in density from the 2024 plan and a 30% decrease from the 150-home concept Virginia Beach-based developer John Mamoudis had proposed for the land five years ago. Quality Homes acquired the land from Mamoudis last April.

Mamoudis sought and received Town Council approval for multifamily residential zoning in 2020, proposing at the time to build 15 two-story multifamily buildings, each containing 10 units. Quality Homes, which seeks to keep the multifamily zoning but amend the proffers to which Mamoudis had agreed, has proposed 1,000- to 1,300-square-foot one- and two-story detached homes with adjoining garages.

The reduction in density allowed Quality Homes to reduce from six to two the number of special use permits that would be required. One of the two would waive a requirement of one recreational vehicle parking space per four units. The second would allow the garages to adjoin at the rear.

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 the  rear-adjoining garages. The attached-housing definition would also ordinarily require a minimum of three adjoining units. The second permit would reduce that requirement to two.

The 104-home concept now complies with the eight-unit-per-acre limit, eliminating the need for one of the original six special use permits that requested up to 10 units per acre for the 130-home concept.

The three other now-unneeded special use permits had sought to build the homes closer than 24 feet apart, waive yard requirements and waive parking and loading requirements.

“We have listened to you all,” Diehl told the commissioners.

He appeared in February before Smithfield’s Town Council with multiple lower- and higher-density options for the 14-acre site. Though the council declined to weigh in on which they preferred, Cutler, in February, said part of the concern with the original concept had been the higher-than-allowed density.

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 residential growth. They, Councilmen Steve Bowman and Jeff Brooks and Councilwoman Valerie Butler will have the final say on whether Quality Homes’ revised concept is approved.

Cutler, in past debates over other housing development proposals, has also taken issue with developers requesting a large number of exceptions to the town’s zoning ordinance via special use permits.

“I’m very pleased at the reduction in special use permits,” said Planning Commissioner Thomas Pope.

Bryan commended the developers for reducing the proposed density but took issue with the revised proffer document’s lack of specificity concerning the site-specific and cumulative impacts on traffic and the Cottages’ potential to add students to Isle of Wight County’s school system.

A traffic study completed for the 150-unit concept in 2020 estimated 1,098 daily vehicular trips. Mullins told the commissioners the 104-home concept would reduce that figure by roughly 460 trips.

Mullins said the impact on the schools would also be less than the 150-unit concept already approved. Isle of Wight County Director of Community Development Amy Ring, in a March 2024 email to her town counterpart, Tammie Clary, estimated Quality Homes’ original 130-home concept would add 30 students to the school system.

Isle of Wight County Schools presented data to the Planning Commission last fall showing that the cumulative impact of 15 in-progress and proposed housing developments would cause four of the county’s five northern end schools to exceed their ability to meet state-mandated class size maximums.

“They acknowledge there’s going to be an impact,” Bryan said.

Clary, however, said the town did not receive an updated estimate from IWCS based on the 104-home concept. Town Attorney Bill Riddick said that limits the town’s ability to require developers to account for those impacts in writing, since state law since 2016 has only allowed localities to accept proffers specifically attributable to the proposed project.