Smithfield’s Planning Commission, and the public, will get their first opportunity on June 10 to weigh in on the latest reduced-density proposal for the Grange at 10Main development slated for 57 acres at the western edge of the town’s historic district.

A notice published in the May 21 print edition of the Times states the body’s 6:30 p.m. meeting will include a public hearing on developer Joseph Luter IV’s request for two special use permits.

The latest concept, dated April 24 and provided to the Times by Luter after Town Manager Michael Stallings and Community Development and Planning Director Tammie Clary were unresponsive to the newspaper’s request for information, incorporates elements from January and February conceptual plans that called for significantly fewer homes than a plan approved in 2023 by the Town Council. The latest plan proposes 115 residential units, including 33 single-family 60-foot-wide lots, 10 single-family “estate” 80-foot-wide lots, 37 townhouses and 35 cottages. A note on the April 24 plan states that townhouses may replace some cottage lot locations during the final site plan, but the total lot count would not exceed 119 units.

“We have four different residential lot sizes and product types to meet the various demands of both homeowners and renters,” Luter IV told the Times.

The plan still includes a commercial phase that would house the town’s farmers market, a restaurant, office and retail space, and a hotel.

In January, Luter presented a plan to the Town Council for 93 homes, including 45 townhouses, in lieu of three-story apartment buildings that had been part of the 267-home concept a prior Town Council voted 3-2 to approve in 2023 for mixed-use zoning. In February, in response to council members’ concerns over the affordability of the houses’ proposed price points of $600,000 to $1 million, Luter returned with a 122-home alternative featuring 800- to 1,400-square-foot “cottages” that he said would start around $300,000.

The public hearing notice states that one of the permits would grant a waiver of yard requirements. The other would grant a waiver of maximum building height, which is capped at 35 feet, or three stories, under the town’s planned mixed-use development, or PMUD, zoning designation.

Though the apartments are now eliminated from the plan, the latest concept calls for 40-foot-fall townhomes and still calls for a three-story, 42-foot-tall hotel that would measure 81,000 square feet and include 104 rooms. Luter said in January that he had “an interested party with a national brand” for the hotel.

The 267-home version of the Grange received six special use permits, including a height waiver. Since last year’s election, which saw Mary Ellen Bebermeyer, Darren Cutler, Bill Harris and now-Mayor Mike Smith win their seats on campaign promises of controlling residential growth, the council has been more hesitant – but not adamantly opposed – to granting exceptions to the requirements of the town’s zoning ordinance. 

In March, the council voted 4-2 to deny developer Vincent Carollo’s request for a change in the town’s zoning ordinance that would have allowed him to seek a special use permit allowing 10 condominium-style units on an acre at Washington and James streets in the historic district, up from the eight allowed when the land was owned by Luter. In early May, the council voted 6-1 to approve a lower-density version of the Cottages at Battery development on 14 acres behind the Royal Farms convenience store at Battery Park Road and South Church Street after the project’s Suffolk-based developer, Quality Homes, returned with a 104-home concept that reflected a 20% reduction in density from an original 130-home proposal and reduced from six to two the number of special use permits that would be needed.

The Planning Commission has begun discussing, but not yet agreed on, whether any changes to the stated maximum density allowed in the historic district is needed to align with the number of units per acre already present in established historic district neighborhoods.

Luter wants Smithfield to match Isle of Wight County and put up $1.4 million for the construction of an indoor/outdoor structure that would house the town’s farmers market. Luter’s father, former Smithfield Foods Chairman Joseph Luter III, in 2022 offered land and $1 million conditioned on the town and Isle of Wight County each putting up $1.4 million to build a permanent home for the weekly market that currently operates seasonally in the Bank of Southside Virginia parking lot on Main Street. A prior Town Council agreed to the Luters’ terms in 2022 though only Isle of Wight County, which in 2022 pledged its own $1.4 million, has officially transferred its share to the Isle of Wight Economic Development Authority, which last year agreed to serve as landlord for the structure.

Bebermeyer, Cutler, Harris and Smith each said at an October candidate forum that they opposed the prior council’s commitment of taxpayer dollars for the farmers market. Town and county officials have since said they’ve been told by the Bank of Southside Virginia that the parking lot lease won’t be renewed come 2026.

Luter IV, in January, said he has “zero interest in moving forward without the support” of the current council.

Among the controversies that plagued the Grange’s 2023 rezoning process was a remark Luter IV made that year to the Planning Commission about potentially seeking “reimbursement” for certain “public” components of the Grange beyond the market – something Luter IV told the new council he’s not planning to request from the town this time around.

A concept for the building that would house the market has changed multiple times over the nearly five years since the Luters purchased and razed the former Little’s grocery store and dilapidated 1730s-era Pierceville farmhouse at the 57-acre site. An illustration dated March 28 proposed splitting the market from a restaurant that in previous plans would have been housed together with the market in a single brick structure. There has been at least one subsequent revision to that concept since early April, according to Isle of Wight County Tourism Director Judy Winslow. The market and restaurant are shown in an L-shaped building on the April 24 conceptual plan.

“The farmers market includes a grassed plaza for families and citizens to enjoy seven days a week, along with space for pop-up tents during busier holiday seasons,” Luter IV told the Times. “The commercial space at the eastern end of the market will be built and owned separately from the market itself unless the town and county decide they want to build and own it.”

Luter’s latest plan also calls for deeding roughly 16 acres that would have been part of the 267-home version to Smithfield to be developed, or not developed, as the Town Council sees fit.

The hotel would share parking with Main Street Baptist Church and the Schoolhouse Museum, Luter said. 

“This modified plan reduces density by more than 50% but still delivers on the original objective of providing the town and county with some missing amenities, and, of significant importance, gives the town 16-plus acres in downtown and a permanent site with great accessibility for the farmers market,” he said.

Luter said in January that the 93-home concept proposed at that time would have equated to a 41% reduction in vehicular traffic compared to the 2023-approved concept, which the Virginia Department of Transportation had expected as of that year to generate roughly 4,700 daily vehicular trips spread across the sites’ four access points from Cary Street, Grace Street, Main Street and a right-turn-only ingress from Route 10.

The April 24 plan still shows a stormwater management pond fronting Main Street that Luter said will be heavily landscaped, enclosed and include benches and a water feature.