Residents consider compromise on CSX rezoning, but not optimistic

ROCKINGHAM — The residents around the parcel that CSX is looking to rezone to Heavy Industrial are open to compromise, but aren’t very hopeful as a vote on the matter looms Thursday morning.

CSX is requesting that a parcel they own which straddles Marks Creek Church Road be rezoned from Rural Residential/Agricultural Residential to Heavy Industrial, for the purpose of making it “consistent” with the zoning of the rest of the company’s property in the area and to make it viable for future development. The property has a tax value of $193,390 and comprises 167 acres.

Buck Chappell, whose family has lived adjacent to the land in question for five generations, told the Daily Journal in an interview Wednesday that if CSX were to commit to only using the land on the other side of Marks Creek Church Road from his and his neighbors’ property, it would make the addition of new industry in the area “easier to swallow.” The parcel includes about a 200-300 foot wide stretch of land which separates the property of Chappell’s neighbors and the road, which he and his son-in-law, Gary Herndon, doubt could even be useful to a major industry.

“It would make it easier to swallow if they just rezoned what’s to the other side and leave this side over here and (plant) pines or whatever,” Chappell said. He added that he wants CSX to be more open about what they plan to do with the property and would prefer the vote be delayed to allow the residents to bring forward more information to support their case.

Chappell and his daughter, Shannon, were part of a letter read to the Board of Commissioners Tuesday in which they argued that the rezoning request be denied because of the risk of damaging the environment and lowering property values.

The residents in this area have had past talks with the county about getting county water including one “promise” by a former county commissioner — but it has never come to fruition. Chappell said that it was County Manager Bryan Land, who was working with the county’s Public Works Department at the time, who sent Chappell a letter that said for him to get county water out to his property it would cost him $65,000 — money Chappell didn’t have.

Chappell and Herndon suggested that the county is now using the prospect of them getting county water, which would be cheaper for them if they were able to tap onto a line that was already running to heavy industry nearby, to get the neighbors to support a deal that could change the shape of the property they’ve moved to to either live out the rest of their lives or to maintain for their future generations.

“‘Keep your mouth shut and let CSX do what they want to’ — that’s basically what it boils down to,” Herndon said. Speaking from the perspective of the county, Herndon said, “‘Well look, y’all have been wanting water for so long now, if we let these people in here we can probably get water down here and it won’t cost y’all nothing, but you’re going to have a parking lot at your front door.’”

Commissioner Tavares Bostic went out to the site to see the land for himself and met the Chappells. Bostic said in talking to them he saw how “real” the issue is to them, and that he relates because he grew up in a small town and remembered hearing about how a railroad cutting through made an impact on his family.

Bostic said he had been talking with other commissioners and Land about what could be done, and said the consensus was that a “healthy compromise” could be for the residents to get county water out of the rezoning. When told about the Chappell family’s comments that this water-for-rezoning deal would be seen in a negative light, Bostic said he understood that making promises about things without “the other voices” involved — meaning the other parties that have a role in making this promise happen other than the members of the public — it can be “dangerous.”

“I knew not to promise this, I told (the Chappells) I wanted to observe the land and I also wanted to say, ‘Hey, we actually hear you and we want to make the best decision possible.’”

CSX, in their letter arguing for why the rezoning should be approved, noted that they have owned the parcel in question since 1956. For Lonnie “Chris” Norton and his wife, Hope Norton, that date means nothing to them. Chris’s family has lived on their land, which backs up directly to the property owned by CSX, since at least the 1860s, according to the couple.

The Norton’s, who have a combined 41 years of military service, built a home on the land Chris grew up on in 2013 to retire on, turning it now into a homestead with its own garden and growing bee hive, in order to be closer to Chris’s parents who live around the corner from them. They said they watched in recent months, prior to CSX requesting the rezoning, as they clear-cut the land behind their home which threatens the bees’ foraging area.

There was already growing noise pollution from the Enviva plant nearby, and with the clear-cutting of these trees which served as more of a buffer, the noise has gotten worse. If an industry was allowed to build here, they said they would most likely move away after once Chris’s parents are gone.

“We’re here for his parents to help them out, but you know, that’s the only thing keeping us here,” Hope said. “I guarantee you any of those commissioners, if it was in their neighborhood, there’s no way they would be happy about it.”

Chris added that moving to this area was a “one shot deal” and that they aren’t sure they’d have the energy to restart their homestead somewhere else, as they get older.

“It’s in God’s hands,” Hope said.