Chesterfild Virginia...

Chesterfield VA is a very good county to live in. It has some of the best schools in the state and it has about 500k+ people living in it. There are 12 high schools and nearly 14 middle schools and as many elementary schools . Therefore, overall, it is a very good county to live in.

The bad part is the rapid expansion of the housing market here. With the national market in a slump, it is reflected here as well. In our subdivision, there have been houses on the market for over 9 months and they are still building more houses. In the whole Richmond Metroplex, there are over 10k houses on the market. Why are they still building? There are plans to build two new subdivisions in our area, Roseland and the other is called Branner Station and they will have a total of 10,000 new homes in them. Now my point is this; Chesterfield in the areas that subdivisions are being built does not have the infrastructure to handle them.

The water system depends on wells and Swift Creek Reservoir. With the little amount of rain, that we have had this year and the drought situation that we are in, it can hot handle more houses without expansion of those services. We are reportedly going on mandatory water restrictions as of next weekend due to the drought. This is happening all over Virginia and is not just a local event. The electrical system in our area is ok, we do have some power outages due to storms, but I think that Dominion Power has been trying to upgrade that infrastructure as of late.

The roads in this part of the county are for the most part two lane roads with no shoulders. The will improve the roads in front of the entrances of the subdivisions, but the rest of the roads are unimproved. Genito road coming from Hull Street (360) is a nice 4-lane road, when it crosses Old Hundred/Charter Colony Parkway; it becomes a bad two-lane road that goes through Brandermill and across Swift Creek Reservoir. There are several bad bridges that barely have enough room for two cars to pass at the same time. I hate to drive over them when another car is passing me. This road is on the 5-year plan to be expanded, I can t wait to see that happen.

Most of these properties that are being built had the land purchased in the early 1990s and the taxes were very low. The land developers have to pay taxes to have the city services to be connected to the sites. The land has set for over 15 years and the taxes are estimated to be around $18k, but they are locked in at the $2500k mark. So the developers will give the county land to make up for the difference in the tax base. The developers are ripping off the county and that is the main reason that the services are not up to where they need to be and it falls on the county to find the money to get them up to standered.

Another point I have to make is where are all the jobs coming from to support all of the new building? The main employers are Dominion and Philip Morris. With Wachovia taking leave of the city in 2009 and going to St. Louis and Capitol One having all the lay-offs, the tax base is not here to support all of the home development that is occurring here or to make all of the necessary infrastructure improvements that will be needed as well. With 10k new homes, that is an average of 30k new people going to live here. Where are they coming from? I know that the Fort Lee Military Base going to expand, but most Armed Services folks cannot afford a 300k+ home to live in and most of the new houses are in that price range.

I am not sure what the future holds for the Richmond Metroplex, but it should be interesting…




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