Can Neighbors Save Lake Powell?

Thursday, July 22, 2010

James City County’s Lake Powell will continue to dry up unless the owners agree to let nearby homeowners buy them out.

Floyd Powell bought the lake and attached dam in the 1920s and his descendents have owned it ever since. After the dam failed in 1999 and again in 2006, the owners began considering their options in regards to the property.

This would make the owners considerable money, but many property owners in the area aren’t too happy about the idea.

Since the 2006 dam breach, the lake has remained partially drained and trees, shrubs and invasive species have been growing along the remaining muddy area (visible from the bridge along Jamestown Road).

Several homes that used to boast waterfront property now overlook the overgrown area and homeowners have seen a reduction in the values of their homes by around 17 percent, according to homeowner Sandy Duvall. Duvall is spearheading the Save Lake Powell citizen group, which is petitioning the county to continue with the idea of creating a new tax district to purchase, restore and maintain the lake.

She says her property has not only lost value, but now overlooks a mosquito-infested swampland strewn with trash and dead fish carcasses. “People who bought waterfront homes on the lake that’s been here 200 years don’t expect it to ever go away,” she says. But it did.

Jamestown District Supervisor John McGlennon has been talking to both nearby homeowners and the current lake owners. He says the lake owners are considering selling the lake to the county, to be paid for through a new tax impact district.

Homeowners need to petition the Board of Supervisors to create the special tax district and would need a significant majority of homeowners to support the idea, according to McGlennon.

Things have changed since the owners first agreed to sell their stake in the lake property in 2007, however, and the lake owners are looking for more money. “If the wetlands bank is created, there will be substantial financial value [to the area], where there wasn’t tangible value before,” McGlennon says.

No price has been settled on yet, nor has the cost of maintenance, so homeowners aren’t sure how much the extra tax amount might be. Duvall hopes the lake owners will consider the tough economy and the reduced property value of nearby homes when they are coming up with a price for the property.

The time for homeowners to act is shrinking now that the Army Corps of Engineers has opened up a comment period on the wetlands mitigation bank. They are soliciting comment from the public until Aug. 9, after which time they’ll decide on the application (unless the lake owners decide to sell to the county).

“Once it gets classified [as a wetlands mitigation bank], there’s no return for the lake,” Duvall says.

So far, her group has collected five or six pages of signatures on a petition to save the lake, and the group has the support of many nearby property owners to begin the special tax district.

McGlennon is speaking to both the concerned homeowners and the lake owners to help them reach an amenable agreement. He expects that if supervisors agreed to the special tax district then the county would likely front the money for the purchase of the lake and use the special taxes collected to repay the amount and to pay for the cost of future maintenance, but nothing regarding the issue is certain yet aside from the Army Corps’ Aug. 9 comment deadline.

Read the Army Corps plan here.

Comments on this project should be made in writing, addressed to the Norfolk District, Corps of Engineers (ATTN:  CENAO-REG), 803 Front Street, Norfolk, Virginia 23510-1096, and should be received by the close of business on August 9.

Visit the homeowner’s website here.