A committee of three Smithfield Town Council members tasked with writing a policy governing if or when taxpayer dollars can be put toward sharing in the cost of a private residential or commercial development will hold its first meeting on Sept. 6 at 3:30 p.m. in the Windsor Castle manor house. The meeting will be open to the public.

Mayor Steve Bowman appointed Councilmen Randy Pack, Raynard Gibbs and Mike Smith, who chairs the committee, to the body at the council’s Aug. 6 meeting as a compromise with Smith, who earlier in the meeting had motioned that the town explicitly “not subsidize private development of any kind” with taxpayer dollars.

Because Pack is not running for reelection, the body has until Dec. 31 when Pack’s term in office ends to deliver its recommendation to the full council.

Smith, at the Aug. 6 meeting, cited population estimates from the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center showing Isle of Wight as the state’s sixth fastest-growing county, and more than 1,400 new homes in approved developments in town that have yet to be built, among his reasons for bringing the matter up.  

His initial motion proposing to bar any form of taxpayer participation in development drew an immediate second by Councilman Jeff Brooks. The two had cast the dissenting votes in last December’s 3-2 split decision to approve mixed-use zoning for the 267-home Grange at 10Main development proposed for 57 acres at the western edge of the town’s historic district at Route 10 and Main Street. The project’s developer, Joseph Luter IV, last year told Smithfield’s Planning Commission he may in the future seek “reimbursement” for costs associated with developing “public” components of the Grange, including roads, utilities and parking associated with an indoor-outdoor brick structure that would house the town’s farmers market and anchor the development’s commercial phase.

A 2022 fiscal impact study by Ted Figura Consulting included with Luter’s rezoning application for the Grange had proposed the town and county jointly provide an “economic development incentive” for a hotel in the development’s commercial phase, and that one or both governing bodies  “purchase the development’s infrastructure and utilities through a participation agreement.”  

Smith’s initial motion for a blanket ban on taxpayer participation drew skepticism from other council members and from Town Attorney Bill Riddick, who contended the town is legally obligated to commit funding to a development under certain circumstances, such as if the town requires a developer to add capacity to a pump station beyond what’s needed for the development in question.

The draft policy the committee proposes may or may not impact an offer by Luter’s father, former Smithfield Foods Chairman Joseph Luter III, of $6 million for the beautification of the western edge of the town’s historic district near the Grange, conditioned on the town matching the amount dollar for dollar and moving its farmers market to the Grange. Bowman, after Luter III made the offer in May, said the money would fund a brick perimeter wall in town-owned right-of-way and brick sidewalks fronting Main Street’s intersection with Route 10 leading to the Grange site.