Smithfield has agreed to pay just over $900,000, or 11.8%, toward building a single-lane roundabout on Turner Drive and making other improvements at its intersection with Benns Church Boulevard.

The Town Council’s unanimous Dec. 3 vote came two weeks after Isle of Wight County supervisors voted, also unanimously, to accept a $2.2 million Virginia Department of Transportation grant for the traffic circle and related turn lanes, which county officials say will be needed to accommodate an expected increase in traffic at the Benns Church Boulevard and Turner intersection over the next five years.

VDOT’s six-year plan includes an additional $972,000 through Smart Scale, the state’s cost-to-benefit funding formula, for the project. The supervisors’ vote commits the county to funding the $4.5 million, or 60%, remainder of the project’s estimated $7.6 million cost.

The council vote commits the town to a cost-sharing agreement for the $4.5 million. An earlier draft of the agreement, which the council had contended was too high an ask of town taxpayers, had called for Smithfield to pay up to $2.3 million, or 51%, of the $4.5 million by an estimated 2027 construction date to cover its proportionate share of the traffic projected to traverse the intersection by 2029.

The now approved revised plan still calls for Smithfield to pay $902,654 to account for expected 2029 traffic tied to new residential and commercial developments within the town limits but outside a half-mile radius of the intersection, such as the 2023-approved 267-home Grange at 10Main development slated for Route 10 and Main Street and the 2021-approved 812-home Mallory Pointe development under construction off Battery Park Road. The county would bear its own share of just over $1 million to account for traffic from developments outside both the town and the half-mile radius of the intersection, and the impact of a new school that’s proposed to be built within the next few years on land opposite Turner from the current shared Smithfield High School and Smithfield Middle School campus.

What has changed since a November draft of the agreement is that the town is no longer obligated to foot $1.4 million tied to the residential and commercial phases of the 2023-proposed but not yet approved “Promontory” development, which calls for 262 homes and five commercial parcels at the southwest quadrant of the Benns Church and Turner intersection at the edge of the town border.

The plan had originally called for Smithfield to front The Promontory’s share upfront and seek reimbursement from the project’s Charlottesville-based developer, Greenwood Homes, if and when the development receives rezoning approval, though Town Attorney Bill Riddick had contended a 2016 change in state law allows Smithfield to accept such cash payments only if voluntarily offered by a developer, and then only if there was evidence showing a direct causal link between the development and the need for the roundabout.

The revised agreement calls for the county to instead front The Promontory’s $1.4 million share and take responsibility for seeking reimbursement if the development comes to fruition. Isle of Wight has already received written commitments from several prospective developments located within a half-mile radius of the intersection including Miami-based Frontier Development, which has proposed a Wawa gas station and convenience store and a 17 1/2-acre commercial development by Hampton-based Harrison and Lear in the southeast quadrant, and from the 615-home Sweetgrass mixed-use development county supervisors approved in May for the northeast quadrant.

Town Councilman Randy Pack, who made the motion to accept the revised cost sharing proposal, contended that had the town retained responsibility for footing a developer’s cost and soliciting reimbursement, the town’s Planning Commission and Town Council would have had a financial incentive and been “under pressure” to approve that developer’s rezoning request.

“This removes that pressure from the Planning Commission and from the Town Council to approve something that we may not wish to approve to get our money back that we invested in this,” Pack said.

“We’ve talked a number of times about getting out in front of transportation issues,” said Smithfield Mayor Steve Bowman. “I think this is a golden opportunity to do two things, get in front of a transportation issue that’s going to be coming regardless and also working with the county on something that’s going to benefit all of us.”

Newly seated Councilman Bill Harris, despite asserting the town’s $902,654 share to still be disproportionately high for an asset that would be located outside the town limits, joined with his fellow council members to make the vote unanimous.

According to Town Manager Michael Stallings, the roundabout by itself will only cost roughly $1 million. County Administrator Randy Keaton said the project includes lengthening the existing turn lanes from Benns Church onto Turner, adding a second turn lane and receiving lanes on Turner and extensive utility relocations.

“That roundabout piece is a very small piece of the overall project,” Stallings said.

Keaton said the county is planning to ask VDOT to accelerate the preliminary engineering phase of the project to begin next spring or summer, which he expects to last 18 months, putting the project on track to break ground in 2017 if the accelerated schedule is approved.