Isle of Wight County supervisors and Smithfield’s Town Council plan to vote within two weeks of each other this month on whether to commit local taxpayer dollars toward building a single-lane roundabout on Turner Drive.

The supervisors have scheduled their vote for a 6 p.m. Oct. 17 meeting. The council has scheduled its vote for 2 p.m. on Oct. 28 an hour ahead of that day’s 3 p.m. council committee meetings.

The county has until Nov. 1 to accept or decline a $2.2 million Virginia Department of Transportation grant and has put forward a plan for coming up with the remaining $4.5 million of the estimated $7.6 million project that calls for passing a proportionate share to county and town taxpayers and any developers who build within a half-mile radius of Benns Church Boulevard’s intersection with Turner Drive.

County Administrator Randy Keaton told the supervisors on Oct. 3 that he’d received emails from private developers looking to build at the intersection, each agreeing to pay the proportionate share listed in a September cost-sharing plan, which would leave the county on the hook for $902,654, or 20%, to account for “background growth” outside the half-mile radius of the intersection. Keaton told the Town Council a day earlier, on Oct. 2, that he’d received emailed committals from Miami-based Frontier Development, which is proposing to build a Wawa gas station and convenience store at the intersection, and from Harrison and Lear, a Hampton-based developer Keaton said is proposing to develop the farm adjacent to The Oaks Veterinary Clinic.

Smithfield would also pay, at minimum, a $902,654, or 20%, share, and possibly up to $2.3 million, depending on whether the town is able to secure a commitment from Charlottesville-based Greenwood Homes to cover $1.4 million the cost-sharing plan allocates to The Promontory, a proposed 262-home development that would add five commercial parcels at the intersection on the town’s side of Turner Drive.

“We did receive an email from the Promontory and one other developer agreeing to provide funding for the improvements,” Town Manager Michael Stallings told The Smithfield Times. “We are still working through the process and reviewing the numbers to make sure they are in alignment with what the county’s calculations indicate.”

A 615-home mixed-use development dubbed Sweetgrass, which is at present the only development to receive rezoning approval to build at the Benns Church and Turner intersection, would pay $541,592, or a 12% share. Sweetgrass developer NVR Inc. had proffered at the time of its rezoning approval in May to pay “an amount of cash equal to the then estimated cost to complete the affected improvements.” The Promontory, according to Greenwood’s Hampton Roads Division President Kent Henry, will likely go to the town’s Planning Commission in early 2025.

Keaton contends passing a proportionate share of the roundabout’s cost onto developers can be done in a way that complies with a 2016 change in Virginia law, which bars localities from requesting or accepting “unreasonable” proffers not “specifically and uniquely attributable” to a rezoning request.

“As long as they voluntarily offer this as a solution to their transportation issues it can be done,” Keaton told county supervisors on Oct. 3.

Town Attorney Bill Riddick, at a Sept. 23 Town Council committees meeting, had raised concerns over the legality of the plan, contending “based on current proffer law, we would not have the ability to require a developer, or could even accept proffers from them, for off-site improvements that are not directly related to their developments.”

According to Isle of Wight Transportation Coordinator Jamie Oliver, the county would have to commit to footing the entire $7.6 million, then be able to be reimbursed for VDOT’s $2.2 million share. Though there’s the possibility of cost savings if the county negotiates with VDOT to have the project begin ahead of the 2029 start envisioned in the county’s grant application.

Oliver said roughly $1 million of the total cost accounts for the project’s contingency budget and projected 2029 inflation.

“There is a good possibility that we could request that VDOT work with us to advance the schedule,” Oliver said. “We have floated a preliminary project schedule that advances construction.”

Oliver said the accelerated schedule calls for preliminary engineering to begin around July and last 12 to 16 months, which would put the project on track to begin construction in late 2026 or early 2027.

 Smithfield’s share and the portion paid by developers would also be reimbursements to the county.

“We would normally look at some type of agreement with the town of Smithfield for when they would put in their funding dollars if they were contributing, and a lot of times that trigger would be somewhere around the construction phase because that would be when we would have a construction estimate,” Oliver said.