Smithfield’s Town Council voted 6-1 on Dec. 3 to approve reducing the size of the Mallory Pointe development’s proposed roundabout from two lanes to one.

The council approved the 812-home development off Battery Park Road in 2021 conditioned on its developer, Virginia Beach-based Napolitano Homes, agreeing to fund conversion of the T-intersection of Battery Park and Nike Park roads to a roundabout.

Though Napolitano had originally proffered a two-lane roundabout on Battery Park, the developer and the Virginia Department of Transportation each say only the single-lane roundabout shown on Mallory Pointe’s original conceptual plan is needed to accommodate the 7,018 additional daily vehicular trips VDOT projected in 2021 would result from the full buildout of Mallory Pointe.

Newly seated Councilman Bill Harris, who took office in November after winning a special election for a two-year remainder term, cast the dissenting vote.

“Here’s an opportunity for us to get ahead of something and perhaps set a better stage for traffic there in the future,” Harris said, asking who, if not the developer, would pay for the expansion of the roundabout should a second lane be needed in the future.

Councilman Randy Pack, who raised the same concern at the council’s Nov. 18 committee meetings and suggested at the time that the roundabout be paved wide enough for two lanes but striped as a one-lane circle, had changed his position by Dec. 3 when he made the motion, seconded by Councilman Raynard Gibbs, to approve the proffer amendment.

“It’s road that doesn’t get driven on,” Pack said at the Dec. 3 meeting. “It’s road that we’d have to scrape when it snows or treat or repave every so often and it just kind of wears out and it’s unused.”

The Nike Park-Battery Park roundabout is one of two proposed for Isle of Wight County. 

County supervisors, in November, and the Town Council, earlier this month, each agreed to fund their respective shares of the cost to build a single-lane roundabout on Turner Drive to accommodate proposed new developments at Turner’s intersection with Benns Church Boulevard.  

Phase A of Mallory Pointe, which is under construction, calls for 135 homes on 87 acres. The Battery Park roundabout would have to be built before the completion of the 148-home Phase B.  

The roundabout itself would also be built in phases with the inner traffic circle coming first, followed by a “slip lane” that would allow traffic from Nike Park to turn right onto Battery Park without traveling through the roundabout. Napolitano would be required under the new proffers to acquire the right-of-way for the slip lane prior to final site plan approval for the roughly 130-home Phase E and 145-home Phase F.  

Per the revised proffers, Napolitano would at the time of construction of the first phase of the roundabout dedicate right-of-way that would allow the roundabout to be widened to two lanes “should a future traffic study determine that it is warranted or required.” 

“Adjusting this proffer, and the fact that it was requested by VDOT, makes sense to me in this situation because we do have room for expansion,” Pack said.

Town Manager Michael Stallings, at the Nov. 18 committee meetings, said a two-lane roundabout would be needed only if another developer were approved to build at the Battery Park and Nike Park intersection or background growth not tied to a specific development increased to a level that warranted the second lane. In such a case, that developer would be responsible for the cost, Stallings said.

Community Development and Planning Director Tammie Clary said per the town’s communication with VDOT, single-lane roundabouts can handle up to 25,000 vehicles per day. According to VDOT data, the Battery Park and Nike Park intersection saw an average of 10,000 vehicles daily in 2022, making the expected 7,018 additional trips from Mallory Pointe a 70% increase, but one that would occur gradually as the development is built in phases.

Stallings said a two-lane roundabout would pose its own infrastructure problems. Two-lane roundabouts require connections to four-lane roads to function, Stallings said. Battery Park and Nike Park roads are both only two lanes wide currently.

Planning Commissioner Thomas Pope, at the commission’s Dec. 10 meeting, decried the change as setting “a huge bad precedent” when it comes to the Planning Commission’s and Town Council’s future negotiations with developers concerning proffers.

“This is part of the negotiation with the developer to say this is what you’re contributing to this; this is what you’re giving to the town in exchange for extra homes that everybody’s upset about, but yet we just gave it to him,” Pope said. “… The developers can come in here and list out a whole bunch of proffers and then say, oh, well, they’re not going to follow through on that.”

Pope added he would have preferred the proffer change to come back to the Planning Commission for a recommendation prior to the council’s vote.

Pack, who as the council’s liaison to the Planning Commission was part of the Dec. 3 vote to approve Mallory Pointe’s proffer change, weighed in on the Planning Commission’s Dec. 10 discussion as to why he voted the way he did.

“We did ask for a two-lane roundabout and the developer agreed to it,” Pack said. “The change in this was based on my experience with two-lane roundabouts and their not being particularly useful.”

Pack then referenced an existing two-lane roundabout in Suffolk on College Drive, which he said was difficult to navigate. Pack further asserted that VDOT, not Napolitano, had initiated the requested proffer change.

“VDOT asked for this change and I tend to yield to people that know more about traffic than I,” Pack said.

VDOT spokeswoman Brittany Nichols said while VDOT had, at the town’s request, reviewed the traffic study and “confirmed that the single-lane roundabout would provide an acceptable level of service at that intersection,” the request to the town to change Mallory Pointe’s proffers had been submitted by Napolitano Homes, not VDOT.