Proposed rezoning for Love’s Travel Stop shakes up Gum Spring
Proposed rezoning for Love’s Travel Stop shakes up Gum Spring
A proposed rezoning that would clear the way for a Love’s Travel Stop just off Interstate 64 at Gum Spring has sparked strong opposition from neighbors with more than 100 people attending a community meeting to discuss the proposal last week.
Love’s, an Oklahoma City-based company that operates some 600 truck stops in 42 states, has asked Louisa County to rezone, from agricultural (A-2) to general commercial (C-2), parts of three parcels on Route 522 just south of the Gum Spring exit off 64 where the company plans to build a gas station, restaurant and parking facility with accommodations for long-haul truckers and other motorists.
The parcels, located in the Gum Spring Growth Area Overlay District and designated for mixed-use development on the Future Land Use Map in the 2040 Comprehensive Plan, are currently split zoned with the front portion—roughly 28 acres—zoned commercial and the back portion—about 23 acres—zoned agricultural (tmp 100-87, 100-88, 100-90).
Love’s plans to build its gas station, restaurant and much of its parking facility on the front of the property while mostly using the back for additional parking, a wastewater treatment facility and a stormwater retention basin. Its proposal is a permitted use in the commercial section, but requires a rezoning for the agricultural portion. The company has a contract to buy the property from the W.W. Whitlock Agency.
During a neighborhood meeting at Gum Spring United Methodist Church Thursday afternoon, Love’s Director of Real Estate Chad Bruner highlighted the proposal’s benefits, noting that his company would make a $20 million capital investment in Gum Spring and bring 55 to 60 new jobs. He attempted to ease community concerns about the facility’s potential negative impacts including increased traffic, noise and light pollution, and crime.
Bruner said that Love’s would implement millions of dollars in road upgrades around the Gum Spring interchange to improve traffic flow. He minimized the impact of noise and light pollution, describing the site as “isolated” thanks, in part, to a thick buffer of mature trees. And he pushed back against what he called “the 1970s stigma” of truck stops as havens for nefarious activity, contending that Love’s runs a safe, clean operation and would be a good neighbor.
But most of the community members who attended the meeting—the third that the company has held since filing its application with Louisa County more than a year ago—didn’t share Bruner’s enthusiasm for the project. For about two hours, attendees asked questions and made critical comments about the proposal. Many suggested that a truck stop isn’t a good fit for their neighborhood.
“Our community doesn’t want it…We want this area to stay a beautiful, healthy, prosperous area. This is not what we have in mind,” one community member said as others applauded. “We’re going to do everything we can to lovingly say ‘please don’t.’”
The neighborhood meeting is the first step in the public approval process. The rezoning application will next go to the Louisa County Planning Commission for an as-yet-unscheduled public hearing where community members will again have a chance to weigh in and the commission will vote on whether to recommend that the Board of Supervisors approve the application. The application then goes to supervisors for a second public hearing and a final up-or-down vote.
The proposal
Love’s plans to build a travel plaza on a 51-acre site that fronts Route 522 on the southeast side of the Gum Spring interchange along Interstate 64. According to a project narrative included in the company’s land use application and an accompanying traffic study, the complex would feature a 9,500-square foot convenience store, a 3,400-square foot fast food restaurant, eight fueling islands for cars, eight fueling bays for trucks, nine RV hookups and separate parking areas for trucks and passenger vehicles. The facility would also offer propane sales, an RV dump, a truck scale and a small dog park. It could add charging stations for electric vehicles in the future.
Vehicles would access the facility via two driveways along Route 522: one full-service and open to all vehicles and the other open to passenger vehicles only and limited to right turns in and out. Since public utilities aren’t available in the area, the facility would draw water from an on-site well and use its own wastewater treatment facility located at the rear of the site.
Beyond the rezoning request, Love’s is asking for nine special exceptions to Louisa County’s land development regulations for Growth Area Overlay Districts including that the county waive three requirements related to the planting of ornamental trees and bushes and six requirements related to the size and number of signs, and sign placement.
With respect to the vegetation waivers, Love’s contends that the facility includes a generous buffer, consisting of countless mature trees, so it shouldn’t have to plant hundreds of additional trees and bushes. The company intends to plant 47 ornamental or shade trees within the site with accompanying shrubbery, while county regulations require about 330 trees, accompanied by eight shrubs each, based on the amount of disturbed land.
The company also seeks relief from a requirement that all parking areas feature medians with trees, noting that the truck parking lot wouldn’t include landscaped medians “due to concerns that the vegetation will get hit by trucks and/or run over.”
Based on feedback from Louisa County, Love's isn’t proposing a large, billboard-style sign that’s visible from the interstate. In lieu of that, the company plans to install a 25-foot street sign along 522, five feet taller than what’s permitted by the county.
Love’s plans to install on-site directional signs that reach eight feet tall and cover 32-square feet, both of which exceed county limits. Love’s says the larger and taller signs are necessary for safety reasons.
The company is also asking for wall signage and canopy signage that doesn’t comply with Growth Area Overly District standards. The company says some of the signage is consistent with what’s used at other gas stations in the area while other signs are needed to ensure motorists know what’s available at the site.
During his presentation, Bruner highlighted several ways that the project would benefit Louisa County, most notably the company’s planned $20 million capital investment, which would pay for improvements on the property—increasing real estate tax revenue—and road upgrades at the 522-Interstate 64 interchange.
Bruner said the company conducted a traffic study and worked with the Virginia Department of Transportation for over a year to finalize an improvement plan. The study indicates that, at full buildout, the truck stop could generate more than 6,500 vehicles trips per day including trucks and cars. Bruner said the figure was generated by VDOT’s parameters. While the infrastructure would be designed to accommodate that much traffic, he said, Love’s anticipates far fewer visitors.
To handle the additional traffic, Love’s plans to install a traffic signal at 64’s westbound on/off ramps, a left turn lane at its westbound ramps, right and left turn lanes at the eastbound ramps, a right turn taper at Love’s east entrance and a left turn taper at its west entrances.
Bruner said that the upgrades would improve conditions at the interchange, allowing traffic to flow along Route 522 and providing easy access to the facility.
“The 522-I-64 intersection doesn’t work optimally today. With the improvements that we have, it will work at a higher level of service than what it does today,” he said.
Beyond the capital investment, Bruner said that the complex would create 55 to 60 new jobs, noting that Love’s recently won Indeed’s Better Work Award. The employment website annually ranks businesses based on worker wellbeing with Love’s topping its 2023 list. Bruner added that Love’s pays a competitive wage and often hires workers who move up within the company.
“Our executive vice president of operations worked a (cash) register) at one point,” he said.
Community concerns
Community members raised a range of concerns about the proposal at Thursday’s meeting, but mostly focused on traffic, crime, and noise and light pollution.
Traffic
The facility’s potential impact on traffic around the interstate interchange and beyond was a key sticking point as attendees grilled Bruner on Love’s proposed traffic improvements and how many additional vehicles the truck stop would bring to the area.
Several speakers insisted that Love’s 200 to 360-foot turn lanes and tapers aren’t sufficient given the number of tractor trailers that could visit the truck stop. They argued that the improvements were inadequate and ill-conceived, and they’d lead to clogged traffic and unsafe conditions.
“It’s hard to wrap my mind around this not being a traffic nightmare. At 5:30 in the evening, if you were to go there now, there’s a line of traffic trying to get off 64. If you throw just 15 semis in that mix, it’s not gonna work,” one attendee said.
Another speaker said that Love’s seemed to be doing the “minimum” infrastructure improvements.
Bruner said that the company worked closely with VDOT on the improvement plan and that the department decides what upgrades are required, not Love’s. He said that the goal of the traffic signal, turn lanes and tapers is to improve the flow of traffic, noting that snarled traffic doesn’t benefit anyone.
“We have aligning interests. We don’t want the traffic to be a problem out there. I want people getting out of there easily and you want people getting out of there easily,” Bruner said, adding that Love’s would support additional improvements if VDOT recommends them.
Some community members pushed Bruner on how much truck traffic the facility would generate, pointing to the more than 6,500 vehicle trips per day mentioned in the traffic study.
Bruner didn’t offer specific data but estimated that the store would draw 500 trucks a day and noted that the company aims to capture 15 percent of the truck traffic on the interstate. He reiterated that the numbers included in the traffic study aren’t his company’s projections. They represent what the infrastructure would be designed to handle, he said.
Noise and light pollution
Many community members said they feared the facility would disrupt their quiet community and mar their views of the night sky.
Bruner described the site as “isolated” thanks to a thick buffer of mature trees and few adjacent homes, contending that there would be little impact from light and noise in the surrounding area.
With respect to noise, Bruner shared a study conducted by Kimley-Horn for a Love’s facility in Texas, which showed that the interior of the travel plaza typically produces noise levels around 75 decibels, roughly equivalent to the sound of a vacuum cleaner or motorcycle.
But 500 feet away, without any vegetation to dissipate sound, the decibel level decreases to 55, roughly the sound of an air conditioner or refrigerator. Bruner said that it’s about 500 feet from the edge of the Love’s facility to its property line, a slice of land covered in mature vegetation, and at least 1,000 feet to the nearest residence.
Similarly, the large buffer and distance from nearby homes would protect neighbors from intrusive light, Bruner said, noting that the facility would use focused, LED lighting that complies with International Dark Sky standards. He said the tallest light poles would be 40 feet high, much shorter than the trees.
“When you think about sound and you think about light, you’re really not going to have any impact to the surrounding area,” he said.
But neighbors weren’t convinced.
One attendee said when he moved to the area from Short Pump 15 years ago, there were no overhead lights, but since then a Dollar General and roundabout had been built, and he could see the lights from both structures at his home.
“Those are the new and improved (dark sky) lights, so I’m not buying your ‘it’s gonna be dark,’” he said. “That’s a lot of space and you are going to see that from where I live and that’s less than a mile and half away as the crow flies.”
Another community member said that Bruner’s noise study focused on the interior of the Love’s site, but didn’t account for the increased noise on 522.
“There’s rolling traffic going to and from your facility that’s coming off of 64. There’s no way there’s not an increase beyond what that chart shows,” he said, referencing the sound study.
Crime
Some attendees expressed concerns about crime. They pointed out that Louisa County has one of the lowest crime rates in the state and said they fear a truck stop would draw transient out-of-towners that make the community more dangerous.
Several community members said that the county should reject the facility to protect children, arguing that truck stops are hubs for human trafficking, drug trafficking and other ills.
“Every adult here knows that (truck stops) have drug problems, human trafficking…I can think of some serial killers that stopped at truck stops and picked up young ladies. We have to think about the children that are being raised in this county,” one attendee said.
Another speaker asked if Love’s had considered the impact its facility would have on the sheriff’s office and if the company would pay for on-site security.
Bruner said that there are many dated myths about truck stops and that Love’s runs a clean operation, training staff to be on the lookout for criminal activity and providing truckers with safe accommodations.
“We are providing hospitality for people who bring all of our goods,” he said.
In response to the question about on-site security, Bruner said that in high-crime areas, Love’s has security guards, but most stores don’t need them. The amount of crime at a store is highly correlated to the amount of crime in the larger community, Bruner said, and Love’s mostly sees minor crimes like shoplifting.
“Most of the crime we see—98, 99 percent of the crime we see—is petty crime. Someday stealing a candy bar, somebody driving off without paying for their gas,” he said.
Other concerns
Community members also raised other issues.
Several residents wondered what would stop Love’s from cutting its buffer and expanding in the future.
Bruner said that the site itself presents constraints, noting that the facility’s stormwater retention pond and utility infrastructure prevent expansion on parts of the property and much of the buffer must remain in place to protect federally-regulated wetlands.
County Planner Tom Egeland said that since the project is a rezoning and not a Conditional Use Permit, the county can’t impose conditions that mandate specific uses or buffer requirements outside of what’s laid out in the zoning code. But, he said, Love’s could voluntarily proffer conditions to ensure that the site is used as presented. So far, Love’s hasn’t offered any proffers though applicants often add them during the public approval process.
Love’s has already tweaked its application in one significant way, removing a proposed Speedco tire shop from the request. Egeland said in an email Friday that the company could ask the county to permit the shop in the future.
A few speakers challenged Bruner’s assertions about the positive impacts of the business including the promise of dozens of jobs. One community member said that, according to employment ads on Indeed, Love’s offers a starting wage of $14.24 an hour. He added that a study from MIT indicates that the pay rate is 57 percent below a living wage for an adult with one dependent in Louisa County.
Bruner said the company pays what the market demands.
“Maybe in rural Oklahoma or Mississippi, we might pay 15 bucks an hour. If I’ve got to pay someone 20 bucks an hour then that’s what we pay. We pay whatever (the market) is,” he said.
A few residents expressed concerns about the environmental impacts of Love’s operation including the potential for fuel spills and other mishaps involving hazardous materials.
Bruner said that Love’s trains its employees to quickly respond to and contain spills and both his company and trucking companies have teams on-call to respond to hazmat incidents. He also said that the site itself would be designed to mitigate the impact of potential spills and that Love’s uses underground fuel tanks with double walls to guard against leaks.
Since the property proposed for rezoning sits just north of the Louisa-Goochland line, several Goochland residents weighed in. At least one worried that her voice wouldn’t matter in the approval process.
“My concern is that Louisa doesn’t really care about how this is going to affect those of us in Goochland County,” she said.
Both Mountain Road District Supervisor Tommy Barlow, who represents the area on Louisa’s board, and Planning Commissioner Gordon Brooks attended the meeting. In brief remarks, Barlow assured residents that county officials are listening, noting the decision to have two neighborhood meetings at a church in Gum Spring instead of a half hour away at the County Office Building where they’re typically held. Barlow also said that he’s talked with Goochland Supervisor Neil Spoonhower, who represents the section of the county closest to the subject parcels, about the proposal.
“I’m getting a lot of comments in favor of this thing and a lot in opposition, which is typically the way it works,” Barlow said. “All in all, it was a good meeting. It’s what neighborhood meetings are supposed to be.”