To:
The Henrico County Board of Supervisors,
The Henrico County Planning Commission:
Please help us stop Virginia from vanishing, let's start at home, here in Henrico County!
Virginia is known for history-tourism, and received over 60 million per person tourist trips in 2007. As a result of tourism last year, over 650 million dollars was spent in Henrico County alone, and yet the Henrico Administration continues to allow development to take place without any effective Historic Preservation planning in place.
In the past thirty years, sites and structures Henrico has recognized as Historic Resources have continued to disappear at an alarming rate. Henrico County Comprehensive Planning in draft at this time reflects no actions to curb this pattern.
We the undersigned petition for the inclusion of historic preservation planning in Henrico County's 2026 Comprehensive Plan to arrest the continuing loss of the county's historic resources by:
1. The creation of strong but simple ordinances and guidelines to address the encroachment of development adjacent to historic resources via the requirement of expanded setbacks, designed to preserve each site’s character.
2. The creation of the strong buffering requirements necessary to preserve the county's remaining historic view sheds.
These initial tools could be created through a review of planning methods employed across Virginia and other states rich in similar historic assets.
3. And by conducting a complete view-shed analysis and formal survey of historic resources prior to adoption of the 2026 Comprehensive Plan.
What we have to lose in Henrico isn't just locally valuable; these are historic resources of national importance. Please do not continue to plan our county's future, even for the next eighteen years, without serious review and action to amend of this major oversight.
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