EDA Asset Committee reviews status of Royal Lane property in open and closed session

At the open portion of a Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority Asset Committee meeting, Friday morning, June 19, Committee Chairman Greg Harold took his recently altered committee lineup through a review of the recently re-acquired Royal Lane “workforce housing” property.

As readers will recall, the property written off as a $640,000 loss in the EDA’s original civil complaint was inexplicably let go at the end of November 2018 about 11 weeks prior to that March 26, 2019 civil filing at a sale price of ten dollars. Then EDA Board Chairman Gray Blanton later told Royal Examiner that he had only seen the signature page of the deed of sale. And acting EDA attorney Joe Silek Jr. – then EDA/County Attorney Dan Whitten had recused himself from the transaction – told Royal Examiner that the deed had been sent to the Winchester attorneys for the purchaser without a sales price filled in, though he declined to elaborate on how or why that had occurred.

However, the buyer, the Cornerstone LLC branch of regional developer the Aikens Group, returned the property to the EDA earlier this year at a cost of about $26,000. The price was explained as the stated value of in-house legal or other preparatory work done during the Aikens Group purchase and ownership.

The undeveloped, rolling-hilled 3.5-acre parcel at the end of Royal Lane on the town’s southeast side is also at play in the April addition of Century 21 Campbell Realty, and proprietors Walter and Jeannette Campbell as defendants in the EDA’s civil litigation case seeking the return of a total of over $21-million dollars from what has climbed to a total of 24 defendants.

But the property’s legal history wasn’t the topic of Harold’s presentation to his committee. Rather, it was an outline of the property’s originally planned use for development as a 36-unit, three-building “workforce housing” rental apartment complex; its potential versus any competitive properties for such development; and the zoning and permitting status of the property.

A look at single-family homes along Royal Ln. – the treed workforce housing parcel adjacent to existing development ‘curbside utilities’ is partially visible at the end of the road. Royal Examiner File Photos/Roger Bianchini

Artist’s rendering of one of three, initially-planned 12-unit Workforce Housing apartment buildings.

That status, Harold said, is C-1 zoning with extensive Special Use Permitting; nearby access to Town electric, water, and sewer central utilities extended to adjacent residential and commercial development; and a lack of comparably permitted C-1 zoned properties in Front Royal near shopping and other commercial amenities desirable to potential renters.

Harold pointed to a “robust need” for quality and affordable rental units in Front Royal, but also noted that federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) guidelines didn’t specifically qualify the type of professional employment that affordable “workforce housing” projects could rent to. Discussion following the EDA purchase of the parcel from the Campbells, Jennifer McDonald’s aunt and uncle, initially for $10 as a gifted property said to qualify the Campbells for federal tax credits which later fell through due to delays in the development of the property, had targeted a “young professional” tenant base of law enforcement, teaching and emergency services personnel.

Questions about the EDA or anyone’s ability to limit rentals to such specific professional networks were raised by some, including former Councilwoman Bebhinn Egger, early in the purchase, zoning, and permitting process in 2016-17.

Another question raised by Egger, the Town Council’s then lone voice in the EDA oversight wilderness, was why with so many questions attached to the property and its residential development potential, the EDA Board of Directors had agreed to purchase the parcel for $440,000, over $100,000 above its assessed value of a little over $300,000, after the Campbell’s tax credit opportunity fell through.

Remember these days – above, Bebhinn Egger goes head to head with Jennifer McDonald in 2017, as her colleagues remained silent, unquestioning and even belittling of Egger for her questions on EDA projects now at issue in dueling civil litigations; below, McDonald far left and the EDA Board of Directors listen to report on County business from the county administrator, circa April 2017.

The explanation then forwarded by McDonald and then EDA Board Chair Patty Wines that the EDA had already spent nearly half a million dollars on pre-development costs turned out not to be true. McDonald later told Royal Examiner that only about $16,000 for a VDOT traffic study had been unrecoverable money at the time of the EDA’s $440,000 purchase decision.

But whether any of these variables played into the Asset Committee’s exploration of the property is unknown. Because after Harold’s presentation during the 48-minute open session, EDA Attorney Sharon Pandak read a motion to go into a closed session that was moved and seconded by committee members and unanimously approved by those members, Harold, Ed Daley, Jorie Martin, and Melissa Gordon.

That motion included discussion of the “disposition of public real property where discussion in an open meeting would adversely affect the bargaining position and negotiating strategy of the EDA; and consultation with legal counsel regarding related legal matters for the Royal Lane property …”

There was no announcement following the half-hour closed session and the Asset Committee meeting was adjourned to so quickly that by the time this reporter re-logged into the virtually-conducted meeting, he found himself a lonely “participant” of one.

But considering the late afternoon press release on the sale of the 514 East Main Street apartments – Still working for the Town – EDA announces the sale of 514 E. Main apartments – it may be debatable whether both of those closed session topics related to Royal Lane. But with the previous discussion of residential development not being the natural province of EDA’s, this reporter votes “probably both”.

Still working for the Town – EDA announces sale of 514 E. Main apartments