To the Massanutten Community:
We know there’s some curiosity about a proposed amendment to our R4 Master Plan, related to our filing a reclassification request with Rockingham County. The parcel in question is one we own along Bloomer Springs Road. What we seek is a reclassification from its current designation – detached single-family homes – to townhomes.
This isn’t a timeshare development. As you may know, we’re an employee-owned company, and that’s what this project is really all about. An increasing number of single-family homes in the area are now rented short-term by their owners via websites like AirBnB. This has been beneficial to homeowners who rent their properties, but it has also put a real crimp in the available long-term rental market at Massanutten. As a result, many of our promising younger employees must commute considerable distances to get here.
Our intent with this project is to create a pool of quality long-term rental properties in the community at price points that are accessible to median community incomes, in order to serve both employees (who will have priority) and others in the area.
Though it abuts land off Powell and Fort Roads, the property is outside of the platted areas that are subject to MPOA covenants and restrictions. All access will be via VDOT-maintained Bloomer Springs Road; there will be no access from the property to MPOA areas, nor will any MPOA services be provided to tenants. VDOT is aware of the proposed project and, at a pre-application meeting, they did request a second entrance to the property from Bloomer Springs Road upon viewing the original drawings, which we then added.
The preliminary site plan doesn’t show buffering between this property and MPOA areas, because the type of buffering that will be installed is contingent upon some grade work in order to determine what’s possible. Suffice to say that there WILL be buffers.
This property is within the MPSC Franchise Area and will be served by MPSC’s water and sewer mains. Great Eastern will pay for all of the infrastructure required to connect to the system, so there will be no addition to MPSC’s rate base as a result of the project—just more rate payers to help share the fixed costs of operations. Nor will any expansion to MPSC’s water or sewer facilities will be required (if they were, we would pay for that, too).
The project is intended to serve a growing need in our community: attractive, long-term rentals for resort employees and area residents.
As always, feel free to reach out anytime at community@massresort.com with any questions. We’ll do our best to answer questions promptly.
Cordially,
Matthias Smith, VP and General Manager, Massanutten Resort
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