MUDDY MESS: Stafford aims to ban recreational facilities in flood plains

NORTH STAFFORD — After it rains, the tennis courts at the Apple Grove community in North Stafford are submerged in water. 

When the neighborhood was built in 2000, the developer of the neighborhood lined with single-family homes built the courts in a floodplain, behind, and down a hill from the houses. 

According to Clay Street, the President of the Apple Grove Homeowners’ Association (HOA), the area floods multiple times a year when the nearby Aquia Creek overflows during heavy rains. 

During the flooding, sediment and debris from the surrounding woods are dragged onto the courts and caught in the tennis nets. After the water subsides, it prompts a clean-up effort.

“I have seen the basketball and tennis courts resurfaced, power washed, drainage ditches dug, all in an attempt to keep them usable. When I joined the board, we scheduled power washing for two years straight, each time the courts flooded within weeks of the cleaning occurring,” Street said.

Street said that during his two years on the HOA board residents have complained about the courts’ condition.

Cleaning them is costly, although it’s unclear what the HOA is spending as Street declined to say, and removing would cost neighborhood homeowners at least $10,000. The tennis courts were promised to county leaders by the neighborhood developer as a proffer — which was a way for elected officials to pressure developers for more amenities in exchange for approving the development.

Removing the courts would result in a proffer violation, which could prompt the county government to take the HOA court, potentially giving it a hefty fine.

If residents wanted to simply remove the courts on their own, and they don’t, they would need to collectively come up with $10,000 to pay the Stafford County Board of Supervisors, which would consider a change to the original proffers.

Frustrated, Street and members of the HOA Board of Directors met with Stafford County Rockhill District Planning Commissioner Crystal Vanuch. Doubling as the Planning Commission Chairman, she is in the process of helping the HOA find a new plot of land near the subdivision where new tennis courts could be built.

“She has answered so many questions and was able to put us in touch with the company that owns the land near the front of the community,” Street said about Vanuch. “We are now exploring the purchase of a piece of that land. We hope to be able to build basketball and tennis courts there and slowly make the old court location into an area with planted trees that can withstand the flooding.”

Today, there’s no county ordinance stopping a developer from building tennis courts, or any other recreational amenity, in a flood plain.  On Feb. 13, Vanuch, who is also vying to replace Wendy Maurer on the Board of Supervisors (who is not seeking reelection) introduced a proposal to do just that. 

During this meeting, Vanuch said that multiple HOA presidents had contacted her with similar issues which she described as being an “astronomical cost annually to those HOAs.”

The Planning Commission agreed to come up with a new version of the ordinance which will include a new Flood Hazard Overlay District, which would prevent recreational facilities to be built in floodplains and present it to the Board of Supervisors.

A July 2 vote by the Stafford County Board of Supervisors cleared the way for the Planning Commission to make the change. When complete, the new ordinance will require recreational facilities in new neighborhoods to be built at the same elevation as homes. 

The Planning Commission will hold a public hearing on the proposed ordinance on Aug. 14 at 6:30 p.m. at the Stafford County Government Center, at 1300 Courthouse Road. If approved, the Board of Supervisors has 60 days to give its final approval. 

Afterward, all new housing developments will be subject to the new ordinance. Older developments will be grandfathered in under the old rules.