By Bill O’Donovan VA gazette
Residents of Kingsmill were assured this week that ambitious plans to upgrade the resort are long-term and partially subject to county review.
Unlike last summer’s promotional rollout of a mega-million-dollar plan for rebuilding the resort and putting homes in infill sections, two briefings on Wednesday with hundreds of homeowners seemed cautious and conciliatory.
Gary Raymond of the design-consulting firm Winding Road LLC took great pains to stress that the plans extend out ten years “as a vision,” and will be “driven by market conditions” of supply and demand. That would suggests the 200-room hotel and new conference center are further down the road.
Two of three new residential sections will require rezoning and thus get a full public airing at hearings, at some unspecified date.
Earlier, KCSA president Tom Cucuel emphasized that the homeowners association “has not entered yet into any agreement about future development with Xanterra Parks & Resort,” the new owner of Kingsmill Resort. As a result, the new homes would not automatically fall under KCSA, but Raymond expressed Xanterra’s eagerness to join.
That’s important, because otherwise scores of new homes would fall outside the homeowner covenants and get a free ride for neighborhood amenities, primarily the community’s roads. Cucuel clarified that unless Xanterra agrees and the residents vote them in, the developer is exempt from the protective covenants that distinguish the planned community.
His comments pointed up how KCSA stands at arm’s length from the new developer. He said his board “is doing a lot of due diligence” about Xanterra’s plans but stressed they have a “symbiotic relationship” in which both sides want the other to be successful.
Read more about the expansion plans here
Read more about Kingsmill real estate here
Filed under: James City County Williamsburg VA Neighborhoods, Kingsmill
