• First, the zoning request doesn't have a lot to do with whether or not the 1,000 residential units will be developed.  The current zoning of the property allows 1,054 residential units to be developed.  The request, per the Planning Commission agenda, was to change the zoning from R-3 to R-5C.
  
  
• Harrisonburg recently made a change to R-3 zoning that affects a developer's right to build apartment buildings on land zoned R-3.  Building apartments on land that is zoned R-3 used to be a "by-right" use, but now (for developments post July 2010) a developer would need to obtain a special use permit for apartments. Since the referenced 72.6 acre property is currently zoned R-3, without a rezoning, if the developers wanted to build apartment buildings, they would have to either:
  
• start building by 2010, or
  
• apply for a special use permit
  
  
• The above bullet point may explain why George Pace (vice mayor) is referenced as saying that "developing the site could create a short-term glut of college student housing in the city."  I think that he is inferring that the developers might opt to go ahead and start building if they can't get the re-zoning to make sure that they can build apartment buildings.
  
  
• Of note, the developers pledged not to build more than 1,054 residential units --- the same amount that are permissible under the property's current zoning.  Again -- this re-zoning does not give the property owners the ability to build additional housing.  Even without the re-zoning, they can build the 1,054 units.
  
  
• There is also mention in the DNR article that the developers might wait to develop the project until Stone Spring Road is widened.  This would be helpful, as the new housing would certainly add quite a bit of housing to that road.
  
  
• The big question here is how the timing will end up working out on this project.  Many would assume (reasonably) that this re-zoning proposal suggests that the property will be developed soon.  My theory is that the owners want to go ahead and get it re-zoned to R-5 (possibly before lots of other property owners ask for the same), but that they will then hold onto the property for several years.

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