The Agenda: Local government briefs for 4.21.25

Hearing Monday on City Council amendments to proposed FY26 budget

Richmond City Hall. (BizSense file)

Richmond City Council will hold a public hearing Monday at 6 p.m. on proposed amendments to the FY26 budget plan. The hearing will follow a work session on the amendments that will be held from 1-3 p.m., likewise in council chambers at City Hall.

Council is considering 48 enhancements to the budget totaling $20.9 million, and 77 reductions totaling $8.2 million, according to documents to be presented in the work session. The proposed enhancements and reductions can be found here.

Mayor Danny Avula’s proposed $3 billion spending plan would keep real estate taxes at $1.20 per $100 of assessed value and includes a $1.05 billion general fund, a 5.5% increase over the current general fund. The full budget proposal can be viewed on the city’s website.

Chesterfield board to vote on sports facility expansion project

A conceptual plan of the two-field expansion project being planned by XL Sports. (Courtesy XL Sports)

The Chesterfield Board of Supervisors is slated this week to consider an expansion of a long-running sports facility.

XL Sports World Richmond has filed a zoning request to allow two outdoor artificial turf fields next to its indoor facility at 2300 Oak Lake Blvd.

The new fields would be primarily used by Virginia Velocity FC, a travel soccer program that launched a couple years ago and is affiliated with the sports venue.

The project is anticipated to cost $3 million. The fields would be built on the same 11-acre property that’s also home to XL’s 48,000-square-foot facility in the Oak Lake Business Park.

The full agenda for Wednesday’s meeting can be found here.

Planning Commission recommends data center projects in western Chesterfield

The conceptual plan for the Upper Magnolia Green West project. (County documents)

The Chesterfield Planning Commission last week voted to recommend approval of zoning requests tied to new data center campuses that would be established in the western part of the county.

The county’s Economic Development Authority is seeking approval to rezone more than 1,300 acres for two data center campuses, one on a site near Westchester Commons and the other on land that includes part of the western Upper Magnolia Green site near Moseley.

At the Upper Magnolia Green site, nearly 980 acres would be rezoned to allow a data center project on the planned technology park’s northern end. About 870 of those acres, known as Tract A, would be restricted to data centers and related accessory uses.

The nearly 100-acre Tract B would be restricted to a limited range of industrial uses allowed under the 2022 zoning of western Upper Magnolia Green, such as data centers, offices, labs, pharmaceutical products manufacturing and R&D facilities.

The largely undeveloped project site consists of 4200 Moseley Road and other properties that are either owned by or under contract to the EDA.

Near Westchester Commons, the EDA wants to tee up a 350-acre site for another data center project under a separate rezoning proposal. The project, referred to as Watkins Centre South, would limit development to data centers and related accessory uses such as substations at a multi-parcel site that includes 750 Watkins Centre Parkway. The EDA is under contract to acquire the mostly undeveloped assemblage.

Portions of the Upper Magnolia and Watkins Centre sites are already zoned General Industrial (I-2), which allows the proposed data center projects, but both sites also have areas that need to be rezoned to I-2 to allow the projects to proceed.

Chesterfield officials have previously said the rezoning requests are being spurred by conversations between county staff and an unidentified prospective data center operator.

In addition to the data center projects that were recommended last week, the Planning Commission also supported the EDA’s request to create a new conservation area of at least 350 acres on land currently zoned for residential development on Upper Magnolia Green’s eastern side. The request also includes the removal of residential uses from the overall 740-acre project site.

The three zoning requests now head to the Board of Supervisors, which is slated to consider final approval at a future meeting.

Henrico holding meetings for public to review draft land use maps for comprehensive plan update

Henrico residents are encouraged to participate in a series of open house-style meetings to help inform an update to the county’s comprehensive plan.

The meetings, called Suggestion Sessions, will be held through May 5 and are part of the HenricoNext process to update the comprehensive plan. Attendees can review draft maps showing potential land use designations for properties in the county that may or may not be different from the current plan, which was adopted in 2009 to guide land use decisions through 2026.

County planners are now working to update the plan to recommend land use through 2045. Land use designations do not change the zoning of a property but rather serve as a recommendation to guide future decision-making, the county said in a release.

The Suggestion Sessions will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. in each of the five magisterial districts. Information presented at each session will be the same.

Meetings were held April 14 at Deep Run High School and April 16 at Freeman High School. Remaining meetings are scheduled April 21 at Hermitage High School, 8301 Hungary Spring Road; April 28 at Henrico High School, 302 Azalea Ave.; and May 5 at Highland Springs High School, 200 S. Airport Drive.

The draft land use maps also can be viewed at henriconext.us. Reports and other information are also available on the website.

Public comments provided at the meetings and through the website will be considered before the land use maps are revised for eventual review and approval by the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors.

Hanover taps former assistant chief in Maryland as new deputy fire-EMS chief

Binokhar Harris

Hanover announced that Binokhar “Bino” Harris has been hired to serve as the county’s new deputy fire-EMS chief. He assumes his role on May 1.

Harris has nearly three decades of public safety experience, most recently as assistant fire chief in Prince George’s County, Maryland, according to a Hanover news release.

During his career, Harris was assigned to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force and has worked as a fire investigator, bomb technician and canine handler, per the release. Harris has degrees from the College of Southern Maryland and Columbia Southern University.

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