Judge rejects county’s full 8,500-page filing in Goochland TOD lawsuit

A Goochland Circuit Court judge, Timothy Sanner, has ruled that Goochland County must reduce the 8,500 pages of documents it submitted in response to a lawsuit challenging its recently adopted technology overlay district (TOD).

The lawsuit was filed in December by four county residents – Cynthia Haas, Peggy Knisley, Virginia H. Reed, and Gail A. Minnick – who allege that county supervisors and planning commissioners violated state law by failing to clearly and lawfully explain the TOD's adoption last November. Philip Strother of Strother Law Offices, representing the residents, argued that the county had not properly identified which documents were essential to the case and should not be allowed to "dump" the entire legislative record.

Michael Finney, attorney for the county's hired firm Gentry Locke Attorneys, countered that a comprehensive legislative record is appropriate when a legislative decision is challenged, especially since they have not yet received the plaintiffs' opposition to their demurrer filing, which requests the lawsuit's dismissal.

The TOD, approved by Goochland supervisors in a 4-1 vote, spans approximately 4,400 acres along Route 288 and allows for by-right uses such as data centers and conditional use permits for utility generating facilities like small modular nuclear reactors or natural gas peaking plants. One of the nine counts in the original lawsuit, alleging the TOD was adopted in an "unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious manner," was recently dropped by the plaintiffs to strengthen their case. A hearing on the county's demurrer is scheduled for October 20.