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FARMVILLE – When Farmville Mayor Brian Vincent was sworn in, he outlined a specific goal. He planned to get the Farmville town council together for a retreat and hear from each member, to better understand each other’s objectives and figure out how to make them work. That meeting happened in February and now the council has signed off on a strategic plan built from those sessions.

By a unanimous vote during their Wednesday, April 12 meeting, the town council approved a vision statement for Farmville, a mission statement for themselves and a list of goals that stretch over the next few years. Those goals include a number of projects, with estimated timeframes as to when council members hope to have them completed.

“We established some values and crafted some strategic goal areas,” Vincent said. “We now have (a plan) on where we want to go and where we want (Town Manager Scott) Davis to go as well.”

A vision statement is meant to look forward, to make anyone who hears it create a mental image of the ideal state that the town wants to achieve. In this case, the town’s new vision statement is “Farmville, a vibrant place to live, work and recreate.” Now that’s different from a mission statement, which explains why an organization (or in this case a town council) exists. The council’s own new mission statement charges them (and future members) “to provide efficient, effective, and equitable service, and encourage diverse growth in our charming community.”

Looking at this year’s goals

As for what that council hopes to achieve, there’s quite a bit, some familiar and some new projects. One thing that’s been mentioned a lot over the last few months is the proposal to allow planned unit development in town. As it stands now, there’s not much flexibility with Farmville’s zoning ordinances. It’s either build single family homes or apartments in specific places. Basically, if a PUD is allowed, a developer could come in and propose something outside of those rules that the planning commission and then the town council could look at.

The current plan details multiple places in town where planned unit developments could make sense. One is the area of South Main Street and Clark Street, down by the Sheetz gas station. Another is the Sunchase area, with a possible front on East Third Street but behind the hotels. A third involves Merriwood Farms Road, in the area around and behind Walmart.

As part of this master plan, staff expects to have a draft version of the proposal to the council by July of this year.

Also this year, the council hopes to discuss proposals for a joint emergency communications center with at least Prince Edward County, if not possibly more groups from the surrounding area.

Beyond that, this year the council wants to look at all the town’s assets, all of its infrastructure from buildings to water and sewer needs, so they can start setting aside money to address each issue. The first part of that will be a study on all town-owned buildings, which should be done by the end of June. A water and sewer infrastructure study is expected to be finished by this coming December. And, if there’s funding and interest, the council wants to study the idea of a new Public Works building, beginning in August.

Starting some conversations

Other concepts from the strategic plan don’t involve money or construction as much as just building relationships. For example, the goal is for Mayor Vincent to initiate a joint meeting of the Town Council and Prince Edward County Board of Supervisors before the end of spring. Mayor Vincent also plans to start an annual meeting with the leadership of Longwood University, with the first one targeted for later this year.

And finally on the meeting front, this council wants to hear from business owners. They’ve agreed to hold quarterly business roundtable discussions, with the first coming before June 1 of this year.

Overall, the council wants to have more conversations with its partners. And when we say partners, council members were very clear on who that includes. The list covers Prince Edward and Cumberland counties, Longwood University, Hampden Sydney College, the Farmville Downtown Partnership, the Chamber of Commerce, and Centra Southside Community Hospital.

Farmville town council looks ahead

As mentioned earlier, there are several projects that will stretch beyond 2023. For example, the council wants to look at expanding the fire department building to accommodate paid staff, with an architectural study due for Fiscal Year 2024. Discussions started over the last year about the fire department transitioning to a paid staff, with some volunteers also on the roster.

According to current Farmville Fire Chief Daniel Clark, this will be a slow process over several years and will not take away from the volunteers. He plans for the paid positions to take on administrative roles, maintenance and day-to-day tasks in order to alleviate some of the extra work from the volunteers. But to do all that, the department needs more space.

Also discussed beyond this year is the idea of renovating the skatepark as part of the Fiscal Year 2024 budget, with a bicycle pump track in the works by Fiscal Year 2025. Also, by January 2024, the group wants a report from Parks and Recreation Director Thomas Woodson about ways to address the activities gap for teens.

The group also wants to see Phase II and Phase III of the Riverwalk Trail finished. The target would be Fiscal Year 2025 for Phase II and Fiscal Year 2027 for Phase III, with the possibility of speeding that up if grant funding comes in.

Beyond that, the council wants to conduct a mobility study, to look at the potential, possible location of and cost of an expanded system of trails and bikeways. But don’t expect that to happen anytime soon. Because of both current projects underway and resource limitations, that likely won’t happen until 2027 or 2028.