RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — Some Richmond residents are taking legal action in the fight against a dynamite blasting set to happen in the Westover Hills community next week.
The controversy stems back to last year, when members of the Stratford Hills Neighborhood Alliance gathered to protest a Sheetz coming to their Richmond community. They told 8News at the time that they learned multiple City Planning Commission members belonged to both the Commission and the City’s Board of Zoning Appeals, which violates a City ordinance.
However, the problem was recently resurrected when Westover Hills neighbors got word of a dynamite blasting set to happen near their homes. They found out a member of the project’s development team was also on the City’s Planning Commission.
Attorney Hayden Fisher, who is representing neighbors in the area, filed an emergency injunction, which is essentially a legal demand for a halt.
“Once you do the blasting, there’s no way to un-dynamite,” Fisher said. “We’re asking that we be heard on this matter before you go for the blasting.”
With the new project in the works, residents fear their historic homes won’t be able to handle the explosion.
“We have now actual damages,” Fisher said. “We have chimneys that are falling down. We have foundations that are moving.”
8News is working to get in contact with the project’s developers, but our team has been told they have all required permits and have completed necessary inspections.
But residents aren’t so sure. They told 8News that they’ve witnessed the detrimental aftermath of jack-hammering, which was the developer’s initial approach to the construction project.
“The hoe-ramming was already too disruptive,” Fisher explained. “So if that was too disruptive, what do you think dynamite is going to do?”
Fisher confirmed residents are not necessarily trying to stop the project itself.
“They just want to stop the harm,” Fisher said. “The next steps are to get with the developer’s attorneys and give it the court and try and schedule an immediate court date.”
As of now, the dynamite blast is still scheduled for this coming Monday, but now that the legal ball is rolling, Fisher told us he expects a circuit court judge to make a decision on whether or not that will actually happen soon.
