Former Uniontown resident on Staunton study: ‘How many more studies do they need?”

Uniontown, a predominantly Black neighborhood in Staunton settled after the Civil War, will be the focus of another publicly funded study.

A former resident who still has family and family property in Uniontown wonders how many more studies the city needs to do.

“I have read articles from time to time regarding rezoning and putting in water and sewer in the area. It all seems to be nothing but just talk, even though there is grant money available to do this,” the former Uniontown resident, Millicent Stuart, said.

Staunton City Council approved $75,000 in funding toward a small area study of Uniontown last month, on the heels of another study conducted in 2021 by the Department of Public Works into what the city needs to do to improve water and sewer service in the Uniontown area.

That study spells out an estimated $2.98 million cost to extend sewer lines and an additional $2.22 million to extend water lines to achieve the goal of having all developable lots in Uniontown served by city water and sewer infrastructure.

Residents in Uniontown have been without adequate water access dating back to the 2002 decision by CSX to demolish the bridge connecting North Uniontown and South Uniontown that had been a conduit for the water main between the two areas.

The city also decided against extending sewage collection services into Uniontown, requiring residents to take care of those issues on their own with septic fields.

The population of Uniontown has been dwindling since the city rezoned the Uniontown area in the 1960s to allow for industrial development that now includes a stone quarry and several heavy industrial operations.

That decades-old rezoning also prohibited new home construction. Stuart was personally impacted by this restriction.

“Fifty-one years ago, I wanted to build a home in Uniontown and was denied a variance because the property was zoned heavy industrial,” said Stuart, whose family owns two homes and three lots in Uniontown.

“Uniontown has died out because even though you owned land, you were never able to build on it, which I feel was the plan when rezoning it to heavy industrial,” Stuart said.

The frustration of Uniontown residents and property owners is that the city continues to put the needs of Uniontown on the back burner.

“I have read articles from time to time regarding rezoning and putting in water and sewer in the area.  It all seems to be nothing but just talk even though there is grant money available to do this,” Stuart said.

Illustrating that point, the vote to approve the small area study came at the same meeting in which the City Council voted to approve $1.8 million for improvements to Moxie Stadium, the home to the Valley League’s Staunton Braves and the baseball teams at Staunton High School and Mary Baldwin University.

That project will include demolition of existing buildings and seating, then construction of a new press box, concession stand, dugout and stadium seating.

Clearly, the city has money that it could put towards improvements in Uniontown that are 50-plus years in the making.

“How many more studies do they need to do, and how much time do they need to waste, before the funding is depleted by other municipalities?” Stuart said. “In 51 years, nothing has changed for the better for the citizens of Uniontown.”