STAFFORD — It’s billed as “five-star resort living,” complete with a 10,000 square-foot clubhouse, saltwater pool, onsite car wash, cabana, and spas for you and your pets.
The one thing they overlooked: The requirement of a washer and dryer in each home.
“The Silver Collection at Celebrate” is a collection of 278 condominiums located on Celebrate Virginia Parkway in south Stafford. The first phase of the multi-building development is now open, with new phases on the way, all developed by the Silver Companies in Fredericksburg.
As part of the developer’s deal with the county, it proffered to have each unit come complete with a washer and dryer unit ready to go when residents move in.
But on Tuesday, the Stafford County Board of Supervisors voted to amend the proffer to allow tenants to bring their own washer and dryer with them. A Silver Companies spokesman, who asked for the proffered amendment, said more than half of new residents want to purchase their own washer and dryer for their home.
He blamed the eager marketing side of his company for incorrectly promising new washer and dryer units for all new tenants, thus leading to the original proffer. He also told supervisors that Silver Companies would provide them if the Board of Supervisors held it to the original agreement, however, the cost of the appliances would be passed along to the residents.
Before they voted, Rock Hill District Supervisor Wendy Maurer asked if the rules were not changed, how would the county government know for sure if each home indeed had a working washer and dryer?
Would someone from the county government need to go into each unit and do an inspection with the residents present? And, would Silver Companies be willing to pay the county for the time and attention of their staff member?
Stafford resident Ruth Carlone, who doesn’t live at the complex, urged the supervisors to hold Silver Companies to the washer-dryer rule, noting that, in her younger days, she relied on having these types of appliances provided to her family when she moved to a new town with her military spouse.
Hartwood Supervisor Gary Snellings said it ought to be up to the residents to supply their own, and that if the costs of the appliances were passed along to the residents that could be an undue financial hardship.
Maurer and Falmouth Supervisor Meg Bohmke were the only dissenting votes cast ending more than 30-minute discussion of the matter.
Before it became the center of the Stafford County washer-dryer debate, the land on which this new housing development sits was going to become temporary housing for police recruits, according to county documents. That project didn’t pan out.
