Residents living off largely rural Kain Road are just a mile or two from the chaos and traffic of Short Pump, but you’d never know it with the thick surrounding woods that buffer the neighborhood. Property owners may be shielded from suburbia for now, but their proximity to Goochland County may be a bigger concern in the near future.
That’s because 623 Landfill, owned by Republic Services, Inc. and located off Ashland Road, has plans to expand. The move would bring the landfill, which accepts construction waste and demolition debris, much closer to homes off Kaine Road and Axe Handle Lane, part of the Stone Horse Estates and Shady Grove Estates neighborhoods. The two roads are literally feet from the Goochland County line, and some residents say they can already see landfill activity when the trees are bare in the Winter. The landfill is about a mile from the Henrico County homes, but the expansion would bring it much closer.
Residents are concerned the Goochland County Board of Supervisors won’t hear their concerns being that few Goochland homes surround the proposed expansion and the Henrico homes obviously aren’t under the jurisdiction of Goochland. Still, both residents and Henrico officials have been in talks with their Goochland counterparts and hope to come to some sort of compromise or alternative land use plan that is more compatible with Henrico’s. Henrico recently purchased 205 acres of land off Kain Road for a future high school, fire station, park, and other uses for $24 million, and thinks the adjacent land in Goochland could be better used. Goochland supervisor Malvern R. “Rudy” Butler, who presides over the district where the landfill is, told officials he’s more than willing to work with the Henrico residents to find a solution that meets everyone’s needs.
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