Letter to the editor: Opposes tactical training facility in Barhamsville

Curtis Security Consulting is proposing turning a 200+ acre farm in peaceful Barhamsville into a “warfare training facility”: to include a “ballistic shoot house”, munitions training areas, multiple firearms and “evasive driving” ranges. Proposed clients will be military, defense contractors and law enforcement. Shooting, explosions and screeching cars would run 12-16 hours a day, starting at 7 AM- 6 days a week!

Resulting noise will be devastating to local residents and businesses. No one will want to live in Barhamsville and the surrounding area, let alone buy or even visit our homes, farms and businesses. We will be trapped and financially ruined.

Barhamsville was chosen for its peacefulness and beauty by many families (home owners, small farms & housing developments), nonprofits (e.g. a monastery of cloistered nuns who moved here to escape Newport News noise; therapeutic horse riding center-assisting special needs children) and businesses (e.g. numerous artists, a winery, farms catering to the public, several horse training, showing and breeding facilities and a premier golf course). The proposed facility will serve outsiders, while being financially devastating for current residents and businesses. Incessant loud noise will negatively affect our physical and emotional health: ranging from special needs children thrown from horses after being spooked by gunfire, to chronic stress-related health impacts on residents due to loss of quality of life, stress & financial ruin.

This proposal clearly violates the objectives and requirements of the New Kent Comprehensive Plan related to noise and permissible development in hamlets. Combat-type ranges are expressly prohibited. Instead the property could be developed in a profitable and socially beneficial manner, e.g. a senior community serving an expanding need. That would attract numerous desirable satellite business opportunities and services without the harmful effects of a combat range in the midst of a peaceful suburban community.

Rob Hale
Barhamsville, VA