Update: The Ranson City Council will hold a public hearing on March 3 to take public comment on changing the zoning for a portion of the Sleepy Hollow site located on Cranes Lane. The public hearing will take place during the regular council meeting (begins 7:00 pm) at Ranson City Hall, 312 South Mildred Street.
The Ranson City Council meeting on February 3 included a lengthy discussion about rezoning part of a 161 acre parcel located on Cranes Lane known as “Sleepy Hollow.” Forestar Group, a subsidiary of homebuilder D.R. Horton, is requesting to change the zoning on 125 acres of the property from “Rural Reserve” to “R6” (suburban residential). The R6 designation would allow for several hundred homes to be built on the site, but the developer has not yet provided Ranson with a concept plan for the planned subdivision.
Brooke Perry, a project manager with Integrity Federal Services, presented the rezoning proposal for Forestar. At the conclusion of her presentation, she emphasized that the question at hand during the February 3 meeting was a rezoning request and that the City would still need to review detailed site plans (a plat) to allow any subdivision to proceed.
At the end of the discussion on February 3, the council voted to approve the first reading of the rezoning ordinance and schedule a public hearing on the rezoning request in March.
Concerns About Roads & Traffic
During public comment prior to the council’s discussion on February 3, speakers from the Jefferson County Foundation raised several concerns about the rezoning, notably the single access route to the site via Cranes Lane — a very narrow road running through farm fields and crossing a railroad track before it connects to Mildred Street at a very tight intersection.
Documents prepared by the developer and submitted with a prior rezoning request for the property in 2025 reference an extension of Currie Road that would provide access to the rezoned property from Old Leetown Pike. Perry of Integrity Federal noted that the City would be well within its rights to reject any subdivision plan that did not include this connection (bullet #3 in slide below).
Currie Road Extension Was A Concept Not A Plan
The Hagerstown-Eastern Panhandle Metropolitan Planning Organization (HEPMPO) updates a Long-Range Transportation Plan (LRTP) for the region every 5 years. According to HEPMPO documents, the Currie Road extension concept was one of several projects included in HEPMPO’s 2013 and 2018 LRTP documents as placeholders, based on concepts included in a 2011 “Transportation Development Fee” study sponsored by Ranson and Charles Town. At the time, the cities were discussing the possibility of an “impact fee” to be paid by developers to fund transportation projects in the municipalities.
One of the high-level concepts references in the 2011 study was a “western bypass” route (image below) connecting Route 51 (just west of Charles Town) and Route 9 (at the existing Currie Road interchange). The study also included an upgraded east-west corridor extending Beltline Road from the “western bypass” to connect with Route 9 at the Flowing Springs traffic circle.
According to the 2011 Transportation Fee Study, these roads were preliminary concepts, included in the study to “assist in estimating reasonable fees, to illustrate future needs, and to initiate further discussion and studies for each project.” The “Transportation Development Fee” was never adopted and the concepts for a western bypass and the Beltline Road extension were not included in the most recent Ranson comprehensive plan adopted in 2024 (map image below).
HEPMPO says it expects these concept projects from the 2011 study will be dropped in the next revision of the LRTP document, to be consistent with the most current version of the Ranson comprehensive plan.
Birdhill Subdivision Had Similar Questions About Road Connections
The Jefferson County Planning Commission encountered similar questions about road connections for the Birdhill subdivision project in Kearneysville. The 2021 rezoning application for Birdhill described the project as being “directly connected to Route 115” and stated that the “project would extend the existing [Northport Avenue…] through to Route 480.” The County Planning Commission approved that rezoning application in June of 2021.
The concept plan for the Birdhill project, created by Integrity Federal Services, was submitted to the Planning Commission in 2024. That plan showed access only via Route 480 and included no firm timetable for extending Northport Avenue to provide access to Route 115. During the discussions, the developer’s representatives argued that the Planning Commission was required to approve the concept plan because it was consistent with the previously-approved zoning, regardless of any concerns about when (or if) any access via Northport Avenue would be provided.
Photos From Cranes Lane
Published 2026 Feb 5, Observer Weekly. Updated 2026 Mar 1 (public hearing information, HEPMPO information).
By Steve Pearson