Did little to develop, promote Paradise Lane site following 2015 purchase
The Middlesex County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to sell the 7.05 acres of county owned waterfront property at 318 Paradise Lane Landing in Deltaville for $350,000.
The property on Jackson Creek was purchased by the county in May 2015 for $214,500. According to the May 7, 2015 issue of the Southside Sentinel, County Administrator Matt Walker said the county purchased the property to “provide public waterfront access on Jackson Creek.”
Supervisors accepted a cash price offer on the property and the sale was handled through Mason Realty Inc., a locally based real estate firm. Walker reported to MCBS at the Dec. 2 meeting that out of two proposals, the high bid was $350,000 and staff recommended the sale of the property with a “special warranty deed,” which is the way it was purchased.
History
Over the decade, the county did very little to make the property usable or desirable for public access. This in part may have been due to public pressure that the site was located in a residential area and had undesirable shallow waterfront frontage.
In 2016, a VCU master’s degree candidate did a public access study for the county and part of that process was a survey of county residents as to what the public most desired as far as public waterfront access. As part of the survey, current public owned sites were rated. The Paradise Lane Landing property received a poor rating.
At the 2016 meeting, Middle Peninsula Planning District director Lewis “Lewie” Lawrence said, “those surveyed who want to close Paradise Lane Landing gave as their reason that it was located in a residential area and there is not enough water depth along the shoreline to provide much recreational benefit.”
Broad Creek site
What may have come into play in the sale of the Paradise Lane Landing waterfront property is that the Middlesex Economic Development Authority (EDA) purchased 21 acres of Norview Marina property on Broad Creek in October 2025.
Middlesex supervisors loaned the EDA $1 million to purchase the Deltaville property and gave the authority direction to develop it into some type of waterfront public access.
