Formed in 2000, Living Hope Lutheran Church began looking at building their facility on 17 acres of land off Courthouse Road in Stafford County. Welford Engineering first began assisting the church with planning for their site in an effort to convince Stafford County that the church should be able to access County water and sewer service. Unfortunately, the County, after an extensive process, determined that they did not want the site included in the County’s urban service area, and thus the church could not have access to County sewer. Our team then assisted the church with the preparation of site/civil engineering, environmental and survey services. These services included a boundary survey, conceptual and final site design, stormwater management concept and design plans, low impact development stormwater techniques, a wetland delineation, a perennial flow determination and conditional use permit assistance.

In addition, since the County required that the church construct roadway improvements in front of the site to accommodate the new church entrance, Welford Engineering completed the design of the improvements in accordance with the County’s adopted Comprehensive Plan. These improvements exceeded the available right of way in front of the church’s site as well as grading outside the right of way. Our team assisted the church with obtaining the required easements and right of way from the existing adjacent property owners to permit the construction to proceed.

The new church facility, along with the inclusion of The Living Hope Open Arms Child Development Center opened in December, 2010.