With 130 proposed homes, Prince William leaders again delay a decision on rural area change 

WOODBRIDGE, — There are more delays for the proposed Mid-County Park and Estate Homes project. 

The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday took no action on a proposal to initiate an amendment to its comprehensive plan which, if approved, could lead to 130 new homes built west of Route 234.

Prince William County Coles District Supervisor Marty Nohe asked for the proposed home development, and whether or not to initiate a comprehensive plan amendment for 325 acres of land in his district, to be rolled into a current study examining purchase and transfer of development rights.

The study was born out of the county’s Rural Preservation study, which examines both Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) and Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) programs that would allow landowners to sell their development rights to a government or other developers.

Under this program, landowners cash out of their properties, and the land is preserved. Under a TDR program, developers that purchase the rights could get bonus densities to build larger or taller in the county’s more urban eastern section. 

A recommendation on what to do with the 325 acres of land for Mid-County Park and Estates located west of Route 234, in the 20-year-old Rural Crescent land preservation area, is expected to come back to the Board of Supervisors in six months with the results of the PDR/TDR study. 

If Supervisors decide to make a change to thier comprehensive plan, it doesn’t mean the developer would win a rezoning to build the homes.

“I don’t like this process that we go through to initiate [comprehensive] plan amendments and the reason is because, that from a community perspective, what it looks like we do when we do this is we are trying to decide whether or not to [re]zone something,” said Nohe.

The project originally came before the Board of Supervisors in 2012. Instead of approving a comprehensive plan change then, Supervisors ordered a full study of the entire preservation area — a crescent-shaped tract of land stretching from Interstate 95 at Quantico to Manassas National Battlefield Park north of I-66.

None of the recommendations from the study have been adopted by the Board of Supervisors, however, Rebecca Horner with county’s planning office said the study is often referred to when it reviews cases like this. 

The recommendations of the three-year-old study include:

• A change in county zoning policy that would better preserve the rural area.
• A purchase of development, or transfer of development rights program that would allow landowners to sell their rights to develop their properties to the government, or transfer them to another developer for a project outside the rural area.
• Promote agribusiness within the county
• Have the Board of Supervisors adopt a concrete vision for what the county’s rural area should be — keeping woodland and agricultural character of the while committing to preserving 17,000 untouched acres as permanent open space. 

Gainesville District Supervisor Peter Candland said it’s time for the Board to review them. 

“The board has failed on this,” said Candland. “There are good suggestions in the real preservation study, but the board hasn’t taken action…the rural crescent needs its day in court.” 

The Federal Government will continue to grow and its employees will continue to look for luxury homes, he added. If policies don’t change, those new homes could continue to go to Loudoun and Fairfax counties.

The Board of Supervisors is required to approve cluster developments, where developers may build on smaller lots instead of on the 10-acre lots as what is otherwise permitted in the rural area. The protected rural area does not prevent a property owner from selling their land to home builders. 

This has been happening over the past year, said At-large Chairman Corey Stewart.

“The Rural Crescent is not a prohibition on development,” said Stewart. “A lot of folks selling off properties to developers who are carving up them up into 10 acre lots. It’s not what the public wants to see…”

Brentsville District Supervisor Jeanine Lawson used her position as a fiscal conservative to defend the rural area by saying building more homes in the rural area would bring more streets to maintain, the need for more schools, and more county services. 

“If we were to continue to push development out to the rural area we continue to dig our fiscal hole deeper as we talk about the need for parks, and the need for juvenile detention center and everything esel we have to weigh as elected officials in this county. There are needs across the board, and the schools, they can’t keep up,” said Lawson.

It’s common for Prince William Supervisors to hear cases for like Mid-County Park and Estates at least once a year as part of the county’s comprehensive plan process. Lawson and those who support the preservation of the rural area fear if the changes like this one area made other developers will flood the government center with more requests to build in the rural area, further diminishing its character. 

Under the proposal, 130 homes would be built as part of the Mid-County project. More than half of the 325 acres would be preserved to form a ring around the homes and could be used as a public park.