Supervisor Candland:
On 19 September the Prince William (PW) County Planning Commission voted on a measure to allow 551 residential houses to be built along the west side of Devlin Rd (i.e., Stone Haven II). The proposal will soon come before the PW Board of County Supervisors (BOCS) for a final vote.
As we have previously noted, this proposal will:
- Further overcrowd the already-overcrowded schools nearby (particularly middle and high schools), adding at least 376 students to already-overcapacity area schools. Nearby high schools currently account for 88% of PW County School District’s high school classrooms in trailers.
- Gridlock Devlin and connected roads during rush hours (per the county’s estimate, 5500 more vehicle trips per day on Devlin and surrounding roads when fully built out — 2-3 vehicles per house and 4 vehicle trips, i.e., 2 round trips, per vehicle).
- Likely lead thereafter to several thousand more houses being approved on nearby properties. The owners/potential developers of these properties are watching whether this project is approved and they can thus go forward with their own projects. These projects can be approved quickly under the county’s DAPS process (Development Application Processing Schedule). Here’s a map of some nearby properties on the county’s DAPS map, which would bring thousands of other houses to the area (see https://www.pwcgov.org/government/dept/planning/Pages/Development-Application-Processing-Schedule.aspx ).
- Likely be tax-negative. While the developer’s lawyers at Walsh, Colucci, Lubelai, and Walsh PC claim otherwise, these claims are, of course, in no way legally binding on anyone and thus not credible. Tax-negative residential development is the main underlying reason why PW real estate taxes have gone up so much in the last ten years (35% for us), while remaining flat in nearby counties such as Loudoun. Also, don’t take too seriously any Stanley-Martin Homes Devlin Rd/Stone Haven II project proffers — i.e., worthless land and other promises to the county. Many projects’ approved proffers are withdrawn later by the developers and the BOCS when citizens are no longer paying attention.
- According to several reliable sources, the proposal, Devlin Rd/Stone Haven II, is currently expected to come before the BOCS for approval sometime around the 2018 Thanksgiving or Christmas holidays, undoubtedly to minimize input by ordinary citizens.
At the 19 Sep. meeting, the Planning Commission, which is appointed by the BOCS, showed its utter disregard for the concerns of ordinary citizens by:
- Making the citizens who had come to address the Planning Commission wait for over two hours before even being allowed to speak against the Devlin Rd./Stone Haven II project. (The meeting went so late that many of them had to leave before it was finally their turn to speak.)
- Ignoring the pleas of the 15 citizens who remained — even after the over-two-hour wait — to speak against (only 6 in favor) and the pleas of Brentsville Planning Commissioner Patti McKay, who cited compelling evidence against the project as currently proposed and offered alternatives.
- Then voting 6-1 to approve the proposal, despite the overwhelming body of evidence showing it’s a bad deal for ordinary citizens. (For more info, click the following link, which includes an aerial view of the land to be used for the project: https://www.princewilliamtimes.com/news/stonehaven-lite-advances-in-bristow/article_a844cc36-bff2-11e8-98e3-4f16e15aa6b3.html).
Evidently, the residential housing approval processes of the Planning Commission and Planning Staff, which have both okayed the Devlin project, have become box-checking exercises rigged in favor of residential developers as the county’s elite and favored class in land use cases. (Prince William Citizens for Balanced Growth, PWCBG, and Prince William Citizens Unite have a strategy to improve these processes, linked here: https://princewilliamcitizensunite.com/our-vision).
The rest of us, the other 95% of PW County (the many) are apparently supposed to happily accept our subservient role — including indirect county subsidies of taxpayer funds to the developers, and thus higher taxes, some of the most overcrowded roads and schools in the state, and rapidly decreasing green space — so a small clique of residential developers and their friends and allies (the few) can live like kings. We would expect this kind of government bullying and arrogance in a place like China or Russia, where real estate developer interests with close ties to the government routinely run roughshod over ordinary citizens. But to see it routinely happening in this county, in our country, which was founded on very different principles, is disappointing and unsettling, to say the least.
We call on you, Supervisor Candland (and request that all those receiving this message also strongly urge you) to publicly oppose this project and any other residential development projects in the county that further overcrowd our schools and roads, are tax negative, and/or carelessly eliminate remaining green space. (As you know, schools and roads are extremely important barometers and influencers of a community’s overall health and happiness.)
In July 2011 when you were campaigning for the first time to become the Gainesville District Supervisor, you told us at PWCBG that you supported our vision, linked here: https://pwcbg.org/why-balanced-growth-is-important.
You said: “I reviewed your web page and agree with your sentiment. I believe we need to take a responsible approach to all growth and development within the county. We need to ensure that we have the infrastructure in place for our residents and hold the developers to a higher standard then we’ve seen in the past. As you know, I have a business background – specifically in contract negotiations… I will bring this expertise when dealing with developers and make sure we are looking out for the best interests of our citizens.”
However, Supervisor Candland, we are concerned that despite PWCBG’s multiple private efforts, particularly over the last four years, to convince you to do otherwise, you have become increasingly sympathetic to the interests of fat cat residential developers and unsympathetic to ordinary citizens and those who favor balanced growth — as your political ambitions (and perceived need for residential developer campaign $) have grown. Here are some examples:
- Devlin Road/Stone Haven II — We are hearing from several reliable sources that you may recuse yourself from the vote on this project because your wife owns an ice cream shop on Devlin Road, and the merchants in her shopping center, “Bristow Commons,” have come out in favor of the project. However, there is no conceivable conflict of interest for you if you vote “no.”
- John Marshall Commons — On May 15 2018 you voluntarily recused yourself from voting on this project, stating that your family owns a nearby ice cream shop. According to our friends at Citizens Alliance of Prince William, who checked into this, you did so despite the County Attorney reportedly assuring you that you could legally participate in the hearing, “after making proper disclosures.” The project was approved on a 4-3 vote; if you had voted “no,” it would have been defeated. (See: https://www.princewilliamtimes.com/news/county-supervisors-approve-more-townhomes-for-haymarket/article_03d403f2-5944-11e8-9e4a-97fc1d0e55c4.html).
- Blackburn — Without adequate notification to citizens and thus no citizen input, on 17 Nov 2015, you revived and persuaded the BOCS to vote for a previously-tabled proposal to build over 400 houses along Balls Ford Rd next to Coverstone, claiming that these would be luxury houses and thus not tax-negative. You also incomprehensibly claimed that by building a soccer field and possibly widening parts of Ashton Ave., Blackburn would, most importantly for you, help people living in Coverstone (what you called “a struggling area”), though you admitted that the Blackburn development “would be a hit” on roads and schools in the area. You then said you regretted that your actions would offend some constituents (all those who would be harmed by more overcrowded roads and schools and more tax-negative residential development — i.e., ordinary citizens). But you noted that you couldn’t always please everyone and that your actions would please others — i.e., residential developers and their allies. (For further info, see: https://pwcgov.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=23&clip_id=2046 Agenda Item #13A, which is buried at the 4-hour 22-minute mark of an over 7-hour BOCS meeting.)
- Developer Campaign Contributions — According to your latest reporting, you have now received over $93,000 (35% of all your campaign $) from residential developers, including R&K Realty, the realtor for Stone Haven I and Devlin Road/Stone Haven II. This does not include thousands of dollars more that you’ve received from pro-developer cronies like Corey Stewart and Wally Covington. (See https://www.vpap.org.)
- Rural Crescent — To your credit, you’ve fought aggressively against the Bi-County Parkway (BCP), which would be built through areas of the Rural Crescent around Bull Run Battlefield and open up the whole area to large-scale residential development. We note that you’ve received $12,500 dollars from developer MaryAnn Ghadban (and brother Harry S. Ghadban), who lives in that area and has led the fight against BCP to keep residential development far away from her; and yet we’ve heard little or nothing from you supporting preservation of other parts of the Rural Crescent. (See: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/foes-of-bi-county-parkway-in-pr-william-and-loudoun-unite-in-grass-roots-campaign/2013/07/29/16487b30-e018-11e2-b2d4-ea6d8f477a01_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.5a93db85b10a. See also: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/realestate/1985/03/09/battlefield-owners-file-bankruptcy/682eb76d-0a97-41a7-a8f1-1c309e6c43f8/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.9a39576324b8.)
- Pay for Play — Considering the five bullets immediately above, it sounds to us like you increasingly support “pay-for-play” politics in PW County, just like Chairman Stewart and Chairman Connaughton before him. From now on, please say — and consistently show us — that it ain’t so. Show us that you consistently support the interests of ordinary citizens, who don’t deserve extremely overcrowded roads and schools into which they’re herded like cattle, higher taxes because of overwhelmingly tax-negative residential development, and relatively lower property values because of this overcrowding, higher taxes, less green space, and thus relatively lower quality of life in the county.
Supervisor Candland, we feel like we would somehow be complicit in all this if we did not now expose it and speak out against it. So we urge you to respect the wishes of those who elected you, the ordinary citizens, of Prince William County. Stand with them; lighten their burdens, rather than making them worse. Seek the greatest good for the greatest number, not government of, by, and for a tiny clique of wealthy fat cat residential developers and their allies who care nothing about the harm they’re doing to others — the vast majority of ordinary citizens throughout the county and particularly in the affected areas.
Don’t worry about whether the residential developers will fill your campaign coffers and enable your political ambitions. Instead, just do the right thing: 1) consistently support the principles you’ve promised to support — i.e., https://pwcbg.org/why-balanced-growth-is-important; 2) join with Brentsville Supervisor Jeanine Lawson who is opposed to this project in her district and lobby other BOCS supervisors to oppose it — just as enthusiastically and effectively as when you convinced them to vote for Blackburn; and 3) preserve the Rural Crescent everywhere, not just the parts that are in the backyards of wealthy developer campaign contributors.
Signed,
Ralph Stephenson, Kathy Stephenson, Benjamin Stephenson, Prince William Citizens for Balanced Growth
Peter Dvorscak, Preserve the Rural Crescent, Inc.
Lisa Schumann, Mark Schumann, Lanna Broyles, Julie Gideon, Beth Liggett, Lew Liggett, Jessie Alvarez, John D. Somers
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