What a cluster: Farmers, developers, conservationists demand action from Prince William leaders on Rural Crescent

BRISTOW — Those working to protect and improve Prince William County’s rural area say it will be a campaign issue in 2019.

But it could be until 2020 before voters see policies reviewed and action is taken, they add.

More than 50 people ventured out into Thursday’s snow turned to cold rain and came to the Bristow Manor Golf Club for a discussion hosted by the Prince William Committee of 100 on the county’s Rural Crescent, the land between Quantico Marine Corps Base and Manassas Battlefield National Park preserved for farming and residential development on 10-acre lots.

Labeled by county leaders for the first time in 1964 and protected in 1998, housing and commercial developers have largely been kept out of the area. But property owners, like 65-year-old dairy Farmer Dale House whose lived on his 10-acre farm his on Vint Hill Road in Prince William County his entire life, continue to push elected officials for change.

With homes just outside of the rural area sprouting up around his farm, House says its time for the Board of Supervisors to allow cluster developments on the rural crescent. His days as a dairy farmer are coming to a close, but if he’s liable to make little financial return from a developer if it can’t place multiple homes on his land.

Right now, developers are restricted to building one home per every 10 acres. Many are custom builds, unlike other neighborhoods where a large number of homes are built to drive up profits.

A cluster development, however, if permitted by county leaders,  would allow a developer to place a large number of homes on about 40 percent of the property, while leaving the remaining property untouched, in a conservation easement.

“Let’s cluster these developments. Let’s work this thing out now before we lose what we’ve got,” said House. “Get your heads together and work it out.”

He points to the success of similar developments in neighboring Loudoun County.

Instead of homes dotting the rural area, House says the county could encourage agro-tourism like breweries and wineries to be built on those clustered plots of conserved land.

“We’ve got 2 Silos [brewery] down the street. I’ve got five silos on my farm,” he quipped.

Despite the fact that a county-funded study outlining a future for the rural area has been collecting dust for the past six years, it’s likely the Board of Supervisors won’t take up the Rural Crescent issue until after the November 2019 Election. Every seat on the board is open next year.

That will give home developer Mark Granville-Smith, of Classic Concept Building, a firm that has been more than 500 custom homes — many of them in the rural area — time to educate the public about the Rural Crescent.

His newly formed Rural Crescent Preservation Foundation has 100 members who will urge for policy changes, like to allow cluster developments in the rural area.

“What’s happened in the 10 years since the county started its Rural Crescent study? Not a whole lot,” said Granville-Smith. “It seems like, over time, we get closer to having a real discussion and real solutions but then we kick the can down the road.”

Part of that solution could be a Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) program, and Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) program like the one in use in Stafford County.

Under a PDR, the government purchases a property owners development rights put the property in a conservation easement barring all future development and allow the owner to continue living on the property and farming it.

A TDR is a private transaction between the property owner and a developer where a developer purchases the property rights of a landowner in a rural area and then transfers them to a property in an identified development area for development there.

Prince William Conservation Alliance President and  30-year former employee of the U.S. Dept. of Interior Charlie Grymes said that protecting the rural areas don’t work unless the identified development areas, like Woodbridge in eastern Prince William County where those development rights would be transferred, are thriving. He urged the county to consider a PDR program that would increase the density of the eastern side of the county so it could become more like its neighbors to the north Arlington and Alexandria.

“The future is adding to density to north Woodbridge, at Innovation Park [near Manassas], building the live, work, and play neighborhoods, where you don’t need a car,” said Grimes. “That’s how we’re going to get jobs in Prince William County. That’s how we’re going to get a commercial tax base.”