The future of Prince William’s rural area debated at fiery meeting

WOODBRIDGE — Instead of being provided answers, residents were asked more questions. And they weren’t having it.

In a fiery meeting at the Prince William County Government Center in Woodbridge on Monday night, residents of the county’s Rural Crescent and those who want to keep developers at bay told officials they were fed up with delays on the future of their properties and neighborhoods.

Clashing were those who want to preserve the land from Quantico Marine Corps Base to Manassas National Battlefield farmers who no longer want to farm and want to sell the land cash out.

“My family has been here on our farm for 117 years and you want to tell me that I can’t develop my property?” said a Gainesville farmer who declined to provide his name to Potomac Local. “Let the people out who want out… you’re riding round in your Mercedes Bens and Lexus’ and every damn thing else and I’m trying to make ends meet. All of the farmers are gone.”

“I love Prince William County, from the shores of the Potomac to the Bull Run Mountain and I don’t want to change any of it,” said Elena Schlossberg, of Haymarket.

Today, properties in the Rural Crescent are allowed to be developed by-right, without rezoning or intervention by the Board of Supervisors. They’re carved up into 10-acre lots, with many of these lots feature one single-family home and oversized front and back yards.

On Monday, the county’s planning department hired a consultant to lead a three-hour meeting that would solicit feedback from residents and hopefully, create a cohesive vision for the Rural Crescent.

But these residents had already done this when, in 2013, they participated in the Rural Preservation Study where they were asked for their vision for the land. That study, ordered by the Board of County Supervisors and completed in 2014, was shelved and has been collecting dust ever since.

“Was our time not valuable before but it is tonight? This is going to make us more angry and upset because our time is being wasted as, as citizens, this shows you are not listening to us,” another woman shouted.

“Until you give us something in writing, you want us to spend three more hours here?” asked Haymarket resident Robert Wier. “We’re going to repeat the same thing that we’ve been doing for years.”

Across the room, heads shook in disapproval. Attendees shouted at each other, and neighbors who want to preserve the land, and those who want to allow some sort of development to “help farmers,” took shots at each other.

“During my time in the military, this is what we would call a delaying action,” said one man, commenting on the long-completed Rural Preservation Study.

That study recommended:

• Building new homes in cluster developments while preserving the majority of the land
• Implementing a transfer of development rights (TDR) program that would allow property owners to sell their development rights to a private developer, to keep the land for farming, but could never develop the property.
• Implement a purchase of development rights (PDR) program that would allow the county government to purchase development rights from property owners who would be able to keep their land for farming, but could never develop it.

Another key recommendation of the 2014 study — develop a vision for the future of the Rural Crescent, the key reason why Monday night’s meeting was held, said Rebecca Horner, the county’s planning department chief.

As the meeting progressed, some of the more than 100 attendees continued to voice their distrust of the Board of County Supervisors for not implementing the Rural Preservation study, or for not providing a series of options for residents to consider at Monday’s meeting.

The consultant told the attendees they interviewed about 50 people during a telephone interview, using a list of contacts provided to the firm by the county’s planning department. From those interviews, there were seven major perspectives:

1. Aging farmers who are ready to sell for because they’re retiring from farming
2. Framers still planning on working land, who are looking for more land, who are worried that current 10-acre land policy will let land continued to be gobbled up
3. Homeowners who live inside the Rural Crescent or recently moved to the Rural Crescent, like it because it offers affordable housing in quiet neighborhoods. They think Rural Crescent is perfect with 10 acre lots.
4. Residents who live in the Rural Crescent who want smart growth, support TDR, PDR programs
5. Residents who live outside the Rural Crescent to manage growth, they want to maintain the rural area so county officials can focus on development in the east, want agritourism in the Rural Crescent.
6. Land developers and speculators see the Rural Crescent as economically beneficial for them, and the county, and other folks who want to move to a new home in the Rural Crescent to improve their quality of life
7. County workers who say “were in a window of time to enact to protect the Rural Crescent but they feel like their hands are tied because, ultimately, they work at the pleasure of the Board of County Supervisors.

The county’s planning department will hold two additional public meetings on developing a vision for the Rural Crescent on July 30 and September 24. The locations of those meetings have not been set.