Cobbling together votes, Prince William leaders aim to halt action on Rural Crescent

They don’t often vote together on the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, but the issue of preserving the Rural Crescent brought them together Monday at Stonewall Jackson Senior High School.

Supervisors Jeanine Lawson (R-Brentsville), Frank Principi (D-Woodbridge), and Peter Candland (R-Gainesville) denounced a plan by county staff to create a transition ribbon, where about 10,000 new homes could be built along the boundary of the Rural Crescent.

• It’s the last large undeveloped land tract in the county, stretching from Quantico Marine Corps Base to Manassas National Battlefield Park.
• The trio, along with Potomac District Supervisor Maureen Caddigan, will support a resolution in the coming weeks to stop all discussions about developing the Rural Crescent.
• They’ll need a fifth Supervisor to support them if the resolution is to pass

“This takes a huge bite out of the Rural Crescent,” said Lawson, who chastised county planning and zoning director Rebecca Horner’s recommendation made at a July meeting for the transition ribbon to be located inside the Rural Crescent, where as many as 10,000 new homes could be built.

“We were really surprised by the recommendations we received…this concept that we have to destroy the Rural Crescent to protect it is one that I flatly reject,” said Candland.

• He also criticized the county’s use of a consultant to come up with the recommendations, under development since a study of county land-use policy was commissioned in 2012.
• “Now every solution needs to be addressed by ta consultant, who has no ties to Prince William County, and to come in and tell us what’s best for the community,” Candland added.

Principi suggested a resolution on halting any decision on the future of the Rural Crescent. He won’t return to the Board in January after he lost a June Primary Election to Margaret Franklin, a Democrat whom he said stands, politically, “to the extreme left of me.”

• Franklin is running unopposed in Woodbridge.
• Principi urged voters to push Franklin to learn where she stands on the issue.

Franklin told Potomac Local that the Rural Crescent is a critically important part of Prince William County.

• “County officials must work with residents to build consensus on how best to move forward in preserving and protecting the rural crescent, while also providing struggling landowners with the necessary relief they need. Access to parks and open space is important to have a thriving community and the Rural Crescent gives us the best opportunity to create and preserve these spaces,” Franklin told Potomac Local.

Before Horner’s recommendations surfaced, conservationists thought a transfer of development rights program (TDR), where landowners sell the right to build on their property to a developer who will use those rights at another development site.

• Those sites were thought to be in Woodbridge, where Principi says is ripe for high-density redevelopment.
• Instead, under Horner’s plan, TDR rights would go to the transition ribbon.

Earlier this year, Horner told Potomac Local she would like to have the county’s Planning Commission hear the case and make a recommendation to it on how to move ahead on developing the rural area.

• After the commission makes its recommendation, the Board of County Supervisors must ultimately decide how to move forward.

The Supervisors’ call to halt a decision on the Rural Crescent Monday comes as the county’s School Board on Wednesday will consider a resolution that would urge the Board of County Supervisors toss out all of Horner’s recommendations, except at purchase of development rights program (PDR).

• Where the government uses taxpayer money to purchase development rights from landowners in the Rural Crescent.
• Like TDR, landowners who opt for PDR can keep their land for farming but could never build on it.

A Rural Crescent work session, with the county’s Planning Commission, is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Sept. 24, 2019, at the Hylton Performing Arts Center.