An area next to Prince William Forest Park could be the county’s next big development hot spot.
The Prince William County Planning Commission on Wednesday night to consider siding with county government planners to endorse the Independent Hill Small Area Plan, which aims to allow a mix of homes, retail, and office space to be built on 544 acres of land between the county landfill on Route 234, and then north up to Colgan Senior High School.
A new county animal shelter, with construction costs now trending upward toward $20 million, is also located in the area.
Trails and parks are another big consideration for the plan, said David McGettigan, the long-range planning manager for Prince William County. New trails would connect the new developments to Prince William Forest Park, a National Park popular with hikers, cyclists, campers, to George Hellwig Park, a destination for soccer teams, and to an ecology park at the county landfill.
About 122 new homes would be built as part of the plan. About 80 would be standalone single-family homes, and the rest would be townhomes and condos, said McGettigan. Additionally, the area is expected to attract about 80,000 square feet of new retail space.
“This might be big enough for a small grocery store, but it’ll be mostly restaurants and small shops,” said McGettigan, who described the envisioned development as being much smaller when compared to Stonebridge at Potomac Town Center in Woodbridge.
Independent Hill has long been home to the headquarters of the county’s public school division. The Prince William County Comprehensive Plan has defined a mixed-use area.
An area has been designated on the long-range land use map for Community Mixed Use, CMU, to provide for the development of a village center allowing for both residential and commercial uses. Additionally, the plan provides for areas of Suburban Residential Low, Technology/Flex, Public Facility/Office, Neighborhood Commercial, and Parks and Open Space.
The landmass outlined in the Independent Hill Small Plan straddles Route 234. The area north of the four-lane road would keep its current light industrial zoning. A new Sheetz gas station will be built in a planned industrial development, the Parsons Business Park, the Board of County Supervisors approved last year.
The area south of the roadway would be rezoned to mixed-use. It’s currently zoned A1, for agricultural uses.
Route 234, which links Interstates 95 and 66, is a corridor of statewide significance and has been identified as a facility that could be someday upgraded into a bi-county parkway, a limited-access highway someday provide a direct link from I-95 to Dulles Airport.
The controversial planned freight highway was removed from the Prince William County’s Comprehensive Plan in 2016. However, earlier this year, an economic recovery taskforce that gathered at the direction of the Prince Willaim Board of County Supervisors in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic recommended bringing the zombie road back to life.
The recommendation comes after Loudoun County in 2019 approved a comprehensive plan that identified Northstar Boulevard as a new connection that would link Dulles Airport and Prince William County.
Residents who opposed the bi-county parkway did so to prevent the Rural Crescent — an area where residential development is limited to one home every 10 acres — from being further carved up and developed into neighborhoods.
“This development is now what you would call a ‘regional attractor’ that will put a lot of traffic demand on [Route] 234,’ said McGettigan. “This is a small piece of the whole [Route] 234 story and the bi-county parkway story, and it’s not big enough to influence anything one way or another.
About 40 acres of the Rural Crescent are included in the Independent Hill plan. This privately-owned land contains the headwaters of the Quantico Creek, which “highest quality and most biologically diverse streams in Northern Virginia. The stream’s water quality is used as a baseline for the study of other streams in the region under development pressure,” according to the Prince William Conservation Alliance, which opposes the small area plan.
McGettigan says about 25% of the 40 acres is already designated a resource protection area due to the creek’s presence. The remainder of the 40 acres will likely be preserved as open space, he adds, although he could not say how much of the land would be saved.
The Planning Commission meets at  7 p.m. Wednesday, December 9 at the Prince William County Government Center, McCoart Building, at 1 County Complex Court in Woodbridge. Residents will be able to speak about the plan during a public hearing.
After the Planning Commission’s review, the project will head to the Prince William Board of County Supervisors for consideration and approval.
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