New Home Sites Placed Along Rail Line

Stafford County, Va. –– More development will be placed along a major rail line in Stafford County.

Officials Tuesday approved the Brooke Station Urban Development Area, which will center at least 870 new homes and 174,000 square feet of office space around Virginia Railway Express’ Brooke station east of Jefferson Davis Highway (U.S. 1).

The area will not be developed any time soon, however, county officials were mandated by the state to identify by July 1 areas in which urban growth will take place between the next 10 and 20 years.

Brooke Station joins other planned UDAs in the at the county’s courthouse, Eskimo Hill (near the landfill), Centreport Parkway (near the Stafford Regional Airport), the George Washington UDA (near Colonial Forge High School), and the Southern Gateway UDA at Interstate 95 and Warrenton Road (U.S. 17).

The Brooke Station UDA was an on again – off again project.

Brooke Station and another proposed UDA, Stafford Station planned for the county’s Widewater area, were not initially approved with the others December.

Committees were formed to redistribute 4,000 dwelling among the other UDAs that were planned for Brooke and Widewater.

Those committees supported the creation of the Brooke Station UDA, and their recommendations went back the county’s Planning Commission which did not support growth in the largely rural Brooke area. The commission took Brooke Station of their plan and sent it back to the Board of Supervisors without required a public hearing, according to county documents.

On Tuesday, citing a looming deadline and missteps by that commission, Brooke Station passed by a 7-2 vote with Supervisors Bob Woodson and Harry Crisp dissenting.

“It’s not by accident that we are here tonight, and so it’s our job as the elected members of the Board of Supervisors…to ensure that we meet the requirement of the law. I’m disappointed that the Planning Commission didn’t follow through on their end,” said Falmouth Supervisor Susan Stimpson.

Supervisor Paul Milde has long supported the Brooke Station UDA, which lies in his district.

“Saving open space while concentrating compact development on 190 acres or fewer around Brooke just makes common sense,” said Milde.

Residents who spoke in favor of Brooke Station reminded supervisors that the whole idea of planning UDAs and developing them is to get drivers off of I-95.

“Do you realize between Leeland and Brooke what the next usable VRE station is? Rippon. Now someone may come up and say ‘what about Qauntico?’ If anybody has ever sat on 95 our Route 1 in the morning trying to get into the base of Quantico I tell you that is not an option for anybody in North Stafford,” said Skip Causey, owner of Widewater’s Potomac Point Winery.