By Daniel Berti Times Staff Writer Mar 12, 2021
Prince William Forest Park sign
Prince William Forest Park officials are raising concerns about a controversial plan to allow new office and industrial development near the border of the 14,000-acre park that could have potential environmental impacts.
The proposal, called the Independent Hill Small Area Plan, would amend the county’s comprehensive plan to allow for more than 100 new homes in the area along with new business and industrial zonings along the Va. 234 corridor.
The Prince William Board of County Supervisors is scheduled to vote on the plan this coming Tuesday, March 16, after a public hearing. The Prince William County Planning Commission recommended denying the Independent Hill Small Area Plan on 5-3 vote in December.
The plan paves the way for 41 acres of agricultural land in the county’s designated rural area, also known as the “rural crescent,” near the border of the park to eventually be rezoned for “public facility/office.” The designation could allow for a new data center, a hotel or office uses.
The plan would also designate another 120 acres of rural area at the edge of Prince William Forest Park as protected parks and open space.
Prince William Forest Park Superintendent Tanya Gossett raised concerns in December that the impacts of development in the rural area adjacent to the park could introduce invasive plant species to the park, causing habitat loss, or create increased stormwater runoff with impacts to the headwaters of nearby Quantico Creek.
“We are concerned … about what this plan may signify in terms of land use and land disturbance within the rural area and the park’s congressionally-authorized boundary,” Gossett said in a December letter to the Prince William County Planning Commission.
Prince William Forest Park is the largest protected natural area in the Metropolitan Washington region. Gossett said an analysis of 39 national parks in the eastern United States found that Prince William Forest Park “ranked the second-most pristine forest thanks to the minimal presence of exotic plants.”
Additionally, Gossett said the plan could “open the door” to long-term development impacts to the rural area and the ecological resources of Prince William Forest Park.
“If the precedent is established here, the park could face significant and cumulative development impacts in the future,” Gossett wrote.
The park’s recreational uses generate about $25 million per year in local economic output and attract nearly 400,000 visitors annually, Gossett said.
Arlington-based Plaza Realty Management owns the 160-acre rural area parcel that is part of the Independent Hill small area plan. Of that parcel, 41 acres would be removed from the county’s designated rural area for new “public facility/office” uses and the remaining 120 acres would become parks and open space in the small area plan.
The area’s current zoning allows only for residential uses at a ratio of one home per 10 acres, or a total of 16 homes. The small area plan would change the zoning to allow for no new homes but would rather designate 41 acres of “public facility or office” use and the remaining 120 areas for “parks and open space.”
The “public facility or office” designation would allow for office buildings, a hotel, government facilities or a data center to be built on the land. A data center, however, would also require a special-use permit, which would have to be approved by the county board in a separate process.
Potomac Supervisor Andrea Bailey (D), whose district includes part of the small area plan, had not responded to questions as of Friday morning about whether she would support a data center in the Independent Hill area that borders Prince William Forest Park.
The Independent Hill Small Area Plan has faced headwinds from local conservation and civic groups since it was introduced in 2019, including from the Prince William Conservation Alliance and the Piedmont Environmental Council. Both are adamantly opposed to allowing any new development types within the county’s rural crescent or at the border of the county’s national parks.
Complaints about the plan have primarily been focused on the residential and commercial density the plan would allow in the area, which is a historically rural enclave with low-density residential development, as well as the removal of land from the county’s rural crescent for potential development.
The rural area was created in 1998 as a tool to limit suburban sprawl. Development in the area is limited to only one single-family home per 10 acres and requires that homes use septic systems instead of the public sewer line. The area makes up about 117,000 acres of the county, including Prince William Forest Park.
Reach Daniel Berti at dberti@fauquier.com