By Nicole Wilberg Mar 3, 2022
Nicole Wilberg
There’s been an uproar in Prince William’s “rural crescent” recently, and its echoes are rippling across the county. The Prince William Board of County Supervisors is updating the comprehensive plan, the county’s vision for growth over the next 20 years. The changes call for additional housing and industry in the rural crescent, Gainesville, Haymarket and Nokesville. At the same time, the board is reviewing the proposed “PW Digital Gateway,” which would replan 2,000 agricultural acres adjacent to the Manassas Battlefield for new data centers.
I live in eastern Prince William, where some may be inclined to shrug off concerns about new developments in the west. We’re so crowded here; why should we care about their sprawling acreage?
We need to care because what happens to our neighbors is going to affect us. In a big way.
To begin with, imagine your drinking water coming through your neighbor’s house before it gets to yours. Would you want them to do their laundry with it first? Powerwash their driveway? Or would you want them to be good stewards of your water?
Over the past 30 years, development has been limited in the rural crescent in part to preserve permeable ground. Undeveloped ground absorbs rainwater, which then filters through the soil as it flows into the streams leading to the Occoquan Reservoir. If the land is paved over, rainwater washes over those impervious surfaces carrying sediment, oil and other pollutants into the reservoir. Guess where eastern Prince William residents get our public water? The Occoquan Reservoir.
Another reason east-end residents should be concerned about new data centers is the role they play in resurrecting the Bi-County Parkway. For those who have lived in Prince William long enough, the words “Bi-County Parkway” are like the icy whispers of a ghost sending shivers down their arms. This “zombie road” is rising again.
Our county has plenty of land near major roads zoned for data centers, but that’s not where the Digital Gateway is proposed. Instead, the project is planned for agricultural land next to the battlefield and in the rural crescent, which creates an incentive build a “Route 234 North Extension” through the area. This proposed road has always been phase I of the Bi-County Parkway, the undying plan to turn Va. 234 into an “outer beltway,” bringing truck cargo and increased traffic from Interstate 95 to Dulles airport.
The county’s planning office recently released the mobility chapter of the comprehensive plan changes, which includes a map showing the new “Route 234 North Extension” along with a stretch of Va. 234 for analysis. That possible widening of Va. 234 in eastern Prince William was always considered phase II of the road formerly known as the Bi-County Parkway.
For the sake of neighborhoods along Va. 234, parents with children in schools along Va. 234 and anyone already concerned about increasing truck traffic and noise on Va. 234, any attempt to revive the Bi-County Parkway, as a whole or in part, must be opposed loudly and persistently.
Finally, here in the east, we have a gift in living so close to the rural crescent’s open spaces. Within about a 20-minute drive, we can ride horses, visit vineyards, explore farms with our children and enjoy expansive views of the distant Blue Ridge foothills.
I’m a native Washingtonian. It takes D.C. residents at least an hour to get to places like that, and only if traffic is clear on Interstate 66. We all know the odds of smooth sailing on I-66; if it happens to you, be sure to buy a lottery ticket.
Do we really want to develop the county in such a way that we will be forced to spend more than an hour driving through new developments to reach a patch of nature with an unobstructed view? The residents in western Prince William know what they have and what they stand to lose. It’s not just them who will lose; however, it’ll be us, too. Our supervisors need to think long and hard before taking that resource away from us – and our children – forever.
I live in the eastern end, but I care deeply about what happens in western Prince William County. I care because what happens to my neighbors, happens to me. I care because it’s the water my family drinks and bathes in that’s being threatened. I care because it’s my neighborhood that’ll sit along an outer beltway with bigrigs whizzing past day and night. I care because those beautiful green spaces belong to us all. I care because there is only one Prince William County, and all of us call it home.
Nicole Wilberg is an attorney and resident of Montclair, a community of about 20,000 residents in eastern Prince William.