VISION
Vision for the Rural Crescent
“The Prince William County Rural Area (also referred to as the Rural Crescent in the PWC Comprehensive Plan):
- Is a permanent countywide asset, with an enduring rural landscape, dominated by agriculture, woodland, protected open space, and other undeveloped land.
- It is characterized by a unique composite of protected natural and historic assets, with residential development in rural spaces of no less than 10 acre lots with no public sewer, and rural-based businesses, agricultural and equine uses and economy.
- It is a workable growth boundary and economic engine for the county, by sustaining working agricultural lands, protected open space, and tourism.
- The Rural Area is visually and spatially distinct from adjoining areas of the county, through implementation and utilization of a range of management tools and standards, such as PDR, 10-acre lot minimums, and permanent conservation easements. These tools and standards maintain long-term economic, environmental, and social sustainability for the entire county.
- The Rural Area incentivizes and accommodates a variety of activities and lifestyles associated with rural areas, including farming of all types, low density residential living (planned and designed not to dominate the landscape), rural businesses, cultural heritage, passive recreation, open space preservation, and enjoyment of the natural environment.
- The county’s natural and heritage resources are protected and enhanced in the Rural Area, which are fundamental to the health, safety, welfare, sustainability, and enjoyment of current and future generations.”
Submitted by Karen Sheehan – September 2019
Loss of the Rural Crescent
From approving data centers, sewer extensions to housing, dense housing complexes, widening rural roads, desecrating burial sites, and encroaching into parkland – we are at risk of losing every aspect of rural, agricultural, and natural resources the land of Prince William County has provided its residents since humans first populated this area of mountains to river banks.
Establishment of the Rural Crescent – 1998
What You Should Know About the Rural Crescent
Proposed Changes to the Rural Crescent
Occoquan Reservoir Salinity 112221
RURAL CRESCENT – CITIZENS TOWN HALL – APRIL 28, 2022
Group/Organization Letters Opposing Threats to/Elimination of Rural Crescent (Find all letters in NEWS & LETTERS)
PWC Historical Commission 102622
Audubon Naturalist Society 091322
Fairfax Water Authority 032122
Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War – Chesapeake division 030922
Fairfax County Planning Dept 022322
Manassas Battlefield National Park 021822
Lake Manassas HOA to Super Lawson 011422
National Park Service Bies to Wheeler 120321
What You Should Know About the Rural Crescent
The ‘Rural Crescent’ – Why do we have it?
Prince William Conservation Alliance – Rural Crescent
Coalition to Protect National Parks and the Rural Crescent
Historic Thoroughfare and The Settlement – African and Native American settlement
Proposed Changes to the Rural Crescent
2022 DRAFT Comprehensive Plan Update – Pathway to 2040
9/17/19 – County Planning Office – Recommendations for Rural Crescent development
7/30/19 – County Planning Office – Proposed Plan for Rural Crescent development
2016 Proposed Changed to Rural Crescent
1998 – Establishment of the Rural Crescent
From the 1998 PWC Comprehensive Plan, which established the Rural Area – Rural Crescent:
“The Rural Area is that portion of Prince William County containing agricultural, open space, forestry, and large-lot residential land uses, as well as two federal parks. Large-lot residential clusters, providing large tracts of permanent open space, is an alternative residential pattern permitted in the Rural Area. The Rural Area designation helps preserve the County’ s agricultural economy and resources, the quality of the groundwater supply; and the present open space and rural character. Sufficient vacant and underdeveloped land exists outside the Rural Area that the Rural Area is not needed to accommodate further residential growth for the next 20 years. The Rural Area may be served by public water facilities but not-by public sewer facilities, except under the Designation of the Rural Area and application of the development goals, policies, and action strategies for it are intended to help avoid the negative economic, social; and environmental characteristics of sprawl development.”
The Rural Crescent – Who Speaks for Beauty?
There is an area in western Prince William County known as the Rural Crescent. It is a planned buffer and rural preservation area intended to strengthen this county’s ability to control urban sprawl, to maintain open space and a country atmosphere. On the zoning map it forms a rough crescent shape and thus is called the Rural Crescent (see map below). It has limited utilities; any who live here are on septic and well water, which lowers infrastructure costs to county taxpayers, and also controls the density development of the land.
Dominion Power now proposes to erect a 230 kilovolt above-ground transmission line through the Rural Crescent, clearing acres of land along the base of Bull Run Mountain, from the northern PWC boundary to below the town of Haymarket. These transmission towers will forever impact the country atmosphere and ruin the pastoral views of the mountain and all the green space around it. When a friend of my wife heard of this, he wrote this comment: “It is an honor and privilege to stand with you and your husband against the decimation of beauty!” This man is totally blind, has been since birth, yet he respects beauty and realizes it is worth fighting to preserve it.
How much more critical is it for those of us who can see to fight against what will be lost?: The sight of a sunrise on the mountain, bathing it in a veil of gold that slips down onto the purple gray of night still hanging onto the lower slopes. The sight of wild turkeys strutting on the meadow at the edge of the wood, while their hens pretend to ignore them. The sight of a fawn sleeping in the tall grass, while its mother grazes nearby. The sight of a summer rain topping the mountain ridge and rushing down like a misty avalanche, hissing like a tea kettle starting to boil. The vista of seductively green hay fields stretching across the valley floor to the woods beyond. It is a place of bald eagles, hawks, and vultures riding the air currents high above; of geese driving wedges through the sky and descending to rest in an open field, dropping so close to the earth that you can hear the air in their wings, so close you might be able to reach up and touch them. It is the home of foxes, rabbits, squirrels, bears, raccoons, coyotes, bees, and butterflies – all nature’s creatures, still here.
It is a beauty that strikes to the very soul, calms the spirit, and soothes the stress. A visit to the Rural Crescent is escaping to a time nearly forgotten. I grew up in Washington DC, and drank milk from cows that grazed out here. At that time Routes 7 and 50 were two-lane country roads, and Route 66 was a song about a mystic highway out West. We drove out to the country to see the cows graze, smell the fresh air, and escape the hassle of the city. We would find a spot under a tree and spread out a picnic lunch. It refreshed us, reinvigorated us, and relaxed us.
This countryside can still do that today. The proposed power line will cut like a saber slash through this valley, with a harsh reminder that some think “progress” is more important than place. More basic to the issue is that the power line will be like the scout ant on your kitchen counter that finds the spilled sugar, a small innocuous creature hardly noticed, but if not stopped, is followed by the entire troop of ants. The first power line is an early intruder – if not stopped, more will follow.
The Rural Crescent was set up to be a buffer to keep sprawl from consuming the entire county. It is like the beach dunes protecting the coast from the ever-pounding sea. They disappear if a storm washes them away. They have to be constantly reinforced and carefully maintained to withstand the storms. The Rural Crescent has value far beyond the land contained in it. It sustains beauty and is a monument to all that have existed in this area at the base of Bull Run Mountain; from the Indians who lived here, to the frontiersmen who first ventured here, to the infantry armies who fought and died here, to the farmers who fed the cities to the east. If the Rural Crescent falls apart, its beauty will vanish.
Money and power speak loudly around here. Who speaks for beauty?
Thomas Sheehan, Haymarket, VA
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