We can have Economic Growth AND Rural in Prince William County!
Karen Sheehan
The below was written BEFORE the Board of County Supervisors adopted the Comprehensive Plan – Pathway to 2040 on December 13, 2022, which intends to urbanize and industrialize the entire county.
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In 1998 the Prince William County Board of Supervisors adopted a Comprehensive Plan (PWC 1998 Comp Plan Intro Rural Area initiation) that established a growth boundary within this 227,300 acre county. The intent was to strengthen the County’s capacity to control urban sprawl by defining approximately half of the county for the development already exploding there: commercial development, as well as multiple levels of density for residential development. The other still rural half of the county was to be protected with a combination of undevelopable and protected open space, rural appropriate commercial development, and low-density housing. The delineated and protected Rural Area quickly became known as the Rural Crescent.
The county’s officially stated purpose of the delineated Rural Area is to serve as a fiscal tool to direct taxpayer-funded investments to the development areas of the county, where the money spent is more cost-effective, benefits more county citizens, and helps attract more economic development to the county. Land preservation in the Rural Area is fiscally positive and has broad economic benefits for the entire county. But our county is missing out on many available and possible economic directions.
The benefits will be outlined after describing how we got to where we are now PWC. Here is what will be covered:
• WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?
• HISTORY
• SPRAWL
• PARALYSIS
• WHY CARE ABOUT RURAL IN PWC?
• NEXT STEPS – INCENTIVES
• NOW IS THE TIME TO MAKE HAPPEN WHAT WE WANT
WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?
The county government wants ever-increasing revenue growth; developers, speculators and land-owners want to make sizeable profits off of their investments; and citizens want good salaries, nice homes, comfortable and attractive surroundings, convenient commutes, top-notch schools and other public services. Many would have you believe that these groups have to fight each other to get what they want – and the culture currently operating in our county strives to feed such controversy.
The truth is that we don’t have to, or even want to, fight each other. The truth is, that even when differing on approaches, both large landowners and homeowners across the county want to protect the Rural Crescent and what it can bring to the county. All of these groups, including our county government, developers, and speculators, can realize what they want – IF a holistic, attractive, and economically-beneficial path, which protects both our resources and our people, is committed to, enforced, and embraced by all.
HISTORY
Prince William County was a sleepy rural county until 2-lane Shirley Highway was completed in 1949, and then widened to 4 lanes in 1952 to create I-95/I-395. These road expansions brought a housing boom in the eastern part of the county. Housing also mushroomed in western Prince William after the 1989-91 recession, as the Dulles corridor filled up with office buildings.
In 1998 the county intensely debated its growth plans. County leaders wanted to increase commercial development and offer local jobs, rather than serving as a bedroom community for employment centers elsewhere. The rapid growth leapfrogging throughout the county had resulted in infrastructure needs that were impossible to keep up with or pay for, especially without a substantial non-residential tax base.
The Rural Crescent was created by the county after the successful fight to block Disney from establishing a large Disney-themed park on three thousand acres of rural land which they had bought up. The County could not afford to protect the area from other amusement park proposals, developers wanting to put a shopping center on Manassas Battlefield Park, dog-race track proposals, and more, which, in addition to being ill-conceived proposals, would require significant infusion of county funding for infrastructure to support all the sprawling development ideas.
The northern and western areas of the county were already zoned A-1 agriculture, which meant that minimum subdivisions were already restricted to 10 acres prior to 1998. The 1998 Plan simply kept the Agriculture/Estate designation which fits the A-1 zoning category, and gave it a name. The Rural Area kept what it already was, and new commercial and high-density housing development was concentrated in the Development Area, where infrastructure could more reasonably and efficiently be provided. The creation of the Rural Crescent simply codified the area of the county which was still rural.
People believe that the Rural Crescent today is full of open undeveloped land. The reality is that the bulk of the Rural Crescent is already in use or developed. Most of the land in the Rural Crescent is not in large parcels. There are farmers and speculators who own significant amounts of land in the RC, possibly as much as 8000 acres. But only a handful own very large tracts of over 100 acres.
Any new housing built in the rural area boundaries is restricted to a minimum lot size of 10-acres. All homes and businesses in the Rural Crescent use private well and septic systems; county water and sewer services are only provided if a special use permit is granted by the County Board of Supervisors. The lower-density housing zoning in the rural area reduces county infrastructure needs and prevents sprawl in the rural area, as well as protects farmland, open space, environmental resources, wildlife, and the county’s drinking water supply.
SPRAWL
If our county government doesn’t protect the structure of the Rural Crescent, and end the paralysis in the implementation of sound rural area incentives and smart development county-wide, what we are going to have is sprawl – everywhere in the county.
As previously outlined, Prince William experienced 40+ years (1950 – 1998) of losing out to surrounding jurisdictions by watching housing explode and spread all throughout the county after road expansions – roads filled with county citizens driving to other counties for jobs and enjoyment. If roads are built and sound planning is ignored, housing and the associated costs of everything to support the explosion will come. We can’t afford to go backwards as a result of poor decisions being made today.
Our county is losing its opportunity to possess a unique and attractive identity – planning decisions being made will have a grid of roads and suburbs that people pass through on their way to the interesting places outside of and surrounding Prince William County. We deserve to have sustainable live-work-play communities right here – for our own citizens, and to draw visitors from outside our county.
Unfortunately, the 2014 Rural “Preservation” Study was really a rural “Development” study. It contains multiple recommendations/strategies for higher density development in the Rural Crescent:
• Rural cluster development/subdivisions
• Increase housing density to one dwelling per 5 acres in areas dominated by farming
• Extend public sewer into “Transitional Ribbons; Older, Smaller Lot Residential Enclaves; and Valley Estates and Subdivisions”
• Allow hook-ups to public sewer where public sewer is readily available
These recommendations will introduce exactly that which the 1998 plan was designed to avoid – Sprawl.
Developers, speculators, large landowners, our Planning Office, and even many of our current County Supervisors, are relentlessly pushing these strategies and working together to get these proposals approved by the Board of County Supervisors.
One type of well-documented rural sprawl is exactly what our Planning Office is pushing with “transitional ribbons” and “gateways” in the Rural Crescent: commercial strip development along arterial highways leading into and out of the rural area. If adopted, commercial development with extended public sewer inside the current Rural Crescent boundaries will rob us of our rural environment and will hasten subsequent higher density housing plans with justifications to hook into the public sewer which would be close and accessible. The growth boundary will have been broken.
The other documented type of rural sprawl is the other development aspect the Planning Office is pushing within the Rural Crescent: “Clustering development.” It is important to recognize that “rural cluster” or “open space zoníng” is not a solution to rural sprawl. In fact, many cluster developments in the countryside can simply create “clustered sprawl.”
Cluster developments may leave some land open, but the clusters are often based on fairly high densities, such as one dwelling per two, three or five acres. Dividing up a 100 acre parcel into 35 homes on 70 acres, with 30 acres conserved as open, still puts 100 or more new dwellers in the countryside. These families will add traffic to the roads and require additional schools, fire, and police services, forcing infrastructure dollars to be spent in the rural area rather than in the development area which already has population density needing infrastructure support. In short, cluster development throughout the Rural Crescent is a suburban style that will hasten the conversion of our rural area to further county suburban sprawl.
Sprawl doesn’t just happen. It is the result of thousands of individual uncoordinated decisions that are made within a framework of local government land controls and local, state, and federal tax policies and spending programs.
The reality is that governments create the incentives for sprawl, which means that governments can also create the incentives to curb sprawl. PWC has the balanced growth plan for the county already in place – it needs to be honored and enforced, and the incentives to prevent further sprawl implemented.
Zoning is a key ingredient in regulating rural sprawl. The balance to be struck is to allow some rural residential development without sacrificing good quality land and without accommodating so many rural residents that sprawl develops.
The Rural Crescent growth boundary in PWC requires cooperation among county organizations, and a unified approach by our Board of County Supervisors to identify land use needs over the next 20 years and beyond, and to draw a limit to the extension of public services, especially sewer and water lines. Our county growth boundary strategy will only work if there is effective restrictive zoning in the countryside, and if our Board of Supervisors holds the line when exceptions are requested.
Residential development will simply jump into the countryside and spread through the hinterlands if zoning less than 10 acres with permitted sewer encroaches into the Rural Crescent.
PARALYSIS
Our county leadership is not honoring the Plan, and they are playing delaying tactics:
- In the 1998 Comprehensive Plan – over 20 years ago – County Supervisors committed to a series of rural area incentives.
- None of these have been further studied
- None have been implemented.
- In 2014 a Rural Preservation Study survey showed strong support for the Rural Crescent.
- In 2015 the Rural Preservation Study was completed and put on the shelf.
- In 2016 Supervisors initiated zoning text amendments to help guide the County’s review of the Study.
- The PDR (Purchase of Development Rights program) was the best alternative suggested
- Again, nothing definitive or implemented came out of this initiative
- In 2018 Supervisors initiated a Comprehensive Plan Amendment and directed staff to:
- Provide an overview of the County’s rural preservation policies and an evaluation of their effectiveness;
- Identify appropriate rural preservation tools that may be appropriate and effective; and
- Make recommendations regarding possible amendments to the County’s land use planning policies.
- In late 2018 the Planning Office held three more “community conversation” work sessions which revisited yet again the plans for the Rural Area
- The same strong support from citizens for the rural area, as currently designed, came out of these sessions.
- The Planning Office then abruptly cancelled, indefinitely, one additional Planning Commission work session and four public outreach meetings scheduled.
- In mid-2019 the Planning Office hosted another Rural Area session with the public. This session met with intense resistance from the outset.
- The Planning Office engaged consultants to lead the session.
- The consultants tried to walk citizens through the same questions which had been discussed over the last 6 years.
- Planning Office staff did not provide any input during the session.
- It was very clear that citizens on all sides of the issue are more than done with county government delaying tactics.
Rural Area incentive programs are still waiting in the wings, with no plans for implementation. County leadership has been told what the citizens do want, and what they don’t want.
These delays to the public process have created uncertainty for landowners county-wide, have created openings for piecemeal changes which have already increased housing densities in parts of the county’s Rural Crescent, have wasted opportunities to bring much-needed infrastructure dollars to the county’s development areas, and finally, have failed to cement an attractive and economically beneficial structure for the county.
Our leaders in Prince William County currently squander the assets the county has, they don’t show the backbone necessary to stand by the planning strategy that their taxpayers want, and they refuse to create an identity for our county which will stand out in the region and be attractive to today’s taxpayers, and up-and-coming generations as well.
WHY CARE ABOUT RURAL IN PWC?
Why should you care about maintaining:
• Current Rural Crescent boundaries
• Protected open spaces in the Rural Crescent
• No further public sewer extensions into the Rural Crescent
• Current minimum 10-acre/lot residential zoning in the Rural Crescent
This discussion will be difficult to swallow for many developers, speculators, and even government leaders in Prince William County today. This direction requires a commitment to do what is right, for the benefit of most: Benefits for today’s majority, and for future generations in our county and our state.
If large land-owners in the Rural Area need or desire to sell their land, they want to make a profit. But at the same time, most, if not all of them, don’t want Rural to be lost in PWC. It must be noted that there is no obligation under current law, no obligation under county policy, and no requirement from a fairness perspective, to guarantee large property owners are given an entire retirement nest-egg for their property. Landowners are entitled to the current market value for their land when they sell. The county can, and should, also have workable incentives (outlined below) in their tool-box for farmers and other large-landowners which facilitate choices to save and protect open space.
Savvy speculators embrace the wisdom that creative solutions – solutions honoring all factors which must be considered – do bring economic success. Factors which must be considered for success in today’s economy:
1. Infrastructure dollars are maximized by protecting the Rural Area
99.5% of the citizens of this county don’t own large land holdings (greater than 10 acres) and should not be expected to have their tax dollars used to ensure infrastructure and services in rural areas. They need to feel reassured that their taxes are going to support what they own.
Permitting higher density housing with public sewer into the Rural Crescent would require county taxpayer infrastructure dollars to be spent on extending sewer farther and farther into the Rural Crescent along with more roads, more schools, and increased police, fire, and rescue resources for the increased population growth in the Rural Crescent.
Language in PWC comprehensive plans prior to 1998 spoke to land in the rural area to be developed later, “…once we can afford costs for extending sewer.” The 1998 Comp Plan did not support sewer being extended into the rural area. Cluster development, as recommended in the 2014 “Preservation” study and currently being proposed by the PWC Planning Office, includes bringing county sewer lines into the Rural Crescent to service clustered neighborhoods, transitional ribbons, and gateways. This is more evidence that the 2014 study is another cloaked attempt by the county to develop out the Rural Area, believing that this is an easy way to generate revenue.
When sewer lines are extended, there is always strong incentive to encourage additional hook-ups along the line. Poor and uncoordinated decision-making by our Supervisors is already creating a sprawling hub and spoke pattern in parts of the rural area. This tendency will continue every time sewer is permitted to encroach into the Rural Crescent.
Developers and speculators will continue to argue that their next proposal should be permitted to tap into the ever-increasing sewer lines in the rural area – Rural Crescent density will only increase. The growth boundary will be broken and the county will be right back in sprawl, with the associated uncontrollable costs, that it found itself in the Fifties through the Nineties – which caused the creation of the growth boundary in the first place.
2. Our need for open space, real places of respite, is met with a protected Rural Area
The 2014 Rural Study recommended that 60% of the remaining undeveloped land in the Rural Area (17,000 acres) be preserved as open space. This will enable the county to meet its goal of 39% open space preserved across the entire county. This goal makes perfect sense.
People are looking to escape the suburbs, to escape the city. They are looking for places where they can find respite – “sanctuaries.” A sanctuary, a place of respite, wholly supports the health and positive transformations of the beings who come to it. We need more open space “sanctuaries” for protecting species in danger – wildlife and humans alike. In today’s frenetic world, all humans are nature-deprived. Our Northern Virginia Prince William countryside is perfectly situated to make available a multitude of parks and protected open space to highlight the natural places hidden throughout the thousands of acres in the county.
We have a real opportunity to be an attractive destination for individuals from everywhere to experience magnificent open spaces here, and to allow people to relish beauty, tranquility, and freedom from every-day stresses with the variety of experiences to be found from our Potomac shores to our Bull Run Mountain, and everything in between.
Everyone, from youngsters to our aging population, needs places to replenish themselves. The existing parks in the Rural Area need to be protected for the uses for which they were established. Prince William County should celebrate its farm, equestrian, riverside, mountain, and field treasures with more parks and venues that make these features available for all to get up-close and personal.
3. Local, rural businesses and activities attract today’s diverse populations and their pocketbooks
Gen-Xers, Millennials, and the Generation Z, are all drawn to creative, vibrant, ecologically and environmentally friendly businesses and venues in which to spend their disposable income. Prince William County can create an attractive brand and identity, with real economic generation, by incentivizing artisanal and farm-to-table markets and restaurants, rural event venues, lodging and B&B sites, and more in the rural area. Identify underutilized structures and appropriate spaces in the rural area. Support these endeavors and uses for those who are looking for ways to make a living from their land and their properties. Public water and sewer is not required for these types of uses. Independent sewage treatment facilities are feasible options for larger venues.
PWC is one of the most affluent counties in the country. We are losing the spending power of our own people – they go to other counties to spend their money and do something interesting. We can turn this around by looking at what we have with fresh eyes.
4. Maintaining current housing density level in the Rural Area will drive creative infrastructure, commercial, and housing solutions in the Development Area
Holding the line on any increased density in the Rural Crescent will force developers and speculators to become more creative with projects in the development area. Innovative and attractive projects will come out of being required to look at what is possible – if our Planning Office, Board of Supervisors, and citizens work together to stand consistent and united in demanding their development focus is appropriately placed.
5. The lives and experiences of our future generations deserve to be protected
Our children, our grandchildren, and future generations need us to protect the value and beauty present today – so that it is not lost to their families.
The 2014 population of PWC was 412,000. The 2018 population of PWC was 468,011. This is a 9% increase in population over 4 years – which is less than 2% population growth per year.
With high-density housing zoning permitted in the development area, its 14,000 acres of undeveloped residential land is more than sufficient for all types of housing to meet the projected population growth of Prince William County for decades. Infrastructure and mobility opportunities are already in place in the development area.
If desired, up to 3600 low density 10-acre lot homes can be built in the Rural Crescent. But after protecting 17,000 acres in the Rural Crescent to meet the county’s protected open space goal of 39%, the remaining 10,000+ rural acres can instead be available for agri-business, agri-tourism, event venues, and other businesses attractive to a diverse population.
What about maintaining working farmland? Appropriate zoning for farming is already in place in PWC’s rural area. Effective financial incentives can be implemented to encourage farm operators to remain in business. Financial incentives are strictly voluntary, but can be attractive for farm and other agriculturally-centric businesses which want to continue to flourish in the Rural Crescent. Allowing for unique rural economies would go a long way towards satisfying the needs of the farming community, as well as the needs of the entire PWC community.
The county itself owns no protected open space land – not in the Rural Crescent, and not in the development area.
The county should purchase some of the available open space, using our taxpayer dollars, to establish protected parks, in permanent conservation easements, to highlight and share forever the natural resources in this part of Virginia. Citizens of the county have repeatedly told county leadership that they want the county to save and protect large tracts of open space before the available contiguous open land in the rural area is gone.
Prince William County leadership simply needs to protect and embrace the many assets we have across the county for the economic and cultural benefit of all groups in the community.
NEXT STEPS – INCENTIVES
Our county needs to better understand and support the land economics that influence both the development area and the Rural Crescent.
What incentive programs can PWC implement for farmers/large landowners in the Rural Crescent? Listed here are some which have been put forward. Creative and dedicated planning can uncover more.
Agri-tourism, Agri-business
The Agri-tourism, Agribusiness and Arts Overlay District expands the agri-businesses and agri-tourism uses permitted in the Rural Area and makes the approval process easier.
We have many opportunities for agri-businesses which won’t feed rural area residential densities, but will attract economic investments and visitors to the county.
This program was finally approved and implemented by the county Board in 2020.
PDR
A Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) program is a voluntary program in which a landowner agrees to sell his or her development rights to a government (local, state or federal) in return for a cash payment. In exchange for the cash payment, the land is preserved via a permanent conservation easement which extinguishes the development rights on the Property. The landowner would continue to own the land and use it for farming or other uses permissible within the permanent conservation easement and the A-1 zone. In addition to the cash payment to the landowner for the PDR, the landowner can sell the property. The permanent conservation easement conveys with the land to the new owner, preventing the land from being developed into perpetuity.
Fauquier County has preserved nearly 13,000 acres through its purchase of development rights program to preserve farmland, and the City of Virginia Beach has had a PDR program since 1995.
PDR programs help create parts of growth boundaries and strengthen zoning by stabilizing the land base. Although there will not be enough money to preserve the entire countryside, and not all large landowners will choose to participate, PDR programs are popular.
This program was finally approved by the county Board in 2021. Now the County must establish funding for the program’s implementation.
Conservation Easements
Permanent Conservation Easements permanently protect land from development via the conveyance of a Permanent Conservation Easement to a federal, state, or local government or nonprofit organization for natural resource, forestry, agriculture, wildlife, passive recreation, historic, cultural, or open space use, or to sustain water quality and living resource values. Permanent Conservation Easements are typically conveyed in exchange for cash payment, or expanded or incentivized uses of the property.
The fact that our county has done nothing in the last 20 years to ensure the protection of our natural assets by purchasing, owning, and managing open spaces in conservation easements makes a farce of this incentive.
TDR
A Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) program features the creation of a market in development credits through the county government. The county gives development credits to landowners in a designated “sending” area from which the development credits will be sent and the land is preserved via a permanent conservation easement that would extinguish the development rights on the Property. The development credits can then be purchased by developers and landowners in designated “receiving areas,” and the proposed developments within the designated receiving areas would be allowed to develop at a density higher than the normal allowable density. The landowner would continue to own the land and use it for farming or other uses permissible within the permanent conservation easement and the A-1 zone. There are many issues with the “receiving” areas the Planning Department proposed in 2021. The Board has remanded this program be revisited.
TDRs are more difficult to implement since they require sound and robust planning by the county. But, the ability to transfer development potential from the rural area to the development area is attractive. The program’s popularity could increase if effectively structured. Fauquier County has put in place an effective and successful TDR structure.
Programs can and should be created to incentivize the creation of even more possibilities for areas of the county. Here are just a few ideas:
Rural Area:
• 10 acre lot owners combining forces to establish connected horseback riding, biking, and exploration trails throughout pastoral rural acreage;
• Small and attractive hobby farms and orchards on existing and new 10 acre lots which will draw all ages to experience livestock, horses, honeybee apiaries, and a plethora of home-grown fruit, vegetables, and flowers;
• Equestrian jumping, dressage, and hunt shows and activities
• Parks for children with water fountains and features
• Accessible wildflower pastures
• Trail and picnic facilities in riparian areas to explore streams, rivers and wetlands
• Arts and crafts fairs and markets
Development Area:
In the development area, our county can and should implement incentive programs for developers, speculators, and landowners which could easily facilitate infill and re-development in underperforming properties. This would make even more acreage available for economic growth through development, and is a real missed opportunity for infusing vibrancy and prosperity across the county.
Attractive and revenue-producing ideas for larger events requiring more services and management oversight, and involving more invasive land uses, will find greater support in the development area, where the infrastructure already exists to handle greater numbers of people using both automobiles and mass transit, and event set-ups can be excavated and erected as needed. These examples address diverse interests and needs not being met by activities in the more constrained rural area:
• Sports and recreation events and activities: truck rallies, tracks for motocross, mountain biking, ropes course
• Upscale venues for concerts, plays, ballets, exhibitions
• Light manufacturing, such as a module fabrication plant for creative housing
All of these ideas will generate revenue for the county as well as produce income for investors, land-owners, business-owners, and homeowners.
NOW IS THE TIME TO MAKE HAPPEN WHAT WE WANT
People get stuck in romanticizing rural areas as representative of a time that is gone, even as a time that was better. We need to approach the growth challenges within Prince William County similar to our country’s struggle to get to the moon:
“People often remember the time of the moon landing as one of the country’s finest moments, as an age when things were simpler, better, more hopeful. Yet Apollo 11 was not the embodiment of a grand era – it was a testament to the fact that we can do great things in terrible times. That even when we are struggling, when our country is divided and our world is scary, we should chase big dreams” – and achieve them.
We are struggling in this county. We are divided and fighting amongst ourselves. We don’t have to be.
The Rural Crescent is in effect the smartest growth tool this county possesses. The path forward needs to be a 21st century vision, not just an easy economic benefit for a few. There is a path forward together to build this new modeling of communities in the county, to preserve open space in both the Rural Crescent and in the development area.
Our present and our future should be about protecting and enhancing, not about destroying. If we allow a use in an area that takes away from the integrity of the reason people came to that area, how do we come back around? Once it is destroyed, it is gone.
Citizens should be willing to put their money where their mouth is. If you don’t care for and respect your environment, then no one else will. If you alter a landscape, you can’t get it back.
This is not a suggestion to “dump” all housing into the development area. We should all be willing to make sure the development area is cared for. The development area is lacking parks and recreation areas. In addition to generating creative and affordable housing solutions close to the transit opportunities already in place, investments in parks and open space in the development area should be made with some of the undeveloped land.
We don’t have to waste our precious county infrastructure dollars on the same old 20th century modeling.
We should all also be willing to make sure the rural area is cared for. Rather than having to pay for more schools, teachers, fire, and rescue services for higher density housing in the rural area, why not pay instead to protect open spaces there, and to have useful incentives for appropriate economic opportunities in the Rural Crescent that will attract visitors to our county? We can design successful avenues for our own unique rural assets. The Rural Area can generate revenue for the county and income for citizens in that area without jeopardizing our growth boundary and introducing higher housing densities with sewer.
Development is still going to occur in the development area, even if the Rural Crescent is paved over. What will have been gained, and what will have been lost? We are going to pay either way – let’s put our energies and our funds on true innovations to benefit all in the county. Our choices need to be forward thinking – Choosing what we want to have here in 20 years, 30 years, 50 years, and more.
We don’t have to fight and be at each other’s throats. And we don’t have to turn into data center development folly like Loudoun. Nor do we need to avoid sane improvements enabling us to attract talent and revenue to our county.
Crises come in all shapes and sizes, but all have just one message: change your ways, alter your direction. We do have a crisis in this county. If we fail to heed the message of the crisis and don’t change our ways, there will no longer be a normal way of life left. We can either be in charge, or suffer the consequences of our neglect.
We can chart our own destiny. We should be excited about the opportunities in front of us. We have a true mosaic available here to tap into, to enhance, to enjoy, and to share forever with those inside and outside of Prince William County.