Eliminating the Rural Crescent

 Last week Prince William County held an informational meeting at the Manassas Campus of George Mason University and online to introduce residents to the county’s draft land use map, released the week before. As the county planners had telegraphed, the county proposes eliminating the “rural area” designation from the planning map-truly eliminating the Rural Crescent.

The county proposes replacing the Rural Crescent with a new “Agricultural and Forestry” designation that would up zone the land with that designation to one home per 5 acres area rather than the current one home per 10 acres. In addition, the county would add two new  designations of “Village Mixed Use” and “Hamlet Mixed Use” as well as designation most of the land from the Dutch Land Farm in Nokesville (House family) and Smith Family Farms in Gainesville as Conservation Residential Cluster.

Residential Cluster development allow one home per two acres but concentrates development at higher densities on a limited footprint within a site while conserving open space on at least 60% of the land. It is imagined that the homes will be connected to public water and onsite septic.  Land uses within Hamlets and Villages sounded exactly the same to me only differing in size, Hamlets are smaller. They may include “small-scale retail/commercial uses, infill residential uses, civic/institutional uses (e.g., libraries, schools, post offices, places of worship, and other government buildings and facilities), outdoor civic and recreational spaces, or other community-serving uses that are compatible with the rural character.”

According to the planning department about 75,000 acres of land in total will fall under the new “Agricultural and Forestry” designation, and another 1,600 acres would fall under the Hamlets and Villages designation with higher residential densities.  The Conservation Residential Cluster will encompass about 3,500 acres.

Agriculture and Forrestal district is designed to protect and enhances agricultural and forested land as an economic and environmental resource. Planning intends that the Rural Area will be served by public water, but not public sewer. It was unclear if the intension is to deliver public water to the existing development in the newly named Agriculture and Forrestal district designated in light green in the map or only the higher density Conservation Residential, Hamlet Mixed Use and Village Mixed Use. Planning said only that they would “Permit all future development within the Rural Area to connect to public water facilities. However, they would “require new development utilizing public water systems to fund – in coordination with the Prince William County Service Authority and Virginia American Water – the capital costs associated with expanding the water facility, including line extensions and plant capacity expansions.”

Link to the entire map

The large grey area is the PW Digital Gateway currently under consideration for Industrial Use

Planning states that the Agricultural and Forrestal District designation and Conservation Residential designation encourages primarily residential use. Though the planning department says that “this district is designed to encourage conservation and proper use of large tracts of real property in order to assure available sources of agricultural products, …” 5 acres is hardly a large tract of land, Possibly they were talking about the Conservation Residential designation. Planning also stated: “The Rural Area also protects Prince William Forest Park and Manassas National Battlefield Park County Registered Historic Sites, which serve as key anchor points within the Rural Area classification.”