Prince William Supervisor Jeanine Lawson will ask county leaders to extend the meetings of the 2016 Strategic Plan Committee because the group has not focused on land-use policy.
Residents at a Lawson town hall meeting Thursday night in Bristow said discussing land use — new residential, commercial, agricultural, and municipal developments — should be a topic discussed by the committee.
Lawson’s Strategic Plan Committee appointment Daniel Varroney told the crowd that committee members were barred from discussing land use policy because that is reserved for members of a separate committee, the group that authors the county’s Comprehensive Plan.
“If you’re not factoring in land use, you’re wasting your time, and you’re wasting ours,” said Haymarket resident Bob Weir.
Other residents accused the Board of Supervisors of not following a land-use plan, and regularly rezoning land in the Rural Crescent, and tract of land in Prince William County preserved in 1998 for farming and turning it into residential land, or land for church use.
Other residents, frustrated over what they say is an erosion of rural character in western Prince William County, told Varroney it was “illogical and stupid” for him to address the crowd and not be able to discuss the types of developments they see an encroaching on the rural way of life.
Tammy Spinks lives on Vint Hill Road, a two-lane road now being widened to four lanes. “There is no need to widen Vint Hill Road. Now we will have a Vint Hill Parkway,” said Spinks. “I want it to go back to the way it was… the way it was supposed to be when I bought my house here in the Rural Crescent 30 years ago.”
The Strategic Plan committee meets twice a month and is made up of 20 county residents and government staff. It is charged with creating a plan that will guide transportation, human services, public safety, and education goals for the county for the next four years.
Both the Strategic and Comprehensive plans are often referred to by the Board of Supervisors when making decisions on the future developments in the county. Meeting regularly under the direction of the Board of Supervisors since Feb. 29, the committee was set to wrap up with a final presentation to the Board on December 13.
On Thursday, public outcry prompted Lawson to say she would petition the Board of Supervisors votes to extend the series of committee meetings, and this time, instruct the committee to discuss land-use impacts in its policy making.
“The Board of Supervisors is in charge, but just because it’s been done one way in the past doesn’t mean we can’t change it,” Lawson told the crowd.
Strategic Plan Committee Member Mac Haddow, appointed by Gainesville Supervisor Peter Candland, said the group was told very early in the proceedings it was not to discuss land use.
“If you have gridlocked roads, it’s because you don’t have a good land use policy when you are talking about the build out,” said Haddow. “I think it’s obvious that we need to address this.”
A handful of Strategic Planning Committee members have asked about how someone is appointed to the Comprehensive Plan committee that does discuss land use, Haddow said. That group too is appointed by members of the Board of Supervisors, he added.
“If the number of meetings goes beyond December, that would be unfortunate. But we will do what we have to do,” said Amelia May, who is appointed to the committee by Occoquan Supervisor Ruth Anderson.
