On this episode of the Potomac Local Podcast, we take our reporting deeper with an interview with longtime Prince William County Realtor and one-time candidate for the Prince William Board of County Supervisors Scott Jacobs.
He’s been at the center of the debate on how to preserve the Rural Crescent — the last rural tract of land in a growing county of just over a half-million people located outside Washington, D.C. The crescent-shaped land tract encompasses an area of more than 80,000 acres stretching from Quantico Marine Corps Base to Manassas National Battlefield Park.
As we reported in June 2019, tensions were high at another meeting of Prince William County officials and residents of the Rural Crescent
Some who live there want the two-lane roads, and the land where many dairy and cattle farms used to operate, to be preserved in time.
Others — especially the farmers who used to operate but no longer do because of changing market conditions and encroachment from residential and commercial development — want to sell the land for a fair market price and leave.
All of this puts the county in the middle, trying to figure out how best to appease these constituencies while preserving the open land — something that’s becoming more difficult to find as the years pass.
