The Stafford County Board of Zoning Appeals has ruled that a developer cannot cluster homes on Crow's Nest without another rezoning.

The board early yesterday upheld a 1978 rezoning of the 3,800-acre tract, which county officials estimate will allow 800 to 1,400 homes. The ruling affirms that a 1971 zoning that would have allowed up to 8,000 homes is no longer valid.

Groups hoping to preserve the environmentally fragile peninsula at the mouth of Accokeek creek hailed the ruling as a small victory.

But Clark Leming, the attorney for the owners of Crow's Nest--Stafford Lakes L.L.P. and Diversified Mortgage Investors Inc.--said it would hurt efforts to preserve the sensitive areas of the tract. Allowing the developer to cluster homes would make it easier to protect more land, he said.

"If the only choice a developer has is to build out under [1-acre minimum lot size] zoning, that's going to take up most, if not all, of the peninsula," he said yesterday.

State leaders and local preservationists have been working to prevent development on the land, which is home to a heron rookery and one of the last stands of virgin forest in the region.

A plan for the state to buy the tract fell through last year, sparking a grass-roots effort to save the peninsula through other means, such as the county buying the property for preservation.

"It will make the property less valuable," said Paul Milde, who runs a preservation Web site, SaveCrowsNest.com. "If the county is able to buy this, it will save the county some money, and we needed that."

The Board of Zoning Appeals hearing Tuesday centered around whether a 34-year-old rezoning of Crow's Nest was still valid.

In 1971, the county approved plans that included 8,000 homes, two golf courses, four marinas, an airport, a convention center, a commercial area and schools. Three years later, the project's developer, Crow's Nest Harbour, went bankrupt and the project was abandoned.

In 1978, Crow's Nest was downzoned to low-density rural residential as part of a countywide effort to bring zoning into alignment with the comprehensive plan. Under that zoning, the county estimates about 800 to 1,400 lots would be possible.

Leming argued that the peninsula was vested under the 1971 zoning.