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Planning for big changes
Community leaders work together to look at fitting 200,000 new residents and 125,000 new jobs into the region.
Date published: 11/18/2005
By RUTH FINCH Fredericksburg and its surrounding communities need to protect open space. On that much the decision-makers at yesterday's Reality Check envisioning exercise agree. Sort of. The Fredericksburg Regional Chamber of Commerce predicts that the region will get 200,000 new residents and 125,000 new jobs in the next 25 years. Yesterday it invited 150 elected leaders, government officials, businessmen, developers, preservationists and environmentalists to the Riverside Center to decide, theoretically, where to put the jobs and the people who will hold them. Without exception, each group of participants said when the session began that open space protection is a priority. But when asked to build their plan for accommodating growth out of Lego blocks, many groups actually increased the percentage of people and jobs in the region's open spaces. Right now, about 30 percent of the region's population lives outside the area the U.S. Census bureau defines as urban--essentially Fredericksburg, State Route 3 west and the Garrisonville Road area in Stafford County. The Reality Check participants' plans for the region involve increasing that percentage to anywhere from 34 percent to 47 percent. The results don't necessarily contradict the stated goals, said Gerrit Knapp, executive director for the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education at the University of Maryland, which facilitated Reality Check. "Although the total concentration is not as tightly centered around the Fredericksburg and Garrisonville areas, there is still a tight fit between housing and jobs," he said. "The new urban pattern is that smaller communities are going to get more developed in terms of both housing and employment." About three dozen community leaders have been planning the Reality Check regional planning retreat for several months, ever since some local leaders came back from a similar exercise for the greater Washington area. It's important for the entities that normally square off in land-use decisions--developers and preservationists, for example--to come together face to face to agree on goals, said Bob Hagan. He participated in Washington's Reality Check as chairman of the Spotsylvania Board of Supervisors and helped plan yesterday's local event. He also said it's useful for elected leaders in one jurisdiction to see how their decisions affect neighbors across the county line.
Date published: 11/18/2005
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