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Great blue herons nest in sycamore trees at development-marked Crow's Nest.
SUZANNE CARR ROSSI/THE FREE LANCE-STAR
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A natural gem act now!
Date published: 12/15/2007
FACED with public opposition and looming legal issues, developers recently withdrew the Stafford Town Station proposal, providing breathing room for Stafford County to reconsider the long-unresolved issue of threatened Crow's Nest, the county's wooded, almost 4,000-acre peninsula.
Despite what some argue, Stafford Town Station was not a vehicle to save Crow's Nest; now the county finally can move forward with a real deal that preserves this environmental gem, protects taxpayers, and fairly compensates landowners.
The Stafford Town Station project would have built 1,740 housing units on land now approved for 145 single-family homes. Twenty-five million in cash proffers from the project would have gone to buy a part of Crow's Nest instead of helping pay for the roads and schools needed to serve the project's thousands of new residents.
So who would have ended up paying for the new services for Stafford Town Station? Taxpayers. The idea that the Town Station project would somehow have saved Crow's Nest without raising taxes is nonsense. But it would have been a sweet deal for developers, and it provided a flimsy rationale for a project that otherwise could not bear close public scrutiny.
While buying a portion of Crow's Nest would have stopped some by-right development, it would not have come close to offsetting the 1,740 new units proposed in the Town Station project. The end result of the rezoning would have been a net increase in housing units and approval of an overblown project wanted by no one other than the developer and his allies on the Board of Supervisors.
But what if Stafford County could keep the one positive element of that transaction and cut out the cushy deal for developers?
It can.
Stafford simply should invest directly in the purchase and preservation of all of Crow's Nest. This would remove by-right development for about 1,000 units, while at long last preserving Stafford's largest tract of undeveloped land.
Read more stories about Fredericksburg
Date published: 12/15/2007
Most recent reader comments:
WHY WHY WHY
(posted by
Justice1
, Dec. 18, 2007 10:21 am)
do the taxpayers want to buy crows nest? Public money should not be wasted on this. Crows Nest is a fine place, but the county cannot and should not be hocked to buy this property.
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