My opponent wants to reduce the 10-acre minimum in the Rural Crescent. This is irresponsible and innapropriate.
I am strongly opposed to reducing the 10-acre minimum in the Rural Crescent.
Environmentally, it is inappropriate to reduce the 10-acre minimum. This area serves as the watershed for the Occoquan Reservoir, which provides drinking water to just under one million people in our region. Protecting this watershed is a responsibility we cannot compromise.
Financially, it is irresponsible. The Rural Crescent designation saves the county millions of dollars in avoided costs—we don’t have to extend utilities, build additional infrastructure, or overcrowd our schools. Once sprawl takes hold, taxpayers bear the burden for generations.
From a community standpoint, reducing this minimum only fuels more sprawl and poor development. Smart growth requires constraints—it pushes developers toward redevelopment and reinvestment instead of paving over our open spaces.
Recently I sat down with ten of the largest developers in Prince William County. I laid out my vision for stopping sprawl and emphasized opportunities in redevelopment, like what we’ve seen succeed in Fairfax, Montgomery, and even in Old Town Manassas. I made it clear that I will actively fight residential sprawl in the Rural Crescent.
Where Ann Wheeler and my opponent see open land as space for endless residential projects, concrete, and power lines, I see the beauty, treasure, and financial benefit of keeping open space intact. Preserving it is not a side issue—it is one of the defining issues for the future of our county.
If we succeed, we will give our children a cleaner, more beautiful, and more prosperous Prince William. If we fail, we will hand them endless sprawl, strip malls, and a county with no identity.
