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THE CAMPAIGN to save the 4,000-acre Crow's Nest peninsula from develop- ment has moved from "Should Crow's Nest be saved?" to "How do we save it?" That's because there has been remarkable support from all sides for preserving this Stafford County jewel. The Stafford Board of Supervisors, community residents, and even a representative for K&M Properties, the largest landowner on the peninsula, seem to agree: Saving Crow's Nest is important and it can be done.
The only question now is how to do it in a way that produces a win-win solution.
Good-faith efforts to negotiate a purchase of the property using a patchwork of state, federal, and private money collapsed in recent months. With the breakdown in negotiations, we need a new and secure solution that can be implemented as quickly as possible.
The best way to save Crow's Nest is for Stafford County to buy it outright. Whether you're concerned about the environment, worried about more traffic, or just looking at your tax bill, this solution makes sense and deserves your attention. It would fairly compensate the property owners, permanently protect the peninsula, and actually save taxpayers millions of dollars.
K&M Properties first suggested "cluster housing" as an option, so that development would be concentrated in some areas of the peninsula while others would be saved. This is not an adequate solution because it destroys the fragile peninsula ecosystem while still producing unacceptable congestion.
Just as important, it also creates enormous costs for the county. That's because K&M asserts it has the right to develop 3,200 units on its main Crow's Nest property, while various owners have by-right use to build another 353 units on already-platted land there.
That means the county would not receive any proffers for this development. (Proffers are cash payments usually made by developers to cover part of the costs of growth, such as new schools and safety services.)
At $20,399 per unit (the county's proffer guideline) for 3,553 housing units, the cost to Stafford taxpayers of developing Crow's Nest could be more than $72 million. The county may also be liable for additional costs based on standing agreements with previous owners of the property.
A second idea was to "trade density." K&M proposed giving its Crow's Nest properties to Stafford County, instead of making proffer payments, in exchange for increased building density in another area of the county. While the verbal proposal had no specifics--and the devil is in the details--it was a step in the right direction.
It would protect all of Crow's Nest, and shift development to planned growth areas. But increased traffic and congestion would just be moved to another part of Stafford, and Stafford taxpayers would still be paying tens of millions of dollars for the costs of another housing development.
In either of these scenarios, the situation would get no better as time passed. Residential development is widely recognized to be a negative drain on a com- munity's resources. The taxes paid by new property owners are not enough to cover the cost of new services that continue forever.
That leads us to a third, preferable, possibility: a county park bond issue to raise the money to buy Crow's Nest. Bond authorization would have to be approved by a majority of voters in a referendum.
But can Stafford County afford to do this? Yes. Based on recent comparable sales and appraisals, it would cost Stafford County taxpayers roughly $32 million to buy all of Crow's Nest at fair market value. That's less than half the cost of allowing it to be developed.
Looked at this way, it would be an incredible bargain to spend about $32 million to give Crow's Nest property owners a fair market price plus preserve this environmental jewel and prevent the traffic and reduced quality of life that would come with 3,553 new housing units.
The county might also sell part of the peninsula to the state of Virginia--which has $5 million earmarked for Crow's Nest from a state park bond--to help recover some of its costs.
The question now facing Stafford is not "Should the county spend money on Crow's Nest?" Instead, it is: "How should the county spend its money?" Stafford can spend $72 million to bring additional housing and traffic congestion to an already-strained community and lose a natural treasure, or it can invest $32 million to permanently preserve the unique environmental, historical, and lifestyle features of Crow's Nest for future generations.
We think the choice is clear. The property owners deserve a resolution to this long-standing situation, and the people of Stafford deserve to have their voices heard.
The Stafford County Board of Supervisors should hold a bond referendum as soon as possible to ensure the defense of this environmental jewel and the protection of taxpayer dollars.
NAN ROLLISON is a member of Save Crow's Nest. JOHN MITCHELL is chairman of the Trust for Crow's Nest.