|
|
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 The ruling affirms that a 1971 zoning that would have allowed up to 8,000 homes is no longer valid.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.
Carl Bowmer, an attorney representing the county zoning administrator, argued that for the land to be vested, Crow's Nest Harbor would have had to take steps to develop the property after the Planning Commission approved subdivision plats in December 1973. But little work was done on the project in 1974, and by the end of that year the project had been abandoned.
The Board of Zoning Appeals spent almost two hours discussing the case. When the vote came at 12:30 a.m. yesterday, the board sided 6-0 with Bowmer and the zoning administrator. Board member Cecelia Kirkman, a member of Save Crow's Nest, abstained.
Board members said the appropriate time to appeal the 1978 rezoning passed 26 years ago.
"What you're really asking us to do is to pretend it's 1978," board member Larry Ingalls said Tuesday night. "You're asking us to forget about the years between 1978 and 2004. You're saying those years don't matter."
Another preservation group, Save CrowsNest.org, noted that any rezoning request by the developer would require a public hearing.
"That's good for democratic participation in the public debate about the future of Crow's Nest. And it puts the fate of Crow's Nest clearly in the lap of the Board of Supervisors," said SaveCrowsNest.org spokeswoman Nan Rollison.
Leming said he will likely appeal the case to Circuit Court. But he said it probably won't affect a pending sale of Crow's Nest to luxury-home builder Toll Brothers Inc.
Leming said a decision that allows Crow's Nest to take advantage of the 1971 zoning would give developers more flexibility in designing the project. But a profitable development is still possible under the 1-acre minimum lot size zoning, he said.
"All of Crow's Nest is not going to be preserved," Leming said. "It's simply not going to happen. It's just not going to work for the landowner."
To reach RUTH FINCH: 540/720-1622 rfinch@freelancestar.com