Area bracing for big-time growth

Tens of thousands of new residents are coming to the region in the not-so-distant future. Planning for that growth is a daunting task

By RUSTY DENNEN

Date published: 2/12/2005

By RUSTY DENNEN

Elected officials try to 'get out front' of development

If the numbers are correct, Fredericksburg-area officials had better step up planning for an explosion of growth over the next 25 years.

The Washington-based Urban Land Institute estimates that Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia will have another 2 million residents and 1.6 million new jobs by 2030. And Northern Virginia will probably wind up with more than its share.

That was the headline from Reality Check, a planning seminar put on last week by ULI and the Smart Growth Alliance.

It's a daunting forecast for planners and politicians in fast-growing suburbs, who must decide where to put all those people. The trick is to channel thousands of new homes to designated areas without making traffic congestion worse and preserving open areas.

In the Fredericksburg area, scores of new developments with hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of houses are in the works, among them:

Sherwood Forest in southern Stafford County, 1,200 acres with 2,950 houses planned.

Lee's Parke in Spotsylvania County, 1,125 acres with 2,232 houses planned.

Clevenger's Village in Culpeper County, 1,754 acres with 766 houses planned.

Bob Hagan, chairman of the Spotsylvania Board of Supervisors, was among half a dozen local officials who attended the conference in D.C.

He says it was an eye-opener for his county, which has the third-fastest population growth in Virginia.

"We either have to wait for it to happen, or plan for it," Hagan said.

No game

Reality Check was billed as the first regional growth conference of its kind. Some 300 planners, local elected officials, policy wonks and smart-growth advocates from 21 jurisdictions, huddled around 30 tables superimposed with a giant metro-area map.

During a three-hour exercise, participants stacked yellow, blue and white blocks representing housing, jobs and density based on their best guess of where it would occur. Hence the name, Reality Check.

Not surprisingly, most of the Lego stacks were around transportation corridors in urban areas. Most of those were clustered along Interstate 95 and U.S. 1, and in the vicinity of commuter rail stations.

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Date published: 2/12/2005