Offer on Crow's Nest

By MEGHANN COTTER

Stafford supervisors are putting money on the table in an effort to preserve 3,200 acres of the environmentally sensitive Crow's Nest peninsula.

Yesterday, the board authorized County Attorney Joe Howard to make K&M Properties of McLean an offer for the land. Officials would not disclose the amount, but said it would be equivalent to an appraisal done by a private company in January at the county's request. Stafford has assessed the property at about $24 million.

K&M bought the property in 1989 for $17.8 million.

Sources have said that Toll Brothers, a national home builder, offered $50 million for the land and took out an option to buy it two years ago; that contract expired.

K&M's Stafford attorney, Clark Leming, said last night that his clients believe their property is worth $60 million. "They're going to stick to their guns as far as what they think the property is worth," he said.

But K&M has always been willing to consider fair offers, Leming said.

Situated between Potomac and Accokeek creeks, Crow's Nest has one of the last remaining stands of virgin forest in the region and is home to rare plants and animals.

Its name comes from the Crow, a black three-masted schooner that was moored off the property in the mid-19th century.

Yesterday's vote was the supervisors' first public direction to buy the land, a move preservationists have lobbied for over the past several years.

"The board did the right thing and took the necessary steps," said Aquia Supervisor Paul Milde, whose district includes Crow's Nest. "The ball is back in the court of [K&M], but we are determined to save this property."

Crow's Nest activists, including Patricia Kurpiel, are delighted.

"I'm very, very pleased, and that would be an understatement," she said. "We've been waiting a long time for this offer to come." The decision came just three months after four new board members took office. But Vice Chairman Jack Cavalier, a board veteran, said the discussions and work that took place before last fall's election should not be discounted.

Numerous appeals and lawsuits have been filed in the past few years by the developer and activists.

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Stafford supervisors voted yesterday to make an offer on the 4,000-acre Crow's Nest property.

Crow's Nest's owner, K&M Properties of McLean, filed an appeal yesterday in Stafford Circuit Court. K&M is challenging the Planning Commission's Jan. 25 rejection of a preliminary subdivision plan that would have put 688 homes on 3,230 acres.

On Monday, K&M withdrew a separate appeal of a judge's decision about how previous litigation had affected the timeline of the developer's application with the county.

Two weeks ago, the full Virginia Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of a decision a three-justice panel made in December 2005. The justices had refused to hear K&M's request to uphold a 1971 residential zoning designation for Crow's Nest. The 1971 plan would have included 8,000 homes, two golf courses, four marinas, an airport, a convention center, a commercial area and schools. That project never happened because the company proposing it went bankrupt.

On Jan. 25, the Stafford Planning Commission voted to deny a preliminary subdivision plan to put 688 homes on 3,230 acres of the parcel. The developer, K&M Properties of McLean, plans to appeal that decision to the Circuit Court.

In December 2005, the Virginia Land Conservation Foundation awarded a $500,000 grant to the Northern Virginia Conservation Trust to be used toward buying Crow's Nest. The Stafford supervisors had committed $10 million, and the state had pledged another $9.5 million.

Read more stories about Stafford
Date published: 3/22/2006

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