Drawing a line on Stafford's future

BY HUGH MUIR

Stafford's area of major development has been defined for two decades by a black-line border drawn within the county. Outside that boundary, county water and sewer services do not exist. That line divides urban-suburban Stafford from rural Stafford.

For a concept of the possible future development of our county, we look to England, from which our Founding Fathers sailed and which is, imaginatively, roughly silhouetted by the ever-flexible black line.

Where the new black line will be drawn, as part of the next 20-year plan beginning in 2009, will largely determine the county's future. The zoning laws for land use and residential density also define the "levels of service," as they are known. These facilities include schools, fire and rescue stations, libraries (the black line includes one, a second is scheduled), transportation, and the increased general government to oversee them. They all draw on water and sewer services.

An effort to draw that new line has been going on for the past two years. That's how long the Planning Commission and its subcommittees have been working on the county's second 20-year plan. The first plan, published in 1979, black-lined two amoeba-like areas: at the top of the county (around Garrisonville) and at the bottom (Falmouth).

In 1988 the first 20-year plan was issued, which linked the (already much expanded) northern and southern areas by a proposed light-industrial zone in the center, flanking Interstate 95. Though smaller in area than today's proposal, the '88 plan resembles the shape of the expanded 2008 proposal.

Deadlines for the new black-line plan, to go into effect next January, are coming up.

First, a planning subcommittee must, after its debate and hearing public comment, make recommendations to the Planning Commission by June. The commission then will debate and hear public comment and approve or amend the plan and send it to the Board of Supervisors by July. The board then will debate and hear public comment and approve or amend it and send it to the state by the end of 2008.

Some key subcommittee decisions, with just over a month to go, are yet to be made, and challenges remain unresolved. At the heart of the plan within the proposed black line are eight potential Urban Development Areas. In broad outline they are:

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ON LOOKING MORE CLOSELY, IT BEGAN WITH ENGLAND As seen above, our green county and the shape of the purple-and-yellow black-line area as well as the nostalgia of Colonial names, all smack of England (red in map at left) in peculiarly coincidental ways. But the real comparison is that both face rapidly expanding populations and the need for governments to serve them. This Stafford Extra package is one attempt to help understand it.

BY HUGH MUIR

In 1995, Stafford established a special relationship with its sister community in England. A formal charter was first signed in a ceremony in Stafford Borough on May 15, 1994. The deal was sealed in a matching charter ceremony in Stafford County on June 22, 1995. There have been exchange visits since.

And now there is the outline of England on our county map. It is the area created by the black line, prosaically named Stafford's Sanitary District. North of it would be Scotland (home to Bravehearts as well as, for us, Quantico's best). The bite out of the West side of the black-line area is the setting for Wales (open spaces, difficult country to tame, rugged residents).

Historically, the first Europeanized areas of Stafford County (and of England) were the Falmouth (and London) towns to the southeast. (For us, they were the English sailing up the Rappahannock; for the ancient Britons, Romans sailing up the Thames). And then it was in the wild Widewater (and Yorkshire) land to the northeast where the next wave of "off-islanders" arrived (more Brits for us; Viking hordes for England).

Both our Stafford and our sister-city "over there" are in the middle of the "island." And according to our county's proposed new 20-year map, that narrow purple central girth within the black line will be zoned as our future Industrial Midlands, the historic designation for England's manufacturing center for the past two centuries.

A more difficult issue, facing both Stafford and England, is where and how to house the inevitable population growth while preserving the open greenlands. Again the focus is on the northern and southern bulges. And more housing will lead to demands for better roads, more utilities, more police, fire and safety services, and for more schools. Where?

The black-lined space is still less than half the area of Stafford County. The planning commissioners and the Board of Supervisors are working to hold that line, to control growth without paving over the county's future.

The end of our comparison to England is that England is part of a real island and has little space to expand except into the sea.

We still have a lot of open land to take a stand on.

Hugh Muir: 540/735-1975 hmuir@freelancestar.com

Read more stories about Stafford
Date published: 4/29/2008

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