Transferring Development Rights Could Help Preserve Open Space in Prince William

Prince William County

“Residents like their open space, according to a new study by Prince William County. Officials this past summer launched a survey that is part of a larger ongoing study on how to preserve the rural areas in the county, identify ways to preserve land, and to gauge if methods and regulations already in place are working to preserve enough of it.

A workshop will be held this from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at Beacon Hall on the Prince William Campus of George Mason University near Manassas where findings from this study will be presented, and symposiums will be held covering things like best ways of preserving land, maintaining rural character, and fostering economic development in rural areas in the county. Attendees can attend the daylong workshop for as long or as short as they wish, and sit in as many breakout sessions as they please.

~Writes Uriah Kiser

Click here to learn more

TDRs are Out in Stafford

Stafford County

“A long-debated land-use program is dead before it fully went into effect in Stafford County. The transfer-of-development rights pilot program was designed to reduce building in the rural Brooke area while increasing growth in the Courthouse area.

The program had been approved in February, but it was missing a critical component—maps of the areas involved—that would have actually allowed it to work. The Stafford Board of Supervisors took up a ‘housecleaning’ item Tuesday evening that could have also expanded the program, but instead, the board killed it.”

~Writes Katie Thisdell of Fredericksburg.com

Click here to learn more