Rescue Prince William County’s Rt. 15 for The Journey Through Hallowed Ground
This message is sent by The Friends of Rt. 15 in PWC
Development & History can coexist with “Context Sensitive Solutions”
Despite the Prince William County Board of Supervisors voting one year ago to be involved in The Journey Through Hallowed Ground, Rt. 15, also known as James Madison Highway in Prince William County is being rapidly suburbanized with new, thoughtless growth. The Journey is a National Heritage Area running the 175 miles along Rt. 15 from Gettysburg , PA to Thomas Jefferson’s home “ Monticello ” near Charlottesville , VA. This area contains more American history than any other. This means money for PWC from Heritage Tourism. The Journey will also give us federal funds to beautify and protect the rural, historic viewshed, roadbed and roadside along Rt. 15. At this time, those that organized The Journey are saying that without improvements, the Journey will bypass most of Prince William County. If this happens…
Rt. 15 will continue with its ugly growth.
Most of us using Rt. 15 daily are appalled at the ugliness that is unnecessarily being created. Prince William has much history to be proud of in its Rural Crescent and it is getting lost. There are ways of hiding the new development, such as berms (earthen hills), set backs, landscaping, putting wires underground, having planted road mediums, etc. (all called Context Sensitive Solutions). If a road needs to be four lanes it can look like a parkway. People will be paid to leave their woods uncut. Now the Board of Supervisors must put some bite into their declaration one year ago that they want to be a part of The Journey, a decision that gives our county some desirable class, increases the value of our homes and improves the quality of our lives.
Messages of concern can be sent to:
John Stirrup, Gainesville District at [email protected] or
Wally Covington, Brentsville District at [email protected] and/or
Corey Stewart, Chairman At-Large, at [email protected]
This message is sent by The Friends of Rt. 15 in PWC
Went to the Committee 100 meeting last Thursday where they talked about the Journey program. It sounds great! I wasn’t aware that PWC agreed to it and then really didn’t know anything about it. I was thinking of talking about development issues tomorrow at the BOCS meeting if there is citizen time in the afternoon. Anyone know or is anyone going?
Don’t forget that Wally doesn’t want it in the Brentsville District and wanted it shifted west to Fauquier. The Journey Through Hallowed Ground screws up his development plans for the Route 15 Corridor.
Pardon me while I cry a river for him, maybe he’ll storm out of another meeting and take his ball home.
That explains why Wally looked so disinterested during the “Journey Organization” presentation.
I’d love to know what is happening at 234 & 15, there has been extensive tree clearing beyond that which I would expect for the simple alignment of Waterfall & 234. Does anyone have any information on that?
If you all work a little bit harder you can get that ‘route 28 going into Manassas Park look’ out there on route 15. Class act. NOT!
Junkyard Dog,
NOT FUNNY.
admin,
Your right, NOT funny without the TRAFFIC.
Alanna, I’d like to know too.
Part of it is the re-alignment of Waterfall Road to line up with VA-234 (Sudley) such that they intersect US-15 only once instead of twice.
You can see the plan for the re-alignment at http://www4.pwcgov.org/countymapper/
However, that does NOT explain what is going on with the rest of the parcel. The realignment alone would not call for tearing down every tree on the entire parcel of land involved: GPIN: 7200-81-4276, according to that same site:
3610 JAMES MADISON HY
Ownership data currently not available for this Parcel
For further assistance please call PWC Real Estate Assessments 703-792-6780 to request current ownership information
Frustrating. Since this is in the heart of the rural crescent, someone clearly cares not a bit about the rural status of the rural crescent.
That parcel appears to be owned by Willie Properties Inc, whomever or whatever that is…
Welcome Scott Nolan,
I guess I’ll call John’s office tomorrow to find out what’s going on.
Your compassion against ‘ugliness’ somewhat amuses me. When we apply the term to what has been happening to homes in our own communities from certain individuals you just pass it off as a difference in culture. I assume then that the ‘ugly’ billboard in Manassas falls into this same category of unacceptable changes.
I just got this back from Cate at Journey through Hallowed Ground:
“Wally Covington , Former Chairman Sean Connaughton and Supervisor
Stirrup have each been supportive.”
All the very best,.
Cate
—
Cate Magennis Wyatt
President
The Journey Through Hallowed Ground Partnership
Post Office Box 77
Waterford, Virginia 20197
540.882.4929
F. 540.882.4927
C. 703.244.3347
http://www.HallowedGround.org
SA, Remember, I was the one who wanted Mr. F. to morph the billboard into a piece of representative art : )
Art gets a message across more emphatically than most mediums.
I’m all for keeping places beautiful. That doesn’t mean homogenizing an area to death with copy-cat houses and McMansions, either. It means we should give some real thought to what we want our communities to “say.” With all the empty homes, traffic, over-development and construction, we aren’t saying a hell of a lot right now except “POOR PLANNING” and “SELLING OUT TO DEVELOPERS.”
Well, one thing you can say is that grass grows well in PWC ; )
LOL! Yeah, especially in this rain, which is much better than the drought we had.
I like it when it rains and I’m working from home. If it’s nice out, I feel like I’m really missing something : )
“Art gets a message across more emphatically than most mediums.”
One’s definition of art is also highly subjective….
That’s true. But my original thought was to have something that sent the message but melded nicely with the spirit and theme of Old Town. There are so many ways to do this! Manassas and PWC has a rich history that immigrants have been a part of. Why not use that and art as an advantage?
Manassas and PWC has a rich
I meant “HAVE”
“But my original thought was to have something that sent the message but melded nicely with the spirit and theme of Old Town. ”
There is no possible way you could dress up that sign and meld it nicely with Old Town.
You can take a pile of cow flop, name it, put daisies in it, sprinkle glitter on top and call it “art”…but at the end of the day it is still just a pile of dung. No amount of duct tape, pink paint, flashing lights or post-modern influence will turn that atrocity in Old Town into a work of art…
At the end of the day it will still be a ridiculous, uneducated, racially motivated, rant propped up on a “billboard”
Manassas and PWC has a rich
I meant “HAVE”
…
You were actually gramatically correct the first time around…
Bubba, I’m not talking about a Billboard. I’m talking about something really unique….like a mural or sculpture or something. The sign has “said” what it needs to, but it’s time to do something more innovative and productive.
Please email or visit all of the supervisors about your desire to have The Journey down Rt. 15. The Journey would have paid for that landowner on the corner of 234 & 15 to leave their trees up! You can learn more about what they can do for landowners along Rt. 15 by attending the meeting tonight at 7 PM at the Brentsville Courthouse when JTHG presents “context sensitive solutions”, etc. Right now PWC wants to put up concrete sound barriers behind the new housing on Rt. 15 but The Journey has told them they should be brick. PWC indicated it was too much money.
At yesterday afternoon’s BOCS meeting there was an economic development presentation where the theme was houses create the least tax base, industry is somewhat better but retail makes creates the most tax revenue. We had better watch out if the Journey bombs.
Welcome Ellen and thanks for the update. I know realize I didn’t include the meeting information. Let me put up another quick thread as a reminder.