Sharing information if you’re interested — The business community, as well as residents, are invited to provide input on the future of land use and transportation in the County at George Mason University’s Prince William Campus on Wednesday, Oct. 21:
4:00 p.m. – Hard Hat Tour of the Hylton Performing Arts Center
Spaces are limited. Last tour at 5:00 pm. Sign up by contacting Kristina Dugan at 703-993-6092 or [email protected].
6:00 p.m. – Business Community Comprehensive Plan Town Hall Meeting, Verizon Auditorium
PW BOCS is hosting the meeting to provide info about the comprehensive plan. Martin Briley, Director of Econ Dev, Ray Utz, PWC Long-Range Planning Director & Rick Canizales, PWC Transportation Dept Manager will speak, followed by an open Q & A period.
8:00 p.m. – Business Community Presentation and Reception
NAIOP (trade assn for developers) and the two Chambers (PWC-Greater Manassas and PW Regional) will sponsor a brief presentation by Paul Weinschenk, The Peterson Companies. A reception will immediately follow.
This the final in a series of town hall meetings that were held thru out the county. For more info on the proposed changes, visit www.pwcgov.org/PlanUpdate. You can offer your comments, ideas & concerns by e-mailing [email protected] (Put “2008 Comp Plan Update” in the subject line) or call the Planning Office at 703-792-6830.
Interesting town hall meeting last night (Business Community Town Hall Meeting 10/21/09). While it was billed as a business planning and economic develop meeting, it turned out to be a land use meeting. The hall was populated mostly with developers. The questions and comments generally discussed how the Environmental Chapter of the Comprehensive plan was an impediment to development.
The BOCS plans to establish a ten member task force to make recommendations to the County regarding business development. It is a safe prediction from last night’s event that the task force will be composed of mostly (if not all) developers. It is also safe to assume that the actual outcome of this task force will be a strategy for deconstructing the Environmental Chapter of the Comprehensive Plan because of its impact on development.
The developers presented some sound arguments for changes to the Environmental Chapter of the Comprehensive Plan. I certainly recognize their equities and the soundness of some of their arguments (from their perspective). My fear is that this task force will not be balanced to represent business and community interests and equities in general (i.e., folks interested in attracting new business for reasons other than development and folks with valid environmental concerns).
The good news is task force meetings are open to the public. The bad news is citizens seldom attend. They are always announced in advance if you know where to look. I would suggest citizens should keep an eye on this task force and “show up” to monitor what is going on for this one.
There were a majority of developers, transportation planners and realtors there.
The call from the presenters was “mixed use development,” “town centers,” “walkable communities” and “we are open for business.”
The response from the audience was “we are a difficult county to do business with,” “be more flexible,” “you need to run PWC like a business and sell it,” “it shouldn’t take five years to get a development through the process” and “bring services to the Rural Crescent.”
I heard two people speak up for environmental concerns, the others that spoke didn’t like wetlands and buffers, especially when they are running right through a proposed town center/walkable community, which is just like a strip mall, only laid out like Farmville or Sim City.
In fact, the town centers look like something out of a model railroad layout, only big. You get a surreal feeling looking at them, like you expect a huge child’s hand to scoop up a car or two.
The town centers are supposed to be “centers of community” so they’re looking for community input, but I share Opinion’s concern, as with the task force, that this will be dominated by those with interests in not balancing the retail/residential/office space.
I did like the news that GMU & Georgetown U are going to team to bring a medical school to the PW campus, with the first step being their “George Squared” initiative next fall.
Also, that the President is expected to speak at the commemoration of the 150th anniversary of First Manassas in 2011.
There is some kind of branding process going on. Does anyone know more about it?
I’ve heard Corey Stewart say twice now that PWC should brand itself as THE place to come and visit/learn about military history with Quantico and the Marine Corps Museum at one end and the Battlefield at the other, with other museums in the fundraising stages, such as the upcoming National Museum of Americans at War.
Anyone know more?
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