Prince William Conservation Alliance
Prince William Conservation Alliance PWCA Calendar Blog Resources Support PWCA
 

Notable Quotes about Development of the Cherry Hill Pennisula
Approved by the PWC Board of Supervisors in January 2001

  • The Cherry Hill peninsula demands the urgent preparation of a new master plan that will optimize the strategic contribution this area can make to the Potomac Communities and that will enhance its linkages to the Potomac River. —Urban Land Institute, Potomac Communities Report, February, 2002
  • The [Urban Land Institute] panel does not believe that this Town Center at Legend [Cherry Hill] is likely to be built. To succeed, retail centers need high visibility and accessibility, and this site has neither. It is a dead-end location, away from the arterial road junctions, with no market on its eastern side. —Urban Land Institute, Potomac Communities Report, February, 2002
  • Peter Framson, now a principal with Trammell Crow, says he looked at the property years ago but couldn't make sense of a potential development there. —Washington Business Journal; February 16 2001
  • Prince William remains the only Northern Virginia county that has no county nature park, no county nature centers and no county nature staff. Where is Prince William County's Mason Neck? We just traded it for more residential development. —Kim Hosen, Prince William Conservation Alliance, Washington Post, January 2001
  • The same problems that would have confronted Legend are going to confront KSI; it's an extremely difficult, very environmentally sensitive peninsula. —Sean Connaughton, Board Chairman, Washington Post, December 11 2002

  • The radio news report broadcast remarks by Mike Anderson, vice president of Legend Properties, who said Southbridge at Cherry Hill is an example of “smart growth.” My hands tightened on the steering wheel and I shook my head. How “smart” is it, I asked myself, to destroy the ecology of one of the few wild places left in Northern Virginia to create a development that could be built somewhere already zoned for residential and commercial uses? —Larry Evans, Fredericksburg Free Lance Star Columnist, January 2001

  • We believe . . . Prince William County does not have the processes nor the infrastructure necessary to manage this development through to build-out. —LOCCA Planning Environment Land-Use and Transportation Committee, January 2001
  • Southbridge is promoted as a new approach to development, but it is not. It is conventional development in a new - and this time uniquely sensitive - area. It is not an exaggeration to see this as a defining moment in the modern history of Prince William County. Never have issues of exploitation vs. preservation, public vs. private interests, old vs. new thinking been so clearly delineated. —James Waggner, Prince William Natural Resources Council, January 2001
  • The Wilderness Society has maps showing local wild lands and natural areas in the Chesapeake Bay watershed and they clearly identify Cherry Hill as an outstanding natural area that should be protected. —Fran Hunt, The Wilderness Society Chesapeake Bay Program Director, January 2001
  • No evidence of successful past performance by the applicant has been presented for this proposed development, which provides a level of confidence that the engineering solutions, yet to be identified, are likely to be successful or viable. In fact, public testimony related to problems visited on existing residences on Possum Point Road associated with a similar development in Wayside Southbridge has shown that even application of well-understood erosion control techniques proved inadequate for this combination of topography and soil types. —Fred Penar, Planning Commissioner, December 20 2000
  • Having walked on the parcel we’re talking about tonight and knowing what the plan is, I don’t see a lot of difference in how they would engineer this property to accomplish this development that’s substantially different that what I’ve observed with mountaintop removal techniques in West Virginia and Pennsylvania. —Thomas Rasetta, PWC Planning Commission, December 20 2000
  • A development of this magnitude has so much potential for problems, and the question in my mind is how do you monitor it? —Ruth Griggs, Occoquan District Supervisor (1998-2003), January 2001

  • During the preparation of the preliminary plan, KSI found that certain aspects of the Master Zoning Plan (MZP) and the proffered conditions were not the most efficient use of resources, were not consistent and hence hindered their marketing goals for the property... —Robert Wilson, PWC Public Works Director, July 9 2003