Zoning Laws Are Looser for Some Family Ties

Virginia law requires that an individual own property five years before making a family subdivision, and then family members must hold their property for another five years before selling to an outsider. There is no such requirement in Montgomery.

"By the time the house gets built 18 months later, the intent has changed," Berlage said.

Family subdivisions have become an issue nearly everywhere that the state of Maryland has established agricultural easements. In an effort to limit the subdivisions, the state tightened restrictions three years ago, setting a minimum size of 20 acres for the first subdivision. Additional lots must be larger.

Bill Roberts, a Poolesville land-use lawyer, questioned the equity of a program that ties the number of lots to the number of offspring. "What you're doing is just providing a financial reward for the procreative proclivity of the property owner," he said. "If you have 10 kids, you can make more than if you have five kids."

Prince William Supervisor W.S. Covington III (R), whose Brentsville district is in the Rural Crescent, said the rush to make family subdivisions is being driven by farmers who believe the 10-acre minimum lot size has reduced the value of their land.

Without the option of selling to large developers, they instead create family subdivisions that they might sell eventually, he said. Some people are subdividing, just in case, giving land to children with ages in the single digits, Covington said.

If more and more people follow suit, Covington and other officials say Prince William could be stuck with a hodgepodge of small subdivisions that have no connecting roads and that often depend on unreliable, alternative septic systems, since public sewer does not extend into the Rural Crescent.

"It's the Wild West," Covington said.

County concerns have translated into new scrutiny, said Prince William's planning director Steve Griffin. "What we're concerned about is to make sure it's done for genuine family purposes," he said.

In Montgomery critics say officials have been lax, allowing owners to get marketable lots and lots for their children out of the same property. That constitutes abuse, Roberts said.

"If I have 100 acres and I want to create 10 lots for 10 children, I can do that. There's no question in the law that I can do that," he said. "But should I still be able to create another four marketable lots to sell on the open market? It just doesn't make sense."

Many residents of western Prince William say they're turning to family subdivisions as the only affordable way their relatives can become homeowners. The area is facetiously called the "Royal Crescent" for its sudden crop of $1 million homes on large lots with views of farmland in the distance.