Deal With Developer Yields a Preserve

233 Acres Part of Offer Approved by Board

Prince William County will get a sprawling nature preserve with hiking trails, picnic areas and a pristine spring-fed lake with views of the Bull Run Mountains under the terms of a rezoning request approved by the Board of County Supervisors on Tuesday night.

The board voted unanimously to approve the request by Toll Brothers Inc., one of the country's largest builders, to rezone a parcel from agricultural to planned residential, which would allow 420 single-family houses to be built in the Dominion Valley Country Club development in Haymarket. The county's planning department has recommended approval.

As part of the rezoning request, Toll Brothers made a number of offers to the county, including donating 233 acres of green and rolling land adjacent to Dominion Valley. The county could turn the land over to a nonprofit group -- possibly the Bull Run Mountains Conservancy or the Nokesville Horse Society -- that would manage it.

The land includes Silver Lake, which is fed at one end by a clear stream called Little Bull Run and at the other by lake-bottom springs. It has a white, sandy beach that makes it perfect for swimming and kayaking, advocates said, thus offering a rare new treasure for the county and the rest of Northern Virginia.

"It's rather beautiful, actually, and you can see the Bull Run Mountains in the background," said Michael Kieffer, executive director of the Bull Run Mountains Conservancy, which manages an adjacent 250-acre preserve that could be joined with the new parcel.

Advocates have been pushing to save the lake and the land around it for a while.

It has been in private hands, closed off to the public and, most recently, leased to groups for camping, until the owner agreed to sell it to Toll Brothers.

The developer had planned to build nine 10-acre estates on the Silver Lake parcel but took that request off the table as part of its proposal to the county, agreeing to donate the entire 233 acres to Prince William instead, along with $2 million for hiking and equestrian trails.

Board Chairman Sean T. Connaughton (R) said that the deal would be a "fairly big win" for the county and that transferring the Silver Lake land to a nonprofit organization would enable the preserve to be opened to the public within a year or so.

If the county kept the preserve, Connaughton said, it might take five years to open it because the county doesn't have funding for it.

The Silver Lake parcel includes a mature hardwood forest, open fields and the lake, which is home to migrating waterfowl, bald eagles and ospreys, among other wildlife.

As part of its rezoning request, Toll Brothers made several other proffers, including giving the county 40 acres for a middle school and 45 acres to the Rainbow Center, a therapeutic horse-riding program, both in the vicinity of Dominion Valley.

To deal with the ever-present menace of traffic, the developer agreed not to seek building permits for any of its new houses for 2 1/2 years or until Route 15 is widened from Dominion Valley to Interstate 66.

The transfer of the Silver Lake parcel would be contingent upon the county and the nonprofit agency coming to terms on a use agreement, Connaughton said, which would include opening the site to the public within one year of the transfer; building trails for walking, hiking and horseback riding; and giving the county a site to commemorate the Civil War battle of Thoroughfare Gap.