PWC Board to Vote on Rural Crescent Development on Jan 19

An important update from Supervisor Yesli Vega:

Dear Neighbor,

At 7:30pm this Tuesday evening, the Board will decide on whether or not to approve the Preserve at Long Branch (at one time known as Mid-County Park and Estates).

It is a lovely sounding name, but the devil, as always, is in the details.

This plan would remove 146 acres out of the Rural Crescent to build 100 homes, without replacing a single acre. If approved, many believe this will set a precedent for future developers to do the same and chip away at the rural area. Indeed, more applications have been filed to do just this.

Our residents who live in the Rural Crescent value and treasure it for the open space and slower paced life it provides (in addition to the obvious environmental benefits). Non-residents value it because it prevents us from having even worse traffic, overcrowded schools, and strained public safety services. Every tax dollar spent as a result of chipping away at the rural area is a dollar we don’t spend in our developed areas and the surrounding schools, roads, and public safety services in those neighborhoods.

I will be advocating on Tuesday to protect and preserve our county’s most successful land use tool. If you would like to make your thoughts to the Board known, the most effective way to do so is to attend the meeting in-person, while adhering to known social distancing practices. If you cannot attend in person, you may sign up to address us virtually by clicking here (you must be signed up by 5pm on Monday, January 18th) or by sending an email to BOCS@pwcgov.org.

When running for this seat, I promised the citizens of the Coles District that I would place their wishes for sound land use policies over the negative impacts of unmanaged and uncontrolled growth. Preserving and protecting the Rural Crescent is vital to that outcome.

For Coles,
Yesli Vega
(703) 792-4620