Please Write Town Council Before March 9 Comp Plan Hearing

Taller Buildings, More Cars, Higher Taxes:

Comp Plan Has Big Changes for Warrenton

Comp Plan Checklist

Look Past the Hype. This is the True Impact

of the Proposed Warrenton Comprehensive Plan:

Citing 'Fundamental Problems' PEC Skewers Warrenton Comp Plan

March 2, 2021

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Warrenton Town Council

Warrenton Town Hall
18 Court Street Warrenton, VA 20186

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Re: Draft Warrenton 2040 Plan

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Dear Mayor Nevill and Town Council Members,

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Piedmont Environmental Council is a non-profit land conservation and land-use advocacy group headquartered in the Warrenton community. Our mission is to promote and protect the northern Piedmont’s rural economy, natural resources, history, and beauty. We have been following the Warrenton Comprehensive planning process closely sharing concerns and submitting comments to the Planning Commission and staff along the way. We have reviewed the version recommended for approval by the Planning Commission and, as we stated during their review, feel that the majority of our concerns have not been addressed.

PEC supports high-quality sustainable development, especially redevelopment and infill, in our service districts and the Town. There are many good elements in this plan, including a robust plan for improving walkability and cyclist access throughout the town. However, the plan outlines a new trajectory for Warrenton that emphasizes residential development. We are concerned that focusing future development in Warrenton on residential will have detrimental effects on the Town’s tax base and ability to meet infrastructure needs in the long term. We advocate for incentivizing redevelopment and infill over greenfield development, balanced growth of both residential and office/retail/industrial rather than a focus on residential, increased emphasis on incremental enhancements to existing communities, and incentivizing affordable housing projects rather than new market rate developments.

Timber Fence Parkway — Warrenton’s Gift to Culpeper Commuters

339 homes within 1000’ of one possible path of the Timberfence Parkway.

No set path has been determined.

The Warrenton Comp plan places Culpeper County commuters ahead of town residents by proposing a bypass linking Route 211 and US 17, roaring past 330+ homes, destroying walkability between Silver and Olde Gold Cup, and undermining the tranquility of Rady Park. But that’s not all.

The Timber Fence Parkway, rebranded as the Western Bypass, will also:

• Bisect the Fauquier High School campus and fields used by both FHS and middle school cross country teams

• Contribute to higher levels of noise pollution from onrushing cars

• Pave through wetlands that are critical to sustaining the town's reservoirs

• Result in lost revenue, and correspondingly lost tax revenue, for Broadview Avenue businesses 

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The Comp Plan promotes the so-called Western Bypass as the solution to mounting traffic from growing Warrenton’s traffic by 50 percent. Planners also do not wish to inconvenience commuters from Clevenger’s Village in Culpeper County.

Town planners relied on stale car counts to support building the bypass. In fact, traffic levels on the Broadview - Lee Highway corridor were thousands of cars per day lower than the town reports.

Forward-thinking communities are removing bypasses, not building new ones, because these overblown transportation expenditures are not creating community wealth, they are destroying it.  

The Comp Plan should spell out that road extension of the Timber Fence Parkway should be a collector street, moving traffic through the subdivision, allowing better access for emergency vehicles, and abandoning the use of the Norfolk Drive neighborhood as a cut-through.

60 Years On A Precipice
Now on Sale!

Hope Porter's long-awaited book chronicling Fauquier’s conservation history, 60 Years on A Precipice, is available now, direct from CFFC, for $20 plus $3.50 shipping. The book describes the men and women who helped shape modern Fauquier, the envy of the commonwealth with over 100,00 acres under conservation easement. That achievement was hard fought as developers, with help from some politicians, tried to transform Fauquier into another faceless, sprawling suburb of Washington. 

CONSERVATION BLOG