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Manassas with its expected 500-700 home build out, is a new planned residential community called Somerset. In the past few months its expansive boulevard entrance has been built, curving around a comer into the woods. It looks like a mirror image of Lake Manassas. Yet closer along Route 29 toward Rappahannock County is the Vint Hill development. A little further, a new road (Riley Road), characteristic of a development, has appeared, leading off into the woods.
Next we encounter the New Baltimore stretch of mixed industrial and commercial strip development.
At Warrenton, the strip development continues. Here, asphalt rules. For example,#there are close to 1,000 parking spaces just in the area in front of and west of K-Mart. This does not include the 50-60 parking spaces for each of various restaurants on Route 29 in that area. Continuing on through the business section of Warrenton, a turn is finally made onto Route 211 where a “Town Centre” strip mall is located.
We are now 10 miles from Rappahannock County.
Once past this last strip mall, though, there is a palpable change in the landscape. No extensive commercial or industrial development. Just farmland. But housing developments, big and small, still abound and they are near Rappahannock County. How near? Three miles away from Rappahannock County, is Clevenger’s Comer, planned at the intersection of Route 211 and Route 229. Down Route 229, is South Wales, a residential development covering 2,500 acres. Further on is Quail Ridge. Along Route 211 leading into Rappahannock County is more residential development: Erinbrook, two miles away, the LeeHigh subdivision, 1.5 miles away, and Wildwood Forest, right on the border. Is this sprawl?
You used to be able to drive from Gainesville to Rappahannock County and encounter only three traffic signals. Now you encounter 12. Before, you saw a few cars pull away from a traffic light. Now it looks like the starting gate of the Indianapolis 500.
Can Rappahannock County be saved from sprawl? People from Loudoun County attempting to slow sprawl will be at the public forum at 7:30 p.m., Friday, April 14 at the Amissville Fire Hall. The western reaches of Loudoun County are about 15 miles away from Rappahannock County. Loudoun County is the third fastest-growing county in the United States.
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