——– Original Message ——–

Subject: PLS NOTE — Stone Haven & Covington, Stewart, Nohe’s Conflicts of Interest
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2013 04:28:59 -0400
From: Ralph Stephenson …
To: [names withheld]

All: Please note below the line of asterisks a message I just received from a community leader regarding the proposed new Stone Haven housing development.  Also, please go tohttp://pwcbg.org for further info on what your Board of County Supervisors [BOCS] is up to.  (I’ll be adding more info to the website in the coming days.)  Here are some of the main relevant points that relate to the Stone Haven proposal:

  • The Stone Haven development would add at least 2,500 homes along Linton Hall Rd in an area that is currently zoned for only a few hundred single-family homes.
  • We don’t need 2,500+ homes right now.  The county has ~30,000 homes already approved but not yet built.  Furthermore, federal sequestration (across-the-board budget cuts that took effect 1 March) is not expected to stimulate housing demand in the local economy.   Building unneeded homes just because developers want them cannibalizes older neighborhoods and their property values and prematurely ages them, leads to indirect taxpayer subsidies of these unneeded developments, and most importantly of all causes severe school overcrowding and traffic congestion.  Taxpayers, not developers, pay for the police, fire, water, sewer, roads, schools, and other government infrastructure and services that must support such new developments.  Covington, Stewart, and Nohe claim to be fiscally conservative Republicans, yet they continually support unneeded taxpayer-subsidized housing.  Why?  Note on http://pwcbg.org  the hundreds of thousands of dollars these politicians have received from housing developers.
  • PW County proffers are among the lowest in the region.  (See http://pwcbg.org, Supervisor page, Proffers section for more info on this.)  Proffers are county-mandated policies that require developers to pay at least some of the government infrastructure costs of their housing projects.
  • The conflicts of interest that many of the supervisors have, particularly Covington, Stewart, and Nohe, are outrageous and we need to call them on it.  These conflicts of interest are what cause them to love virtually every proposal, even very harmful ones such as Stone Haven, that they see from housing developers.  But they will respond to citizens if citizens make it clear to supervisors that they will not tolerate corrupt behavior.  The supervisors’ political careers, which they care about deeply, are at stake.

ACTION REQUESTED:  Citizens can stop StoneHaven by speaking out.  If you’re concerned, please spend 5-10 minutes to send a brief e-mail to the Board of County Supervisors.  You can reach all eight supervisors by using the following e-mail address:  bocs@pwcgov.org

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“Tuesday [12 March at 2 pm, a time when most people are at work] the Board of Supervisors will decide if they will initiate the Comprehensive Plan Amendment for Stone Haven.  This means the project will move further and undergo more government scrutiny before a final decision is made on approval of the development.

“Last weekend I met with Bruni Peters, the rep for the land owner.  Unfortunately she did not give me any definitive answers such as:
-how many housing units and are they single family/townhomes or condos?
– how much are they willing to proffer foor park space-NOT just ball fields;
-school proffers: impact on our school caapacities as well as fiscally impacts
-and other questions we are concerned aboout.
I struggled with opposing the initiation because a part of me wants to just move forward and see exactly what we’re up against while the other part recognizes this could get tougher to oppose if ‘the cat is out of the bag’ for lack of a better way of saying it.

“HOWEVER, the below email I received tonight from my son’s Grizzly Football organization has made the decision for me.  It’s apparent Supervisor Covington would rather serve a special interest group-his developer buddies and use a youth sports league, like he’s done in the past, to push his projects through.  Our county sports leagues have been neglected and now they find themselves at the mercy of our supervisors who use them as political pawns.  Read below and you’ll see.  The information is not even accurate.  The land is zoned agriculture and PLANNED for Flex Use which means a range of: office space, retail and light industrial-NOT DUMP TRUCKS.  This is a scare tactic.”

“As for a high school: the developer many proffer the land BUT they will NOT be funding the building-BIG DIFFERENCE!!  High schools cost $75+Million Dollars. Our classroom sizes are already at the max the state allows and the impact to the staff and students is significant.  Patriot High School in it’s 2nd year is already overcrowded and will have trailers next year.  When does this madness end??

“As for parks, it’s simple: Our county leaders must adequately fund our current parks and make open space and community parks for ALL citizens a top priority.  They need to stop using the neglected sports leagues as their political pawns and serve the community absent from their political motives.

“So I encourage you to spread the news throughout your community.  Encourage citizens to email the Board of Supervisors at www.bocs@pwcgov.org or call 703-792-6190.