About this meeting
- Government Body
- Planning Commission
- Meeting Type
- Planning Commission
- Location
- Prince William County, VA
- Meeting Date
- February 25, 2026
Transcript
1248 sections (from 1,391 segments)
Yes.
Turn these on. Pleased to be here this evening to present to you the proposed capital improvement program for fiscal years 2027 to 2032. This is the same presentation that was given to the Board of County Supervisors back on February 10. The only thing that's been changed is my name and the date at the on the title slide here. What is the capital improvement program?
It is the county's six year road map, if you will, for facility and infrastructure projects. We're talking about things like libraries, police stations, fire stations. We're also talking about roads, sidewalk, trail projects, parks projects, and technology improvement. The CIP, it's guided by the board adopted policies as primarily the strategic plan and the comprehensive plan. It also adheres to the guidelines contained within the principles of sound financial management.
The CIP utilizes a variety of funding sources including I won't read all of them, but including debt, state federal funding, general levy or a general fund, fire levy. There's a number of funding sources that go into funding, providing expenditure funding for capital projects. And there is a direct link to the annual budget and the county's five year plan. The annual budget was presented to the board a week after the capital improvement program by the CXO. The CIP linkage to the annual budget is in the form of debt service.
We need to pay every year the the debt the the mortgage, if you will, on the debt that we borrow to build capital projects. And then also, facility and operating costs. Things like maintenance, and then also the programs that operate out of a facility. It's the general fund that and the the annual budget that pays those. For example, we build a library.
Once the library staff move in, it's the general or it's the annual operating budget that pays staff salaries, expenses for the program in the facility. We always like to start off each year by showing the projects that have been completed in the past fiscal year. We'll go through these fairly quickly. First are projects that were completed primarily using ARPA funding. If you recall, a couple years ago, the county got significant amount of funding from the American Rescue Plan Act.
Parks primarily did a lot of work with that funding. You can see I've got before and after pictures on the top and bottom on the left out at Splashdown Water Park. They did a lot of repairs and upgrades to courts, volleyball, tennis, and basketball courts. And then on the right hand side there, out of Veterans Park, they did a lot of improvements, including the the picnic shelter that you see there. Staying with ARPA funding projects and parks out of Joseph Redding Park.
You can see the before and after with the the restroom or the comfort station and then some improvements to the parking or the picnic facilities. On the right side there, some trail work that was done out of Valley View Park. Marumsco Acre Lake Park, again, this is still with the ARPA funding. There was the last couple of years, I believe it was '20 FY '24, we got the ARPA funding. We had a couple years to spend it, and these are projects that are finishing up this past or the current fiscal year.
Murumsko Acre Lake Park, you can see before and after, there was a lot of work done on the parking lot. And then on the right side, at a Belmont Park, there was a significant amount of replacing that bridge and then getting some of the the sidewalk area and some of the culvert and the drainage repaired. Moving into the field of transportation. On the left hand side there, you can see some crosswalk and signal improvements or signal that was installed at the intersection of Talon Drive and Route 2234. And then in the Gainesville area, Balls Ford Road, you can see there was some work done on Balls Ford Road, the underground sanitary sewer work.
There's only really only two transportation projects that finished up or will be finished up this fiscal year. Transportation had a lot finishing up last year, and they've got a lot going on this year. So these are just kinda highlighting the things that are happen to be completing in FY '26. Moving into facility improvements before and after. This is the building of facilities program.
This is a program that was instituted by the board back in 2018, whereby it's dedicated funding to parks and facilities for maintenance and upgrades at facilities. Again, it's an important aspect of capital projects. Once a project is complete, we gotta make sure we don't forget coming back in future years and making necessary repairs and maintenance. So that's what this program is for. You can see on the left, they replaced an artificial turf field out at Saunders Middle School.
And then on the right, they installed new playground equipment and a playground area out at Nukesville Park. Out at Forest Greens Golf Course, they did some interior and exterior renovations at the clubhouse. And out at Chin Aquatic Center just across the street here, you can see that they made change improvements to the they replaced the white coat of the pool. So it's good before and after shot. You can see the kind of work that's done with this dedicated funding for repair and maintenance every year.
Moving into parks staying with parks and recreation. Out at Rollins Ford Park, they installed a pump track. One of the questions we get quite a bit in the budget office is what exactly is a pump track? And it's very interesting. Picture's worth a thousand words. It's a complete loop for bicycles. And with the hills and banks and curves, it's designed such that you can make an entire lap without having to pedal. It's just shifting the weight of your body. So it's an interesting new feature in the county. And on the right side, you can see some improvements that were made, pedestrian walkway areas out at Alley Krieger Park.
Moving into fire and rescue, the fire and rescue system renovation and rebuild program. This was new two years ago, f y twenty five. Again, this is another repair and maintenance program. We're dedicated funding every year. Ded funding every year is dedicated going and doing repair and maintenance at fire and rescue stations throughout the county, both volunteer and county owned stations. And on the left before and after, you can see typical examples of the kind of work, the repair work gets done where they did repair work to the apparatus bay floor. On the left, it's Station 20. And on the right, it's Fire Station Number 15. Again, pretty dramatic before and after pictures. You can see a lot of the work that's done.
A lot of great repair and maintenance work done at fire stations. Staying with the fire stations, again, more typical kind of work. On the left side, Station 23, you can see some of the upgrades to the HVAC system that was made to the rooftop units. And then on the right side, they replaced the emergency generator and the emergent the automatic transfer switch out at Station 17. Again, just examples of the kind of good work that's being done to repair and maintain existing structures.
Out of the courthouse, the judicial center in Manassas, they're getting a lot of work done. They we could see they've refurbished the elevators. They've center top photo there. They've built an entire new courtroom up on the 3rd Floor for Central District Court using available existing space. Share a new conference room.
They upgraded the sheriff conference room for the sheriff's office and then also some needed renovations to the public restrooms. So, again, more examples of the great work that's being done dedicated to maintaining existing facilities. Moving into solid waste, some things that were completed. This is out at the landfill on the you can see the the image. That's the top of the hill when you first drive into the landfill, the mound of trash, essentially.
And once it's finished, once it's done being filled and done accepting waste, it's capped by essentially two feet of soil and then vegetation. And that's by DEQ, Virginia Department of Environmental Quality Regulations. Very specific steps that need to be done to properly close sections of the landfill. And then on the right hand side, you can see some watershed work that's being done in this example, the photos are work that's being done out at Powell's Creek. So these are examples of projects that are finishing up this fiscal year, FY '26.
Now we're gonna move into the proposed FY twenty seven to thirty two CIP. Here's a summary of the expenditures and revenue. You can see the CIP total expenditures for the six year window is about $1,560,000,000. On the left side, the pie chart is expenditure. You can see transportation is the lion's share at about almost 35%, followed by human services, general government, and then public safety also.
On the right hand side, the funding sources, you can see there's several different funding sources, the largest of which is debt that's issued by the county at about 44%. The next largest is NVTA. That's the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority. That is essentially funding that the county receives from the state to build its to go toward building its roads and road projects. Just by comparison, the current CIP for the year we're in now is about 1,050,000,000.00.
So we're looking at about a $500,000,000 increase in in projects in the six year expenditure. Projects are dropping off, and a lot of new ones are coming online. Very busy slide. We're gonna come to it at the end. This is sort of setting the table.
This is just the summary of the FY twenty seven appropriations and the funding sources for a lot of the projects. Projects current projects that are gonna need additional funding to move forward or new projects that are coming online. This is the funding for them, and I I won't go through them now. Again, this will appear at the end, and once we go through the remainder of the presentation, we can go through this in a little more detail, what the projects are and the funding sources for them. All right.
We're going to move into now projects, and we're gonna start with the safe and secure community quadrant. This is existing fire station renovation program. That's the program where we saw the photos a few minutes ago of repairing the bay floor and doing the mechanical work on the roof. This program continues at $4,000,000 per year funded by the fire levy. And again, you can see the type of works, the type of projects that are being done, concrete repairs, apparatus, bay floor repairs.
It's the Prince William County Fire and Rescue System, their executive group that decides what projects are to be done. There's so many stations, so much work to do. They collaborate and determine how are we gonna spend this money, what are the next projects that we're gonna do. New in the CIP this year is the centralized apparatus replacement program. We're talking about apparatus, you know, medic units, ambulances, pumper truck, ladder trucks, all the equipment used by the fire and rescue system.
It needs to be replaced on a a schedule, and it's expensive. So now we're dedicating $12,000,000 per year funded by the fire levy, and that's going to an organized systematic replacement of the apparatus throughout the fire and rescue system. Station twenty seven, this is the station that's 234 at the intersection. I believe it's 234 And Spriggs Road near that intersection. They just had the brown groundbreaking not too long ago.
The construction contract was awarded back in December by the board. Construction is gonna begin soon, and construction will be completed in the 2027. Some of the staffing has already been funded. For example, the medic unit was funded back in f y twenty five, almost two years before the station's gonna be built. The reason for that is there's a a level of involvement of training and staffing.
Training people on in the medic unit, it takes a year and a half or so maybe to get them trained. So when the station finally open the stores for business, staffing will be trained and ready to go on day one. Same thing with the engine unit. There's a half year of funding. Again, they need to be trained and brought up to speed before the station opens.
So when it opens in the '27, it'll be ready to go. Station 30 and the emergency operation center. This is a project was approved by the board at last year or the current fiscal year funding design is gonna begin next month. Land was purchased in FY twenty five using proffers, And this is located out on Wellington Road in the vicinity of the Freedom Center. If you're familiar with that area, this is where the new station will go.
And it does have an emergency operations center, just a backup facility component to this station. Again, same thing, the medic units and the engine units, they're programmed in advance of construction being completed just so that they're staffed up and trained and ready to go when the station open. Construction is scheduled to be completed in May 2030. And this is looking ahead to future stations. Fire and rescue the fire and rescue system did a station location study back in 2024, where it identified where future stations, new stations are gonna be needed, and then also the replacement of existing older stations.
We've got some stations that may be on the order of approaching 60 years old, so they need to just be rebuilt. Station will still be there. It's just a new station facility. Station 3 out in Dumfries, design's gonna begin in FY twenty seven, and land for that was purchased not too long ago by the board. I was backing I believe it was last month that the board bought new land for this station using a combination of proffers and fire levy.
And Station 2 is an existing station that is going to be designed. We'll begin to replace that in f y twenty eight. And then a new station, Station 29 in the Lakeridge area, that's that'll be a brand new station, not a rebuild, but just a new station from scratch. Design will begin in f y twenty nine. Public safety training center.
This is an additional building out at the existing training center out in Noakesville. Master plan was completed in 2019. This project, you can see the the concept drawings there, involves it includes classroom and support space for fire and rescue and police, and apparatus bays for fire and rescue. Total project cost is $29,800,000. The design was completed in f y twenty five.
Construction is scheduled to begin later this year in May, and occupancy of the building will be open for business in 2027. Out of the judicial center, there's been renovations out there since the first funding was FY '23. So it's been several years. A lot of work to be done out there. The existing part of the building is about 40 years old.
There was a new addition put on, but the new addition is about 20 years old at this point. So a lot of work, a lot of renovation work in the courthouse. All the projects, you can see things such as elevator replacement, fire alarm, and sprinklers new fire alarm sprinkler system. They replaced all the exterior windows. It's just that sort of work on an old facility.
Completion of all these individual tasks is scheduled for f y twenty eight. So it's been a couple of years and they're starting to begin to begin to see the end in sight. Judicial center expansion. This is a much needed expansion out at the courthouse. A lot of the renovations we just showed on the previous slide were trying to make use of space.
And finally, you get to a point where you can't make there's no more space to do anything with. So master planning was done several years ago for a new facility out of the courthouse complex. And this new facility, it will have 12 courtrooms. It'll contain courtrooms for circuit court, and then also the circuit court clerk will move out of the existing building into this new facility. The Bennett School that's currently out there is scheduled to be demolished, but it will be memorialized and repurposed in some form or fashion to, you know, in in out of respect for the facility, the Bennett building that's out there now.
Total project cost is $200,000,000. The current appropriation to begin design, they have 51,300,000. Two projects, really. There's a parking garage and then there's the courtroom building itself. So they're gonna build the courtroom build the parking garage first. Parking out there has always been for many, many years a problem. So they're gonna build a parking garage first, alleviate some of the parking issues, and then they're gonna move into constructing the new the new building. Safe and secure community. I believe this is the final one, final project in that quadrant. This is a public safety communication upgrades at schools.
This is technology to upgrade the wireless communication infrastructure in each Prince William County school. Estimated cost is $14,000,000, and this is a partnership between the county and the schools. The schools are contributing $7,000,000. The county is contributing $7,000,000 to the project. Schools have already contributed theirs. County put in the first tranche funding in FY '24, $3,000,000. FY '27, we'll put in the remaining $4,000,000. And I apologize. I'm moving at a pretty good clip. I understand the keeping an eye on the clock.
Moving into health, well-being, and environmental sustainability quadrant, the Homeless Navigation Center East. This is a new facility, about 34,000 square feet. It's gonna provide coordinated wraparound homeless services along with community partners in the facility. Project cost is $30,300,000. The construction contract was awarded just two months ago in December.
Construction is gonna begin imminently in spring, and then the facility will be ready for occupancy in 2027. Homeless Navigation Center West. This is a new facility that'll be constructed in Western Prince William County. Piece of land you can see on the map there, that's in the 66 Corridor there in the Gainesville district. County bought that land and current appropriation for design is $4,000,000.
We don't have a project cost estimate yet. Once we begin, we don't know what programming, what's going to be needed, what won't be needed. So once design begins, we'll have a better idea perhaps at this point next year, we'll be able to say, here's what the project cost estimate's gonna be once we get some design work started. The Juvenile Services Center expansion. This is a project that's been in the CIP since 2019 in some form or fashion.
The board directed to move forward with a new well, with an addition out at the or an expansion rather out of the existing facility. About a 40,000 square foot addition on two floors. It's gonna demolish a good portion of the original building that was built in 1978 and is just obsolete at this point. Project estimate is $60,000,000. In years past, there's been state reimbursement for up to 50% for design and construction costs for a facility like this, but the state is no longer doing that.
So staff, we're assuming there's not gonna be any state reimbursement. And the FY '27 appropriation to begin design is 5,000,000. Parks and recreation referendum projects from the voter approved bond referendum back in 2019. There was about $43,000,000 in parks projects. And over the last couple years, that funding has been appropriated onto different parks projects.
This fiscal year, f y twenty seven, will be the last bit of that money. $5,200,000 will be appropriated on the Neabsco District Park project, and that will be all of the voter approved referendum funding has been appropriated on the parks projects. Existing parks improvements, this was new funding that $2,500,000 was appropriated for the purposes of not necessarily maintenance or repair, it's for expanding and enhancing parks facilities. These are things like field lights where there weren't lights before, comfort stations, playgrounds, picnic areas, expanding parking lots. $2,500,000 was appropriated last year.
This year, that's being increased an additional 2,500,000.0. So beginning in f y twenty seven, it'll be $5,000,000 appropriated annually for doing this good work out at existing parks facilities. And that funding that is supported by the general fund. The FY twenty seven annual budget was such that there was funding available for one time use on capital projects. About $17,000,000 is dedicated for one time projects.
It couldn't be for projects that were gonna incur annual operating costs. This is just money that can be spent one time for projects. So this is the list of projects that was developed in consultation with some of these are board recommended projects, other were brought up by staff. Some of these in case of in the case of the Hellwig Park artificial turf phase two, the second project there, this was included in the 2019 bond referendum. There just wasn't enough funding available to do the artificial turf on the second field. So this $2,000,000 will go through to go to completing that project. And a lot of these you may ask, well, how are these projects decided? A lot of it is well, it's twofold. One is the nature of the cost of the project. The relatively low cost, anywhere from 1 to $4,000,000.
Remember, it was only about $17,000,000 that could go toward it. So we found projects in each district also from one end of the county with an appropriate cost. So these that was the that was the basis behind selecting these specific projects just for one time funding in FY '27. I think we touched on it earlier in the presentation, the building facilities capital program. This is the program that was started back in 2018.
That's $4,000,000 each year of general funds goes toward repair and maintenance of existing county facilities. That will in the five year in the CIP and five year plan, that will continue $4,000,000 each year. And you can see the type of projects that are are done here. It's or HVAC mechanical equipment replacement, new or expanding sidewalks or parking lots or new new playground equipment, whatever is needed to keep and maintain, upgrade existing county facilities. That program will continue.
Moving into government, staying with government operations, performance, and innovation, county wide space. This was a program or a project that's been in the CIP for a couple of years now. It's it was master planning. It was done to see how the county could expand, not expand its footprint, but accommodate growth and then also try to reduce its leased footprint. Although the county leases quite a bit of space throughout the county.
So it was twofold. It was to accommodate growing county needs and then also try to get out of as much lease space as we could. Master planning was completed and presented to the board back in December. And the results of that study, we're moving forward with a new civic building and a parking garage at the government center, which would essentially just be right out here on this complex. Total project cost is $205,000,000.
The current appropriation is $5,000,000. That was to do the master planning, which is now complete. And then an appropriation in FY '27 to begin the design is $20,000,000. Information technology. This is the information technology, the infrastructure hardware replacement project.
This is hardware replace this is a hardware plan, county wide IT operations. You can see the sort of things that are you you can imagine we all know the speed at which technology changes. So this is to upgrade and replace perhaps outdated equipment or keep up with new equipment where it's needed. I'm not an IT guy. I don't wanna get too far out of my lane, but you can see the sort of things we're talking about, security firewalls, IT infrastructure, and such.
$5,400,000 annually funded by the general fund every year to make these kind of upgrades and replacements for county IT. Moving into public works, the first one, the landfill cell liner. I showed you the picture at the beginning of the the work that's needed to be done to cap a a closed cell of the land landfill. If you rewind the tape on that before we get to that point, first, you need to build a new cell that can be filled with waste. So that's what the $8,800,000 for a new cell liner phase three part c.
$8,800,000 in new section of the landfill. And also $1,700,000 to reconstruct the the main entrance at the landfill. If you've been through there lately, it's got kind of the roller coaster entrance. This will go toward repairing that and then also making some internal kind of roadway, some changes that'll help with some of the queuing that happens moving into the landfill. County watersheds, $5,000,000 is appropriated, and this is work that's needed to keep up with state and federal water quality mandates.
You can see the type of projects that are done, stream restorations, channel improvements. If you recall back in when I was showing the completed projects, you saw the photo of the Powells Creek, the work that was being done there. It's that sort of work. And that's needed to keep up with maintain the county's storm water permit and also make sure we're in compliance with state federal, storm water requirements. $5,000,000 funded by the storm water management fee. Finally, the bottom there is the transportation roadway improvement program. This is funding each magisterial district. It's $450,000 a year for just doing small scale mobility projects. Maybe it's a bus shelter. Maybe it's a section of sidewalk.
The supervisors can use that funding at their discretion for small scale transportation mobility projects, and that is funded as it has been the past several years using recordation tax that's designated for transportation purposes. Staying with mobility, the referendum there's debt service on the the 2019 bond referendum had a number of transportation projects that were authorized to be funded with bond with debt financing. We gotta pay that annual debt service, and a number of sources could be used. Granter's tax could be used to fund the debt service, but that's currently unavailable because it's using to support the OmniRide local subsidy. Transit occupancy tax could be used to pay the debt service, but that's unavailable.
That's being used, again, to subsidize OmniRide. Northern Virginia Transportation Authority, 30% local funding can be used to pay the debt service, but now a portion of that is scheduled to be used to support the VRE local subsidy. So rather than issue debt for these two projects, you see the bolder ones, Deadland Road widening and Old Bridge Road. We were scheduled to sell debt for those projects. It's proposed in the in the CIP in the annual budget.
We're gonna pay those amounts, the 28,700,000.0 and the 13,200,000.0. We're not gonna issue debt. We're just gonna pay that using existing NVT NVTA 30% funds. We did a similar thing back in f y twenty five for the Prince William Parkway, the Mill Minnieville Road interchange project. Rather than issue $70,000,000 worth of debt, we just use existing funding. And what that does, it saves about $50,000,000 in interest cost over twenty years. Rather than issue debt, we'll just pay it with available financing. And we're spending NVTA 30% for these, but it's in the long term, it's preserving that funding so we could use it. It's not tying up debt service for twenty years. That funding is gonna be freed up for use in other transportation mobility projects.
And there is a consideration by the board currently whether or not to to levy a commercial and industrial tax for mobility, that's a separate conversation that the board is having outside of the CIP. Just wanna put it on the slide and make mention that is an option for paying the debt. Currently, the proposed idea is to use existing NVTA 30 rather than issue debt.
Excuse me. How much how many more slides do you have?
I've got two more, and then that's it.
Okay. Thanks.
And I won't dwell on this. Again, this is the one from earlier in the presentation. Now you can see that we've gone through some of the projects that I've discussed. You can see that's the I won't go through it all, but that's the breakdown of the various funding sources. The right hand column, you can see the variety of funding sources.
There's the capital reserve, debt, fire levy, general fund, and those varying amounts for the projects. Very quickly, just a different we like to have this slide, the difference between a capital budget and the operating budget. Capital budget pays for the project, pays for the land, pays for the architect, pays for construction. The annual operating budget pays for the debt service, essentially pays the pays the annual mortgage for the debt that we borrow, pays for the utilities and maintenance, and then the program costs of whatever program is operating out of the building that we build, that's paid for out of the annual operating budget. Very quickly, this is the impact of the proposed CIP on debt service and operating.
Really, what's important, it's it's a list of all the projects that have operating and debt associated with them over the next five years in the five year plan. What's important is the bottom line. You can see the impact of the proposed CIP, 40,000,032, and then it really ramps up in FY 3031 with these new projects that are coming online when the debt service begins. Final slide, I promise. Proposed budget.
We are currently at the where are we? March. We didn't have it on there. We are at the we are at the work session for the Planning Commission, and today is February 25. You can see looking ahead, there's a variety of public hearings, budget recap, all leading up to budget adoption on April 21.
Okay.
And, yes, the two words you've been waiting to hear, just in conclusion, that is the final slide.
Thank you very, very much. We appreciate all your slides and good information. Now I'll turn it to the dais. Does anyone have any questions to ask Matt what's your last name, please?
Cornelius.
Cornelius.
Yes.
Okay. Anyone have any questions to ask Mr. Cornelius? Sure. Commissioner Ross go ahead.
Bennett School when you presented to the board of supervisors a gentleman spoke about Bennett School and some historical considerations.
Yes.
Do you know if his concerns have been put to rest or is it still something that we're scratching our heads over?
I would have to defer to the facilities group who's handling that. I don't know to what extent it's been addressed at all. We can certainly find out.
If nobody else there was a a juvenile environmental something or other facility.
Juvenile services center. Is that like
classroom groups, four h groups, whatever, go there and they learn about the environment, or is it like juvenile hall? It's
it's juvenile hall. It's the it's a it's an expansion to the existing it's now it's called the juvenile services center. Previously, it was called the or it may still be the juvenile center out near the landfill. It's an expansion to that facility.
Yeah. Okay. The 4,000,000 a year in annual maintenance, money set aside for maintenance of existing facilities, That seems like it would of it would need to grow with inflation of the types of materials that are used and whatnot. So does 4,000,000 a year, how long does that last before you have to adjust it?
It's it's been adjusted in that funding has been added to well, funding has been added to other programs. Let's see how quickly I can find it. I think I went right past it. For the building facilities is 4,000,000 a year. Two years ago, the fire and rescue system got a program similar program for $4,000,000 a year.
Last year, Parks got an additional this bullet pardon me, pointing that 1,200,000.0, that's that's an increase that you're talking about. It was an additional 1,200,000.0 on top of the 4,000,000 for Parks. So that you're right. They if we gave them $10,000,000, they could go through that in a year. So it's 4,000,000, and then it increased 1 point 2,000,000 two years ago. Parks got an additional 5,000,000 now for doing kinda similar work, not really maintenance and repair, but expansion. So there is a keen awareness that, yeah, that 4,000,000 doesn't get you very far. Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you, Commissioner Ross. Commissioner Scheifler?
For that group of $17,000,000 projects, so why was 17,000,000 chosen?
That was coming out of the operating budget. It was determined that, hey, we've got about $17,000,000 that could be put forward to one time capital projects. The exact calculus of how
that's I it in debt service on your last slide. Yeah. So is it is it
Oh, that's debt service and So that's 17? At the bottom.
That's So why I thought
I thought that was available money that
we had, not
It it is. That's why in future years, it goes to zero. It's just used one time. The other projects are
But it's not so it's not it's not why would it be considered debt service then?
It's it's not. It's operating. It's debt service and facility maintenance. And in this case, just one time use of capital capital funding. This is the impact on the five year plan. So that $17,000,000 impacts the five year plan.
Okay. So this isn't this isn't this isn't debt service?
No. This is this is debt service and operating costs and one time funding.
Okay. Well, it'd be nice to separate that out our understanding what is what are we paying debt for and what are
We can
be to have understand that at least at some moment.
Yeah. This is all of that put together in one table. But, you know, we could separate out if you wanted to see just debt service. Another table would be just operating costs.
Okay. That was, like, excess operating that we had
from No. 17,000,000. I don't know exactly how that number was determined. They came to the CIP and said, hey. There's $17,000,000 that could be used just one time on projects. What projects would they be?
Alright. Commission sorry for you done?
Yep.
Okay. I have a couple questions. My first question is what happens to the old fire stations when they're replaced?
To the extent that they can, if there's available land, they'll build a new one, and then the old ones will just be demolished. Very similar to what we did with the coal station about ten or so years ago. They built a new station. The old station was kept operational. Once the new station was built, the old one was demolished. Some of these cases, there may not be enough, like Station 3, for example. There was it's it's a kind of a wedge shaped piece of land. There wasn't enough land to build a new station and maintain the old one before we knocked it down. They just bought a new piece of land for the station. Now what happens to the existing structure once the new station is built, that I don't know.
I don't know if they can repurpose. Right? I think the idea is just to demolish it. I don't know if it can be reused for anything else, but that would be a question for fire and rescue.
Okay. And then I have a second question. I understood at one time the county was trying to con was considering trying to locate, most of the county buildings in, like, the Mid County area for convenience between east and west to service. Was is that off the table, or do you know anything about that?
Mid County I don't know if this McCord, the complex we're on now, is considered Mid County. You mean off on a
I thought it was actually they were talking about somewhere around February.
There was talk at several years ago, of my understanding, something out near the landfill, I think, was to build kind of the county complex. I don't know if I personally haven't heard anything of that in a few years, so I don't know what to what extent that's gonna move forward at all. I think this new kind of county complex master planning idea may be that may be the way that they're going rather than, you know, that mid county area you're talking about.
Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Carroll.
Yes. I was just gonna say, I'm 99% sure those parcels that that was planned for were the ones that went for the data centers. So I think that is off the table. I just have a quick question. I know we're short on time. In terms of the Brentsville Park kind of expenditure for, I think it was a land Yes. Acquisition. Do you have any is that just a a general acquisition, or do you know if there's, a targeted property that that is seeking to go for?
I don't know to what extent I can talk about land acquisition here. But we can certainly even refer to parks and recreation
for
additional details.
Okay. I can follow-up.
But it's my understanding, it's not just kind of generic or general Yeah, assume it's not. Specific. Perfect. Thank you.
Oh, there we go. Do we have any more questions? No? Okay. Well, it is actually 644, so we thank you, Mr. Kanellias, for your presentation. We appreciate you coming and sharing the county's plans with us, and we look forward to seeing you at the Planning Commission hearing. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you.
Good evening everyone and welcome to the Prince William County Planning Commission hearing. Tonight, just wanna ask that, everyone, please turn off your electronic devices. We will now stand for the pledge of allegiance.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Thank you, everyone. We had a wonderful work session on the Prince William County capital improvement program this evening at six and we just had our agenda review at 06:45. We will now have the roll call from madam clerk.
Yes, ma'am. Chair Brown? Here. Vice Chair Justice? Here. Commissioner Carroll? Here. Commissioner Moses Ned? Here. Commissioner Ross? Here. Commissioner Scheifler?
Here.
Commissioner Shaikh? Here. We have a quorum.
Thank you, Madam Clerk. Do we have anyone participating remotely? I think we're all here today. So no remote participation. We'll now move on to item six on our consent agenda.
I'd like to get a motion to pass brief the resolutions for the Planning Commission public hearing dated 01/14/2026. So moved. Second. Thank you. The motion has been properly made by commissioner Moses Ned and seconded by commissioner Sheikh. Can we have a roll call, please? A a vote, please.
Yes, ma'am. Chair Brown? Yes. Vice chair justice? Yes. Commissioner Carroll? Yes. Commissioner Moses Ned? Yes. Commissioner Commissioner Ross?
Yes.
Commissioner Scheisler?
Yes.
Commissioner Shape?
Yes. Thank
you. Motion passes.
Thank you. We now need a motion for to pass brief and resolutions for the planning commission public hearing dated 02/11/2026.
So moved. Second.
You. The motion has been made properly made by commissioner Moses Ned and seconded by commissioner justice or Vice Vice Chair Justice. Can we please have a vote?
Ma'am. Chair Brown? Yes. Vice Chair Justice? Yes. Commissioner Carroll? Yes. Commissioner Moses Nidd? Yes. Commissioner Ross? Yes. Commissioner Scheifler?
Yes.
Commissioner Shake? Yes. Motion carries.
Thank you. We will now move on to the expedited agenda, and I will now turn it over to, Mr. Venegas.
Thank you.
Do we have any items on the expedited agenda?
Chair Brown, we actually have several items for the expedited agenda. Item 11A, proper amendment resigning twenty twenty two zero two nine Blackburn Land Bay four. Item 11 b proper amendment rezoning twenty twenty five dash zero zero zero one seven Wolf Run Miller property proper amendment. Item 11 c rezoning twenty twenty four dash zero zero zero three zero Heathcote Marketplace residential. Item 11 d special use permit S U P 2025 Dash 00015 Taco Bell at 5485 Waterway Drive.
Item 11 e, proper amendment rezoning 2025Dash00024, Token Valley Road, proper amendment.
Okay. We will now open the public hearings for the expedited agenda. The first item on expedited is proffer amendment r e z two zero two two dash zero zero zero two nine, Blackburn Land Bay 4, and that's in the Gainesville District. So we'll turn it over to commissioner Ross.
Do we have anyone that cares to speak?
We have one individual signed up for Blackburn Land Bay 4, and they are a con. Do we have any other individuals who would like to speak against this project? Okay. And just for clarification, if we have two or more individuals speaking against the project, we will pull it off the expedited agenda to hear the case. So if there's just one individual, mister Dang, you can head back and speak on the project.
Yeah. You can go ahead and go to the podium.
If you can go to the back podium in the back, just say your name, magisterial district, or generally where you live, and then you will have three minutes to speak or five minutes if you're representing an organization. Organization.
Hello? Can you hear me?
Yes.
I uphold the result. The reason because when we bought the house, I I live in the close to the my address, 11047 Blackburn Cove Lane, Manassehat 20109. And I uphold the reason. The reason when we bought the house, the the land supposed to be a commercial yield. That mean, you know, the value when I pay for the house, it include into the future of the commercial purpose very close to warehouse.
Now if it rejoin, it will put the because around may have a population, very high density, and it will have a lot of traffic and a lot of thing, you know, coming up.
So,
you know, the Exit 47, when I I I go to work morning and I come back, even in it a lot of traffic there. So I don't want to put more house into the land. That's the the the reason and around the area. It's a lot of condo and a lot of apartment. It's very already high density.
So I it's not me. There are a lot of people uphold to the region. And, recently, I sent an email that I put on a lady keep with her to the the builder or the owner of the land. And I don't see they have any concern or feedback to me. So that's why I come to the public hearing and to talk about my opinion. I still have two neighbors. Sit here too, and I don't know if they have any opinion. And that's it. Thank you.
Great. Thank you. And that is the only individual we have signed up.
Okay. Thank you and thank you for your comments, sir. I'm gonna turn it back to Commissioner Ross.
Chair, if you'll indulge me, I'd like to ask the applicant to not give their full presentation, but just give us a couple of sentences about the comparison between the projected traffic with a commercial development on that property versus the projected traffic with a residential development. No.
This is on expedited agenda.
That's why I said without their presentation. Okay. Well then, I'll just say I recommend we close the public hearing.
The public hearing is now closed.
Before I make my motion, it's my understanding that there will be a significant decrease in the expected vehicle traffic because this if this rezoning is approved by the Board of Supervisors. And for that and other reasons, I move that the commission recommend approving subject to the application conditions dated 02/17/2026, the application entitled proffer amendment r e z two zero two two dash zero zero zero two nine Blackburn Land Bay 4.
Second. The motion has been made and made by properly made by commissioner Ross and seconded by commissioner Sheikh. Madam clerk, can you please call the roll?
Yes. Chair Brown? Yes. Vice chair justice? Yes. Commissioner Carroll? Yes. Commissioner Moses Neve? Yes. Commissioner Ross? Yes. Commissioner Schreifler? No. Commissioner Shake? Yes. Motion passes.
Thank you. Moving on to item b, proffer amendment r e z two zero two five zero zero zero one seven, Wolf Run Miller property proffer amendment. Do we have anyone signed up to speak for that?
We have two individuals. They did not indicate if they were pro or con. I'll call your names. If you can let us know if you're either for or against the project, but Ellie Barahona and Daniel Barahona.
Okay. Right? Yeah.
Okay. They're not in here.
Ellie, Daniel, last chance?
No. No. Okay. Seeing that there's no one up to speak, we will turn it over to, vice chair justice.
Thank you. I'd like to close the public hearing.
The public hearing is now closed.
I'd like to recommend approval proper amendment r e z two zero two five dash zero zero zero one seven Wolf Run Miller property PRA. And what are the conditions stated for this one? If staff could share.
01/06/2026.
01/06/2026.
Second. Thank you.
The motion has been properly made by vice chair justice and seconded by commissioner shake. Madam clerk, can you please call the roll?
Yes. You said that was Justice and Shake. Shake. Thank you. Chair Brown? Yes. Vice Chair Justice? Yes. Commissioner Carroll?
Yes.
Commissioner Mosesnipp? Yes. Commissioner Ross? Yes. Commissioner Scheifler? No. Commissioner Shake?
Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. We're moving on to item c, rezoning REZ2024Dash0000030, and this is Heathcote Marketplace residential. Do we have anyone signed up to speak for this?
We have one individual who has signed up for the project in person, and then there is one individual online, which I'm not clear on.
Okay. We can go ahead and let the is the person online available?
Yes.
Our speaker online is Andrew Fleming?
Correct. That's Okay.
So we can actually have the person that's here to speak for if they wanna speak.
Okay. And the person online. Okay. We can hold the online speaker for a minute and the speaker person, Gifford Hampshire.
Madam Chairman, members of the commission, I'm Gifford Hampshire, and I represent Ivo Jabirlev, who is the owner of the parcel directly to the south. It's GPN 7298922118, and we rise to speak in favor of this application. We have been working with the applicant for the better part of the time that this application has been pending to ensure that we have access from our parcel, which is about an acre there to the south in one way or the other. And the way it's been provided pursuant to Proffer 23 is a access road and easement and also some grading easement and some utility easements out to the VDOT access road. And so at the end of the day, we are happy with that proposal, which is reflected in Proffer 23.
And we hope that the commission will approve it subject to that proffer at least along with the other proffers. And we'd like to thank Ms. Cameron and also her client and also the engineering firm of IMEG for working with us on this. And thank you very much.
Thank you, sir. Can we now have the person who's online?
Yes. Evening. Should I begin?
Go right ahead.
Great.
Just wanna make sure you guys can hear me okay. My name is Andrew Fleming. Before I begin, I just wanna thank the commission for your time and diligence you put into reviewing for and attending these meetings as I know how that is. I'm a resident of Piedmont, which as you know is immediately next to the planned development. Sorry.
It wasn't clear earlier, but I am here to request that the planning commission denies the applicant's request for the building height modification of 35 feet to 50 feet for the Heathcote marketplace development. Firstly, as you know, ordinances exist to provide predictability and a level playing field for both residents and developers. For decades, the 35 foot height limit has defined the character of Haymarket. A request to go to 50 feet is a 43% increase in vertical massing. This is not a minor modification.
This is a fundamental departure from the established scale of our community. If granted, you are effectively creating a new floor for every future development on the Heathcote Corridor, potentially affecting the cityscape through this spot precedent. Secondly, the planning commission staff noted in their report that this increase is not compatible with the surrounding area. I agree that this determination is is correct. This proper planning proper planning requires a graduated transition.
A step down in height when approaching existing residential boundaries is important. Placing a 50 foot four story vertical wall against the tree canopy of a single family backyard is an intrusion, not a transition in my opinion. It creates a looming effect that fundamentally strips away the privacy and character that surrounding residents bought into of this beautiful area. A building of this height simply does not fit the context of this site, unfortunately. Lastly, under Virginia law, a waiver or modification typically requires showing of hardship.
I have reviewed the site constraints, and there is no typological or physical constraints on this land that requires 50 foot buildings to make this site viable for development. The applicant is free to build compliant 35 foot townhomes just like every other development in this area has done for years. But this request is not based on necessity. It is a request for increased density and residential yield at the expense of surrounding neighbors' quality of life.
In conclusion,
I'm not asking you to stop this development. I'm just asking you to hold these developers to the same rules that protect the community previously. Please strip the height modification. Thank you all so much for your time.
Thank you so much. Okay. We're now going to turn this over. This is the rezoning for rezoning 2024Dash00030 He's coat marketplace residential, and this is in the Gainesville District. So we'll turn it over to commissioner Ross.
Thank you, chair. I recommend that we close our public hearing.
The public hearing is now closed.
Okay. Mister Fleming, I am going to vote in favor of this and I'm going to say that I believe I can describe to you why it's appropriate for you for me to vote after hearing your concerns. If we can't reach agreement, you'll be able to speak to supervisor Stewart about that. I want you to know that so you don't think we're expediting this and railroading you. And with that said, I move that the public that the commission recommend approving subject to the application conditions dated 02/04/2026, the application entitled rezoning R E Z 202400030 Heathcote Marketplace Residential.
Second.
The motion has been properly made by commissioner Ross and seconded by vice chair justice. Madam clerk, can you please call the vote?
Chair Brown? Yes. Vice Chair Justice? Yes. Commissioner Harold? Yes. Commissioner Mosesnett? Commissioner Ross? Yes. Commissioner Scheifler?
Yes.
Commissioner Shake? Yes. Motion carries.
Thank you. Moving on to item d, special use permit SUP2025Dash00015 Taco Bell at 5285 Waterway Drive. Do we have anyone signed up?
There's no one signed up in person or online.
Okay. And this is in the Potomac Magisterial District, so we will turn this over to commissioner.
Alright. Recommend we close the
public hearing. The public hearing is now closed.
Alright. I, move the commission, move the commission recommend approval of specialist permit S U P 2025 Dash 00015 Taco Bell at 5285 Waterway Drive with the conditions dated, 01/08/2026.
Second. Thank you. The motion has been made by commissioner Scheifler and properly seconded by commissioner justice. Madam clerk, can you please call the vote?
Yes. Chair Brown?
Yes.
Vice Chair Justice? Yes. Commissioner Carroll? Yes. Commissioner Mosesnett? Commissioner Ross? Yes. Commissioner Scheifler? Yes. Commissioner Shaik? Yes. Motion pass.
Thank you. We're now moving on to item e, proper amendment R E Z 2025 Dash 00024, Token Valley Road, PRA. It's proper amended. It's in the Kohl's District. Do we have anyone signed up for this, commissioner commissioner Carroll? Carroll?
There's no one signed up in person or online.
Thank you. We will now move this to vice chair justice.
Thank you. I'd like to close the public hearing.
The public hearing is now closed.
I'd like to recommend approval of amendment R E Z 202500024 Token Valley Road, PRA. Conditions dated
12/11/2025.
12/11/2025.
Second. Thank you. The motion has been properly made by vice chair justice and seconded by commissioner Sheikh. Madam clerk, can you please call the vote?
Chair Brown? Yes. Vice chair justice? Yes. Commissioner Carroll?
Yes.
Commissioner Moses Ned? Commissioner Ross? Yes. Commissioner Scheifler? Yes. Commissioner Shakes?
Yes.
Post motion carries.
Thank you. If anyone wants to exit the chambers, please do so quietly. We will now move on to item I'm sorry. We'll now on to our agenda for public comment, which is item number eight. If anyone makes any wants to make any public comments about anything or items that are not on our agenda for tonight, you may feel free to move to the, back of the room and make your public comment at the mic.
Does anyone have any public comments about something that's not on our agenda tonight? What's your what would you like? You can go back there. If it's not on the two we have two items remaining on our agenda. So if it's about one of those, then you wouldn't you would wait until we have those hearings. If it's not, then you're welcome to go to the back. You have a comment on one of our items on the agenda?
Yes, ma'am. Sorry. Have a word of problem.
Okay. No problem. Okay. Well, hold your comments because we're getting ready to get to that. Okay? Alright. Thank you. We're moving on to item nine on the agenda for deferral and continuation. Mister McGetigan or mister either McGetigan or, Venegas. Do we have any deferrals or continuations?
Chair Brown, we have no items for deferral or continuation.
Okay. Thank you. Moving on to item number 10, planning director's time. We will now turn this over to director Washington.
I'll
just speak to him. Good
evening, madam chair, members of the commission, director of the planning office. Just have some updates, to share with you on recent and upcoming planning office activities. The first is, had a presentation, but it's not loaded, but I can still talk about it. So, as you all may know, the planning office has embarked on a very robust, small area plan program, and we have already launched the Bent Hill Corridor small area last fall. Additionally, last week, the board of county supervisors approved the initiation of the Butler Park small area plan, so that is the second one we are starting this fiscal year.
And then right behind it, we are gearing up, to launch before the end of this fiscal year, which is June 30, the Yorkshire small area plan that's currently, in scoping, and that one was initiated by the board, a number of years ago. So we'll be able to jump right into the work for that. To help support community awareness and engagement on all of these small area plans, we work with the county's communications team to, create a small area plans hub on the county's PWC Works website. The PWC Works website, if you all have not seen it before, it is, under, you can search under PWC Works, but it's PWC Works dot PWC VA dot g o v. And this page has multiple county department efforts and initiatives that are underway, some that have been completed.
And so we, again, created a small area plans hub there. We actually already have, other PwC Works websites for other projects, such as the comprehensive zoning ordinance update as well as the sustainability and resilience, comprehensive plan amendment. So just wanted to highlight that. Additionally, related to the sustainability and resilience comprehensive plan amendment, this is an effort to update our comprehensive plan and to expand its policies to support more sustainable and resilient future development. We are in the midst of three community meetings.
We completed our first one last Wednesday. It was a virtual meeting where we introduced a project, had some poll questions for participants, and took questions during the meeting. That meeting was recorded, and it is available on the PwC Works website for this project. We also launched a survey where we ask a number of questions to gauge residents' interests and concerns related to sustainability as well as resilience issues, which also falls under the realm of hazard mitigation. And that survey is up through March 19 on the PwC Works website.
And, additionally, we have two remaining community meetings. These are both in person meetings. The, next one is tomorrow night, Friday I'm sorry. Thursday, February 26 at 7PM at the Occoquan Elementary School cafeteria. And then the, next meeting is on Wednesday, March 4 at 06:30PM at the Suwala Gilbert Ellis Elementary School gym.
So, we definitely, you know, encourage residents to participate. Again, this is the first opportunity to talk with the community about these projects, but it definitely will not be the last. Again, we encourage residents to participate and fill out the survey. And then lastly, I wanted to highlight that next Monday, the county will be holding its next annual state of the county event. You may recall the first one was held last year, and so this will be starting at 6PM next Monday at the Hilton Performing Arts Center.
There will be, an open house portion where multiple county agencies will have tables with information about their projects and initiatives. And then there will be three panel discussions on different topics with department directors. And I will be participating on the third panel, which will be focused on reimagining living and playing in the county. And that concludes my updates.
Thank you, Director Washington. Sounds like a lot of interesting and exciting things going on in the planning office, so hopefully the community will come out and participate. We will now move on to item 11. We will now open the public hearings, and we're moving on to item 11 f, rezoning R E Z 2025 Dash 00009 Greenhaven At Broad Run. And it's in the Brentsville Magisterial District. Will the applicant please come forward?
Good evening, commissioner, chair Brown and members of the commission. With your permission, am I able to combine items f and g since they're along the same corridor?
I'd prefer not.
Okay. Okay. The commissioner of record wants you to have separate ones. Okay. Alright. Thank you.
My name is Janelle Cameron with Walsh, Colucci, Lubeli, and Walsh here tonight on behalf of the applicant, JR Real Estate. We have members of the JR Real Estate team here as well as civil engineer and traffic consultants to be able to answer any questions that you may have. The project that we're talking about first is Green Haven At Broad Run. It is this property that's located here. It's a little less than a 120 acres in size.
The property is currently zoned a one agricultural and comprehensively planned r n two, which is residential neighborhood. That residential neighborhood has single family attached, single family detached as primary uses, and it recommends one to four dwelling units per acre and a height of one to three stories. This image here is directly from the comprehensive plan. This slide shows the proposal. The applicant is seeking to rezone the property to PMR planned mixed residential to allow for the construction of 435 residential units, a 181 single family detached units, a 102 duplex units, and a 152 townhomes.
The applicant is proposing 43 affordable dwelling units, which would be 21 made available to people earning up to 80% AMI and 22 for people earning up to a 120% AMI. This slide here shows the open space plan. The applicant is proposing 40% or approximately 49 acres of the site as open space, which includes amenities that I'll walk through with you. The applicant is proposing a 50 foot buffer in this area here, here, and here, and a 50 foot buffer along Vint Hill Road. This 50 foot buffer along Vint Hill Road looks very similar to the buffers that you have seen for other Vint Hill Road projects that have been in front of the Planning Commission.
This slide shows the various amenities that the applicant is proposing, and I'll briefly go through those amenities with you. The applicant has proffered a clubhouse a minimum of 3,000 square feet, as well as a splash pad. That clubhouse location is this area here. The applicant has proposed three pocket parks in this area here, here, and here. The applicant has proposed the nature park I'm sorry, a courtyard area in this area here.
There is a playground in this area here. We proffered that the playground would be for ages two to 12. And then with this proposal, there are also perimeter walking trails. As I mentioned earlier, the applicant is proposing single family attached, single family detached, duplex units as part of the proposal. With this, there are various unit types that are being proposed.
This slide here shows the village elevations. The applicant, as part of the proposal, did provide design guidelines, and these images are directly from the design guidelines that we have proffered substantial conformance to. This slide here shows the patio house units. This slide here shows the duplex units. The applicant is seeking a waiver of the lot with the maximum lot coverage and the maximum building height for the duplex units.
And this slide shows the townhome units. The applicant is also seeking a waiver of the maximum height for the townhome units to allow for a maximum height of 45 feet. And this slide shows the internal street network. For the projects along Vent Hill Road, the applicant had to look at what are the street networks internal to the site, but also had to look at what are the impacts in the street network external to the site. So for access here, there's access that is planned from Bent Hill Road.
This is Pioneer, so there's access planned from Pioneer as well. This slide shows the street typologies, so the street categories that will be within those internal streets. This slide here shows the pedestrian connections throughout the site, so no matter where you are on the site, there is the sidewalk that will get you to the amenities as well as a trail network. As part of the proposal, the applicant had to also look at what are their impacts assuming that all of the projects, there are seven projects along the Vent Hill Road corridor, are approved. This slide here shows the Vent Hill Road improvement plan.
This is specifically proffered for all six seven of the projects along the Vent Hill Road corridor. The applicant is required to look at what are the impacts of just their development and do those improvements, and I'll walk through that, as well as look at what are the impacts of all of the projects and make sure that the projects are the road network is constructed in phases so that the road can always accommodate the number of residential units that are coming online. This slide here shows the final Vint Hill Road improvement design. In this slide here is a transportation flow chart. There's a lot of information on the slide, but essentially it summarizes the proffers.
The proffers have three scenarios. So scenario one is that only one project along the Vint Hill Road corridor gets approved. That scenario is now out the window because the Brookfield Strathmore project was approved, as well as project. The second scenario assumes that all of the projects along the Vint Hill Road corridor are approved. In that instance, there's a joint development agreement that is entered into by all of the developers within those seven projects.
There is a phasing analysis that is done that is submitted to the county to determine the number of units that that can be constructed before certain road improvements are planned. And then there's a $17,000 per unit monetary contribution. With this option, there is the option that the county decides that they want to do the work themselves, and then that monetary contribution will go to the county and not to the joint development agreement escrow. The last scenario assumes that only some of the projects are completed. When only some of the projects are completed, a modified traffic impact analysis is submitted to the county and VDOT for review.
They'll look at what transportation improvements are required and then require a phasing analysis to do those improvements. There is still the $17,000 monetary contribution that's required as well as the transportation improvements that are required for each individual project. For the Green Haven project, the transportation improvements include the $17,000 monetary contribution. It includes turn lanes at the eastern entrance. It includes clearing and grading and relocation of utilities along Vint Hill Road, as well as right of way along Vint Hill Road.
There is a roundabout that is proposed at this area here. The proffers for this project state that if the roundabout is not approved before access to Pioneer Drive can be accommodated, the applicant would have to upgrade Pioneer Drive to meet today's standards and provide turn lanes on Vint Hill Road, a left and right turn lane on Vint Hill Road to Pioneer Drive. And this slide here shows monetary contributions that are being proposed as part of this development. It's over $9,300,000 contributions. And that concludes my presentation. I will be ready to answer any questions that you all may have when it's my time.
Thank you, Ms. Cameron. Okay. Now let's go to the office planning staff.
Good evening, chair Brown, planning commissioners. My name is Alex Venegas from the planning office, and I am taking over this case, Green Haven At Broad Run, rezoning twenty twenty five dash nine. So this is primarily a request to rezone approximately 119.78 acres from a one agricultural zoning district and a limited area currently zoned residential planned community. And they're requesting to rezone it to planned mixed residential to allow four thirty five dwelling units consisting of 181 single family detached units, 102 duplex single family attached units, and then 152 townhome single family attached units. With associated development waivers and modifications being requested, the proposed density is 3.64 dwelling units per acre.
The property lies right off of Vint Hill Road to the West okay. Located to the East of Pioneer Drive, North of Vint Hill and West of Braemar development, and it's identified by these g pin staff is recommending approval for this application. So the current zoning district, as we mentioned, is a one. And in the long range land use, it's RN two. And RN2 allows between one and four dwelling units per acre.
This project, I want to provide some relevant background because it's along the Vent Hill Corridor and as we previously had several applications before you, which you guys approved and then eventually the board approved, this is one of seven development projects. Recently, you guys approved Longleaf at Kettle Run, Alderwood I'm sorry, recommended approval, Alderwood and Hawthorne, as well as Strathmore. To date, approximately 1,227 dwelling units have been approved on the Vent Hill Corridor. The applicant did do, and they submitted a master development study plan on 04/15/2025, and it involved all of the applicants in that corridor working together to provide that to staff. We also have a small area plan that's currently underway, And this whole corridor study as well as what was previously approved gives us a little better idea of what is going in there.
So that kind of helps a little in the early stages of the small area plan. So to put it in context of where this is, this is a Greenhaven, a Broad Run application. It's right next to the RPC area of Braemar. Strathmore was recently approved. Later tonight, we'll hear the villages at Broad Run.
And then these three applications on the South side of Vent Hill Corridor, Longleaf, Alderwood, and Hawthorne were approved by the Board of County Supervisors. We do have Patriot High School here just to give everyone context of where this is located. I'm not going to get into the same details that the applicant did. In fact, I just would like to go through the different waivers just to share staff's position and explain it a little. So with the landscaping area, the applicant requested a waiver.
Staff is in support of that modification because we realize that you need that flexibility, especially between the community recreation areas, as well as the residential, as well as the development layout design. So, we are comfortable with that particular waiver. The alternative housing unit types. So staff had a little concern because this is designated PMR low density, and some of the areas do have duplexes and townhouses, which is a little greater density. But overall, the whole application meets the targeted range.
But staff did have some concern just because the way the zoning ordinance is written that the applicant is saying this is low density residential in the PMR and portions of that should be more medium density. But we've approved other ones like this with that were slightly outside of the LDR range. But we just want to make that apparent to the Planning Commission. The next is the design standards. Staff supports the design modifications that they're proposing.
It reflects current housing marketing trends. It is permitted in the LDR housing type and we feel that that flexibility is needed. The design standards, again, is for the duplex and townhouses. Again, we did look at it and based on it being an LDR, does not necessarily align with those particular types of development. But overall, we're supportive of the applicant moving forward with that.
The height modification, as was we heard previously, sometimes people have concerns with that height modification. Staff reviewed it. We looked at it. We don't see any scenic view sheds being highly impacted by this. So from our perspective, we're comfortable with this waiver.
And then the last one was the townhouse row length. We do have some concern just because it's up to eight units, and that's not consistent with the zoning ordinance. But in order to make this project work and create the necessary open space, staff is recommending approval overall. We do agree with the modified street section. Staff is supportive of that. And our department of transportation does not have any concerns with it. Interparcel connection. So staff is in support of this proposed modification as well. And the last one is setback encroachment. Staff supports that modification as well.
We realize that you need to have the flexibility to shift the product while still maintaining the overall low density character of the area. So staff's recommendation is approval. We look at through the lens of each one of the comprehensive plan sections and we have yes for all of those different plan consistency. Staff is recommending approval of the application proffered dated 12/26/2025 for the following reasons. The proposed rezoning to PMR as proffered is consistent with and does implement the residential neighborhood land use designation in the comprehensive plan.
Also, proffered, this proposal will allow development on the property that's cohesive as a planned mixed residential community. And the applicant is working with the other applications to provide necessary infrastructure improvements along the Vint Hill Road corridor. They also have consistency with the setbacks and buffering, and then the proposed development supports housing policy number two in our comprehensive plan, which is to promote diverse mix income housing communities throughout the county that address the demand for additional housing, the demand for a variety of housing which the applicant is providing, and the demand for affordable workforce housing to meet the needs of the residents at all income levels throughout all stages of life. The density of approximately 3.64 falls within the range of both the PMR, low density residential, as well as the comprehensive plan RN2. They are providing robust buffering and compatible measures throughout the project.
It does align with our strategic plan, our twenty twenty five-twenty twenty through 2028 strategic plan, quality of life objective one, develop affordable and diverse housing options to the county for residents of and families of all ages, sizes, income levels, and needs, and then sustainability sustainable growth, promote a sustainable community with a variety of housing types, densities, and affordability to ensure safe and livable environments for all residents. And with that, we'll gladly take any questions.
Thank you very much. We will now, hear from the public if there's anyone signed up for this, commissioner O'Keo.
Yes. There is. Right now, there's two individuals signed up, Jeff Fleis and Yahia Saad. And if there's any other individuals who'd like to speak, if you can head to the back, just name magisterial district or generally where you live, three minutes to speak, five minutes if you're representing an organization.
How are you doing this evening? This isn't really my project that I'm more worried about, but there's a few things that
And if
you could just name magisterial
Oh, I'm I'm Jeff Liss. I'm on Silas Drive in, Noakesville, Brentsville District. Couple things that I've noticed with this project is Reed Lane and the road intersection there. I didn't see anything in the presentation that indicated what they're in what they're gonna do with that intersection of Reed Lane and their property. I think we need to address that.
The other question is is has anybody looked into the historical are any are there any historical sites on any of these properties? And I I I'll bring that up in the next project as well, because I I haven't seen anything. I didn't see if there was any, information on that. I'd like to know if there is any information, about that. Primarily, it's just Reed Lane. Looking at the overall project is just Reed Lane on this particular project.
Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Can you all hear me alright? Perfect. Hello, everyone. My name is Yahya Saad. I live currently in the Coles District.
I'm a husband and a father of two beautiful, very young children. And I'm blessed to be a homeowner, but I'm actually here to advocate on behalf of up and coming families like ours, many of whom are stuck as tenants and are unable to find a proper home that is within a reasonable distance of their families and their houses of worship. There's no secret that we're facing a housing crisis. People wanna be near their families, and they wanna have a multigenerational presence here in Prince William County. The majority of my wife's family are in Prince William County, and that's key for us being able to raise our children, and I know that's a major factor for many young families like my like ours as well.
Our communities need more homes, not less. We also need more walkable areas and family friendly recreational spaces so we don't have to continually travel outside of the county to take our families out to have a nice time. These housing projects are also in close prose proximity to religious institutions, many of whom have congregants that are still tenants constantly searching for the right place to live that's within a reasonable distance of their religious institution or their house of worship. There are many factors contributing to the housing crisis, but one of those is supply and that is the very key that our county does have control over. So it's within your power to do your part and rein in these runaway house prices.
When I look at the village in Greenhaven, I see a proposal that sets a strong standard for environmental protection, has adequate funds proffered for transportation and education. And not only that, but based on the site plans we've seen, it presents the very type of environment for families, especially young families to thrive. And finally, it means more housing for the young families that want to call Prince William home, not just a transient place where they subscribe to live. So tonight, I'm asking the planning commission to invest in the vision of a county where people continue to lay down their roots, not just the place they leave to go to work, not just the place where you act as a perpetual tenant. The village in Greenhaven, see as a step in the right direction, so I would request that the Planning Commission vote in favor of the rezoning application.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you for your time. My name is Matthew Lama. I'm a longtime resident in the area. Particularly, I live not too far from this development. I'm also a resident in the district as well. I'm a real estate professional, and and I see it from the boots boots on the ground. And the gentleman who just spoke, he's he's absolutely right. There's a significant shortage of housing. Buyer demand remains strong, yet we simply do not have enough available homes, to meet that demand. Affordability is also one of the most pressing challenges facing families in our community today.
This project helps address both of these concerns by delivering much needed housing options in a thoughtful and responsible manner. Additionally, the proposed plan appears to be in line with the with the comprehensive plan that was adopted in December 2023. Consistent consistency with the comp plan is important for smart and strategic growth. For these reasons, I support this project, and I respectfully encourage planning to do the same. Thank you for your time.
Thank you.
I stood before y'all a 120 ago for Strathmore. They deferred for not thirty days, came back. Then I was here with Aldo Wood, Hothrow, and my name is Paul Short. I live on Princeville District, Noakesville, the rural crescent of Prince William County. I am very concerned about major factors.
We have already you have already approved four major developments, and I don't see a reason to continue to push through the depletion of the whole Brentsville district, which is really the legality and the ethics and the standards behind this is wrong. But that's another topic. I'm gonna tell you specific topics I'm talking about. They talked about traffic circle. Okay.
Four lanes four lanes to two lanes at Schaeffer. Schaeffer, two lanes to Kettle Run. It becomes four lanes. They're gonna put new two new traffic lanes in for Hawthorne. Then we got two lanes going up the hill with a new waterline designated for Masses Park that's being put in on the power line easement on the North Side of Vinn Hill.
But it's not nobody's aware of this. On the left at Re Lane, where the new proposed high school is gonna go on the backside of Alderwood is is, a cemetery. You can't disturb the cemetery. On the right, you have the new waterline, which is only 30 feet from the road. So how are you gonna build a four lane highway that goes to a certain traffic circle with a designated left turn lane for the buses that are gonna have to go down relaying to the potential new high school that's been, I think, been approved or is it it's it's too much.
This development and all these developments all concurrently, four and one application or one and then three more and now two more as well as Silver Bell is coming through. And then I understand that, an export of supervisors is trying to parcel 24 more pieces of land down on Allis Nest Road. He's trying to buy everybody out and do another density. As I said earlier, and I'd to ask for additional two minutes because I represent the whole Noakesville community where I live. It's too much they're gonna do a traffic circle there, and then they're gonna put it in a spur in for Alderwood.
Well, a traffic circle with four lanes to a two lane traffic circle is not go it's gonna impede and back traffic up, which is already like this. Four lanes, two lanes, four lanes, two lanes. So how are we gonna put in a road to the traffic circle when the cemetery and the waterline is already designated when none of this has been taken into consideration? Nobody nobody in the county has apparently talked to Prince William of Manassas in Manassas Park. The the traffic circle is not gonna be it's gonna be a traffic circle, but the picture that
she
Thank you, sir.
The picture we have two minutes more, please.
Unfortunately, I can't. Only for represented organizations.
I'm representing the organization of Allison Estrohute, sir.
Yeah. Yeah. I
I'm sorry to clarify that in the beginning. That's why asked for two minutes earlier.
Is that an HOA?
HOA? No. I'm I'm res constituent residents.
Yeah. Defer to the
Sir, your time is up. Thank you.
Well, I ask you to deny this and and this application because it's too much, too fast, too soon. Where's the sewer gonna go? Where's the water gonna go?
Thank you, sir. We appreciate your comments. Thank you very much. Is there anyone online signed up?
There is one individual online signed up. I'm not sure if they are online.
Good evening. The gentleman who is online has decided to decline to speak.
I'm sorry. We can't hear you.
I'm sorry. He declined to, speak.
Okay. Okay. Do we have anyone else?
No one signed up. Would anyone else like to speak?
Seeing that there's no one else like to speak, we will now close the public hearing, and we will invite the applicant back up to address any of the concerns that she's heard.
Thank you, Commissioner Brown. I'm actually going to start backwards, and first address the transportation questions as it related to Reed's Lane. The applicant is proposing a right turn lane into the site from Reed's, and I'm sorry you all can't see the screen yet. No. It's okay.
It's okay.
Perfect. Okay. So there is a right turn lane that's being proposed into the site. There is also a left turn lane from Vint Hill Road to Reeds Lane that is being proposed as well as a left turn lane on Vint Hill Road to the access point that is also being proposed. The applicant has worked with all of the developers.
The plan has been reviewed and approved by VDOT for the Vint Hill Road Transportation Improvement Plan and will continuously be reviewed and approved as the construction is occurring. So they have looked at the design and approved the design. For the historical site, there is one historical site that is on the property. The applicant did not have a proffer as it related to that historical site. The applicant is willing to add a proffer for a phase three study and work with the county archaeologists for any signage and or other commemorative things that the county archaeologists may want, but we are willing to add that into the proffers for you all.
And then I just wanted to briefly, it wasn't something that I heard from the audience, but touch on the PMR, and specifically the densities. Go back for a minute. The county's comprehensive plan was approved in December 2022. The county's comprehensive plan indicates that for residential neighborhood t two single family attached and single family detached are principal uses. The targeted density is one to four dwelling units per acre.
However, the zoning ordinance has not been updated yet. So the zoning ordinance does not align with the comprehensive plan. For the PMR District, you have to pick a density that aligns with that. So in PMR, the designation type that aligns with one to four dwelling units per acre is LDR. And that LDR unfortunately does not align with the comprehensive plan, so it does not include duplex or townhomes as permitted uses.
We have done this on several projects, including ones along the Vint Hill Road corridor because the zoning ordinance does not align with the new the newly created and adopted ish comprehensive plan. So I just wanted to hit that, and I can answer any questions that the Planning Commission may have when it's my time.
Thank you. I now would like to invite Mr. Vinaigas up to, as staff, to respond to anything you may have heard.
So as I mentioned earlier with the waivers, we did bring it up. I just brought it to your attention that it's not consistent with what we have in the zoning ordinance, but staff realizes in order to achieve the product that the applicant has provided, that we need to have some flexibility. But that's staff's position.
Okay, thank you. Moving on to the any questions on the dais from anyone? I'd like to ask the applicant a question, please. Miss Cameron.
Yes, ma'am.
What is the width of the townhomes?
So for this site, there are variable widths of the townhomes, and I can get that for you. Hold on one second.
Okay.
So there's for these townhomes on this project, they're 20 feet, and they're 16 for the ADUs. Okay.
So with the longer townhouse rolls rolls, will those mainly will they be a mix of the width or mainly 16 feet for the longer townhouse rolls. So
they'll be mixed? Will not be mixed. They will be a row of twenties and a row of sixteens.
Okay. Okay.
And are you requesting a waiver for reduced reduced street width?
Yes. And that was actually reviewed and approved by county transportation, as well, but there is enough to park a car on the streets. I can go to that slide just so you can see it again.
Yeah, because I wanted to know about parking spaces.
For this site, we are also over parked. Okay. So these are the streets for the internal streets, and then specifically, I can go through the parking tabulations with you. So nine forty six spaces are required and we're providing twelve fifty four parking spaces.
Okay. That's all I have. Thank you. Okay. Moving on to commissioner Carroll. Do you have a question? Yeah. Okay. Go ahead.
So as a a follow on to this, and this just make sure I'm understanding. So we're allowing, I guess, via waiver parking in these alleys?
Not in so in this alley here, but not on the Alley Road itself.
Okay. Got you. Then so turning to that historical site, and, you know, this is something I just kind of learned about this afternoon when I was reading the staff report one last time. So it it says that a phase two report recommended that a found enslaved domestic site is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. So where where is this site on our project?
So it's in this area in here. It's in this area in here, but it's not, to be clear, it's not a building, so I just wanna be, there's no existing buildings on the site. What was found was essentially scatter and artifacts, but there's not a building or a foundation that is on that site.
And we've phase one and
a phase two of that site.
And the historical commission has reviewed the phase two? Because I'm hearing from a lot of them that they didn't know what phase two found items. Yeah.
It was conducted with Justin, and they recommended no further work. Let me can you give me ten minutes? I just wanna look at our last historical report.
Yeah.
Sure. I believe they recommended no further work, I just want to triple check that Yeah. Before I say it on the record so you're aware.
Yeah. From what what I've heard, they recommended no further report, but it seems like they were never forwarded the phase two report to to make that determination.
Okay. We can I can look into that? And I think what I wanted to say is we are happy. So once the phase normally, when we do a proper, we'll proper phase one until the phase one is submitted. Then we'll proper phase two until the phase two was submitted. So the phase two was submitted to the county. If it didn't get to the historical commission, I don't know why, but it's not to say that we didn't submit it, but we're happy to submit a phase three as well and just make sure that we coordinate with the historical commission for any other recommendations that they may have.
Okay. And then just my last question for now. I I guess so if we did if the phase two was indicating a potential location for the National Historic Register, why why in why are we not utilizing and preserving that now in the application we do have?
And again, we can add so what happens normally is you do a phase one, a phase two, a phase three. The phase three can say avoidance, or the phase three can say yes, you can disturb it because it's not the actual building, it's materials and scatter that was found. That product or the things that were found may be better someplace else where they'll have more visibility, and then there are ways that you can document what was found. So I don't know if that answered your question, because I don't think avoidance is always the best in every scenario, but we're happy to work with both historical commission and Justin on that specific item.
Okay. That's it for now.
Okay. Commissioner Ross.
The thank you, chair. The parking cat got out of the bag. So I just wanna say, the pictures that you put up of the street typologies, it didn't it wasn't obvious to me that you could park a car on one side of those streets, much less two sides. Is that what you were intending to let me know? Or is there something else going on?
Curve to curve, so some of the streets are one
So we have 32 width, which you can have one side of parking, and we have 36 foot widths, which you can have two sides of parking.
Okay. So the the pictures are maybe misleading me.
It's not to scale.
Thank you.
You're welcome. The
other is, does anyone Alex, do you know if Justin Patton is available to fill us in on the archaeological questions or do we need to wait until the future?
I can address that question, Tony Washington, Planning Director. Mr. Patton is off-site, but we have been communicating with him. And so he has been providing some information, but we will need to do some further, follow-up. So he isn't available to answer any questions at this particular moment.
Thank you. That's all.
Thank you. Any more questions? Commissioner Carroll?
Yes. Just this is a question for transportation too. So the applicant had requested a waiver of the interparcel connectors. And if we're able to go to one of the slides that had, like, the site plan on it Yeah. That's that's perfect.
Is this working?
Perfect. Yeah. So I I guess my question, and this is kinda like a a larger, broader question. But so why exactly is the county fine with waiving the requirements for interparcel connections here to the East and to the North? Like, what kinda makes that determination? Because we obviously have the other project later where we also have interparcel connectors that we're attempting to remove, and I would presume get that waiver that isn't being supported. So what what kind of causes that differentiation?
Good evening. My name is Bryce Barrett with Prince William County Department of Transportation. When county staff review interparcel connection waivers, typically, we're looking at what's the feasibility of the adjacent site being redeveloped into something that's compatible with the existing use. In in this case application's case, the north and east of their site is is primarily built out and does not have necessarily facilities that would receive that inter parcel, you know, road connection. In in this case, we also are double checking to make sure that they meet any SSAR requirements or which are VDOT requirements, secondary street acceptance standards, which require multiple entrances to a development.
Because of this connect this development's connection to Vinhale Road and Pioneer Drive, they are meeting those v v dot requirements, and so we did did not have an issue with entertaining that waiver for this situation.
Okay. Thank you. I I appreciate that, and I'll probably have some follow ups, but I'll save them for the next project. And then just my last question for I guess this would be for the applicant and potentially I don't know if mister Boyd from Parks and Rec is here tonight. Oh, hey there.
So just wanted to get some clarification on what's going on in the triangle parcel on the east side of the power lines. I know there when I spoke with the applicant earlier this week. There was an indication that, you know, Parks and Rec had asked for us to remove kinda some fields that were there. It seems like that might have gotten a little misconstrued and miscommunicated. So if we can just kinda speak to what transpired there and why exactly those parks disappeared.
So at the time that we submitted our original application, there were fields that were proposed in this area here. Chris Perez was our case planner at the time. He is no longer with the county. He indicated to us that staff did not want those fields, and parks and rec were not interested in the fields either. One of the things that we heard potentially was proximity to the residents in Braemar. So we removed the fields but didn't necessarily have any further communication after we received the comments.
Okay. And can staff do you want to respond to that?
Robert Boyd with the Department of Parks and Recreation. Yes. I'm not sure where it got lost with Chris, but, we don't necessarily have an issue with there being a field there. I think up until the second application, it was in the in the site plan, and it was proposed to be public. My main comments were around how that would be managed, how we're gonna keep it public.
The only reason we would not want it to be public is potentially if it was too small to be scheduled or something like that. And the only thing I can think of potential issues with the proximity of the houses is if we were going to light it, which given how small this site would be, I would not think that we would light it. Other than that, I think it's a it's a suitable site for a a field. We have lots of fields under power lines, and that's not an issue for us. So if the applicant wants to put the field there, we will certainly talk to him about how that works.
Okay. Perfect. Hopefully, that is something that can be discussed between now and the board. And, you know, I I know when we had spoke something potentially a trailhead or a little gravel lot just to really highlight the trail system we have and are growing in this area, it'd be great for the public to have kind of some ways to access those trails that aren't necessarily just in the neighborhoods.
Yes. So we had a meeting, and the request was, could we look at potentially doing some sort of gravel lot here as a trailhead? And we would be willing to do that.
Okay. Any more questions? No more questions on the dais. We will turn it over to Commissioner Carroll.
Yeah. So I I came into tonight going one way on this. And having learned what I've learned and speaking to some of the historical commissioners tonight, I I personally am not comfortable moving this forward either way until we have some additional information, you know, speak to mister Patton, just understand fully what exactly is going on with that phase two study. And, you know, a lot of this kinda stems from our experience the year prior with the stack project and the racehorse where we kinda jumped the gun, and it kinda came back to bite us in the end. So I am not comfortable moving forward at this point, so I would like to make a motion to defer rezoning REZ2025Dash00009Greenhaven at Broad Run.
I'm fine with the date certain if it can be accommodated with Justin and the historical commission.
Chair Brown?
Yes.
If I may Yes. Not to interrupt the proceedings. But like I said, we have been communicating with Justin Patton, and we asked about the deferral. He did state that he did not think a deferral was necessary, that he concurs that these issues could be worked out before the board, and there's some additional information. So I just wanted to relay that for the for your consideration.
Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Carroll?
Thanks. No. I mean, I I appreciate that, but, I mean, we're the ones voting tonight, and, I mean, we have to make our judgment. So, my motion still stands. Second.
What's your question? We have discussion now.
Will he just made a motion? Second. So Okay.
What would be a date certain of this if it were deferred? What's the availability? And the clarification would be if the historical society gets back to us, then there's something additionally that could be proffered in. I'm just looking for clarification from staff of what this could mean or what could be gained or lost by deferring or not deferring, deferring, if that makes sense? Thank you.
The public hearing is closed, so you could defer it to your next meeting and act at your next meeting if that's enough time for you to to do that, or you could which is March 11, or the meeting after that, March 25, if you want to have an advertised public hearing and hear additional testimony.
Can I add a friendly amendment?
Sure. Go ahead. If we did
a deferral to a date certain of March 11. Somebody would have to second that.
Someone needs to second that.
A question also from the staff, madam chair.
Yes.
So if we were to hear it and defer it to a date certain, what will be the outcome at that time? Are we just looking for historical commission's comments on that and then make a decision?
I think you'd have to ask commissioner Carroll that because he's the one that's recommending deferral. So your basis for recommending deferral is for the historical commission to actually do what?
Well, they've told me that they did not review the phase two report. And so when they recommended that it should move forward with no further work, they were basing on that on the fact that there was no phase two or the phase two found nothing. But now that the phase two has found something, which I have no idea. I haven't reviewed the report. I didn't even know it existed till this afternoon. And it's significant enough to highlight that it would be on the National Register of Historic Places. I would I would like to know what mister Patton thinks of that. I'd like to think know what the historical commission thinks of that. I'd like to know why we're not doing anything now
on that. So I But mister Patton has already weighed in. Is that correct, director Washington? He's already weighed in.
He he did not think a deferral was necessary. However, he's certainly willing to work with the historical commission on this matter. So
Between now and the board?
Definitely between now and the board. Okay. So he he felt that this is something that could be addressed between now and the board, and make some additional changes to the profits, which miss Cameron already noted that they're willing to work on. So he did not think a deferral was necessary, but if the Planning Commission does wish to do a deferral, that's something he can certainly work with.
Point of order.
Commissioner Ross.
Do we have a motion on the floor awaiting a second right now and if we do could someone repeat it please.
Sure. But before we do that Commissioner Sheikh, do you have your language?
Yes. So if the applicant is willing to proffer a phase three study and also willing to work with the historical commission and with Mr. Patton, then what will be the difference on a hearing between March 11 and now? Because if we I
believe the applicant has already stated that. Is that correct? The applicant has already stated that in their presentation. They'd be willing to do that between now and the board.
Alright. Thank you, madam chair.
Thank you. Okay. Commissioner Carroll, do you wanna stick with your same you wanna stick with your same motion, or would you like to revise it?
I will accept the friendly amendment to defer to dates or March. Nobody
seconded it.
Oh, well, then I will second it.
Okay. Just a quick.
If I can add further, Mr. Patton is available on March 11. He is not available on March 25.
Okay. So now we have amendment we have a friendly amendment made by commissioner I'm sorry, made by vice chair justice that is to defer this application to a date certain on March 11. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. And we had a second by
Me.
Commissioner Carroll? Yes. Alright. Okay. So we have a motion that was made to defer this to a date certain 03/11/2025 by vice chair justice with properly seconded by commissioner Carroll. Can we please have, madam clerk call the vote?
Chair Brown? No. Vice chair justice? Yes. Commissioner Carroll?
Yes.
Sorry.
Motion carried.
Okay. Moving along. If anyone wants to exit the chamber, you can certainly do that at this time. Otherwise, we will move on with the agenda to item number g, rezoning REZ twenty twenty five dash zero zero zero one zero, The Village at Broad Run. Will the applicant please come forward?
Good evening. Again, chair Brown and members of the planning commission. My name is Jonelle Cameron with Walsh, Colucci, Lubeli, and Walsh here tonight on behalf of the applicant. I am here on the village at Broad Run project. We have members of the applicant's team, civil engineer team, our environmental consultant, as well as the traffic consultant, and I'll get to my slide.
The property that we are speaking about is this property here and the property in this location here. It is a little over a 110 acres in size. It is currently zoned a one agricultural and comprehensively planned r n two, which is residential neighborhood with the t two designation, which is one to four dwelling units per acre. This slide here shows the illustrative of the proposal. The proposal is for 290 units of which a 148 are single family detached units, 40 units are duplex units, and a 122 are townhome units.
This is a density of 2.63 dwelling units an acre with the entire property and 3.53 dwelling units an acre if you remove land bay three. The applicant is proposing 30 affordable dwelling units, half up to 80% AMI and half up to a 120% AMI. This slide here shows the open space that is being proposed as part of this development. The applicant is proposing a little less than 50% of the site as open space, which is a little more than 54 acres. The applicant is proposing a 50 foot buffer along the Vint Hill Road corridor.
To address concerns that the applicant heard from the folks that live on Silas Drive, the applicant moves back the limits of clearing and grading. So it's about 80 feet from the limits of clearing and grading to the property line of those residences that live on Silas Drive. The applicant also removed a storm water management facility that was located in this area here. There previously was a dog park that the applicant removed in this area here. The applicant also proffered that there would be one low impact development BMP design within the storm water management area in this area here to be able to address a concern from the Silas Road residents.
This slide here shows the amenities that are being proposed as part of this project. The applicant is proposing a clubhouse, a minimum of 3,000 square feet. The applicant also proffered to a pool, a minimum of 25 yards. The applicant proffered to a tea and community garden, multi use courts, a multi use field, a perimeter walking trail and forest park, playgrounds, and a dog park. With this proposal, the applicant is proposing, like the previous project that you saw, several different housing types.
There's a cluster house, village house, duplex house, and then there are front and rear loaded townhomes. This slide here shows the cluster units. This slide here shows the village units. This slide here shows the duplex units. For the duplex units, we are seeking a height modification.
This slide here shows the townhome units. There is a modification in the lot width setbacks and also the maximum building height to 45 feet. This slide here shows the street trees that are proposed, and we thought it would be helpful to provide a pedestrian connectivity exhibit so that you all are able to see how does this pedestrian connectivity align with the other projects that are being proposed along the corridor. The applicant as part of this project has proffered this property here, which we're calling Land Bay 3, to go to the county for parks and rec purposes. This does allow for a trail network that will connect to the Broad Run linear trail.
There is also a property in this area here that the applicant has proffered to the county for either parks and rec or public safety purposes. So as you can see through all of the developments, there's either a public sidewalk or proposed public trails that connect the developments to one another. This slide shows the internal street network. Again, as part of the proposal, the applicant had to proffer to the Vint Hill Road improvement plan. The improvement that is being proposed closest to this development besides the widening is a roundabout at the intersection of Silas Drive, Owl's Nest Road, and Mint Hill Road.
This slide here shows the Mint Hill Road improvements. And again, as I mentioned, there are three scenarios that are outlined in the proffer. The first scenario assumes only this project is approved. That scenario no longer applies because there have been other projects along the corridor that have been approved. The second scenario assumes that all of the projects along the Vint Hill Road corridor, so all seven of the projects are approved.
In that scenario, the applicant has to do the improvements that they're required to do just for their project. They're entering into a joint development agreement with the other developers of the Vint Hill Road corridor. They are providing a phasing analysis to the county. So essentially, that phasing analysis will look at the number of houses that can be constructed and then the road improvements that need to be done with that number of houses to ensure that the road network can accommodate the additional trips along Bent Hill Road. It also includes a $17,000 monetary contribution.
There is an option that the county can take over the work if they choose, and in that event, the $17,000 monetary contribution goes to the county. The third scenario assumes that only some of the projects are approved, and that scenario, a modified traffic impact analysis needs to be submitted. It's reviewed and approved by both VDOT and the county to determine what traffic impact or improvements need to be completed, and then also a phasing analysis will need to be completed as well to determine what road improvements need to be done as the residential units come online. There is also the $17,000 monetary contribution, and the county is able to, if they choose, decide to do the work themselves, and that monetary contribution will go to the county. This slide here shows the Vint Hill Road improvements that are proposed with this development.
So turn lanes in and out of the site, as well as right of way dedication along Vint Hill Road. One thing that I wanted to mention when we look at this internal connection side, and Commissioner Carroll asked this question with a different case, but the access to this site is from Vint Hill Road only. There was a request for an interpersonal connection to Silas. That is due to, I believe it was at the time, SSAR requirements. Based on feedback from the community, the applicant has removed that connection.
They are providing the right of way dedication or right of way or reservation of right of way to the county in that area, but will not be constructing that access point to Silas. And then from the monetary contribution perspective with this project, the applicant is proposing six a little over $6,200,000. This monetary contribution does not include the land dedication that is also being provided. That land is a is valued at approximately $6,800,000, a little over $6,800,000. So in total for this project, it's over $13,000,000.
And that concludes my presentation. When it's my time, I'm able to answer any questions that you all may have.
Thank you, Ms. Cameron. Mr. Venegas, Or whomever from the staff.
Good evening, Madam Chair and, members of the Planning Commission. Maggie Costello with the Planning Office, and we will get the presentation going here. Thank you. As you just heard from the applicant, they are looking to rezone property from a one to PMR, and staff is recommending approval of this development application. The property is zoned A1 and the underlying future land use is RN2.
PMR is a implementing zoning district in the RN2 District. As Ms. Cameron stated earlier, they are proposing three different land bays. Land Bay 3 is located approximately a quarter mile from the concentrated area of residential development that comprises Land Bay 1 And 2. As she stated earlier, they are proffering part of Land Bay 1 to the county, and as well as Land Bay 3 for parks and open space.
Just to reiterate the connection that the application is providing to the Broad Run Trail, it will be coming up through their northern portion, the 28 acre to the north, passing through the Silver Bell development, and then ending at the Vint Hill Road passing through both Land Bays 1 And 2. Looking at that trail a little closer, you can see it does go right through the Silver Bell development. The applicant has proffered a connection to the Silver Bell development to ensure the connection of that trail. Again, you can see it in the brown line going into Vint Hill Road. In reviewing this, staff feels that there's a significant pedestrian infrastructure and regional connectivity.
Initially, we had some concerns with a provision in the zoning code that requires the use of contiguous lots to satisfy zoning requirements, these being things such as density, open space, tree canopy, etcetera. But given this functional connectivity that they've provided, we feel that this provides the physical nexus that treats the non contiguous parcels as one or as contiguous. So staff is supporting that. This is taken from the environmental constraints analysis submitted with the application. You can see there's significant constraints on Land Bay 3, hence the trail that will be, I think, laid outside on the northern boundary there, outside of the RPA.
In land Base 1 And 2, there's significantly less environmental constraints here. If you'll notice the two trees that are specimen trees on the southeastern portion of that property, the applicant is looking to preserve those. So again, there's minimal environmental constraints here. You can see the limits of disturbance are that brown line. They are taking it pretty far out to the edge, so there will be significant clearing.
When we looked at the density, the way that the applicant drew the lines for the land bays, Land Bay 2 ended up exceeding the targeted density of one to four dwelling units an acre per the comprehensive plan. However, given the connectivity that the applicant is providing with the trail system, staff recommends taking the density in an aggregate approach, thereby giving Land Base one, two, and three the density of 2.63 dwelling units an acre, fitting them well within the one to four dwelling units an acre. Just some points just to bring up here regarding environmental. Staff is very supportive of the preservation of the specimen trees on the boundary that's shared with Strathmore. Staff does recognize that Strathmore did an amazing job providing preservation of one of these specimen trees, and the applicant is carrying that forward with additional preservation on their side of the property line.
The ECA did identify several species, several special status wildlife species to occur or have potential to occur on the site. There was also it was also noted that there's suitable habitat for the northern long eared bat, which is an endangered species, as well as the tricolored bat, which is a proposed endangered species. Mitigating this is suggested by conducting a bat survey between the months of May and August. With transportation, parks, open space, and trails, Staff is very supportive of the robust pedestrian network, namely this connectivity up to the Broad Run Trail and the internal passive recreation elements that they are offering. Staff also is greatly in support of the joint development agreement with all the other Benton Hill projects in conjunction with this one.
Regarding housing, staff supports the profit affordable housing approach that they have taken. We also support the special needs housing options that are added into the proffers. Staff does recognize that there are a lot of developments coming in all at once on the Vent Hill Corridor and that there remains some uncertainty with county staff and school board with impacts. However, we do understand that the applicant is working with the other Vent Hill projects and applicants or developers to mitigate impacts together. The applicant requested several modifications and waivers to this with this application, and staff reviewed all of these looking at impacts and we support all of the requested waivers and modifications as stated.
And with that, the planning office does recommend approval of rezoning 2025, 10, the village of Broad Run, because this use meets targeted land use and the overall density targeted for this area. The use fulfills the targeted increase of residential supply that's needed within the county and voiced in the strategic plan. And the proposed development does provide a robust pedestrian and trail network connection assisting in that planned extension of the Broad Run Trail to Vint Hill Road. We have staff from Parks and Rec and Transportation here that can help answer any specific questions on those topics, and I'm also happy to answer any questions you may have.
Thank you. You may have seat. We will now open up the floor for public comment for this particular project, the village at Broad Run. Commissioner Carroll, do you have anybody signed up?
Yes. Right now, there are two individuals signed up, Jeff Fliss and Yahia Saad. If there's any other individuals who'd like to speak, if you can head to the back, just, again, name magisterial district or generally where you live, three minutes if you're an individual, five minutes if you're representing an organization.
How are you doing? I'm Jeff. I'm from, Silas Drive, and that's Brentsville District. This is in regards to primarily stormwater and wells, with the impact. My property is directly across the street from this development, and I brought it to the attention of the developer, about, stormwater because I actually have discharge on my property from that from their project and indicated that I'm concerned about our wells.
There are four wells around the storm water pond close to Silas Drive. Where the stormwater comes across my property, it would it would be about 65 feet from my wellhead. Very concerned about potential contamination. Put a project this size is going to utilize a lot of fertilizer, a lot of different chemicals to include salt, sodium used for ice melt, that kind of stuff. And that's very big concern of ours.
We are an existing neighborhood. We're the unique we're pretty unique comparative to all the other projects in this area. We're the only one that's pretty much directly impacted by this project. I don't have a problem with the project. The problem I've got is with the, you know, con concern with our wells.
I know Saif and his team have been very, very, you know, accommodating and and very upfront, but I need that I need a guarantee. The the well protection is the biggest thing. If our if we lose our well, who's gonna provide us water? Can't the county's not gonna bring a water line down our road to protect us, So I'm very concerned about that and the storm water. The other the other questions I've got and concerns are Silas Drive as a community.
We're not an HOA. We are just a group of people. Most of them are second and third generation. We've been there fifty years, okay, on that road. We're very concerned about any type of connectivity from the project with any road connections. We do not want traffic on our road. It is a dead end street. We don't need any traffic. I know they've mentioned that, but I am here to reiterate that Silas Drive as a community is completely against any type of connectivity from any of these projects. We're cons very concerned that literally we could stand out in the middle of the road when we had our meetings, and we'd have one or two cars go down.
We don't want a 150 cars going down, you know, every couple of hours. We don't want it at all. So with that being said, that's what I have to say.
Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Hello again, everyone. I'm not gonna repeat myself. I just would advocate on behalf of many young families like ours that you support the rezoning. I will actually tell a story of two families that I know of whose house of worship is off Vint Hill Road, and currently, they are renting and commute twenty to thirty minutes to get to their house of worship. Most of their friends, the community that they identify with is in this area.
So having more housing options enables people to be closer to their community and actually live amongst their community. So that's all I'll say. I would encourage that the planning commission vote in favor of the rezoning. Thank you.
Thank you. Is there anyone signed up online?
There is one remote speaker. Okay.
Good evening. Our remote speaker is Angela Klein.
Hi. I would like to request five minutes as part of CAPSA.
That's that works.
Thank you. Hi. Good evening, commissioners. I am actually a little bit under the weather. I would be there in person. I have seen a lot of you occasionally. I just wanted to so I'm Angela Klein. I live on Silas Drive right next to this project. We're
the Northeast Quarter or Northeast Side Of Silas. We abut the project, our property does. And it's one of the reasons actually why was formed and how I got involved in the Brentsville District. I just wanna start out with saying that Saif and his team have been amazing to work with. They've been very receptive.
Receptive. Jeff alluded to the meetings we have had on the street. I think it has been three or four. They have been very communicative with our correspondence as has Commissioner Carroll and the Brentsville supervisor's office. As noted during the applicant's presentation, we did advocate the full street side of petition and waiver that's on file with both the commission and the supervisor's office along with PWC DOT and VDOT to remove that interpersonal road collection to Silas Drive.
We just want to make sure that that actually does occur. I noted that in the final comments with VDOT, I believe it was a comment dated 02/05/2025, that they requested Public Street 6 will need to connect to Silas Drive. PWC DOT, in their final comments dated 12/2025, said that they would like that connection to be removed and only made if Silas Drive is improved to accommodate additional traffic. So that's a huge thing for us, and I know that the applicant has been very, very understanding, of that as well. Additionally, the applicant also was very receptive to the removal of the storm water management pond right behind actually our residence.
And he also, as the applicant referenced during their presentation, moved a dog park to the inner portion of the development as well as committed to increasing the tree buffer behind our side of the road as well. I just didn't see that in the proffers, so we'd like to make sure that that tree buffer that is noted in the at least the handout that the Silas Drive residents obtained is also going to be, you know, just noted for record. Jeff went over the storm water, which the applicant was very, very open to discussing. So we, again, appreciate Safe and Adam for having those conversations with us. There's a Bryant property.
That's the property that's next to the Harryman property that was included in this last application. That is on the West Side of Silas Drive. We wanna just ensure, and the safe and Adam are very understanding of this, that the Bryant property has access to Silas Drive via that land bay. I believe it's called Land Bay 2 so that they can go in and out of their residence without issue. Currently, they go in and out on Vent Hill, which is where the roundabout will likely be in transition of traffic.
So we are advocating for a designation point on Silas Drive for them. I also wanted to point issues that we do still have with the project and as noted in the most recent planning package. This has to do with Land Bay 3. Again, while the applicant was very communicative with us, we do note that zoning ordinance section 30 two-two 150.82 says that use of two or more lots to satisfy zoning requirement provides that two or more contiguous lots under the same ownership may be used to satisfy zoning requirements. So the zoning ordinance has no provision to allow noncontiguous parcels to be used to meet minimum zoning ordinance requirements.
And that was something that on page 17, staff does not support the above proper number three as proposed by the applicant due to those zoning ordinance sections. So overall, while we don't you know, change is difficult for us. We understand that this is the applicant's land. They have done a lot in, you know, communicating with us as well as commissioner Carol. So ultimately, we wouldn't like this to happen, but the applicant has been very, very great to communicate with our street. So we thank them for that.
Thank you. Is there anyone else signed up online?
There is no one else on
the I'd like to speak.
Okay.
Please. I'd like to ask for five minutes. I'm Paul Short, resident of Allison Estrode, and I represent a lot of the landowners and residents out there and all my friends.
You will only get three minutes, sir.
Okay. I'll start now. I'm gonna try to be very focused. I the last proposal and this proposal do not make any logical sense, and to put to streamline seven applicants all within three months is too much overburden. The infrastructure of the neighborhood cannot take care of this, and all these developments are cluster zoned into 200 or 400 homes on 50 acres.
That is gonna stress the infrastructure of the aquatic water filter table that supports Western Prince William County as well as all Eastern Prince William, Stafford to our South, Loud to our North, and Fairfax to our East. This if we if we just if we do to destroy and damage the aquatic water table and it dissipates and goes somewhere else, we're we're gonna have no water there at all now in the future. We've had 3.5 inches of rain that I have measured this year in my pocket. So I and I've seen eight foot drop in Lake Manassas. I walked across the Bull Run River with no water in it.
I've been to Lake Jackson and stood down in the bottom of the pit at the base of the lake. We have we have we have no reservoirs that should be implemented into these projects. On Broad Run and Keller Run, you should have water reservoirs that will hold and retain the water that can then be purified by a water treatment facility and put back into the awkward system or the water table for residents. The, where the water is coming from, I have no comprehensive idea because the infrastructure in this county, the the sewer lines through Braemar, the water tower at Marshteller were never were never designed for this increased infrastructure build out. So where is all the water coming from?
Where's the water going to? Where's the sewer going to? Do we even have a new sewer treatment plant? Or are we contracting Fairfax to treat it all for us? Who then throws into the river there in Manassas Park and it goes downstream? I mean, there's a lot. And then what does it cost to the electricity and what does it cost to the sewer that will be treated by another jurisdiction? And what happens when we overfill the capacity of the trunk lines? Are we gonna be the next 250,000,000 gallon sewage spill in the Potomac? But, no, it's gonna be in Kettle Run and Broad Run. And what what are we gonna do with this problem then? Well, the sewer line has a three foot capacity. But if you put four foot capacity, I can't take a 16 ounce soda and put it in a 12 ounce cup. It doesn't work. The sewers lines are like that.
There is no upgraded sewer line capacity. There is then they say, oh, here's a million dollars for the roads. Why don't we all build the road? Well, a million dollars isn't gonna build a $100,000,000 road. Let me go over to schools real fast, please. Thank
you. Your time is unfortunately up.
There's 1,800 new students on the North Side that have no school designation space.
Thank thank you.
Thank you.
Where where are we gonna put 1,800 new students?
Thank you, sir, for your comments. We will be moving on. Do you have any more comments? Seeing none, we'll have the applicant up to address any concerns you've heard.
First, I wanted to start with stormwater management. So as part of stormwater management, it's regulated by both the county and the state. They have stringent requirements and regulations which requires us to treat everything on-site and treat it as if it was a forested condition. It's actually going to be capturing the runoff better when we are developed than what it is today. But the applicant did also include that low impact development.
So what that does is that adds additional filtration options to help filter additional filtration for any pollutants. The applicant is willing to proffer well monitoring, so pre and post construction well monitoring for those that live on Silas Drive. So prior to any grading construction activity, sending a letter to every resident on Silas Drive to see
if they would like to have
their wells monitored and then at the end of the site construction, re monitoring the wells because what we're doing is getting a baseline and then repairing or replacing any well that may have been damaged due to construction. So that is something the applicant is absolutely willing to do. As far as the comment pertaining to contiguous and non contiguous lots, the zoning ordinance, while it says that there's also the ability to waive and modify so the board is able to waive and modify. This has actually been done on other cases, including the Stanley Martin Kettle Run project for Longleaf that was done there as well. There were non contiguous lots.
And then I just wanted to let you all know that each land bay by itself can meet the tree canopy requirements and the open space requirements. They're actually exceeding for all of the land base separately, and they do meet those together. And then I heard a question just regarding infrastructure. So one thing that was important when we were going through these projects and that the board member made very clear is you can't look at these projects one at a time. You have to look at them holistically and what are those impacts.
So Alex had mentioned previously that there was the master development study done. That master development study not only looked at roads, but it also looked at water, sewer connection, and schools. What the applicant did I'm gonna scroll a little bit just to address the one comment that I heard specifically regarding schools. So with the master development study, all of these students are set to go to the Noakesville K Through Eight school, and we are aware that the Nokesville k through eight school is currently overcrowded. What the applicant did was they looked at what are the schools that are in this planning area, and within that planning area is there capacity, and the answer is yes.
There is capacity within the planning area to accommodate additional additional students. The applicants for those seven projects along the Vint Hill Road corridor not only looked at these seven projects, but they also looked at projects on Route 28 that have been approved or are planned to say, if we take all of these projects that are set to go to the Nokesville k through eight school, what does that look like? And then they funneled those. The school board has seen these and will likely act what we were told is the school board is not going to make a decision and do redistricting until after the projects are approved. And so what this shows you here is the Noakesville Elementary School, so that k through eight school.
That is currently overcapacity. This line here is overcapacity. Blue is the student projections for each school. Purple is the new students that would be generated by the projects that I showed on the previous screen. So in all scenarios, when those students are funneled, there is still existing capacity and enough capacity to accommodate those students as well as future students.
They also did the same thing with the middle school, and there is capacity within the middle school level. There is capacity today at Brentsville High School, but they did the same thing within the high school capacity as well. And then within the Alderwood project, that project actually proffered a site that can be used as a middle school, elementary school, or combination thereof. So it could be used as the Nokesville k through eight model on this. In addition, the county does own property at the end of Vint Hill Road that could fit a high school site. So I just wanted to be able to answer those questions. And I can answer any other questions that you all may have when it's my time.
Thank you. Staff, you have Ms. Maggie, do you have any questions? I mean, any responses to what you've heard?
I support what Ms. Cameron was speaking on with the schools. In regards to the applicant or the member of the public that spoke about a staff comment about the provision in the zoning code for contiguous lots meeting minimum requirements. That, I believe, was probably from the first version of the staff report that was set to come out previously. This was before the applicant had provided such strong connections up to the broad rail Tron broad rail trail Broad Run Trail, which, you know, satisfies in staff's opinion the intent of that provision in the zoning code so.
Okay thank you very much. Anyone on the dais have questions? Alright Commissioner Scheifler.
I had a question if you could bring up the trail map from this presentation here. Yes. So is the intent that on Land Bay 3, the trail will be built as part of this project?
It is not proffered, but the applicant is willing to build the trail.
Okay. Well, that gets to my next point. So there's that section that's to the east that's proposed. Is the county have a project in there, or is that something that because, again, there's this kind of nexus that we're gonna build something to nowhere. Okay.
Commissioner Scheifele, can ask answer that. Seif Rahman, JR Real Estate managing partner. That property actually belongs to Brookfield, who is proffering it as part of either Strathmore or Silver Bell. So they are proffering to complete that trail connection as part of the overall agreements between all the developers that that trail connection will be done. So Brookfield Properties owns that piece of property, and that was the missing link between the the Maracone Peach, which we piece which we purchased in order to complete the trail and the current Broad Broad Run Linear Park and the Broad Run Linear Trail.
Okay. So for Chris, I'd recommend that we accept that to make build that portion of trail so we have a when this is done, then there's a complete trail network that existing and new residents can use.
Thank you.
It'd be one of my questions, so I appreciate it. Commissioner Scheifler.
Alright. Commissioner Shaffer, did you have yours on? No. Commissioner I'm I'm sorry. Vice chair. Justice.
Thank you. So if Parks and Rec's here, I have a question about that other parcel up there. So I understand that that'll be future use, for Prince William County Parks and Rec.
Can you
tell me if there's anything else or, a little bit about that property?
So are you talking about the the larger parcel along Broad Run or the three acre parcel on Vint Hill?
The one up there with nothing on it except the trail.
Right. So that would be a only used for a trail connection and potentially, a trailhead as part of, I believe, Silver Bell. They're we're working with them to leave, is it the extension of Pioneer Drive intact to as a maintenance access and potentially a small trailhead there. I don't envision that we would, do any further development beyond that. It would be passive use.
So no park, like visitor parking or anything like that so that other people in the area can access this trail network without parking in the communities?
Yes. Sorry. That's what I meant by by trailhead parking. Yes. So if if we are able to use Pioneer Drive as an access road, which we we will be through the Silver Bell, and that's, yeah, that's right along the the the property line of Silver Bell on the east side.
Where's sorry.
Right there. Going up. And that gives us access to the parcel that's being dedicated as part of the villages, and we can use that as trailhead parking.
So the trailhead parking will be on this piece of property or sorry. I'm having trouble seeing because this is so shaded. Where where does that road
It's right at in yeah.
Yeah. Make it both sides.
So it's it's right along that property line. There's an existing it's a it's a driveway right now. It's it's County Road to a certain point, and then it becomes a driveway.
Okay.
And then yes. So the that that gets us connection up to the the parcel that will be dedicated as part of this project, and we would, potentially put a small trailhead parking lot there.
So where does the road end? If if you're looking at the zoomed in picture, I'm sorry to
It gets to this parcel.
It it goes to that parcel.
Correct.
Okay. So there could potentially be parking on that parcel.
Yes.
I understand. Thank you. I think I took all my questions just to clarify. Alright.
To you.
Yes. Thank you. In terms of the inter parcel connector, and this might be a question for transportation. And so generally speaking, you know, I I like to keep to projects at hand and and the proffers at hand and, you know, not look at
the
broader plan of the area, but since it was kind of opened up. So I know we just talked about Greenhaven where we said the interpersonal was not needed because they had ingress, egress on Pioneer and on Vint Hill. Strathmore is approved at this point. We have those roads planned. They will be built. So now when we're looking at Village, why can we not say the same thing that we now have ingress egress on Van Hill? And I mean, they're frankly a hop, skip, and a jump right over Pioneer as well for the second ingress, egress point.
Chair Brown, members of the commission, Kevin Wyrock, transportation planning manager. If I believe this is in regards to the VDOT comments that, still support the Silas Drive connection. Those were made before the approval of Strathmore. I believe that Strathmore, with this approval, the two, interparcel connections to that, as well as the planned interparcel connection, which is, of course, still under review. This development would meet its SSAR requirements, would beat out the secondary street acceptance requirements.
Just for the record, county transportation does not see a need for a Silas Drive interpersonal connection here. Silas Drive is less than 25 feet wide. It is a unimproved dicks ditch section roadway, and, currently, we don't have any plans to improve that anytime in the near future. So between the Vinhill connections and the connections to the approved Strathmore, we believe that the connections are sufficient for this rezoning.
So my follow-up question would be if if is a possibility that we can check that with VDOT prior to the board hearing, make sure that, you know, hey, they give us a thumbs up. And then I'll I'll even take that a step further. I know Silas Drive I mean, if we throw a house right there at the end, block that connection, I know they would be very appreciative. And, you know, here here I am recommending more homes, but I think that is one that
I'll answer that.
Would be very appreciative for the community.
We proffered that reservation. So the other thing that we can do is remove the proffer for the registry for the reservation. So that way, it's clear that that's where it ends. But we can also potentially redesign the storm water in that area as well. So, yes, we can do something to also just make sure that that area is blocked, whether it's a fence or something else. We're happy to do that and remove the reservation language.
Yeah. Definitely. I I think, you know, if if it needs to be have, I think we my preference would definitely be turn it over to the county. But if VDOT, it says we don't need it, I I would suggest if we can find a way to block it off, I think the community would
very much
I anticipate there'll be more discussions with VDOT, the county, and the applicant between now and the board.
Perfect. Okay. That was my three for now.
Can I ask you a question for transportation, please?
Commissioner I'm sorry. Vice chair. Justice, back to you.
Could staff speak more about the special needs housing? I must have looked that over when I read through the staff report. Can you expand on that?
Sure. So, we have, noticed that in the, comprehensive plan, there's several policies, and, this this relates back to a policy that encourages new housing to have the ability to place those with special needs in them or, you know, if it's for purchase, they would have the ability to have the house designed with these elements in them. Anytime I personally see these in project, like to highlight that they're there because I feel they are important. So that's why you heard those in the presentation today.
Can you give me some examples of what that might include?
Sure. So they have do you want to go ahead and 12. Okay. Thanks. She's now so proffers.
Let's see here. So they're called universal design standards, and their options, things such as blocking for reinforcement of fall grab bars, front entrance doors that are a minimum of 36 inches wide, electrical outlets that are minimum of 18 inches high on the wall, light switches and thermostats that are located a maximum of 48 inches high on the wall, lever door handles instead of doorknobs, weather sheltered main entry doors, smart thermostats, curbless showers or showers with a maximum of two inch high curbs, front loading washers and dryers, and if a 1st Floor bathroom is installed, a console sink in lieu of a cabinet style vanity.
Has this been on other projects and I just missed over it? Okay. Thank you.
Sorry. That's okay. Any more questions? Commissioner Carroll?
Yes. In terms of the stormwater management for the one closest to the Phil's residence, is there in terms of I know it was kinda discussed the possibility of utilizing a a underground stormwater management pond. Is that something that can be proffered, or is that more at the design stage upon site plan?
That is more at the design stage, but what we specifically did allow in our proffers so, watershed management staff has basically said if you want to have underground storm water management or the ability to do it, there's a certain set of proffers that they want just to make it clear who's responsible to maintain
Okay.
On that system and then providing an escrow, for the maintenance of that system for the HOA. So for these specific proffers, we do have the proffer that would allow for underground stormwater management, and it would be decided at site plan.
Okay. Perfect. And then as far as I understand, the applicant will will push for that or do their best to Yes. Push for that. Okay.
Then in terms of the Harryman piece, the Harryman parcel, so there there and that just for reference, that's the three acre lot on Vinh Hill. So there's not a lot in the proffers about what exactly that parcel will be used for. I think it was discussed it might be parks and rec use. It might be a public safety use. I guess what I it doesn't necessarily matter to me, but what I I definitely would like to see in the proffers, and I think we had discussed this earlier, is the easement for the Bryant's driveway and the proffer for the construction of that driveway so he has a safe ingress, egress to get onto Silas and, you know, exit his residence?
Okay. So I wanna answer it two ways, but I'll start backwards first. So, yes, that's something that we can add into the proffers to give that access to that driveway. But we left the actual use open because we also know the county is doing the small area plan along this corridor, so that's another parcel that the county has that the county can master plan in the way they see appropriate. Ultimately, it would require a public facilities review likely for the end use. But, yes, we can add that into the proffers.
Perfect. Yeah. I just wanna make sure that they are taken care of for the Okay. Driveway and construction of it.
Okay. If there are no more questions from Indias, we will turn Chair? It to Oh, I'm sorry.
I've been letting Commissioner Carroll check off most of my questions.
Oh, okay. Go ahead, Commissioner Ross.
I have a couple left. The density. I heard what you said earlier, those were good things, but I am curious if you can just tell me the aggregate dwelling unit density for Land Bays 1 And 2. It's not that a waiver is guaranteed to be inappropriate here, I just wanna know how much I'm waiving.
I apologize. So for Land Bay 1 And 2, I'll go to this is sort of the land Bay line. So this is Land Bay 1 And 2 in total. We're at 3.53 dwelling units per acre. So we are not yes. We're at 3.53, sorry, dwelling units per acre acre aggregate. So in total.
Thank you. You're welcome.
The staff report mentioned the possibility of needing to take care of endangered species. So I haven't heard anything more from anybody yet about that. Will or Maggie, could you tell me what's at risk or Janelle, what's at risk and what opportunities we have for off ramps or protections if there is a serious risk?
Absolutely. So for the endangered species, there's one that is listed and there won't there's one that has not been listed yet, but that is proposed to be listed. It is federally regulated. So there is a specific clearing season. So you can clear between this date and this date.
And then if you want to clear between those dates, you have to do a bat study to ensure that there are no bats on the site before you clear. But, essentially, it's not a risk because it's federally mandated. So essentially, you put your address into a federal system. It pops out whether or not there's a likely to have on the property, and if it's likely to have, you have to go through the steps at the time of site plan development in order to develop the site and essentially clear the site is the best way to put that.
Okay. Thank you.
You're welcome.
Third topic, the well the studies to determine whether or not neighboring wells are affected. I believe a big part of the residents concerns is not during construction or immediately after, but maybe five or even ten years down the road. For what period does the currently proffered acceptance or responsibility for possible well damage extend? How long does that extend into the future?
So the normal proffer and how we've done that is it's essentially, I think for the last project we did, was six months after the end of construction, But for this specific project, he's willing to extend it until they're off bond, which is, like, five or six years after the start of construction.
Okay. Thank you.
You're welcome.
Commissioner Carroll, you might. You're taking notes, I presume? Okay. Thank
you, chair.
Thank you, chair. I'm finished.
Okay. Commissioner Carroll.
Yes. Thank you, commissioner Ross. That was one of my last questions. And just as the next step in that, so say in that time period, is an issue, does that proffer also include the replacement of the well? Should there be a problem?
Yes. It's repair or replacement.
Perfect.
And then just to make sure on the record too, the northwest tree canopy, that is outside the limits of disturbance.
Yes. And it's hard to see on this sheet, but it the limits of disturbance is this here. So that's the LOD, and we've specifically proffered to substantial conformance to our our master zoning plan, which includes the LOD that is shown on the master zoning plan.
Perfect. Thank you.
You're welcome.
Carroll.
Great. Thank you. First, I'd like to thank all the staff that was here supporting us tonight. Miss Costello, thank you very much. And mister Boyd, arborist, Kevin, definitely thank you for all your work on this project.
Thank you to the public who came out to speak. I know this has been a long journey. We're not there yet. But, you know, these projects, they they do cause me concern, and, you know, we've been through a lot of why those concerns exist in terms of density and then the flow on of what that density is gonna provide to this area that is frankly rural, and how that's gonna impact, you know, the taxpayer in terms of, road improvements, how it's gonna affect schools, potential eminent domain down the road. But, you know, the the applicant has done a very good job in working with the community on this project, especially the residents of Silas Drive.
And I think we've done a good job of mitigating as much as we can with where we are today. Now do I wish the density could have also been decreased to help parlay some of those other items? Absolutely. You know, I am always harping on that. But I think where we are today and with some of the additional proffers that we're committed to tonight. With that, I'd like to move to recommend approval of rezoning R E Z 2025 Dash 00010, the village of Broad Run subject to the proffers dated 02/12/2020. Okay. I'd like to close the public hearing.
The public hearing is now closed.
I guess we didn't follow our guidance earlier. Correct. I'd like I move to recommend approval of rezoning REZ2025Dash00010, The Village At Broad Run, subject to the proffers dated 02/12/2026 with the following conditions, inclusion of a proffer for pre and post construction well testing for the residents of Silas Drive to include replacement of any wells as needed throughout the bond period inclusion of an easement and driveway construction through the Harryman parcel for the Bryant residents onto Silas Drive continued to work with transportation staff to ensure the inter parcel connector onto Silas Drive is fully removed or provided to the county, and an inclusion of a proffer to build and construct the trail on Land Bay 3.
Hold on. Date of the conditions.
Subjects to proffers dated February 12. Second.
Okay. The motion has been made by commissioner Carroll and properly seconded by commissioner Ross. Madam oh, commissioner Scheifler. Sorry. Madam clerk, will
you please call the vote? Yes. Chair Brown?
Yes.
Vice Chair Justice?
My vote, I feel like the applicant handled the concerns and weren't really close with residents. I could hear that from the comments that came through, and I vote yes.
Commissioner Carroll.
Yes.
Commissioner Moses Snead. Commissioner Ross.
Before I cast the vote I'd like to say that I think we sent some votes for projects in the same area. We've gotten some clarity from the school board about their future and of the district in lines. I would like a lot more clarity but I'm able to vote yes for this project.
Commissioner Scheifler? Yes. Commissioner Shake? Yes. Motion carries.
Okay. Thank everyone for explaining, and you can now leave the chamber. Please be quiet on your way out. We'll continue to conduct county business. We are now moving on to item 12, planning commission procedures going down the dais. Anyone got old business starting with commissioner Shape? Commissioner Carroll? Vice chair of justice?
No, ma'am.
Commissioner Ross? Nope. You got your light on?
So that I can say no on the record.
Commissioner Scheifler.
I had, one item. Is the status of the DCS
Excuse us. We're still conducting county business. Hello? Leave the chamber quietly, please. Thank you.
Leave quietly, please. Leave the chamber quietly. Sorry about that. Go ahead, Commissioner Scheifler.
Do we know what the status of the DCSM section 600 is? I know we looked at that probably over a year ago now.
In my understanding, it's still being worked on, but they will bring it back to the planning commission.
Oh, they bring it back to planning commission? Yeah. Okay. Do we have a date on that? Or
No. We do not have one yet.
Okay. Do we know what the delay has been?
Parking, I believe, is
Oh, okay.
Working on parking. Our funnest topics. Alright. Thanks.
Okay. Going back to you, commissioner Scheiffer, with any new business.
No new business.
Commissioner Ross? No. Vice chair of justice? No, ma'am. Commissioner Carroll? No. Commissioner Sheikh? No, ma'am. Okay. I have no new business either. Moving to item 13, commission members time. Anyone got any thing for commission members time you'd like to say? Commissioner Sheikh?
Yes, I would like to thank the staff and thank all the fellow commissioners for asking great questions. I really am very appreciative of Commissioner Carroll to be so well prepared and great line of questioning and great negotiation also to take care of all the constituents in his district. Thank you.
Hey. Commissioner Carroll.
Yes. I just wanted to Commissioner Justice was asking me, but just wanted to give a shout out to CAPSA, the local, somewhat new civic organization kind of in the Brentsville area. They're the Civic Association of Brentsville and surrounding areas. And just want to highlight them. They recently, went down to Richmond. They were, received kind of recognition from delegate Guzman down in Richmond for a lot of the work that they are doing, for the community. So just wanna highlight and recognize them as well for all the hard work that they're putting in. Wonderful.
Moving down the dais last year. I'm all good. You're good? Thank you. Okay. Commissioner Ross.
We've all been receiving emails from concerned constituents about the power line projects in the Braemar area. I was curious where the people sending those emails live so I've put them all into a map. If anybody else is curious I can just send me an email I'll shoot you back a screenshot to illustrate where the concern is coming from. Other than that, nothing else.
Okay. Commissioner Scheifler.
Nothing.
Okay. Well, I do want to say that, unfortunately, we did not get to say a formal goodbye to our, chair, Juan McPhail. And so I think I will say on behalf of the dais and the commissioners, we really want to thank him for his service that he gave to his planning commission. I believe he was on his commission about eight years. And so I just wanna say thank you to, our prior chair, McPhail.
We, wish you well in your endeavors, and we're you're gonna truly be missed. So thank you for your service. And with that, we are at the adjournment. Will I have a a motion to adjourn?
Motion to adjourn. Second.
Alright. Here we go. Meeting adjourned.
Aye.
Participate as well. Okay. So so now so we talk general. Well, you have done a lot of work and I I know because I've read a lot of emails from you around early voting and now what is available to our residents to vote early. I wonder if you could talk a bit about what that is, what it means, some of the polling locations.
Yeah. Sure thing. So early voting starts by state law forty five days prior to any primary or general election, which means that our office itself has to be open, and then the county can provide additional locations for voters in their locality to go vote. Now early voting, you can go to any early voting center. We print the ballots on demand at those sites, so anybody can go to any location. So if you are passing by one on a shopping trip or your
way home from work Okay.
Stop in and vote. It doesn't doesn't matter which location it is. So for this particular election at our office, voting starts on September 19 and then all the other locations open on Sunday, October 19. So the nineteenth are two dates this time. Those other locations include, in the western part of the county, you're gonna have the Haymarket, library. You've got the Brentsville Courthouse. Towards the middle of the county, you have our office, which is located in Manassas right near the courthouse. And then in the eastern part of the county, have the Dumfries Community Center. You've got the Furlasso Building and the DMV location. So all of those locations are available for the last two weeks of early voting every day except for one day.
So and we do do late voting on Wednesday. So it gives people that are coming home from work an opportunity. We're open till seven Okay. On those nights.
So should be easy to remember, September 19 and October 9. Yeah. Did you do that on purpose? No.
It's just the calendar. We locked down a little bit this election. So Very good.
Now for other options, although there's it seems like there are many different places, and certainly you've expanded the hours. Yeah. But for for folks who wanna mail in Yeah. How does that process work? Well, mail voting is available
to any voter. It used to be you had to have a reason to vote by mail. Mhmm. But now it's available for anybody. So you can apply to to vote by mail per each election. So maybe if you're gonna be out of town, that's how you'd prefer. You can fill out an application. Just go to our website and you'll find that out. Or you can ask to receive a mail ballot every election. Make sure you don't miss an election. In Virginia, we have them every year. Election season really never ends.
Yes. That is absolutely right.
No. So you can get one every single election if you want, either option. But we have a fair number of voters that receive them that way. It can be a great option if you have maybe mobility issues. Or if you just prefer to vote at home, take your time, read about the candidates, you know, on your phone or your computer at home and vote that way. That can be a good option for people. So between that and early voting, a lot of options prior to election day.
Yeah. Alright. So now we talked a lot about early voting, mail in voting, so many options before election day for residents who, you know, wanna take that option. But for residents who don't take the option and are looking to vote actually on election day, you know, what what is the process like? I'm thinking polling place. I'm thinking sort of the experience on election day of of of actually voting.
Yeah. Yeah. So you are still allowed to vote on election. That is allowed. So that is good. That'll be November 4. Tuesday, November 4. Our elections are always on a Tuesday. Now when you're voting on election day, unlike early voting, on election day, you need to go to your assigned polling place. So you can go on our website. You can find out what that is. The state's website for the State Department of Elections also has that information. So find out where your polling place is. You'll able to look at your sample ballots for your particular location, and that will help you make a voting plan for election day. Another thing you should remember on election day as well, make sure you bring your identification with you.
Most people just bring a driver's license, but there are other options available. They're on our website as well. Things like you can bring a utility bill. If you're a military member, can bring your military ID. So there are different options, but we always encourage people to make a voting plan since it's the last day of of voting on election day. Some people do enjoy the event and the, you know, the crowds and that kind of thing. So if you do vote that way,
that is fine. Just make a plan. The curbside did I understand that there was a curbside component?
Yeah. Yep. So if you're doing early voting or on election day, we do have curbside voting So officers at the polling place will come out to your vehicle, assist you with the process, get you checked in, get you a ballot, scan the ballot for you, confirm that your ballot has been scanned. So all you have to do is pull up to those locations.
Yeah. Actually, nice, especially for, like, seniors or someone with disability.
Yeah. Well, in some of our locations, you know, the the the distance from the parking lot to the door can be a long way and sometimes even inside the building you have to travel a long way. So if you have a mobility issues or you're a senior or it's just more convenient for you, you can pull up to that curbside spot. There's a bell that's there, so you can ring the bell or there's a cell phone number there. Usually, our team will be out there to help you, but if not, there's a way to alert someone that you're there. So you can, you know,
vote from your car at either early voting or on election day. You know, I I think about there's so many touch points for local government when it comes to sort of transparency, belief in in government, and I think I feel like elections is one of those places where folks really need to believe and and trust Yeah. That what they are doing will count Yeah. And that there is real validity to that process. So I say that to say the work that you've done just to make sure you are transparent in the operations of the elections office is so critically important. So just wanna appreciate Yeah. Appreciate you and the team.
Thanks. I think that, you know, voting is not only a fundamental right, but we're also a really strong touchpoint for people's interaction with government and the county. So if you look at the agencies that that people interact with the most often, you know, we're second on that list. We're right up there with libraries and parks and recreation for agencies that that people interact with a lot. We're a pretty small agency though, and we're a pretty small budget.
But we have, you know, we hire close to a thousand election officers who are all volunteers from the community that go out there. So at your polling place, you're gonna have bipartisan election officers out there on election day. So I think it's a not only is it important for the right that we're protecting, but it's also a common interaction point for county residents. And I think we always try to stress to our officers and our staff how important the customer service component of it is, how important the that people believe in the security and the accountability of the Absolutely. So we've tried to sort of promote some strategic ideas that have helped to give the community more resources, but also just to give people more assurance of the process.
If you're a election skeptic or maybe you always have had been confident in elections, but maybe a little have some concerns Mhmm. We wanna make sure that we're answering those questions for people and that we're addressing that sort of, you know, issue of the moment, which Right. Always changes in our field.
Absolutely. Some very busy weeks and months ahead for you. Uh-huh. Sure. I wanna just thank you again for your leadership here in the county. Yeah. And not just to you, but to your team. I mean Yeah. So many of them go, and I'm sure you thank them every day, but they probably don't get a lot of attention from the public. So I just wanna appreciate them as well.
It's a team of about 18 people. Yep. They get a lot of work done, and I appreciate their dedication and their expertise.
Thank you all so much, for joining us today. We really appreciated this conversation. So much good work happening in the elections office as you could hear and see for those joining us on YouTube, today. I'll say we said it a few times during the episode, but I wanna just remind, everyone, where can they go to just find out more information about the elections process or any of the things that we mentioned today?
Sure. Pwcvotes.org. So that's pwcvotes.org. Go to that website. That's gonna have all the information for how you vote, check out your ballot, and find out more about the process. It's all there.
As always, I love to end these episodes just by thanking the guests first for being such a phenomenal leader, here in the county and thanking you, for joining us, for another episode of Shorter Topics Bigger Impact. We will see you next time. For the future.
Sure a I'm
I'm you are ahead chance and certainly acknowledge that they are not on this path alone.
Today's event is really focused on mindfulness health and really to inspire everyone to practice, mental health awareness as well as to take care of the mental health. It has really brought the community together and, our individuals with lived experience to showcase their strengths and their talents, to provide resources, to continue to heighten awareness.
A lot of people don't know the resources that are available to them. So often time, they feel scared or they don't want to call for help. So I think it's really vital to come to these events and see the resources that the county really has to offer. And I think a lot of people are not privy to it, especially the correspondent unit and all the things that we can offer to prevent crisis and really connect them with, you know, therapeutic services or outreach or engagement or any sort of resources that they're really looking for.
I started detox therapy because I lost my father in 2017 and I decided to draw every day. And then something aside just told me, take all these illustrations and turn them into a coloring book and little did I know that I was in the path to change my life and other people's lives. And to see people try something new and to just shed light on something they probably didn't consider once before for their self care routine. I want them to walk away feeling inspired, feeling hopeful, and sparking some imagination in them.
I think it's really important to make sure that people know that they're being cared for. And so to have the county have a event like this just shows that that we have not only the agencies and the programs to actually help people that are going through either a mental crisis issue or are just dealing with mental health all throughout their life that we have something that we can do for them. But I think the biggest takeaway for us also is they can tell us what we actually need, what what improvements that we can make, and we can see where we can add more programming as well.
Sometimes, a place can make its mark on you, and sometimes, you can make your mark on a place. That place is Prince William County. A place where the momentum of smart growth continues to create vibrant communities with spaces to play, explore, and enjoy. Where people in the most diverse county in Virginia enjoy unique live venues, parks, forests, and shoreline along the Potomac. A place where innovative research and manufacturing across multiple industries is happening just a stone's throw from unique entertainment and nightlife.
Where being close to DC can still be close to home. Prince William County, a place where you can make your mark.
The women's mentorship program is a fantastic addition to the department. There's a lot of support here in Prince William County Police.
From here to Texas to Colorado, we've been able to help reach out and start that similar program with other police departments.
I've had really good mentors throughout my whole career so far. We go to them with questions, and they love helping us and showing us how we can do things in different ways. Because of those experiences and what they did for me, I wanted to pass that forward.
Clean water is the world's most precious commodity. According to the World Health Organization, 785,000,000 people lack even a basic drinking water service, including 144,000,000 people who are dependent on surface water alone. Our code officials are vigilant protectors of our water supply. Because of their dedicated service, you can turn on the tap in your home and draw sufficient, clean water. Although it can be easy to take for granted, the work that Prince William Health District does for water safety affects residents and businesses daily.
The health district helps in the review and permitting of the area's septic systems. They inspect the systems to ensure that they comply with both state and local regulations. It is important to understand where your water comes from and what's being done and how you can help to protect the water you use every day. Here are some more tips to keep our water supply safe. Don't dump hazardous waste on the ground. It can contaminate the soil which could also contaminate the groundwater or nearby surface water. Don't overuse pesticides or fertilizers. Many fertilizers and pesticides contain hazardous chemicals, which can travel through the soil and contaminate groundwater. Never flush pharmaceuticals and non degradable products down the toilet. This material can build up and prevent systems from working properly.
Pump out your septic tank as needed or once every five years. By working together and with the help of the Prince William Health District, we can keep our water supply safe for generations to come.
Child Abuse Prevention Month recognizes the importance of families and communities working together to strengthen families in order to prevent child abuse and neglect. Building resiliency is crucial in the prevention of child abuse. Resilience
is the ability to bounce back during tough times and the process process by which children and families meet personal and family challenges, trauma, and manage setbacks in adversity. Bounce back is an acronym created by Doctor. Helen McGrath for some of the foundational principles of resilience, specifically B, bad times don't last and things get better.
O, other people can help support you if you talk to them. U, unnecessary worries make things worse.
N, nobody is perfect. Not you, not your friends, not your family, not anybody.
C, concentrate on the good things in life, no matter how small. E, everybody experiences bad times, not just you. It is a normal part of life.
B. Be positive no matter how small the positives are and find the laughter.
A. Accept what you can't change and try to change what you can. C, control your feelings and actions by controlling your thinking.
K, keep things in perspective. Even the worst moment is but one moment in life. When things don't go as you want or if you get knocked down remember that you can bounce back and be okay again.
By building resilience and working together we can keep children and families safe and well. If you're concerned about the abuse or neglect of a child, please report it by calling the Protected Services hotline at (703) 792-4200 or the state hotline twenty four hours a day at 5096.
Like many entrepreneurs, I didn't get into this business for the sake of making money. I got into this business, to change people's lives. For me, that's really what is most important about what I'm doing here at showcase. I think I'm most passionate about seeing kids fail and then overcome that failure. For me, it's the light bulb moments where kids struggle with a step over and over and over again, and then they that light bulb moment happens and it finally clicks. That's that's my paycheck.
When I first started dancing, I loved it. Didn't I come out of class one day and was like, I wanna do this forever.
You told me you wanted to dance until you were
a grandma. My
favorite thing about dance is the community that it brings. There's just so many, like, amazing friends that I've meet in here and so many amazing teachers that I've established relationships with. Showcase is like my second home.
Our classes were wonderful. Our program was growing. And the minute that COVID hit, our life was kind of turned upside down overnight. When we were stripped of the ability to be able to have classes here in the physical space, it was very, very difficult. I applied for numerous grants, and so I got a lot of no's before I got a yes. And Prince William County Economic Development was one of the first grants that was awarded to showcase. With that grant, I was able to become a enabled studio. So we have four studios and all four of them are complete now with a TV, a computer, HD cameras.
I didn't really know what to expect. And so just like being able to dance from home and like given the opportunity because I know a lot of like students in studios didn't do that was really great. So the virtual dance was like the little sprinkle of normalcy. How do you say that?
Normalcy. Normalcy. Okay.
Because I was dancing. I was still at home. We're still being safe and stuff.
Especially in the beginning, they were pretty good about allowing them a few minutes to say hi and and goodbye and interact with each other a little bit because they were all so isolated.
I think the most important thing that came out of the technology though is the ability of kids to connect with their peers. They were isolated for so long and this was one of the only ways that they were able to have a relationship with people that understand what they're going through. A lot of parents reached out to me during this time telling me my child is struggling, my child's going through depression, my child has anxiety, my child's now on medication, and to think if they didn't even have dance while they were going through that, like what would be the outcome? I think dance helped save some kids' lives during this time. The grant may have been a good amount of money, but it it doesn't compare to the lives that I think it saved.
The goal of the fire and life safety inspector is to ensure that every public building is free of fire and life hazards and that they maintain compliance with the Prince William County codes and the Virginia statewide fire prevention code. The inspector enforces fire safety regulations and laws, which reduce accidents and fires that affect life and property in Prince William County. By conducting safety inspections, the inspector can find deficiencies within existing buildings as far as exit lighting, emergency lighting, fire extinguishers, fire alarms, sprinkler systems, and exit doors, which are all important for occupants to safely exit a building during an emergency. Often, the inspector performs new construction inspections, Testing fire alarms, sprinkler systems, underground water mains, and fire lanes are all proactive ways to make sure the new building is prepared for success during an emergency. What are some of the precautions you can take to keep your home safe?
Make sure your smoke detectors are up to date, clean, and test them every six months around daylight savings time. Keep things away from your furnace and electrical panels that could heat up or create a spark. Keep exit doors free from any excess boxes, trash, etcetera. Make sure your address is visible from the road. Some precautions businesses can take include, make sure your annual sprinkler and fire alarm inspections are up to date. If you have a kitchen and hood system, make sure it's cleaned and maintained. Hood systems need to be inspected and tested every six months at a minimum. Ensure your fire extinguishers are up to date. You should check them annually. Maintain exit signs and emergency lighting in proper working order.
The fire marshal's office handles general fire and life safety complaints and inspects them within twenty four hours. Their goal is to make a life saving difference by being proactive in preventing a situation before it ever gets started.
Welcome. I am Chris Shorter, your county executive. Welcome to Shorter Topics. We are in for an exciting episode today. I have three phenomenal leaders here in Prince William County who are just impacting lives in amazing ways.
So I'm looking forward to this conversation and looking forward to introducing for some of you and not for many of you our wonderful leaders and phenomenal guests. So starting with Doctor. Latonya McDade, superintendent of Prince William County Public Schools, doing absolutely amazing work. I think she was voted, last year the superintendent of the year by her colleagues that is all of Northern Virginia, just doing phenomenal work. So welcome, doctor McDade.
Thank you for having me.
Yeah. Absolutely happy to have you. We have David Burge here from George Mason University, Vice President of Enrollment Management. Has been here with us in Prince William County since 2015, so ten years here in this community. Really looking forward to the conversation. And, of course, doctor Richmond Hill, provost of the Northern Virginia Community College Woodbridge campus. So sit back, folks. We are in for a great episode and look forward to the conversation. I'll start out by just saying welcome.
Thank you.
Thanks for having us. Happy to be here. Absolutely.
So we are gonna we are we are in August, and you are probably just a few weeks away, all of you, from starting the semester. Exciting times. Exciting times. I guess let's start out there. How how are you all getting prepared? How are you feeling? What do you have left to do? What should students and parents expect?
This is honestly our busiest time, is planning, getting ready for the start of the school year. So, of course, the number one thing is hiring, making sure that we're fully staffed and all of our classrooms have highly qualified teachers, that we have bus drivers, all of them. I always say what people don't realize in pre K-twelve education is that, yes, our core business is education, but in terms of employment, we cover every sector.
And for you, you are the largest employer in the Yeah.
So we cover every sector. Of course, traditionally the teachers in the classroom, but from business and finance to food service, nutrition support, and everything in the middle, we're hiring for. Of course, classroom teachers is like the big push over the summer, and bus drivers, another big push. So this is our busiest hiring season of the year.
So that's
the big thing. The other thing that we're doing is getting our buildings ready, deep cleaning facilities, making students are coming into bright, warm, and inviting spaces to learn because we know that environment matters and having a positive climate and culture. So a lot of that work's happening. We've got some big renovation projects going on. So it is a hustle and bustle in Prince William County Schools, and we're, you know, we're just getting ready to see smiling faces.
I appreciate that. In fact, you've opened up one of your schools to host us today. This is the first time we've had Shorter Topics on location, so appreciate that we're able to be here with the backdrop of the schools and the cool desks.
So Welcome.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Alright. David, how are you all getting prepared?
Well, first of all, I'm very excited as a parent of a PWCS senior. Like, we too are getting ready and very excited for the return to school and and was commenting before we began here just about how, as a as a user of the PWCS system, how satisfied we are. So thank you for your leadership there. I'm here representing Mason. Mason has about 41,000 students, and all 41,000 of them are making ready to to to either move back or move closer to campus or just sort of reengage with what what it means to be a college student in 2025, which is unique and different than it was to be a college student in So 1990 it's On the
nineties too.
Yeah. The world the world has changed a little bit. So so we're working very hard to not only sort of care and feed for for the students who have had already chosen to be with us and are choosing to continue, but also we have we welcome about 10,000 brand new students to Mason.
Mhmm.
About 4,500 of them are new freshmen straight out of high school, and and, 2,500, 3,000 of them are coming from Northern Virginia Community College and other, community colleges within the VCCS.
Mhmm.
So so there's a lot of of orienting that has to be done for those students. We're right in the thick of it right now.
Very good. And your you're all things enrollment, recruitment, financial aid? Indeed. Yeah. Enrollment management
is is a way to to speak. There's a member of the president's senior team who all they do all day long is think and worry about students and and whether they're enrolled. Are they enrolled in the right things? Are we getting and reaching the right audience? And then more importantly, can they afford it in areas like financial aid and how do we structure our need based programs to reach a broad audience? And if I could close on this part of it anyway by saying, you know, from Prince William County, Mason of all of the Virginia four year institutions gets more applications from Prince William County than any other institution. We value Prince William County in a way that we can't express. So
Very good. Alright. Doctor Hill.
And you are our largest transfer institution, so we send most of our students once they finish their credential at NOVA to Mason and through our advanced partnership, which I'm sure we'll get into. But at NOVA, we're also getting ready to receive about 12,000 students in the fall. So we have about 6,000 at our Manassas campus and also at the Woodbridge campus. And so we have orientation going on this summer assisting students to ensure that they've completed the financial aid process and academic advising and getting schedules ready, but we also have two major renovation projects going on right now. We've got one at the Woodbridge campus, our main Seafell Building, which is coming to a close now.
So we'll be moving in the next couple days right before the semester starts.
So it
the so it'll be done before students are back?
We will hold classes there in August. Yes. Great.
And then
on the Manassas campus, we have a skilled trades building construction going on. So that'll be about a two two and a half year project where they will host several skilled trades programs in that building. And so Yeah.
You you and I work a lot together on workforce development. In fact, some state appropriations around sort of training professional development. Hopefully, get into that in this conversation. So like most communities, our strategic plan, yours too probably, really focuses on education, workforce development, lifelong learning, and this this panel certainly represents that. I I mean, as I hear you all talking, I see the partnership from public schools to community college, from community college to university, truly a, you know, full spectrum.
So I, you know, so appreciate the conversation. I guess if you would talk about, in terms of vision, your strategic plan with an emphasis on sort of targeted industries. I mean, so each of you probably have some sense of, hey. We need students, whether young, older youth, or adults, are focused on these areas. I wonder if you could talk a bit about that.
Yeah. At Novo, we have partnered with Micron as well as some of the data center industry partners around designing our credentials so that students can come and get a credential, some as quick as one year Mhmm. And then two years where they can become trained to work in a data center and also in the semiconductor industry. So we partnered with Micron to develop a career study certificate as well as associate's degree where those students can come and learn and earn at the same time because there's an apprenticeship as a part of that. And so they receive mentoring, they receive a stipend, and the apprenticeship allows them to get that on the job hands on experience while they're learning.
And as you know, that means better outcomes for getting employed because in many of those partnerships that we have with Micron and AFCOM and others, there's a guaranteed interview that is a part of that as well. And so when we think about Prince William County and Micron, which is a large employer, and we think about the data center industry, we have students that can come and earn a credential, like I said, some in in in as little as a year in a cohort model, and then go right out into the industry and and really earn a great wage. Some of them are starting at $75,000 a year.
And stay right here in Prince And
stay right here in Prince William County.
That that's so important when I think about, you know, there is certainly an in some cases, an interest in sort of leaving the community. And the message here is that, no, you can stay right here in Prince William County. Can get educated here in Prince William County, leave or finish your degree or certification, and stay right here in this community, and there's opportunity for you.
Micron has been a really terrific partner,
I think,
for Yeah. A lot of
And and and so they've funded some student scholarships that are coming for our transfer students from from Advance. And and I would I would add, I think tech and and the support and training of of tech workers at at a variety of different tasks and levels within the organization is a sort of a mutual priority. The Commonwealth has what, is called the tech talent investment program. And as part of that, Mason and others have agreed to increase the number of students who graduate from tech, majors, and and have some pretty ambitious growth goals, actually. When you when you look at Mason, I mentioned we're 41,000 right now.
Our goal is we think we can grow to 45,000, of course, over the next five to seven years. A lot of that is going to be in these high demand fields like tech.
Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. That makes sense. And great to hear because of what's happening in our other systems. Right? Indeed.
And we pretty much provide you the
podcast. Yes. Feel like
this is such a great place to be with the
two of you. Right.
So we we I mean,
in keeping with the with your point about the vision and strategic plan. So Prince William County Public Schools is about 91,000 students currently, and we are the most diverse well, you know this. We're the most diverse county in the Commonwealth, tenth most diverse in the nation, and that's represented in our student body. So our student body represents over 159 countries, and there are over 170 languages spoken. And so when we think about our strategic plan, it's driven by a vision that every student will graduate with the knowledge, skills, and habits of mind necessary to create a thriving future for themselves and their community.
So what does that mean? That means that if we do our job well in pre K-twelve education, that students won't just graduate with a diploma, right? That they'll be able to acquire rewarding careers, experience economic mobility, and really live a fulfilling and purpose driven life where they're giving back to their community. And to do that, we want them to stay in the communities that supported their growth and development. And so as a part of that, knowing that postsecondary success is the goal, and students have multiple pathways towards getting to postsecondary success, right?
Whether it is two year college, four year college, going directly into the workforce that you've heard. So what we've done is made sure that students understand and have access to those opportunities through career and college counselors in every high school. We set ambitious goals around work based learning experiences. So we put out a charge to our business community that we wanted to have every single school in Prince William County have a formal business partnership that advanced their school's improvement goals. We set a goal to have 500 graduating seniors by 2025, we're here, so I'll
you a
little update on that, to have apprenticeships and internships upon graduation in hand. And we wanted by 2025, 3,500 rising juniors and seniors to have summer employment. And so today, I mean, those numbers, we've that. Right? Every school has a formal business partnership.
We have now surpassed the 500. We're at about seven sixty three students over the course of the last three and a half years have left Prince William County with a formal internship in their back pocket. And now without counting the 2025, we're at about 3,100 summer employment offers to students. So when you think about Prince William County Schools, we are the future workforce for Prince William County. And the partnerships that we have with Mason, with Nova, with our business community, as well as our community partners, it makes all the difference in making sure that our students really can experience economic mobility and acquire a
rewarding career. So appreciate that very much. I you know, in terms of just the partnership, and we've we've heard it just in your initial responses between sectors
Mhmm.
Schools, government, you know, business sector, what Micron is doing here and other corporate partners are doing, all plays a part. So every community would say that education is important, that workforce development is important, but you actually see and this is part of the intent of getting you all here together. You see the string, the theme, right, in the partnership as it is developing.
Yeah.
Now to that end, we've certainly made internships Mhmm. As a county government internships, shadowing opportunities, a very big part of how we introduce a new sort of generation of, if you will, of workers. I guess if you will talk about you just did, doctor McDade, Talk about what you all are doing to make sure that in addition to the in class, learning, that there are other opportunities outside of the classroom to kinda learn, grow, and be prepared, if you will, for the workforce.
Yeah. At at Nova, we have invested a tremendous amount of the funds and resources into our career services area, business engagement Mhmm. Work based learning. We have a internship developer now. And and what we're finding is that employer engagement is so important, and employers are chomping at the bit because they're saying, we are happy to get students who are strong in accounting, business management, business administration, information technology, cybersecurity, but we want them to also come to us workplace ready.
Yeah. With those employability skills, with those workplace readiness skills to be able to communicate, to be able to give a presentation
Mhmm.
In a meeting, to be able to write a professional email. And so our career services business engagement unit, they spend a lot of times, whether it's developing career fairs or we've partnered with Europe United where we have students who are within the last few credits of their associate's program, they're participating in an eight week employee readiness type curriculum, where they're learning the resume writing, the interview skills, how to dress, how to communicate, and that's what employers are really looking for. So when employers ask us, you know, what can we do for you? Always say, allow our students to come to your places of business and get that experience, get that hands on experience. Because it's win win, the student, they get that hands on experience and the employers get to see which students have that strong work ethic, have that drive, maybe have a skill that stands out to them, and there you have it.
Once they're complete with their credential, they can now be hired on to work at
the company. We introduced to the community the career explorers program. It's a high school students, tenth, eleventh, and rising twelfth graders just to shadow, right, just to job shadow. We also have about 35 students who are actual interns with us for the summer. That kind of experience is really exposure. More than anything else, it's these are the options for you as a young person. Right?
To a certain extent, I see our work as being resiliency partners with with the students who come and work with us. So give me give you an example. So my son, class of 2021, Colgan High School graduate. Right? They graduated, went to Mason, in at the beginning of the pandemic. Right? So and there's a recovery period that happens after the pandemic. Graduates 2025 in four years and is facing a job market that is now influenced by federal cutbacks, both at the sort of the the departmental level, but also at the contractor level Mhmm. And is a and a workforce that has been significantly influenced already by artificial intelligence. Mhmm.
And so as a result, the training that we might provide is very relevant for the time in which it's provided, but it also has to extend to the life of the student and that we're training them to have the knowledge and the skills and abilities, but also see have them see us as places that they can go to when they need additional assistance. Let me give you an example. So at Mason, we've launched a series of short certificates in our career academy available for an incredibly low cost zero cost for Mason students, but low cost for people in Prince William County who perhaps have been displaced as part of a federal reduction in force or simply looking to retool and move into different sectors that are growing because that changes pretty quickly around
here. Absolutely.
And a mentorship, like, listening to, you know, yes, having them shadow, but we've tried to make sure that we have strong mentorship in our schools as well. And that speaks to what you talked about in terms of those essential skills, not necessarily always the technical skills. That mentorship goes a long way in helping students connect with a professional in a career maybe that they are aspiring towards so that they have someone that's guiding them along the way.
And so
that's a big piece that I think shouldn't be missed.
You mentioned AI. I guess it is it is happening so quickly. We've even, as a government, incorporated some aspects of AI in the way that we provide service, in the way that residents can and visitors and those doing business in the county can engage us. How are you all using AI in your
So, you know, we're we're laughing because,
you know solution. AI education. Yeah. The thirties. Sometimes.
You know, you know, it's it's an evergreen. So from an operational standpoint as it relates to transcript evaluation and some of those things that maybe someone would actually be going line by line and doing, and now AI can do it. Mhmm. We're definitely leaning in in those spaces as it relates to some level of advising, you know, some level of, you know, course selection, schedule building, that kind of thing for students. On the flip side of that, AI in the classroom and the challenges it's presenting as it relates to academic integrity.
Mhmm. The the challenges it's presented as it relates to how you design a lesson or how you design an assessment where a student can't just go and have generative AI provide them the the product. Right? Yeah. So, you know, AI is presenting while it's, you know, extremely beneficial from an operational standpoint, kind of a no brainer in the classroom, and we think about it as it relates to academic integrity and assessment in the classroom.
That's where the challenge is really coming in. So we have faculty cohorts, AI faculty cohorts that are coming together to discuss what are some of those lesson design best practices, assessment best practices, so that students can be engaged in the learning and we can assess what they know without them going to chat GPT and it producing a product. So you'll see students now giving a lot more presentations, video presentations, in class demonstrations of learning, that type of thing. That is the challenge. AI is here to It's not going anywhere. And I think we have to figure out as educators how do we prepare students to use it ethically.
Yeah. That's right.
Right? And also understand that AI also has gaps and does not know everything and is not able to necessarily provide them exactly what it is that they need as it relates to a homework assignment or research paper. So there there's some work to be done, and I think it'll be ongoing conversations.
Mhmm.
But it's here, and our students are using it. And it's how do we teach them to use it ethically and to use it to organize thoughts as opposed to provide thought.
I appreciate that.
We've been you know, this is I I feel like with in education, we are so far behind the technological advances when you think about AI and even how the private business sector is using and leveraging AI in ways that is outpacing education. So that's actually a big problem. And to your point about the fact that students are using it regardless of whether we're ready or not. And so what we've tried to do, even in our profile of a graduate is to make sure that we are developing digitally responsible citizens. So a lot of what we've done with AI has been around education, awareness, understanding, building knowledge, and then providing tools where teachers can access, get training, as well as access AI to do lesson development, but with the right training and support that goes with that, right, so that the lessons that are developed really speaks to critical thinking and student engagement where it requires a level of not just creativity and critical thinking, but innovation from students that you can't just get from putting it in a chatbot.
Of course we've got a long way to go, but I think doing the groundwork of how do we protect student privacy and data, how do we educate our teachers, our leaders, and even our students, But then how do we actually put the tools in their hands to learn and grow with it and be able to use it in ways that are responsible but also where there's not a fear of it? And so that's the direction that we're trying to go in now. And we're working on actually launching our 2030 strategic plan, that's our next iteration of the strategic plan, and you'll see a lot in there around AI, generative AI, and the future of the workforce and education in our 2030 plan.
I love that.
Right, because
if we're gonna truly prepare them for the workforce, AI is a piece of that.
Yeah,
that's And so many job descriptions you'll look at now, it's gonna have, you know, are you not only familiar, you know, but proficient.
That's right, yeah. Absolutely. Know, my the the George Mason University's president, doctor Gregory Washington, has this great quote. Right? And he says it all the time. He's like AI is not gonna come and take your job. Mhmm. Someone who knows how to use AI
That's right.
Is going to come and take your job. So we look at it, I think, holistically. Yes, there is, okay, how do I earn a trade in this field that is AI? But then how do I apply AI in a field that is not tech, for example.
Right?
And the and the I think the the all the signals right now are that you're going to need to understand AI and use AI in a in in a broad spectrum of of jobs. We have appointed a chief AI officer at Mason, someone, and that that person is now a member of the president's senior cabinet. That's how pervasive it is. We're thinking about how faculty integrate that into curriculum to think about how student services operate that way. We a really cool pilot that we're launching of a chatbot to do student services twenty four seven. Things like that are are out there, but but I think it has to be holistic.
Yeah. We have a bit of a chatbot ourselves. We talked about that a few episodes Yeah. So I'm sure that some parents who are watching the episode will be interested in nontraditional students and what our various systems are doing to support nontraditional. Each of you probably defines that a little differently, whether it's older students or seniors wanting to come back after some break from education. I guess let's talk a little bit about about that.
Well, I think that's directly in my wheelhouse in terms of adult ed. So we have an actual adult ed department that specifically their objective is to focus on adult education, and that is students who are 18 or older that are not in the system pursuing a traditional diploma. So that could go anywhere from students and families or adults that are pursuing a first time GED or wanting to come back to get a nontraditional diploma, we do have a nontraditional track for a diploma, but we also have GED classes. And as long as you're 18 or older, then you can take advantage of that. We also have language acquisition courses that are offered.
And we don't just serve the Prince William County community local. We do also open it up to Manassas City and Manassas Park. And so anyone can come and take language acquisition courses. We also offer job skills training for individuals that are looking to acquire job skills. So those are some of the things that we do in our nontraditional programming, and it's seen a a great event of success.
And I'm sure folks who hear this get excited, could probably just go to your website to get more information on the various programs.
Yeah. And they
could go to pwcs.edu, and there is a page for adult ed, and we do comprehensive testing and everything. And then they'll actually get advised, too, on what's the best track for you to go. We also try to bring back students who may have dropped out and try to coach and consult with them to get either a GED or job skill training, etcetera. And then newcomers, new arrivals to Prince William County can take language acquisition courses as well. So it's really growing, but definitely the opportunity to promote it here is good because any kind of marketing and awareness that we can build to let people know that that resource does exist for them is huge
for us.
Wonderful resources. Glad that you mentioned it. I'm sure there will be someone helped by the fact that you mentioned it here today, Doctor. McDade.
You know, the definition of nontraditional is evolving. Right? And I I look at this Mason's regular office, you know, operation of business. About half of our undergraduates start with us straight out of high school, and the other half come through community college. Mhmm. And those who come through community college are a little older. Right? Like so so it's hard for me to think of a a '22 year old as a nontraditional student at Mason because we literally have thousands of them that are here. Now now that said, there what we're seeing a lot of are a lot of adults who are interested in earning a second bachelor's degree
Mhmm.
Or perhaps had earned an associate's degree years ago and are returning to get an an updated credential. We're seeing we see hundreds of those students each term kind of start with us. We see also an evolving and this is probably more under the enrichment category. We have a number of members of our community, literally members of our community come back and and take courses with us. We make it very easy to audit a class and and at at a low or no cost for them.
So, I mean, there's a little bit of that sort of enrichment piece too that we throw out there. But even those students who are who are nontraditional, have some college no degree, of which there are millions of them in this country. I I do think the landscape is changing as we look at a focus at knowledge, skill, and ability development at a at a granular level versus at the macro level as acknowledged by a certificate. Right? Like, so in other words, can I can I be certified that I understand? Let me pick something simple. That I can I can operate Microsoft Teams administration? Right? Like, that's a very practical skill that goes with that. And and I we see that getting more and more value, and therefore are providing more and more of that to to the community.
When you said nontraditional learning, I got excited because, you know, the community college that is, been a hallmark of who we've served for so many years. And I think about the, different, delivery formats for our classes, you know, whether it be online, evening, during the day, our Nova online offerings have grown by leaps and bounds over the past few years. And so students are able to access learning at any time based upon their schedule. And so when we think about nontraditional learners who may have young ones and also be working, it's very nice for them to be able to access that learning or maybe traveling a lot with their with their employment are able to access learning at any time. And our workforce development offerings, whether it be on the credit side of the house or the noncredit side of the house, it may be someone who's looking at getting a wedding planning certificate through our workforce development office.
You know? It may be a senior who is taking advantage of senior audit and is taking a course or auditing a course at no cost to them, but looking to advance their skills. One thing about the community colleges, we have a lot of, I call, on ramps and off ramps, you know, opportunities to scale, opportunities to do it in six months, some programs, some programs two years, some programs one year. Mhmm. And we just also talking about, you know, reengaging stop outs.
So we just reengaged over a 120 students who had stopped out who were within just a few credits under a semester of finishing. And and in some cases, they didn't even realize it. Right? And so bringing them back and also providing the funding, in many cases, for them to come back and complete that credential is just a game changer.
Phenomenal. Phenomenal. So you all are reaching out. You all are doing the work of analyzing students that are right at that point and reaching out to them proactively to get them back. That is
Yeah. We partnered with a a we consulted with a company that actually did a lot of that work for us and reached out to the students and found out why. You know? And not only did they find out why, but now how do we reconnect you? Warm handoff. And and so now, after partnering with them, we have folks who are being trained by that company. Here is how you reengage. Here's how you connect and do the warm handoff, and here's how you keep them too. We we spend a lot of time in education, especially in higher ed, thinking about enrollment as in bringing students in. Mhmm.
But how do you retain and keep them Right. All the way through to credential? Because when we think about outcomes based funding or we think about, you know, rankings and things of that nature, it's not just who you bring in Mhmm. But what credential did they leave with, and has it placed them in a situation where they now can live in Northern Virginia and have a sustainable income?
Sure.
And so that's a I think it's a really good point because not only has the landscape changed as it relates to nontraditional learners, I think traditional learner circumstances have become increasingly more problematic as well. Like, so I can have you talk about a traditional learner, you imagine an 18 year old, well funded, well supported, you know, is worried about just the hard parts of school. That's not what we're dealing with with a lot of students, especially needy students, first generation students. We're talking about more students who are food insecure. We're talking about more students who come with children or are in the process of building a family.
We're talking about those who who have significant financial responsibilities for their family that requires them to work. So the traditional experience has to be constructed in a way that accommodates a a nontraditional traditionalist.
You are probably speaking to so many folks in our audience, right, in terms of folks who will consume this content and listen to this episode that that is their reality. Some aspect of their reality looks, feels a little bit or they may feel like it looks and feels a little bit different, not really knowing that so many who are seeking education, continuing education, are in similar situations. Right? I know for sure that the public school system is Absolutely. Dealing with
And to kind of, I guess, the sister to your consulting firm that's working with students is we have graduation coaches. So our high schools have graduation coaches, and one one of their number one jobs is to try to reengage those students who have disengaged and who have dropped out, in addition to, of course, making sure that students who are at risk of dropout make it to the finish line. I think the most important thing for community members to know, and even any students that may have dropped out and feel like, Well, that ship has sailed. There's no way I'm going to be able to do that. You know, you can't because there's an option for everyone.
And to get the diploma or to even acquire the GED doesn't always look like the traditional walking into the high school and sitting in the classroom with 24 students. We do have other opportunities for them, whether it is credit recovery through virtual learning and self paced courses. So there's so much that we offer now that meets learners where they are in their current situation, understanding they have families, understanding that they have jobs and other commitments, but making sure they understand that you still can not only acquire your GED or get that diploma, we can also help you to get on track to a two year certificate through our partnership with NOVA. Even in some respects, an opportunity to get an internship with one of our business partners and get a full paid ride for two year or four year educational track. So there is so much more available for our community members than I think sometimes that they know and realize, and I hope that this segment kinda opens up the door for that.
Yeah. I appreciate you saying that. I appreciate you bringing it up. So on partnerships, I know we've talked a little bit about, you know, sort of how we use the business community, how we're leveraging opportunities for out of classroom activity for workforce development purposes. I guess if you could talk a bit about how, as government, we could be more helpful. Now I know in all cases, we are partnering with you all in a number of ways, and I could think of probably three hands full. I wonder if you could just talk a bit about, if if you had your druthers, what we could be doing more of together as we go forward.
I one, I wanna just commend the county on the strategic plan and the fact that you've put an intentional focus on workforce development and creating a strong pipeline so that the county can continue to grow and to thrive. And that's been extremely helpful for us. Right now we have about three forty seven formal business partnerships, and just to give some examples of just real world examples.
Love how you rattled that off so easily.
Three forty seven,
I was
like, yeah, It's important
to It's very important to us, right? So our goal was 125, we're at three forty seven. Now part of that is because you put an intentional focus on the work workplace readiness and really galvanizing the business community to get behind that. And so we've reaped the benefits of that as well. And some examples, the Prince William County Fire and Rescue.
We have the cadet program at Unity Reed, and students can graduate from Unity Reed as a cadet and go straight into working for fire and rescue. Daily computers works with our students, our IT students. Many of them get internships. Lockheed Martin is a big one. We all work with Lockheed Martin, but they've given out so many internships and paid tuition for students to go on and get a post secondary degree.
So I would say not just continuing on that, but even refining it to focus on specific career paths that we know will be in high demand and really trying to bring in business partners that help us to focus on a particular pathway for students to take in high demand fields. So like agriculture is growing, manufacturing, IT, aviation, just to name a few, cybersecurity. So kind of even right now you've got an amazing strategy. If I could say to you, hey, we've got these eight domains, I named quite a few of them just now, can you help us get businesses specific to those particular career paths?
I appreciate that. Like And then we
can help students that can track towards those growing careers and industries where we know that there'll be heavy demand for them in the future, and right here in Prince William County.
And that certainly helped because as you are defining those paths for students, it actually gives them an opportunity to say, oh, I didn't even think about that, but maybe I should explore.
Exactly. Yeah. That career exploration piece. Because they don't always know. There's the traditional careers everybody talks about, but the field is so wide open in terms of options and pathways that they could take, and I think that would be an incredible partnership.
Very good. Yeah. I just
wanna piggyback off that. You you hit something there. It would be so helpful to continue to engage the local businesses and and also county government. One of the things that we are working on is having employers talk to us to tell us what it is that they need. You know, what what what skills do they want the students to have? What what gaps are they trying to fill? But also too, as doctor McDade was saying, being able to and we can even do this with county government. I was having a conversation with the CEO of Centerra Hospital recently, and he was saying, what a lot of people don't understand is the hospital is not just health care fields. Right? You know?
You you've got we've got a physical plant. We've got to make sure the AC, you know, we've got to have clean rooms. We've got to have accountants. We've got to have folks in so many arenas. And I think if students could see, and maybe county government could do this in all of the areas, whether it's economic development or communication or sanitation, that students could see how their degrees and their credentials map to jobs right here in Prince William County.
think it would be a game changer. And and, you know, the more we hear from local businesses and local government about the needs, the better able we are to tailor our programs. You know, we can be pretty quick and nimble if we know what it is that is needed, and so we need to continue to hear
Very good. From local government. I appreciate that you mentioned Jeff Joyner's. He is doing phenomenal work Yes. At Centerra. Great partner and out of the box thinker in terms of the partnership between hospital our systems, if you will, government education hospital?
Well, I think in your question, I I'm inspired to talk a little bit about public private partnerships in that and and the the way the p three, I think, has has impacted a lot of our business in the last ten to fifteen years, meaning finding win win scenarios for the community, for the educational institution, and for the business community. And then I would be remiss if I didn't connect it to the work that's happening on our science and technology campus just on 234, right, in Dumfries and the Innovation District. And and I I see tremendous upside for the county, for Mason, for for any business that is interested in a talent pipeline. There's this it's going to be this, a series of decisions that we will get to collectively make together about how how big can we make it, where do we focus it, how does it serve the community, how does it connect to the community to whether it's campuses or or just, you know, business opportunities or just existing in Prince William County. So so we look forward to a a public private partnership expanded with
the county.
I so appreciate you mentioning the innovation district. I mean, we just recently got word of a Go Virginia grant, $2,600,000. Spectacular. Wow. I mean, so it is absolutely a focal point here in Prince William County, something for us to be proud of.
And Mason is is excited to be partnered in that. And I and I don't know if you've spent any time at the Hilton Performing Arts Center there or Yeah. I imagine you had how many graduations maybe and others. But, you know, the Performing Arts Center, the Aquatic Center, I mean, all that is set up with a mind that it doesn't just serve the students, it serves
the community. That is great.
You know, I think it behooves, especially, know, you colleagues in higher ed, to really scan the environment and and really look at education and what students are seeking now. I think we're moving away from higher ed as an opportunity to explore Mhmm. And to amass credits in, you know, random places and spaces. I think the students are coming to us laser focused on, I want to get a really good job. I wanna have a satisfying career.
Mhmm.
I I want to be able to live, in many cases, right here in Northern Virginia, and live well and take care of myself and my family. And they're looking for that most direct path to get there. And I think it's important for us to think about and to be able to offer multiple pathways to a good living here in the region.
Yeah.
And so whether it's through career and technical education, getting a student right out of high school to be able to go into the workforce or, you know, to earn an associate's while they're in high school or to
We got that covered.
Right. We got that covered.
We got that covered.
You know? Right.
That's right. That's With the
partnership or to or to get a a short term credential or to even do something longer term. It's something for everybody.
Yeah.
But but I think our our our government officials at the state level and and at the federal level are looking to educational institutions. They wanna see what the return on investment is gonna be for families and for students. So it's it's gone the years of, you know, students come, they amass debt, they go out into a field, and they can't find a job. Gotcha. It's what is the employability outlook? What is what are they gaining? And how can they gain it efficiently and come out with little or no debt? Mhmm. Yeah. You know?
And I think our state has invested tremendous amount of funding when we think about g three and fast forward and and and some of these grant opportunities for students to go into those high demand fields right here in the Commonwealth where we have gaps like education and law enforcement and cyber and health care. So it it behooves us in higher ed to really, you know
Yeah. No. I appreciate that. Now we have covered quite a bit, and I know we could probably go for another few hours, but this is shorter topics, so intended to be short for our audience. One last question, and I I ask this only because we don't get a chance to hear directly from our systems leaders about what they're excited about and what's coming. Right? So a lot to brag about each of you in terms of the respective systems that you lead. What's what's on the top for you in terms of front burner around it? Just what you're excited about in in terms of the year ahead and what's coming.
That's a great question. I think what I'm most excited about is now that we're going into a new strategic plan, I'm excited about building on the foundation of what we've already done and meeting a lot of the goals. We talked a lot about career and technical education and just preparing students for the workforce as well as to give back to their communities. But now we are setting our sights on futuristic thinking, making sure that students really can be innovators and visionaries. And what you should expect from Prince William County Schools in our new strategic plan, of course it will be bigger and bolder, but also really with a laser focus on what does the future workforce look like?
Meaning preparing students not just for jobs of today and tomorrow, but for jobs that don't even exist right now. That in a way not only are they giving back to their communities, but they are the world leaders that are solving our world problems. And that's what excites me. Really making sure that the experiences that our students have in the classroom mirror the world around them. Our classrooms should not just It should be mirrors where they see themselves, but they also should be windows where they see the world around them.
And so heavy student engagement, making sure that students are getting really hands on world world experiences. And to the point that was made earlier, as we think about technology and AI, that they learn how to work alongside AI and leverage that so that they are marketable and can acquire the jobs of the future.
I absolutely love that. So students seeing mirrors and windows. Yeah. Yeah. Love that.
I'm excited about something that's very niche and focused on Prince William County. And and so first of all, let me start with a little data nugget. According to the Virginia Department of Education, only about fifty percent of Virginia high school graduates labeled as economically disadvantaged, which they would call in free and reduced lunch programs, go on to enroll in higher education within sixteen months after graduating high school. Right? The the overall number is closer to sixty five percent,
right, of the of the total number.
So so when the conclusion is obvious, and those who work in the field know this, that if you are from a low income family, you're less likely to see at least earning a four year degree as as a viable option. We wanna change that because that is that's not true. We we there are great institutions
Mhmm.
That have prepared you well, that can get you on your way, and that we can help finish Mhmm. At Mason. And we've built a program with Prince William County Schools called the high school direct admission program. We've got nine high schools in this program. That's just for now. We actually expand over we hope to expand over the next five years to include everybody. And and basically, if you are a rising high school senior and you have a 3.25 GPA or higher, you will be given an actual offer of admission to George Mason University.
And we've got over 400 kids that are already taking advantage
of that.
-Absolutely. It was a great year with this first year of the pilot. We've expanded it into the second year of the pilot. And it changes the script, right? It's less about who will select me to go to their precious school as much as it is, hopefully a signal that you have value. You are wanting. You are you can contribute right here in your home community. So I'm most excited about changing the way that students are admitted to university.
Absolutely amazing.
And the students who come through this program so far perform every bit as well as the students who come
through a more traditional format.
There is no difference.
Very good. Doctor Hill?
I'm excited about partnerships which then spawn opportunities and and also continuing to fine tune what it is that we offer to the region by way of workforce development and education towards meeting the needs of of the region. I I think about our advanced program partnership with George Mason University, and that continues to grow. Students have the opportunity to be at Nova and be coenrolled at George Mason University. Mhmm. You know, high touch model, be coached right through Nova to Mason and and end up doing very well and and and complete a bachelor's degree, and and that continues to grow.
That saves money for families right here in the region. I think it makes college education more accessible. When I think about opportunities, I think about, you know, we already have over 560 some employers that we engaged with in the region. We want to continue to increase the number of employers we engage with for two for two reasons, maybe multiple. Opportunities, as doctor McDade said, work based learning, internships, apprenticeships, so students can get that that learning while they're, you know that hands on learning while they're, you know, earning their degree or or or certificate. But also too so that we can design
Mhmm.
You know, educational programs that meet their needs. We've done that with a number of companies in the region, but we wanna continue to do that. And then finally, I think fine tuning and perfecting what it is that we're offering by way of an educational product. And and as as we talked about earlier, the nontraditional learners. At at Nova, we have something for everyone, and we don't just wanna have something for everyone just to check a box, but what does that look like? Is it top notch? Is it meeting the needs? Is it putting them in a position to live an amazing life right here in the region and we keep that talent and not have to send them away.
That's right. And more than just a region right here in
Prince William Yeah. Yeah.
Yes. So you all could see why I am so excited about the future of Prince William County. A few months ago, as a county, we debuted our strategic plan with a strategic plan goal of education as the first goal. Now all the goals are important, but what an exciting conversation we have just had about Prince William County, about our various institutions, and the role that they play and impact that they have on young people. So I just wanna say thank you to each of you for doing what you do every single day, for leading how you lead and showing up how you show up.
And for for those who are tuned in, thank you so much for tuning in. We appreciate your time. This was a great conversation, and we will see you next time. Thanks for joining. Shorter topics, bigger impact.
I love government contracting. I've done it for more than twenty years. And that gives me an insight to what government contractors need. Getting them either their place that they're looking for or the location that they're needing or the the the proximity to being outside of the DC market or right next to the base. Whatever their needs are, I like to be able to help them with that.
The federal government contracts with a number of different organizations for everything that they use. From cloud storage to boots to equipment to services to professional services, IT services, everything. Northern Virginia is a hotbed for government contractors. The best thing about being in Prince William County is that we are right there in that Northern Virginia region, and you are so close, 30 miles outside of the DC marketplace, and Quantico is right here in our county, and we love it because we have 44,000 veterans here in our county. That's a huge population of people who know federal contracting.
What Prince William offers to a government contractor is that proximity. Plus, we have the workforce. The workforce to support whatever needs it is that you have. What Prince William also offers is that low cost of entry. I'm looking forward to continuing to build this community with government contractors because that means our government's not only getting served better, our military's getting served better, but that means more thriving businesses here, right in Prince William County. And that's the part that I love.
My name is Allison Intahar, and I work for the Office of Criminal Justice Services as a pretrial probation officer. People have the misconception that all the probation officer wants to do is to put somebody back in jail. Probation officers actually have a dual role. Obviously the first one is to make sure that an individual adheres to the court's conditions, but the other role of the probation officer is to make sure that we can go ahead and get the individual systems out in the community that they may need. My background is in criminal justice, I used to an addictions counselor in both Pennsylvania and Maryland and I'm a lot of times with working with people with substance abuse there's the co occurring piece of the mental health and I've been working with the significantly mentally ill for nine years now.
You know in the past when somebody had a mental illness a lot of times society may not have wanted to deal with them and what we have to remember is these individuals they're human beings these individuals are people who made bad choices and decisions and on top of that they have a mental illness which also is another contributing factor so if we can go ahead and treat the mental illness and get them medicated and into services they're more likely to make better choices and decisions. I enjoy watching people in the transition process when I see somebody when they come in through the doors for the first time they're usually very ill and they need help these individuals have dealt with this mental illness for many years on they've been labeled they've been stigmatized on and what happens is maybe they start to lose hope to see them transition to become stable to become a positive protective member in the community is the goal here. I always say to them that they are the ones who make the choices and decisions, but if I can plant a seed and they can prosper and grow from it, then my job is complete.
I'm Allison, and that's how I serve.
Whatever your reasons are, whatever motivates you, there is a place for you here regardless of who you are, what you look like, or what your interests are. You have what we're looking for, and you can have a rewarding career at the Prince William County Police Department. To make a difference, you have to be the change. See the impact that you can make by becoming a police officer. See yourself here at the Prince William County Police Department. For more information, visit joinpwcpd.org.
In Prince William County, the plan reviewer plays a crucial role in ensuring that all our buildings and structures are safe. They review building construction plans and designs, including architectural, structural, mechanical, plumbing, electrical, and fire protection drawings to ensure that they follow all the county's codes and regulations before permits could be issued. In addition, the reviewer will check the plans for safety issues and make sure the design values are correct for the building's structural integrity. By doing this at the beginning of the project, they can preempt any problems that may arise during construction. This helps the project move along quickly and safely while making sure that the builder, architect, and all parties involved have the guidance they need for a smooth project.
The reviewer evaluates buildings in terms of energy efficiency against energy codes. Reviewers also receive visits at their offices at the county complex to approve plans for renovations, decks, hot tubs, and more. Building safety is vital to a safe and sustainable future. Our office strives to not only address the safety of our community's buildings, but provide value in the efficiency, usefulness, and durability of the homes and buildings throughout Prince William County.
Prince William County is an ideal locality for us, and that's why we've been here for nineteen years and hopefully, you know, for a long time to come.
Today concludes the process that took over four years of searching for the right property, planning and construction. I'd like to thank the great staff at Prince William County, including everyone at the Department of Economic Development. We
want to grow, we want to prosper in this location and staying in Prince William County is really going to allow us to do that.
Good morning. Good morning. And welcome everyone to the ribbon cutting ceremony celebrating the completion and collaboration of the Prince William County Regional Crisis Receiving Center Complex. Yes. I'm Lisa Madryn with Prince William County, and with me to welcome you today is Colin LeClaire, the CEO of Connections Health Solutions, our partner and operator for the Crisis Receiving Center.
Today is a moment of celebration and reflection. Each of you have played a role in bringing this vision to life. Please take a moment to breathe that in. This is a shared achievement built on collaboration, compassion, and commitment. We are deeply grateful for the our partnership with Connections Health Solutions whose proven model of care will now serve our community with dignity and hope.
We are also grateful for our partnerships with the state, the support and the advocacy of our state delegation. Governor Youngkin, your support and commitment through your right help right now plan, And the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, thank you for supporting and planning, funding, and fast tracking the licensing process, which we are currently in. And commissioner Smith, your direct engagement has been invaluable, and we're also very thankful to Kurt Gleason and the whole DBHDS team. We are also very thankful for our partnership with the Department of Medical Assistance Services and director Roberts. Your work with CMS and the IMD waiver is essential in making this initiative sustainable.
And certainly, to our county board who took the first step to move this initiative forward, Vice chair Bailey, who has championed this initiative. Along with our county leadership, our county exec Christopher Shorter and our deputy county executive Elijah Johnson. Thank you for believing in this vision from the start and helping bring it to life. And to our incredible community services team and county teams, particularly FFM, I have watched your dedication every step of the way from our construction and project management teams to our administrative and PR teams. You've carried the vision in your hearts and worked tirelessly to make it real.
We are also thankful for our community partners, NAMI and Trillium, VOICE, Potomac Health Foundation, the Lions Club, Centerra, and UVA Health for standing with us and lifting this effort. This facility is impressive, but its purpose is even greater. It represents a new dawn for behavioral health in Prince William County and our region. We are committed to learning, growing, and serving better together. Colin, would you like to say a few words? Thank
you, Lisa. Hi, everyone. As Lisa shared, I'm Colin LeClair, and I have the honor of serving as Connections CEO. I'm thrilled to be here with you all today to celebrate the opening of this fabulous center. It's been a long time in the making, and I'm so excited to see that we're so close to opening.
I'd like to start by again recognizing some of the hard work and collaboration of so many who helped us get to bring this center to life. I'd like to thank the greater Prince William County, the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Depart and Developmental Services region two, which includes the community services boards of Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax, Prince William County, Loudoun, whose advocacy for increasing behavioral health services over the past few years have helped Northern Virginia lead the way in meeting the needs of their communities. Governor Youngkin the Commonwealth of Virginia, who passed the legislation that enabled us to build this world class center and model of care. Special thanks also to Lisa Madryn and all others on her team for their commitment to bringing this center to life. The many community advocates for their dedication and advocacy all along the way.
All of our community partners, including first responders, community providers, and advocacy groups who supported us. And finally, our Connections team members, including the 200 local individuals who will be caring for this community at this crisis center starting in just a couple of weeks. Thank you all very, very much. I wanted to share a little bit about Connections for those who are not familiar with with our our work. Connections pioneered this approach to emergency psychiatry about thirty years ago to ensure that people get in crisis get the care that they need quickly in the safest, least restrictive setting possible.
Today, we've served over 700,000 patients in crisis, consistently delivering the best health outcomes of any crisis facility in the country, and have been named the gold standard of high acuity crisis care by SAMHSA. At the Prince William crisis receding facility, our multidisciplinary team of psychiatrists, nurses, therapists, behavioral health technicians, and peer support specialists will provide our nationally recognized model of care in a safe, open, and therapeutic environment for adults and youth over age 12. And the impact will be visible. This location is prepared to welcome and care for between fifteen and eighteen thousand individuals each year. Our experience demonstrates our experience demonstrates that when you provide people with immediate access to well trained, highly specialized multidisciplinary team in a center that is designed for behavioral health, not in an overwhelmed emergency room at a hospital, not in jail, which is too often the case, recovery is both possible and probable, and success rates are much higher.
We look forward to demonstrating the incredible impact that this model of care will have in this community. But we can't do this alone. We recognize that it takes a village to serve these patients. So true to our name, the team at Connections looks forward to collaborating with other service providers, with families, with community stakeholders to connect our patients with the vast constellation of medical, behavioral, and social supports that are available to to our patients in this community. We're honored to have been chosen to share the impact of the Connections model with this community and to continue to change how behavioral health care care is delivered in Prince William County and the surrounding areas. So thank you again to all the stakeholders in this community who make Crisis Receding Center and this care possible, and to our Connections team for living our mission and our values every day. Back to Lisa. Thank
you, Colin. I would now like to acknowledge the distinguished elected officials and some honored guests and partners who have joined us today. It is my intent to include everyone, but please forgive me if I miss you. From our Prince William County board chair, Deshondra Jefferson. Vice chair Andrea Bailey of the Potomac District.
Supervisor Victor Angry of Nyapsco District, supervisor Kenny Boddy of the Occoquan District, home of our facility, Supervisor Tom Gordy of the Vrentsville District. Supervisor Yaslee Vega of the Coles District. Governor Glenn Youngkin, seventy fourth governor of Virginia. Commissioner Nelson Smith of DBHDS. Delegate Ian Lovejoy, Kevin Brown, mayor of the town of Occoquan, Monet Nickerson, vice mayor of Dumfries.
Amy Ashworth, Commonwealth attorney for Prince William County and the cities of Manassas and Manassas Park. Jacqueline Smith, clerk of the circuit court. Representing the school board is vice chair Tracy Blake and Lori Williams. Superintendent of the Prince William County Schools, doctor Latonya McDade. Teraza Jenkins and Tanya James, attending for congressman Eugene Vindman.
Irene Roberts, attending for senator Tim Cain. Colonel Jenny Colgate, marine corps base Quantico. Elijah Johnson, deputy county executive for health, well-being, and environmental sustainability. John Littell, chief of staff for governor Youngkin and former secretary of health and human resources. Cheryl Roberts, director of DMASS.
Cheryl. And Patrick Sours, chair of the community services board. We appreciate the support of everyone in the audience today and are so glad you could make it. It is now my pleasure to introduce you to the chair of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, Deshondra Jefferson, who will now share some remarks. Please join me in giving the chair Jefferson a warm welcome.
Good morning, everyone. Before I begin, I have a couple more people that I would like to acknowledge. Our friends from the city of Manassas, mayor Michelle Davis Younger. I have Sonia Vasquez Luna and Tom Ossina. As the chair of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, I'm excited and delighted to welcome everyone here today.
This has been a long time coming, and all the people who are on the stage with me have made it happen. So thank you very much. You are the reason why we are here today. Give them another round of applause. We are here today to celebrate progress and unity with and thanks to the county staff, partners, and advocates who championed this project from its earliest its earliest stages.
Northern Virginia, Prince William County included, struggles with significant mental health and substance use issues. Our hospital emergency rooms are over burdened with limited psychiatric resources, long wait times, and inadequate community support. An overreliance on law enforcement for mental health crises strains the police department's resources, and they lack the health care based solutions needed. With limited immediate care options, without access to timely local support and comprehensive care, individuals often find themselves returning to crisis situations. This just doesn't work.
It's unattendable. We need to think differently, as the saying goes, and so we are. As the CRC ribbon cutting theme says, this is a new dawn, which symbolizes renewal, hope, and collaboration. It reflects how Prince William County and our partners have come together to strengthen behavioral health for our community. We cannot stress enough how much this facility and its services will mean for our community.
The CRC complex represents a major investment in mental health and public safety, offering an alternative to emergency rooms and jails for individuals in behavioral health crisis. The CRC will be a safe and secure center offering immediate support during mental health challenges. The help here will include twenty four seven care and responsive care and interventions, a mobile crisis response team, a collate co located Prince William County community services programs, such as integrated psychiatric care, peer support, and community resources, and a collaborative continuation of care with partnerships with local hospitals, health care providers, and community organizations to assure seamless support for individuals and their families. While this ribbon cutting celebrates the completion of the facility and the services it will provide, we are still working towards the official opening. I really wanna thank everyone again who is out here today, and I really again wanna thank the staff, our partners, and everyone who made this happen.
Mental health for too long has been stigmatized, but we have to meet people where they're at. If we're gonna care for our community and about our community, it is incumbent of us to care for the most vulnerable among us. I wanna thank everyone again for being here and everyone for making this possible. And now it is my distinct honor to introduce my supervisor and the vice chair of the board of county supervisors, Andrea Bailey.
You know you've made it when the chair of the board says my supervisor. I tell you. So good morning. If you can only see what I see standing here, I'm overwhelmed. And I just wanna thank the community, first of all, for turning out today for what is yours, the Crisis Receiving Center. Thank you
from the
bottom of my heart. I just said to the to the commissioner, it's cold out here. So I'm crying and I'm tearing from allergies at the same time. But we're gonna get through this. God has given us a great day on today.
Today marks a powerful moment in the life of our county. The official opening of the Prince William County Crisis Receiving Center. This is more than a ribbon cutting. It is a testament of what happens when compassion, commitment, and collaboration come together to serve the people. The center represents a promise that in Prince William County, no one will face a mental health crisis alone. It stands as a place of hope, safety, and dignity, where individuals can find care when they need it
the
most, day or night. Before I continue, I want to express my deepest gratitude to all to all who made this possible on this day, to our partners at the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, commonly known as DBHDS. It's a long but we we finally got it at the end of the day. And the Department of Medical Assistance Services, DMASS. Thank you for your leadership, your resources, and your unwavering commitment to improving the behavioral health care across Virginia.
And to our family, our delegates, our state senators, and federal representatives, and offices who all are with us today. Your advocacy has been vital in ensure assuring localities like ours have the tools to expand access to quality mental health services. I'm grateful for you. To our county exec, mister Christopher Shorter, our community service board led by the only the one and only Lisa Madryn, and her acting Georgia Bachman, can't forget Georgia, our law law enforcement agencies who'd said we're in from the very beginning, And every member of our local government team, to our mayors, our vice mayors, to our superintendents, to our councilmen and women, thank you for your dedication, for your turning this vision into a reality. And also yes, please.
To our school board who counted it not robbery to incorporate mental health as an essentiality as you do your work on the board, I'm grateful. Yes. To my fellow members of the board of supervisors, I am honored to serve alongside you. Together, we have proven that when we put people first, we can move from conversation, and maybe a little argument every now and then, to action, from plans on paper to doors that open in real life. For me, this moment is very personal.
I was raised in a family that believed deeply in community, where neighbors looked out for one another, where empathy was the rule, not the exception. My parents taught me that when one person is hurting, the entire neighborhood feels it. That upbringing shaped my belief that government's highest calling is to care and that the health of a community is measured not by the wealth of the community, but by how it treats the vulnerable. Mental health challenges tough excuse me. Mental health challenges touch every family in every corner of our county regardless of income, background, or circumstance.
They are not issues that can be ignored or stigmatized, which is a word that we're gonna get rid of on today. They require compassion, coordination, and courage. And today, this center becomes a cornerstone in that mission. The crisis receiving center will reduce the strain on our emergency rooms, provide critical relief to our respond first responders, and most importantly, offer residents a space where they are met with understanding instead of judgment, with treatment instead of trauma. This is an investment, not just in mental health, but in humanity.
It reflects who we are and what our values are in this county. That access to care, safety, and dignity is not privileges to be earned, but promises to be kept. To every partner, advocate, clinician, and resident who helped bring this vision to life, thank you. Because of your work, we can now say that Prince William County has built not just a facility, but a foundation, one rooted in compassion, equity, and hope. As we cut this ribbon today, may we remember that we are not merely opening doors.
We are opening possibilities for life. Excuse me. Possibilities for hearing, for connection, and for stronger, more compassionate here in Prince William County. And so I thank you, and may this center be a beacon of hope for generations to come. And lastly, I wanna thank the one that puts up with me as I'm going through day by day, my wonderful husband, your state president of the NAACP, Cozy Bailey.
Thank you, honey. Together, we've prayed for all of you and for this center, and so I thank you for a steadfastness. For my representative on the CSB board, doctor Bill Carr, thank you. Thank you so much. I am overwhelmed today.
I'm not gonna take any more time, but I am honored to serve this community. And so when we started this project, there were two wonderful gentlemen that secured me in their offices. You know, they know who I'm talking about, and said make it happen, and we've made it happen. So to chief Littell, I love you. And to the next gentleman that I will present is my partner in promise, commissioner Nelson Smith, the commissioner of the Commonwealth for the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, thank you for your community.
Thank you for your service. Thank you for your promise. Thank you for believing. Ladies and gentlemen, commissioner Nelson. Good
morning. Thank you, supervisor Bailey. And to your husband too, we won't hold it against him, he's a marine. Former army. Army. Where is he? Alright. Thank you. Thank you for your service. First of all, I'd like to address something you're gonna hear a lot about, stigma. Stigma is interesting. It's a word that we all know we want to break. But I want to put in front of us, mental healthcare is healthcare, right? But it's very difficult. And, those patients, when they go to hospitals, it's not something that you could put a band aid on, or give Tylenol, or something like that.
Their symptoms come out and it's not a runny nose. It could be aggression. It could be tears. It could be confusion. So, this place that we're looking at right now is going to be filled with those individuals, but more importantly, these people that we see over here on the side who are gonna be caring for those people that come through this door.
Time is what heals and love. And so, just really, when we think about the stigma, it's nothing that a band aid or pills can heal, but time and community. Now, I'll say, Supervisor Bailey was very, very adamant and very good at what you do. She was very in our offices all the time to keep it in front of us. So, you definitely had a good representative in this space.
As I mentioned, this is gonna be a doorway for families to find healing for not just adults, but adolescents. And also, the family themselves. We can't forget the person suffering. Often, you know, we forget about the families who are dealing with this too. So, we're gonna find resources here that connects those families to help them deal with some of these long term illnesses. It's not just a one and done thing. This also is gonna unburden law enforcement. You know, we hear we heard it from the very beginning. Governor Youngkin challenged us to get law enforcement back into the communities. So here, they'll be able to bring them to a place for healing and go back to what they signed up to do, which is a tremendous feat.
And then, the continuum of care. As we mentioned, hospitals are bogged down right now with everyone going in, and our poor frontline staff in the emergency rooms cannot keep up. It I mean, how many of you been to an emergency room recently? It takes hours just to be seen for something small. Again, we're un we're gonna provide a pressure valve, sorry, for the emergency rooms.
This could not be possible without all of you, the local leaders that were mentioned, the community that came together, the significant investments from the community, but also from the state level. And then I also wanna thank our DBHDS team, incredibly passionate, Kurt Gleason, all the way down through the crisis division. And I already thank the staff here. But this is the last time I think I'll be able to do this. First time I get to do this.
I've never been able to do this publicly. But none of this would have been possible without the leadership of governor Glenn Youngkin. And, sir, I just wanna tell you, this is I'm thank you for allowing me to serve, for trusting me to do this job. I want you to know this has been the biggest thing I've done in my entire life, to be able to serve Virginians at scale, to provide RightHelp right now. It's been an unbelievable ride, and so thank you very much.
RightHelp right now has changed and saved lives. Tens of thousands of individuals. I hear the stories all day long. And, this was the center of your your administration, your priority, and I did charge the Hill. So it has truly been an honor. So thank you, and I look forward to seeing this beautiful building. And sorry, final thing. The seventy fourth governor of Virginia, governor Glenn Youngkin.
Well
done. Commissioner, thank you. Well, good morning, everybody. I tell everybody it's like this in Prince William County every day. It's beautiful.
In fact, I was just here yesterday. I was just here yesterday right up the road at Toto Supermarket celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month, and I can't tell you how happy I am to be back again today. Back here today to celebrate, to cut a ribbon, and to mark one of the most major milestones in the transformation of behavioral health, not just in the Commonwealth Of Virginia, but in the entire nation, the Crisis Receiving Center here. I have one statement that I wanna reverberate in everyone's ears right now. If you are in crisis, come here to get the right help right now.
Get it right now. Come here to this amazing facility where no matter what time it is, you can come here 247 and get the care that you need. Come here right now where there are 64 chairs and beds to serve 64 of our fellow Virginians, men, women, children, adolescents, formed in the image of God to come here and get the help that they need. Come here to a place that can reduce burdens, a place where law enforcement officers can indeed hand over responsibility for Virginians that need help right now. Come here.
Come here for a place that represents true collaboration, true partnership, and true vision. Come here to get the help that you need right here, right now. There are so many who have been thanked who need to be thanked. The lists are long because the collaboration has been enormous. I have to say the leadership here in Prince William County has been astoundingly effective.
It's been compassionate, and it's been relentless. And that's what it needs. I have to say I wanna say to commission I wanna say to supervisor Bailey, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You were in my office, in my ear, in our lives. I'm telling you, you are a force of nature. But I will tell you that force of nature is god inspired. That force of nature goes to work for the men and women you serve. You are here for a reason, and I know that there is an overwhelming overwhelming chorus to right now saying, well done, good and faithful servant.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. To the team who works with me every day, thank you. John Littell, when he was interviewing me interviewing with me as secretary of health and human resources, I said, John, we are going to transform behavioral behavioral health care across the Commonwealth of Virginia in a way that will truly impact lives for decades and decades.
And he said to me, I've been waiting my whole life for this. John, thank you. Thank you for your leadership, and thank you for your service. Commissioner Smith, it takes a green beret to take a mountain. And this is a mountain that you've committed yourself to be part of a team, a team that has worked relentlessly.
Thank you. To Sheryl Roberts and our team at DMASS, you never wavered what needed to be done. Let me tell you what this team has done. Normally, a facility like this will take two years plus to receive its license. Two years plus while while Virginians in need would be waiting, while lives would not have been saved, while law enforcement officers would continue to be detained and distracted, and while our great health care workers who can support people who need to be hired have not been.
In this whole process, this facility will be open within ninety days of it needing to be open. My friends, that is remarkable, but that is what everyone here has done. I wanna thank everyone in Prince William County. I'm looking at the rest of the board of supervisors. I am seeing all the folks at our community service board. I'm seeing the folks that volunteer and do work. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This is what it takes.
Colin, thank you for your leadership. We set out to do something that was remarkable. Remarkable. And we went around the nation to see what does best in class look at. Thank you for helping us not just set best in class, but lead the nation in a facility that will be the standard the standard for serving Virginians.
The work that's going on in the Commonwealth of Virginia in a collaborative partnership way over the last now nearly four years has been exactly that. And finally, I wanna thank our friends in the general assembly. I wanna thank all of them. This has been bipartisan, and I guess Ian Lovejoy is our representative of the general assembly today. Ian, if you could stand up, I want behalf of all Virginians. I wanna thank you on behalf of our general assembly for leading and serving. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This whole journey started with a basic clear understanding that coming out of the pandemic, but also for years beforehand, our behavioral health system was absolutely overwhelmed.
We were coming out of a pandemic, and yet we had an epidemic, an epidemic that was a behavioral health crisis. And it was gonna require more than a single bill or a single program or, candidly, a single building. It was gonna require an absolute transformation of everything we do, how we think, how we staff, how we serve, how we love. That is what RightHelp right now has been and is all about. You see, people need to get the help they need right now.
Not tomorrow, not next week, not next month, not next year, now, today. Because too long is too late, And that's why this is so important. It's so important that we understand that it is services that are readily available. It is relieving law enforcement of the responsibilities that they have taken on, oftentimes to sit with Virginians for fifty hours to decriminalize behavioral health crisis, to make sure that we understand that we need more capacity, we need more services, we need to meet Virginians where they are so that we can say to them, we see you. The system was broken.
The system needed to be fixed. No Band Aid, no quick resolution, but the entire system. And that's what this was all about. And so when RightHelp RightNow was launched after eight months of work where we had thousands and thousands and thousands of participants helping us understand how we could transform this system into something that would not just be good, but would be great, that would not just be a standard, but would lead the nation, would not just meet every Virginian where they are, but would meet them where they are now. That was the aspiration.
And I have to say, friends, we stand here today cutting a ribbon on a facility that I think is so much more than a facility because it represents exactly that. Giving people the right help right now. We realized how important it was to have capacity, capacity so that we could meet those Virginians where they are, so they could come to us, us, a capacity that was gonna require enormous amount of effort. 50 pieces of legislation were passed. 50. To my friends in the general assembly, thank you for working with us. Every time we sat in a room and said, we need this, you answered the call. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
$1,400,000,000 of funding behind RightHelp right now. That's on top of what we already invest in behavioral health. $1,400,000,000 of funding, my friends. It's available because the Commonwealth is doing incredibly well. We're as strong financially as we have ever been, and we prioritize behavioral health as the top.
What do we need to change? My friends, it is true transformation. We have seen access and capacity improve at an extraordinary rate. When someone needs help, they can call 988 today in a way they never could. Five times the increase in responsiveness.
Call numbers have gone from about 5,000 a month to 25,000 calls a month to 988. My friends, we are hearing you, we are seeing you, and we are helping you. When we started, there were only 36 mobile crisis response teams, and we said we need to get to 70. We are at a 105 mobile crisis teams across the Commonwealth Of Virginia today. 24 by seven by three sixty five coverage, and the average statewide response time is now forty two minutes.
We needed to have capacity for patients to get the care they need. When we started, there were 249 chairs in the Commonwealth of Virginia. And when this year finishes, we will be at four sixty, and we will be up to 775 chairs, which is an enormous increase in our capacity to meet patients where we need to meet them. Nine eight eight call centers, mobile crisis teams, hospital facilities, crisis receiving centers, prescreening across 427 providers, and integrating nine one one with 988 so that it can be dispatched at Virginians' needs. We've seen law enforcement officers that have been relieved of this time to a total since March of fourteen thousand hours.
Fourteen thousand hours returns to the citizens of Virginia where our law enforcement heroes can get back into their communities, and that's just since March. That's seven work years of time. This Prince William County Crisis Receiving Center is incredibly important. Three main points. First, it is here to serve Virginians.
64 beds, 60 in chairs, 32 dedicated to children, 24 by seven, right here, right now. It also reflects what it takes to serve 24 by seven, twenty three hour observation units. My friends, this is life saving care. This is what this crisis receiving center reflects. But on top of that, it is now representative of what we should all aspire to be doing, not just here, but across the Commonwealth and across the country.
This facility is the national standard. Virginia is leading and demonstrating that we can transform behavioral health. We can meet Virginians where they are. We can serve our fellow human beings the way that God intended us to. In their most needed moment, we are there.
And so finally, my friends, I hope that each and every one of you today feels an immense sense of accomplishment. When this facility opens, it will represent not just a Commonwealth's accomplishment, but a Commonwealth's heart. And that's why today, I think, is so important. And so I ask for God's blessing on this facility. I ask him to bless everyone who comes in for help.
I ask every person who works here, every clinician, every health care worker, every volunteer. I ask for his blessing on each of them. I ask for the bricks and mortar to be blessed. I ask for our law enforcement personnel to be blessed. Every time someone comes in here, I want them to feel a love that surpasses all understanding. And therefore, we say together, amen. May God bless the Commonwealth of Virginia. May he bless each and every one of you, and let's continue to go to work because we have to make sure that every Virginian gets the right help right now. God bless you all. Thank you.
He's tall, wait a minute. Not to come, I said sir if I may, but I wanted to, I would be remiss if I didn't say thank you to my wonderful staff who helped me through this entire five years to get to where we are. I apologize for coming back, but it's you know, when you're doing these, you you forget. But I wanted to say thank you to the staff. I also wanted to say thank you to the churches in the community that understands that there's a paradigm shift that they have to make to serve this community as it relates to mental health, as it relates to housing, as it relates to food insecurity.
So to my pastors, most of you have one, I have seven. But to my pastors of all the churches in this community, I thank you. Lastly, an entity, all of the stakeholders, the non for profit stakeholders, 93 of you. When I said I let's do this in terms of the community for mental health, voice stood up and everybody came. So I wanna thank you for that.
So I I I just you you don't have everybody on the list, but I see you. You saw me. And then I wanna come back and just close out by saying for the board of county supervisors, I had you in my speech, but this was a bipartisan decision on the board. Didn't matter the what what democracy we're in. No. You know? It didn't matter. We saw this as a need. And, I just wanna say to my colleagues, we can do all things Who strengthens us in what we do? Doesn't matter the party.
Look what you've done. Thank you.
Thank you, governor Youngkin, commissioner Smith, chair Jefferson, vice chair Bailey, and Collin for your speeches and remarks today. Before we begin the ribbon cutting, I'd like to share a few directions and highlight some meaningful activities we've planned for you while you wait for the tour of this facility. In just a moment, I will invite our speakers and the board of county supervisors to gather in front of the ribbon. We also welcome the distinguished elected officials acknowledged earlier to stand at the ribbon cutting and additionally invite representatives from NAMI, Trillium, Voice, Potomac Health Foundation, the Lions Club, Centerra, UVA Health to join us in this special moment. Once the ribbon cutting concludes, we encourage everyone to enjoy refreshments and take time with one another.
This is a
wonderful opportunity for networking and for community building. And while you wait for the tour, we also invite you to participate in a special interactive experience near the cafe and resource table with the blue covering back there, the New Dawn mural. Here you'll be asked to write a personal message of commitment. Your words will become part of the larger collaborative artwork entitled The New Dawn Horizon, and this piece will be permanently displayed in the facility as a powerful reminder that each of us plays a role in helping others find light before, during, and after a crisis. And for those of you that participated in our dedication ceremony in May 2023, you signed some canvases which some art was added to by some of our participants at our Phoenix Phoenix Center.
And when you tour the youth and the adult CRC today, please notice to your right hanging on the wall those signed canvases of hope and wishes that have been decorated. This mural will be added to our walls as well. Facility tours will begin shortly. Our guides will lead tours of approximately 10 through each of the entrances, alternating inside so that everyone will have a chance to experience both the crisis receiving center and community services program areas. So please enjoy the refreshments, connect with fellow guests, and take a moment to leave your mark on the new dawn horizon.
Now I'd like to invite our speakers, board members, and distinguished elected officials, and organizational representatives to join us behind the ribbon for the cutting.
We're gonna cut this on three. Ready? One, two, three.
Hey, that's not nice. You should pick up after yourself and put the trash in the can.
I'm not here to clean up. I'm here to enjoy nature.
So are we. That doesn't mean we can trash the place. Seriously?
Mama raccoon, what's your excuse?
Hi. I'm AquaQuant District Supervisor Kenny Bodhi. Today, I'm excited to have you walk with me on a newly added much anticipated section of Old Bridge Road, providing connectivity for people in our community. As you can see, this project adds 700 feet of more side sidewalk on the north side of Old Bridge Road connecting Oakwood Drive to Forest Hill Road. Importantly, it connects the folks who live here to three schools, a new Occoquan Greenway trailhead, a pool, sports courts, and Lakeridge HOA offices, providing more connection to these amenities for folks without a car, just in time for pool season too.
What's also great is our team at Transportation is excellent at finding more opportunities to connect these networks and secure outside funding to do so. The sidewalk that we're walking on right now together represents a $1,600,000 investment of local and federal dollars, creating a more walkable community while building better partnerships as well. I wanna thank our county department transportation, Rick Kenazales' entire team for delivering this project. Step by step, sidewalk by sidewalk, we're delivering a community that puts people first.
When I graduated from VCU, I was a criminal justice pre law major. I was hired by a signed manufacturer. My first project twenty plus years ago was Potomac Milk's to install that pylon right on 95. It was a multi agency effort, and that's when I knew that, law school wasn't the way I wanted to go. I went back to grad school and got a graduate degree in urban planning with a focus in commercial revitalization.
The cool thing about redevelopment and revitalization is essentially it's community development, and it takes a a unique thought process to think about, okay, we've got existing buildings and different uses here. How can we make it better as we grow as a community? You may see an empty parking lot, But what I see is a vibrant development with places to eat, places to shop, places where you can grab a coffee, sit on your laptop, take a meeting, and and that's what I see in the vacant parking lot, and it's my job to help you see that as well. I love being a part of the development process. As an employee of Prince William County and a resident of this county, I love looking at transformative spaces and saying, I made an impact on that.
And look how happy our community is. Look how much they are loving, feeling heard. Because that's a big part of the job is paying attention to resident feedback and thinking about, okay, well, if we don't have it, why not? And what is it going to take to make it happen? What I'm most excited about is that we have three new vibrant town centers coming to Prince William County, first of their kind in our suburban community.
You're gonna see multistory buildings. You're gonna see retailers that don't exist in the county or retailers that exist in the county that are bringing their a game in terms of We're able to We're energized talking about building that. In Prince William County because we're on the map now, and no longer do we have to explain what our county has to offer. It's more so where would you like to go?
My name is Dennis Delaney, and I'm a housing human services caseworker, and I work for the Department of Social Services. But in the last eight to ten years, homeless services has grown tremendously, and I think COVID had a little bit to do with it. The objective was to get the clients off the homeless clients off the street. And so Villaso Jim was converted into a homeless shelter. You just can't walk up to the front door and say, hey.
I'm homeless to get a check-in. We do have a phone number. It's called coordinated entry. We encourage the homeless clients to call that number. So usually when you come in with nothing, then my job is to do an assessment of our clients and if they need SNAP benefits, if they need social security, if they need, disability, my job is to assist them attaining those benefits, but the end result is to provide housing or a system in finding housing where they'd be able to sustain a decent standard of living.
To me, what it means to be a public servant is to be able to assist the people of our community with what they need. I think it's in me. I I you know, just from, growing up with with my parents and like, my my father wasn't disciplined, but he gave me the shirt off his back. And my mom was very religious, and she would do anything to assist another person. But I think it's made me who I am, today.
Everybody's not as fortunate as others, and some people do need help. So, you know, just being a public servant, to me is to be able to assist people with things that they can't deal with or they can't handle. You get all kinds of people, they're senior citizens that life has just been bad to them, and they've given up on life. And they come in here, they don't have anything. The only thing they have is their shoes and the shirt on their back.
We get some young people, you know, the parents are fed up with their behavior, and the parents say, well, you can't stay here no more so they come here. You get the middle aged people that have records and can't get a job and nobody wants to deal with them. But here at the homeless services, you know, everybody has an opportunity to fresh with a fresh start. And, when they come here, we don't judge. You know?
So if if if if you have an addiction, then we'll address that and we try to get you housed. If you're old and you have never applied for Social Security, then you come in, we'll apply for Social Security, and then we'll get you housed. But there's a lot of people that are involved and that assist in the process. It takes a team effort just to from the beginning of the process to the end of the process. You can come to a homeless shelter and you can get help.
If you want to be housed, you're at the right place. I just want to leave hope that there's always a possibility for change and to better yourself. Hope that I check-in the shelter and I get what I need. Not what I want, but what I need. I place the rest of my head for my family or just for myself.
So I think if they come in with hope, then I think things will work out eventually. I'm thankful just to, you know, be able to still be here and serve Prince William County for thirty years. So I always try to provide an excellent service to the clients that I serve. I think the end result of seeing the smile on people's faces, because you come in the shelter and it can be depressing, You know, and then when you see a light at the end of the tunnel, see the their personality change, see the smile on their face, and you see them behaving differently because they see the light. And then finally when they get housed up, makes me feel good.
It it makes me appreciate what I do. My name is Dennis Delaney, and that's how I serve.
Hello, I'm Deshondra Jefferson, Chair at Large of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors. It is truly an honor to deliver my third State of the County Address. This year, I like to do things a little differently. I like to focus on what I believe best tells the story of who we are in Prince William County by counting down our top five accomplishments of 2025. So let's get started.
Number five, service delivery is at the heart of local government and technology plays an increasingly vital role in how we serve our residents, businesses and visitors. In 2025 the County launched PWC three eleven, a platform that makes it easier than ever to request services, report issues and access support, offering multiple ways to connect with County government at a time and in a manner that works best for the user. PwC three eleven is a part of a broader effort to modernize service delivery, improve the customer experience, and strengthen transparency and accountability across county government. It reflects our commitment to investing in technology that helps Prince William County deliver accessible and exceptional service. Number four, last February the board adopted the twenty twenty five to 2028 strategic plan, a four year roadmap that guides our decisions and actions.
The plan reflects what you, our residents, told us matters most. It centers on eight goal areas: education, environment, government, mobility, quality of life, safe and secure community, service delivery, and smart growth. This plan represents the most inclusive strategic planning process to date with meaningful engagement from the community, the board and county staff. It provides a clear framework for addressing key priorities while enhancing our overall quality of life. We have already made strong progress and I'm excited about what we will continue to achieve in the year ahead.
Number three: 2025 marked the adoption of the County's first affordable dwelling unit ordinance. This significant zoning text amendment represents a pivotal step towards expanding access to housing for low and moderate income residents across the County. In addition, the Board adopted the affordable housing fund guidelines and policies and committed to investing $31,000,000 into the county's affordable housing fund by fiscal year twenty twenty nine. This fund will provide critical gap financing for eligible projects. In Prince William County we believe that everyone deserves a safe and affordable place to call home.
These actions aren't just about buildings they're about people, families, and the future of our community. They represent a real long term solution to a growing challenge. Number two, the adoption of the fiscal year twenty twenty six budget was monumental in many ways. The board reduced the real estate tax rate from 92¢ to 90.6¢, making it the fifth consecutive year the Board has reduced the rate. And for the first time since 1990, we also reduced the personal property tax rate on vehicles.
We listened closely to our small business community and the Board amended the food and beverage, also known as the meals tax ordinance, lowering the rate from 4% to 3%, which took effect on January 1. The budget advances our strategic goals through key investments in public safety, quality of life, infrastructure and essential services. Most notably, it includes historic investments in education with a $991,600,000 transfer to Prince William County Public Schools, which is $80,600,000 more than the year before. And we were able to do all of this while maintaining our coveted triple triple a bond rating, reducing the county's borrowing costs when financing public projects, and saving millions of taxpayer dollars each year, allowing more funding to be invested in community services. I am proud of how the board came together to pass a responsible balanced budget that meets our needs of our community while remaining aligned with our fiscal policies.
If we want to be known for our quality of life then we must invest in the things that matter most to our residents. Our schools, public safety, parks and services for our most vulnerable neighbors. And that brings us to number one. Prince William County is at its core a community that cares deeply for one another. And nothing reflects that better than the opening of our crisis receiving center complex.
In October, community members, my colleagues, county staff, and the governor gathered to celebrate the ribbon cutting of this facility, one that has already been recognized as a model for others to follow. This facility allows us to provide timely, compassionate, evidence based behavioral health support to individuals experiencing a mental health crisis. It is a powerful example of what happens when community and government at every level come together with a shared commitment to care for others. And it's working! Since its October opening, the CRC has served a total of three zero four adults through its twenty three hour observation unit.
Of those individuals, one hundred and sixty four transitioned to short term residential crisis services that provide therapy, medication support, and stabilization as alternatives to inpatient hospitalization. And with the recent announcement of the center now open to walk ins, we anticipate these numbers will increase as we help more people in crisis within our community. While these are in no means all of the accomplishments of 2025, I think they tell a larger story about who we are as a county and what we value. They show a Prince William County plans thoughtfully for the future, invest responsibly, and leads people with the center of all that we do. As we look ahead to the coming year, I am confident in our direction and inspired by our potential.
Prince William County is a growing community, it is a thriving community, it is a vibrant community, and it is one that we are building together. That's why I invite everyone to join us on the evening of Monday January 26 at the Hilton Performing Arts Center for our second annual state of the county event. At that event you'll hear directly from county departments about how they're advancing the goals laid out in our strategic plan and you'll be engaged by panel discussions that highlight how Prince William County is reimagining ourselves to meet current and future needs. None of this progress happens in isolation. It happens because residents engage, staff innovate, and the Board works together with a shared commitment to serving the public good.
I am grateful to my colleagues on the Board, our County employees, our community partners, and most importantly, the Prince William County residents for your trust and collaboration. I am proud of what we have accomplished together and even more excited about what lies ahead.
Thank you.
One, two, three. I got my feet all over here. I
am so happy to be here celebrating another wonderful road opening here in the county. This road's a little special though because it was a collaboration between the developer, Prince William Department of Transportation, and Prince William's Department of Public Works to make this all come together. When we didn't need a construction or a contractor construction crew, we were able to use our own forces, and we were able to work with our with our local development partners around the area.
Big thank you to Brick for having the confidence in public works to build the biggest project that construction and operations has ever built. $7,000,000,000. Thank you very much.
This is a long anticipated ceremony. We know that many of you have played a very big part in making this happen. This is not possible without partnership. We know that this is more than just pavement and sidewalks. Ultimately, we are, and this is certainly countywide, but it's certainly big for what we are doing here, creating a multimodal transportation option. And this opens up this area for just that.
I love this park because it is ribbon cutting on events that take years to to really pull off.
They often say that ribbon cuttings and groundbreakings are my favorite part of the job because that's when you see the fruition of all of the years and years and years of hard work come to life. And this project is multimodal, which is something that we always, always emphasize. Providing multimodal options enhances quality of life. Reducing congestion enhances quality of life.
Our first involvement with Annapolis Way began in the mid and early mid nineties when we first developed the first section coming down off Gordon Boulevard down to the commuter lot. We worked with VDOT to make possible land swap for the commuter lot, and we also made possible the first two economic development uses of the convenience store and the hotel back in the early mid nineties. I think the public private partnership collaboration was tremendous. It was a big it was a big plus for us, and I think it was a big plus for
the citizens of this county.
Supervisor Franklin regrets she could not be here. She certainly sends her regards, and she is very proud of this project and what it means for North Woodbridge. Projects like this make Woodbridge and Prince William County a wonderful place to live and work.
My name is Bryce Barrett, and I am a principal planner with the Department of Transportation here at Prince William County. I think the quality of life of our residents is the primary goal in everything that we do. Every single person, whether it's interacting with work, school, shopping, or just for recreational purposes, they need to go from point a to point b, and that's what the Department of Transportation helps to ensure that they have a way to access that and do it safely and efficiently. I really enjoy just working with residents, having them tell us what the issues are as they see it, identify those problems, and then use that to formulate recommendations to address their concerns. As a a planner for Prince William County Department of Transportation, I get to shape how the county's transportation network is gonna look like.
I do that through working with our comprehensive plan, our long range plans such as the mobility chapter. I do that through planning studies and corridor plans that look at specific roads or facilities and make recommendations to improve those or make them safer. And I do that through the review of development applications to ensure that they align with the vision for our county. My hope is that we will continue to be and develop Prince William County into a more multimodal friendly community and give people the choice and the opportunity to utilize different modes of transportation such as walking, biking, and transit, and that is gonna provide dividends and improve the quality of life of all of our residents. I would say that I found public service.
Growing up, I I was an outgoing kid. I always liked to, you know, talk with people, listen to people. I started my career in public service nine years ago, and then I became a planner for the first time. I was a long range planner with the planning office, and I got an opportunity to work developing our community and what our community will look like. I fell in love with it instantly once I got a taste of it because it really is an opportunity to invest in your own community and that pays dividends, in the long run to your quality of life, to fulfillment, and just being able to be proud of what you do, as a public servant.
I love working for Prince William County because we have a close knit and dedicated team of people who are just as passionate about serving their community as I am. I come to work every day now because I know that the work that I do today will impact the future. And hopefully, I'll be able to look back on that and say that I had a hand in those changes. I am a resident here in Prince William County. I have a family here in Prince William County.
And being told that we are making a positive difference not only feels good now, but it makes me feel confident that the Prince William County that my children will inherit is the best possible place for them to live. I'm Bryce, and this is how I serve.
As part of Prince William County's larger beautification initiative, the Gainesville District focused its landscaping efforts on four key areas along Sudley Road, from I 66 to Sudley Manor Drive. These areas were selected for their visibility and impact, serving as a gateway for thousands of residents, commuters, and visitors each day. The beautification project included the installation of crepe myrtle trees and more than 500 colorful perennials and shrubs. These plantings include hydrangeas, knockout roses, and more, all carefully chosen to create year round color and texture. The investment not only enhances the look and feel of one of Gainesville's busiest roadways, but also strengthens community pride, improves quality of life for residents, and creates a more welcoming experience for visitors.
These improvements are a reflection of the Board's commitment to building a community that values beauty, sustainability, and a sense of shared pride in the place we call home.
I'm just a raccoon chilling in the back of this uncovered truck with all this open cargo. Humans can be so lazy and careless. They never bother to cover their load when they drive. It's a total mess for our environment and a big danger to others. Maybe one day humans will learn to clean up after themselves.
But until then, I'll just keep doing what I do best, being trashy. I'm a raccoon. What's your excuse?
We are at the Community Safety Innovation Symposium at the Potomac Science Center at George Mason University. We created this symposium to bring together professionals to discuss best practices and to really learn from each other. Everyone is here to talk about coordinated response. It's how multi agencies come together to address learn safety issues within the county.
Walking into this room today is pretty inspiring. We know that it takes a multidisciplinary approach to violence prevention, violence intervention. And so walking into this room, seeing uniformed officers, seeing practitioners, seeing folks who are coming from many different places in our governments is exactly where we need to be.
Oftentimes, when we look at a problem within the community or we look at a safety issue, many agencies are looking at it from their perspective. Right? And only that perspective, but if we have an opportunity to broaden it and to bring in more agencies to respond, we have a real opportunity to innovate and think creatively about how we solve those issues. This is a testament to investment that the board of county supervisors and our county exec is making into safety in the county.
We are also in a position now where we're seeing our systems evolve. And so what that means is coordinated response. What that means is a co response. What it certainly means is mental health services. And certainly what it means is a convener like each of you and certainly like our office of community safety. We are in a people business. And in on the case of all of us, whether we're uniformed or not, we have come into this work to serve and to make our communities better.
It was probably in my early thirties. My dad couldn't get good Internet out at his house, and the ISP drove out to his house and said, you'll never get fiber out here. There's just not enough homes to justify trenching. And that's really where the idea for Traxxl began using road networks to bring the Internet.
We have a saying, here to anywhere, and it's about connectivity. It's about getting connectivity in hard to reach areas. It's about closing the digital divide. And when I say digital divide, it's the separation between communities that have high speed Internet and those that don't. The way to get connectivity using traditional methods would be either trenching or you're drilling underground. We avoid it altogether. We don't even go underground.
We're we don't go into the other utilities. What we're basically doing is taking those cables and putting them into our lines that we basically are painting out onto road surfaces. So we're bringing the fiber optic connections using the surfaces of roads by painting them onto the roadwork. Just kinda began in the garage. Originally, were being pulled around on wagons. My dad would pull me on a wagon and I'd hold this little drag box and Steve would pour the resin into the box over top of the fiber cables that we had tacked down.
It was in the middle the night because we were both working full time professions at this time. We're laying down these cables, turning on some lights, curing things. It it really showed good resiliency and viability, and so we just kept going out and testing it a little further, a little further. And so we're here today actually in our own shop working in our lab and in the in our own environment doing it.
So after many years of building different machines and trying to get this process automated, we got to what we call our mark two trackster where we're basically taking fiber cables, bonding them to the surface using a UV cured resin, and just driving down the road painting optical fiber. So what this machine really represents is another tool in the tool bag for fiber installers to use that can really help solve some complicated installation challenges and and get the customer up running faster.
Today, we're serving both rural communities to close the digital divide, but we're also working with smart cities and bases and campuses to solve challenging situations in urban environments too.
I'm Lindsey, and this is my story. When I was a little girl, my life was, you know, typical Latina household, and we were all girls. Our mom always did a really amazing job of, you know, making sure that we enjoyed each other's company and had clothes on our back and were fed. Certain things started taking a turn at home. I was entering my teenage years, and people started looking at me differently, you know, specifically my mother's husband.
The effect of the things from my home life onto my school work was not being able to focus. My grades were slipping. I was not having good relationships with people around me, and I just did not ever want to go home. My mother's husband was not the greatest person, and it came to a turning point when I was about 16 or so. He ended up going to jail as a result of the circumstances back at home, and I was involved in that.
There was some tension between me and my mom, and I was kind of stuck in an uncomfortable situation with a lot of emotions I didn't know how to tolerate, and I was not feeling great about my existence.
Lindsay came to me when she was struggling with some very serious family issues, and we talked about what options that she could have and what things she could try to improve her ability to cope.
When I met miss Kate, it was definitely a really challenging situation for me because I was right in the moment of the police having just been called. We were still figuring out what was gonna happen with me, who I was gonna stay with.
One of the things that we focus on is how to build strengths and how to improve someone's ability to increase their their coping mechanisms.
New Horizons had a huge impact on the person I was back then. It's one of the major reasons I'm still around. And through the program, I was able to gain a lot of skills from communication to loving myself again to finding my value as a human being and understand I can overcome with the support and tools within the program, and I gained more confidence. I was able to become show choir captain and just becoming the best version of myself.
The woman I see now is a woman who is very confident, who's very happy with who she is, who is focused, is motivated, who is inspiring, and she impacts everyone that she meets. She continues to pay it forward.
I've grown into a mature person HR in my organization, and I'm helping others find the next best step in their career path. Helping people who might be in a difficult part of their life, maybe struggling to find a job, and giving them back opportunity to restart.
I believe the New Horizons program represents the best of what this county has to offer. To have this incredibly creative collaborative effort to deliver services in an out of the box way. And it means the world with every individual student I work with because every student's story is different. But the outcome, the end game is the same. Go out and do something amazing because you are so capable of it and you deserve wonderful things in your life.
I want people to know that this program changes lives. There's a lot of things I want to say to Kate, but the biggest one is thank you, and thank you for saving my life.
Hello. Welcome back. I am Chris Shorter, your county executive, and we are on location today at Fire Station 26. Really excited to be joined today by our budget director, Dave Sinclair. Dave, welcome to Shorter Topics.
Hi. How are you doing?
Very good. Very good. Very excited to have you. I I will say this is long overdue, so Dave plays a very important role in Prince William County. We're gonna talk a bit about his role and job as we get into the discussion.
Today, we're gonna talk capital improvement program, how it fits into the county's budget, all of the plans that go into and feed into the work that we do around the capital improvement program and infrastructure. Now we've said this a lot on this podcast. Prince William County, Virginia is growing, and it's growing fast. With that kind of growth, what is important is that we are also growing our infrastructure. That is the quality of life, that is the buildings, the recreation centers, the fire stations, the libraries, all the things, the roads, the schools, all the things that make a community what we want it to be, it happens as we develop our infrastructure.
And so Dave plays a very important role in this process in the development of our capital improvement program. So that's what we're gonna talk about today, Dave, and thank you for not just being here today, but really for all that you do to make not just the capital improvement program, but the budget in the county possible.
Thank you. Really happy to be here with you today.
Let's first talk about the capital improvement program. I don't wanna assume that our listeners know what the Prince William County capital improvement program means and how it fits in. So if if you could just just give us some basic understanding of what the capital improvement program is.
Yes. So the county's six year capital improvement program is the plan for delivering capital infrastructure to the community. Mhmm. It can be the new new fire and rescue stations, new police stations. It can be libraries or parks and recreation facilities or transportation projects.
Absolutely.
But it's not just new facilities. It's also making sure also that you're taking care of existing facilities with major cyclic replacement so that the life of the asset to the community can be sustained as long as possible.
So we are entering now our actual budget season, and that is for our capital improvement program and our budget, our actual proposed budget. I wonder if you could talk a bit about, now that we are in this annual process now and about to officially start the season. Just talk a bit about what we're going to be doing over the next few weeks to make sure that we're prepared with the board and sort of certain certainly with the community.
Over the ensuing month, what we're gonna be doing is evaluating the progress of existing projects already in the capital improvement program as they progress on their journey from design to construction and delivery to the community. Are they on schedule? Are they within budget? We're also evaluating opportunities for new projects to enter the CIP. But although the CIP is a planning document that's influenced by the county's long range comprehensive plan and strategic plan, The CIP is also, incorporates, funding sources and what's affordable.
There's a lot of great magnificent ideas in the community in terms of what we would like to do, but the CIP has a funding element to it, and we need to make sure it's also affordable within our financial policy.
I appreciate that you put it that way. So in terms of now we started the podcast talking through the fact that the county is growing so quickly and the needs, if you will, for infrastructure improvements in the county, that is quality of life, that's public safety, are also increasing. What's the size of our capital improvement program, and how has that changed over the years for the county?
Yeah. So the county government's CIP is the six year CIP is currently worth more than a billion dollars. That doesn't even include the schools. Wow. Now when I started with the county twenty nine years ago, the CIP was maybe 3 or $400,000,000. Wow.
Well, you know, I'm not gonna let you skip over that too quickly. Twenty nine years. Absolutely amazing, Dave. I I think I knew that you had been here that long, but to hear it and to be reminded of what an amazing career journey, we are certainly happy to have you here that long. And it certainly shows in all that you know about the county and the county's systems.
So glad to have you on and to have you had you here for that long. Thank you. What can we look forward to in this FY '27 CIP? Now I know when we come to the board, we come with a six year plan and ask the board to consider. For FY '27, there are a lot of asks.
We have engaged our board. We have already engaged our community. Our agencies are now our departments are in the process of finalizing their ask of plan. What are some of the things, if you were gonna give us a sneak peek into the FY '27 proposal, what are some of the things we can look forward to?
There's a lot of community interest in parks and trails. We know that's a priority of the community and the board. Also recreation centers. There's also an interest in technology and how that can spur efficiency for agencies in terms of service delivery to the community. Yes, indeed.
But also, we're here sitting here, obviously, in a fire and rescue station. The CIP has four fire and rescue station projects. Two are brand new facilities, bringing service levels to the count, improved service levels to the community, to our rebuild projects because we have some fire and rescue stations that are sixty, sixty five years old already. So there's that capital component replacement as as well that has to be factored into.
How will the CIP or the program fit into the budget? So two weeks after you present the CIP, then I'll be presenting the proposed budget to the board. If you could talk a bit about how those two plans interact.
The CIP has a major influence on the county executive's proposed budget and five year plan. The major funding source for these capital facilities is, debt financing, meaning the county issues municipal bonds to finance the construction of these projects. Well, when you go enter into debt financing for these these facilities that the community needs, just as in our private budgets
Mhmm.
Whether we've choose to finance a car or finance the purchase of a home, we have a monthly mortgage cost. There's no difference in to Prince William County. We have annual debt service payments that we have to incorporate in the operating budget, But, also, these facilities have recurring costs because of
the
personnel that, runs from this station, for example. Yes. But, also, you have to adequately maintain and budget for the utilities and the maintenance. That too has to be incorporated in the annual operating budget when these facilities are constructed and come online. And it's almost the most one of the most important bills that the county pay.
We talk often about the triple triple a bond rating for the county. Your bringing up debt service reminded me that this is one of the, you know, sort of many one of the many awesome things about what we are doing here in Prince William County that we are one of only a few counties in the country with triple triple a rating. Now I wonder if you could talk a little bit about what that means in terms of that service and cost, if you will, to the county.
Our magnificent friends in the finance department, they have a key leadership role in the county's debt capacity. And, earlier, Chris, you mentioned the principles of sound financial management. Those are a series of policies ranging from revenue to budget to debt management. And just like in our private lives, we have to be careful that we overextend ourselves in terms of the amount of debt that we go into. Prince William County is in the same situation, where whereas we would like to do a lot of things, and we we like to do everything that the community wants, but we also need to be careful that the county isn't overleveraged in debt.
And so as we evaluate projects and they as they enter the CIP, we just need to be cognizant of the fact that we're adhering to our debt management policies. You're absolutely right. County is elite in terms of we have three triple a bond ratings as creditors evaluate Prince William County's credit. And because we have those triple a bond ratings, the community and the county pays lower interest rates as we finance these capital facilities.
Right. And it becomes that much more important certainly as we begin to build even more and expect those projects to go faster that the benefit of having very low loans, low interest on loans, is a big plus for our government and certainly for our community. Right. When you consider that the period of debt on a capital facility is roughly twenty years for the county as we issue our municipal debt, those differences in interest costs between a triple a rated community and a lower rated community In terms of
the interest rate, it may seem small, but when you amortize that over twenty years or so, it really does matter. It could be the difference between millions of dollars.
So in terms of principles of sound financial management, just really wanna thank the board of county supervisors. So certainly know we have the principles of sound financial management as a document. We talk about it often as a community, but it really requires the board's leadership to stick to those principles. And certainly that feeds into this triple triple a bond rating. So I really wanna acknowledge and just thank our board members and our board collectively for the discipline in their approach to adhering to the principles of sound financial management.
Now that we are basically in it, we are in the start, if you will, of the sort of process for engaging the board around the capital improvement program and the budget. I wonder if you could talk about what we do to engage through this process, through the next few weeks and months, how we will be working with the board and the community to get feedback and then ultimately get an adopted budget.
So that is something that we really pride ourselves on as a team is the transparent budget and CIP process with the community. One of the greatest compliments I've ever received was actually, I hate the budget, but it is absolutely transparent.
Mhmm.
So that's something that is actually a compliment to me.
Yeah. But Well, I will say, you and the team, especially during this, you know, next few months, you're engaging with the community and you're getting responses out to the board and to the community really almost within twenty four hours, I think, is the commitment.
That's what we try to do. So after we present the proposed CIP and you present your proposed budget, we actually make the proposed budget and CIP available online. We have a question and answer database where anybody can ask any question that they like about the proposed budget and CIP. And you're right. We try to get back to within twenty four hours, but depending on the complexity of of the question, it may take a little longer. But that is the goal, Chris.
Yeah.
And, also, we we have multiple public hearings at at the direction of the board of county supervisors, residents to come and give their input in person or online. And, really, the budget isn't adopted until April, so you have a good two month period where the community can voice their opinion.
It truly is. When I think about the ways in which we engage the community here in Prince William County, this is one of the processes, this is one of the periods where it is truly on display. We are not just sort of at the board meetings and during public hearings, but there's an online tool now where you hear directly from our staff responses to questions that the community is asking.
And and you're absolutely right. We we post all the questions and answers that we receive online so that anybody can review all the questions even if they didn't ask it.
Mhmm.
We we keep it public so that, everyone can see it. And after the proposed budget is presented to the board in February, That fall immediately that following Saturday, we have a community meeting where anybody can sign up or come, and we will present the proposed CIP and the proposed budget and answer any questions they may have.
I absolutely love that we do that on a Saturday. It's accessible. It's not during the week where some may have a tough time sort of getting away from work or coming in in the evening. So thank you to you and your staff for sort of just making the government available on a Saturday for residents just to ask questions and better understand the budget. Appreciate that. Thank you. So, Dave, you mentioned the schools having a sort of separate budget process, and they do. I wonder if you could talk about how our CIP interacts, if it does interacts at all with the school's CIP.
Yeah. So the school's CIP is largely developed independently by Prince William County school staff, and it ultimately gets approved by the Prince William County school board.
I love that we have the fire truck coming in in the back. But go ahead. I didn't mean to interrupt. Yeah.
But, also, at the end of the day, the schools present their budget to the board of county supervisors, and it is the Prince William Board of County Supervisors that ultimately budgets and appropriates the school's overall budget.
Fantastic. So when it comes to school renovations, school improvements, and others, it is the school board directly that's contemplating, reviewing, and then ultimately making a recommendation to to the board of county supervisors.
Correct. And a lot of that is funded, though, through the county transfer that's included in the county government's budget.
So thank you, Dave, for all that you do for the county. Certainly, thank you for being here today. This was a really good conversation. I think we touched on a number of very important topics. We did it in a very high level way. So thank you for your presence today and for all you're doing for Prince William County. And to our viewers, thank you all for tuning in to shorter topics, bigger impact. We'll see you next time.
There's a lot of things I love about being a police officer, being able to help people in different ways, whether that's fellow officers or whether that's in the field dealing with community members.
Both of my parents are retired police officers from Princeland County. I wanted to serve and give back to the community that I grew up in.
When they see our cars, when they see our uniforms, it equals trust.
I'm extremely 're
to to
We're have felt like I'm not a number here, that if you work hard, you're gonna be be seen, able your name's gonna be known, and people are gonna remember you.
We have a lot of opportunities. People wanna go to CID, SWAT, KNI, people that wanna move up the ranks. This is a great place to work.
People here just feel comfortable. I'd say it's the caliber of the people we hire, the training that we experience here, and just the leadership.
We are always looking at what's better, what's best practice, and how we can get to that point. Delivering justice and helping others and protecting the innocent and bringing closure, it can be extremely rewarding.
That honesty, that integrity, that desire to serve our community, that is the Prince William Way.
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We are the Prince William County Human Rights Commission, and we want to make sure our community is conscious of our agency's mission, which is to eliminate discrimination in our county by enforcing our civil and human rights laws. We want to ensure we maintain equal opportunities for all persons within our county Through communication, education, and most of all, by making sure our agency is an accessible resource for our community. The Prince William County Human Rights Commission was established on 01/15/1993 by the Board of County Supervisors to ensure that each citizen is treated fairly, provided equal protection of the law, and equal opportunity to participate in the benefits, rights, and privileges of our community. We're here for you. Residents are encouraged to use our services if they feel their rights are being violated in the areas of employment, housing, credit, education, and or public accommodation.
If you feel you've been discriminated against in the following areas on the basis of your race, national origin, sex, gender, religion, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, status as a veteran, familial status, or marital status, you can contact our office to learn more about your equal opportunity rights. Complaints which have occurred within three hundred and sixty five days before filing a complaint, as well as alleged violations by employers that have six or more employees. Contact the Human Rights Office in person, by telephone, letter, or online at pwcva.gov/humanrights. You can talk to a staff member about your concerns. They can determine if the office covers the complaint.
If the complaint is not covered by the Human Rights Office, the staff member will try to make a referral to another agency which can handle your complaint. To file a complaint or learn more about your rights, please contact the Human Rights Office or visit our website at pwcva.gov/humanrights.
My name is Jeff Fulkerson. I'm the fatherhood engagement coordinator with the Prince William County Fatherhood Initiative. The mission of the Prince William County Fatherhood Initiative is to empower and educate fathers to serve the best interests of their children. And we do this through workshops, forums, and also support groups. We target fathers at every level.
I mean, we talk about military fathers who have been deployed. We talk about teenage fathers. You talk about incarcerated fathers. Being a public servant, I mean, you should want to be a compassionate neighbor to the people around you because there are a lot of people, you know, in our community that they just need someone who has empathy for them to provide that support that they need because this moment here, this moment in time does not define who you are. And then also, you have an opportunity to change your situation.
All you gotta do is decide what you wanna do and how you wanna do it, and then take those steps to, you know, make it happen. My mom and dad, they separated when I was around four years old. My mom was a single parent mother, and, you know, just seeing how the system, you know, supported us, helped us keep a roof over her head, clothes on her backs, you know, really got me thinking that, you know, I wanted to, you know, help people help themselves. When I was a high school student living in Kingsport, Tennessee, I worked a summer job at Parks and Recreation, and I was, like, program director. So I had me and my staff would put on fun activities for the kids during the summer.
Some of the other jobs that I had, I was an upper bound director up in Massachusetts with a program called the Bruce Wells Scholars Upward Bound Program. We prepared low income first generation high school kids for success at four year colleges and universities. I mean, just seeing the kids reaction, you know, to, you know, what we were providing. You know, we were relating to the kids, and we had that rapport. Because, know, these kids were just like me when I was a child.
It made me feel like I was giving back, but it brought me joy, and then it just inspired me. When I got to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. I decided to major in social work and that was probably the best decision I made. I came here with Prince William County. I was hired initially as a child protective services caseworker before I was hired as the fatherhood engagement coordinator.
I'm seeing men opening up about, you know, what was going on in their households. I mean, I'm seeing men sharing freely, you know, and really getting in touch with those emotions. The stories that they share about their connection with their children and how they miss their children. I mean, was really it's really it's gut wrenching. And I'm just seeing fathers who are readjusting their approach and the children, how they respond to that in a positive way where like, okay, I see that my dad is trying to change.
Man, that brings me so much joy because it relates to my personal experience of being a child of a single parent. Think for me being a public servant is important because it feels like I'm able to give back, you know, to my community. I'm able to sow positivity into the lives of people that I serve. Just being able to do this work, you know, just it's like I'm right where I need to be. I'm Jeff Falkerson, and this is how I serve.
Please rise if you are able for the pledge. And I would like to thank everyone for coming out this afternoon. Before we begin, I would like to recognize the elected officials with us today. We have Brinsville Supervisor Tom Gordy. Occoquan Supervisor Kenny Bode.
Woodbridge supervisor Margaret Franklin. And from our Richmond delegation, have Senator Danica Roe. And we are honored to have two of our constitutional officers joining us today, Commonwealth Attorney Amy Ashford Clerk of the Court Jacqueline Smith, will administer the oath of office. We also have from the town of Haymarket, Joe Pasanello. And we have the former chair at large, the Honorable Ann Wheeler.
And chair of the electoral board, Keith Scarborough. In July, we unexpectedly lost our colleague, supervisor Bob Weir. That loss was certainly felt by his friends and family as well as the members of the Gainesville District, the county, and by us on the Board of County Supervisors. But today we are here to pass the torch to George Stewart. Just two days after his high school graduation, Supervisor-elect Stewart signed up for the Navy to see the world and serve his nation.
Today he's beginning a new chapter of service as a supervisor for the Gainesville Magisterial District. And now it is my distinct honor to first welcome the chair of the electoral board, Keith Scarborough, to present the certificate of election and then the clerk of the court, Jackie Smith, to administer the oath of office.
Thank you, madam chair. My name is Keith Scarborough. I am, the chairman of the Prince William County Board of Elections. I am honored to be here today to make this presentation to our newly elected supervisor. We completed our certification this morning right around 12:30. So we are now prepared to present the signed, sealed, and delivered certificate of election to the honorable George Stewart.
solemnly swear
I solemnly swear
to support the constitution of The United States
to support the constitution of The United States
and
the constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia
And the constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia
And to faithfully and impartially
And to faithfully and impartially
Discharge all the duties
Discharge all the duties
incumbent upon me
Incumbent upon me
As the Gainesville district supervisor
As the Gainesville district supervisor
For the county of Prince William
For
the county of Prince William
the best of my abilities
the best of my abilities
So help me, God.
So help me, God. Congratulations. First of all, thank you so very much for everybody for being here today. I really, really appreciate it. You know, I wanna thank god for this journey.
Everybody keeps asking me how it feels. And I'm I'm sure until the electives that are here, it it can relate when I say that it's it's a surreal experience. Probably, the the most surreal part of it was seeing my name on the last ballot, you know, like during during this election cycle. And, you know, so many people I'm looking at so many faces here of of people that have helped me along the way. And I don't mean just during just during this campaign.
I'm there there are people that have been here that I I I want to acknowledge that have been with me since literally the very beginning. So my journey has been through this thing we call life extremely fascinating. As some of you know, I was adopted at the age of three and this year has been a very very interesting year. So, I have a daughter. She's 33 years old and a four year old because I'm that guy I laughed at when I was in my twenties.
Look at this guy. Really? Like, you know alright. So, you know, my my 33 year old, she calls me up very excited and she's like, Dad, I think we're Jamaican. You have to do ancestry.com so that we can we can get that solid.
Anyway, long story short, it led me on this journey where I reconnected with my birth family. And the first person I connected with was was my uncle. And now, I'm I'm born and raised in New York City and my birth mom is from Ohio. And so, the conversation, he says that she lives in of all places, there's 50 states. She lives in Virginia.
Oh. No.
Fast so that night, I'm on the phone with her. Ten days later, we're spending the weekend together. And I'm happy to say she's here today. Yeah. Along with my uncle who connected us.
And,
you know, I was raised by an amazing family. I was raised by a family that was extremely civically orientated. They dragged me from the from the day they adopted me, dragged me to specific meetings and, you know, so this is this is not an unusual space for me. Right? But it's unusual to be on this side of the podium.
They nailed it as parents. Of course, they had good raw material to work with. But but yeah, you know, they they taught me, you know, and it's it's kind of something that I tried to represent in in in this election cycle To, you know, it's better to lose with integrity than to win and not feel good about the person you're looking at when you're brushing your teeth in the mirror. Alright? And, you know, I think the difference is, you know, I'm I'm not running against and I wasn't running against anything as much as I'm I'm running for my community.
And, you know, I want to thank the Gainesville Dems that helped get me here. I met Josh and Danica, Josh Thomas and Danica Rome who's here, actually, yep, in a coffee shop in Haymarket the Sunday after Thanksgiving. They had just both been elected and I I went up and said, hey, how can I get involved? And they sent me to the the Gainesville Dems and Colin Robinson sort of showed me the the initial ropes of of what to do. Right?
And Gainesville is a very interesting place, you know. And I'm happy that, you know, that my family and I we we we chose to to to move here. And There's one other person that I'd I'd really like to really like to thank. She is a North Star for me. She's more than my best friend. Right? She's my conscience. She's my even sometimes when it hurts. Right? She is the very embodiment of everything that I love about life.
And that's my wife, Andrea. So I wanna I wanna keep this short. I don't wanna turn it into a TED talk. There there are some things to do. There are some challenges, some headwinds that we're facing in the county right now especially on the western side of the county.
And, you know, as I said before, you know, like I'm ready to take those shots. You know, my willingness to lead is really a willingness to serve. Right? And what serving looks like for me is, you know, like for me, for you, like as as as we have a representative government, my job is to do the will of the people. And I am willing to take the shots and I and I and I know they're coming.
Right? But I'm also like how everybody is here today. I'm I'm I'm looking to raise an army. I'm looking to raise an army of of republicans, democrats, independents, you know, you name it, that want to have their voice heard. Right?
Not just like noise, right, but actually heard and considered and weighed and followed. I wanna restore those first three words of we the people. I wanna keep the last words of our pledge of allegiance about liberty and justice for all. I wanna keep that promise so that it doesn't become a punchline. And right now, we have some headwinds that we have to face. We have some things some some challenges, and I'm up for the challenge. I I I want you all to give me the heat, keep me accountable. Right? Because I'm here to serve you. And with that, I'd like just I'd just like to say, so let us begin. Thank you very much.
And that concludes our program, but I would love for everyone to stick around. We do have some refreshments. And this is your opportunity to speak with the new Gainesville supervisor, George Stewart. Thank you.
My name is detective Michelle McAllister, and I work with Prince William County Police in Virginia, and I'm part of the women's mentorship program. My self and lieutenant Ashard Robinson are the founding members. Every day, I think we mentor women within our agency, and part of our program, the two pronged approach to our program when we started it was inside of our walls and outside of our walls. So we wanted to really have that recruitment aspect and the retention aspect as well. So what can we do to train?
What can we do to inspire? What can we do to lead? And then really making the connections and keeping those connections. So we do it on a small scale every day within our department, but we really wanted to branch out and share our message with other agencies, creating a platform in an environment that is open and a little bit more casual. And that way, some of those conversations and trainings and really mentorship can take place.
Some of the things that I've gained is basically just that reinforcement of being able to consistently obtain my confidence, being able to walk in really difficult spaces very confidently, and being able to communicate what I need to happen and what I would like to see in the future.
So the biggest takeaway was your network matters. So you need to really focus on expanding your network and getting more people involved even if it's outside of your own agency, your family, and making sure you have that. It's more than just being a hard worker at your agency. You really have to put yourself in the room where it happens, and you have to make that a priority. Don't let anyone tell you it's not your turn.
One of the biggest takeaways I've gained from this summit is that she can do it. She can do all things. This has been an amazing summit, full of powerful women, and it has really awakened something in me, and I'm excited to get back to my organization. Sometimes in this profession, you get burnt out. Right? And so being here around these women, it's kinda fueling and letting me know that I'm on the right track, just keep going, and that what I'm doing matters.
We are working hard as, an agency with Prince William County, and our chief sends this message out every day to really be inclusive and have a diverse agency for the community, that we serve. And right now, our mentorship program is really trying to do that as well for the recruitment aspect and making sure that we are inspiring younger women and just really trying to bring together and inspire young women from a early age and helping foster that connection. So, hopefully, they'll become inspired to be officers as well.
I was looking to start my own business. Like most businesses, I was kind of starting with Google. Right? So, like, how to start a small business. And to be honest, like, it was kind of overwhelming and just trying to piece together, like, where do I start.
Working in economic development, it really comes down to being an advocate for businesses. I guess the thing that kinda drew me to it was if I understood that it was difficult, trying to gather all the information on how to start a small business, I can kinda come at it from that perspective. My first role or my first task at hand is to listen. It's to not come from a government perspective of just implementing things. It's really just to sit down with the businesses, oftentimes just one on one, hearing what their challenges are, where they're getting stuck, and seeing how Prince William County can come in and provide a solution for that.
The relationships I get to make with our business community, it's more of just, you know, I'm helping businesses. I'm I'm going to visit them, and they ask how my children are doing. I ask how their family's doing. So it's awesome just building that community and making those relationships. The work that we're doing, it's gonna impact, you know, my neighbors just like me who want to have a vibrant community not just for themselves.
It's to keep a roof over their head so that they can get their kid in college. You know, it's their retirement. This idea that Prince William County, you know, is made up of so many small businesses. We're really just neighbors helping neighbors. And so I'm really excited for the future of Prince William County and what we're creating here.
I'm Elias and this is my story. I was jobless, was out on looking for work for about six, seven months. My goal was to ensure that my kids and my family didn't experience the hiccup that I'm experiencing. I got a big loan, what almost a $35,000 loan. Of course, $35,000 end up going pretty fast with the rain and every other thing that's required in the house.
Moment where I realized that my account was negative like three twenty something like and then I sat down and realized that it was no way I can get money from anywhere because I utilized the loan, it was completely gone. I had a credit card completely maxed out. My car was about to be repoed because it was six months behind. So I went online and when I entered jobs near me, what popped up was SOAR services in Princeton County.
In trying to complete Elias's assessment, was very difficult because he was basically a broken man sitting across from me. And you really can't go through the list of questions and get these generic answers when someone's down on their luck and hitting that rock bottom. We pushed the paper to the side and said let's just talk. Let's, you know, talk. It's not leaving this room just between you and I. Where are you? What do we need to do to get you back on your feet?
That process was very for me, it was embarrassing. I had way too much pride and ego to approach social services because there's a prejudice and a stereotype with the name soil services. This is the assumption is either you're lazy or you're just a nobody, basically. And then she started telling me, you know, I'm here to help. I'm here to it's very hard to hear that from somebody because you don't really hear that a lot as well where I come from.
I just thought broke down and started crying. It was it was very hard for me because for me getting help was not what I anticipated and then she just explained to me, hey, we're here to help and once you're done with this process, get off food stamps, you get off welfare and you go on with your life.
In Elias' situation, what we did was we looked at the experience he had and the goals he wanted to pursue, and we made referrals to different community partners in order to achieve the training and experience that he needed. I was actually worried that he was gonna come in and tell me he lost that fantastic dream job.
And I walked in there and I sat down and she was like, okay, why are you here?
Elias actually filled me in on what was going on with him and his family. The good news was that Elias moved on to gain bigger and better employment opportunities and now has multiple businesses where he's giving back to the community.
I do have my own company that I started where I provide cybersecurity training so folks can like jobs. It was just like mister Ferry helped me. So now my goal is to go back and pay it forward by providing vocational training to folks who are unable to progress in life. Social service is really transforming lives. It transformed my life. I'm very happy that I went through that process. I'm very happy I went to social services. I'm very happy that I have miss Leferi as my as the person who was helping me out. I'm happy because the fact that the work that she's putting in actually works. It's because of her that I'm here right now.
I just know I owe her some part of my life. So miss LeFarious is watching this video, I really wanna say that I love her dearly and if she ever needs anything, I always got her back.
Oh my. I wanted to do this because I wanted to make a difference in people's lives. Elias is actually one of the reasons why I'm here. The reason I continue to come to work every day is to help people like Elias. For me, this is something I'll never forget. I'll use this as an example for years to come.
I'm Chris Spoon. I'm the IT manager for Development Services. Development Services provides land and building development, so any land that is being developed, any building that is being built, we are involved from literally the ground up. We're involved in any new business with occupancies, permitting for your home, if you're building a deck, if you're doing an addition, things of that nature where you're doing work in your home, we want to make sure that what you're doing is up to code so that it is safe. My role in development services as the IT manager is to support the hardware and software needs of our staff.
The resources that IT provides allows for an inclusive, accessible environment where customers are no longer doing a manual process. They're able to do it electronically. The accessibility of being a 20 fourseven shop, being able to apply when you need to apply and not have to wait on someone else's timeline is huge. We want to continually improve upon how we are serving our customers. So we want the most up to date technology and hardware, software that is going to get us to quickly get the job done and that's how we support moving forward with these projects.
So the moment that I realized that working with technology was for me, I was probably like 10. I have a knack for IT, I always have. Technology is just something that I'm really familiar with. My uncle let me take apart his computer and put it back together and when it successfully worked I was super excited and I just I loved it at that age it's like making magic and sometimes today I feel like IT is making magic because when you can come in and you can solve someone's problem with technology, it's really, really rewarding. I was born and raised in Prince William County and I love being a part of the organization that supports the community that I grew up in.
I have loved being a helper my entire life. I started with the county 16 ago and I had an opportunity to move into an IT role and I have spent the rest of my career, last thirteen years, doing information technology for Prince William County. The values at Prince William County hold match mine very closely. I really enjoy helping other people and knowing that I am helping the community here by supporting technological advances keeps me coming to work and keeps me energized. We all are constantly looking at ways in which we can better the processes, procedures, the policies.
We're looking at how we can make this work better for everybody. When someone needs something, finding a new solution, finding a new way, a new process to do things, maybe a new tool, being open to new technology. We are supporting that need. We're all one team. We're all in this together. We're making Prince William County better together. I'm Chris Boone and this is how I serve.
Hello. I am Chris Shorter, county executive in Prince William County. Welcome back. This is Shorter Topics. And as many of you know, this is an opportunity for us to hear from, celebrate, leaders who are doing phenomenal work around Prince William County. And today, we get to have a conversation with two, phenomenal directors and leaders who are here in the county doing great things. And we're gonna talk housing, particularly affordable housing. Director Tanya Washington, who was not a stranger to shorter topics, she's actually been here on the episode, on an episode before. So, Director Washington, welcome.
Thank you very much. Happy to be back.
Absolutely. And director Joni Duckett, director of our Housing and Community Development Office. This is her first time on Shorter Topics, and we are excited to have you. Welcome.
Thank you.
So whether we call it affordable housing, attainable housing, workforce housing, you know, we've heard it all. In Prince William County, and you both certainly know this and many of our viewers will know this too, we've introduced about 200,000 new residents to Prince William County over the last two decades. We are, this year, now over 500,000 residents. It really speaks to the need for us to continue not just to develop affordable housing, but to develop housing generally. I know, Tanya, you have a lot to do then and say there.
Can we talk a little bit about, first, just to establish kind of where we are, what do we mean when we say affordable housing? What is it, and how how do we define it?
Affordable housing means different to so many people. I like to think about housing for all, that everybody deserves to have a home and a roof over their head. And so affordability is so important to be able to get families into homes. And so it's a great opportunity. I I love the fact that the county has grown so much.
It speaks so much for the county and the progress that we're making in looking at the gaps for housing in general for Prince William County. The Office of Housing has so many awesome programs that assist families for that. But now we're looking at the deficit of homes that we don't have in Prince William County. And so we're meeting that need. New developments, developers that are willing and anxious to provide additional housing and especially to try to meet the needs at a more obtainable sales price or rental limits.
Most of our households that are renting properties are payment burdened, housing burdened. So it's a great reprieve that we will have additional housing to meet the needs of those and for all types of families.
That's right.
Not just your workforce, not just those that make a decent salary, but for all people, you know, all different walks in life, different abilities.
It's I I appreciate you that you say it that way. We forget sometimes that we live in this region in one of the most expensive regions in the country. So when we think about our firefighters, our police officers, our teachers, the folks who are doing our tip workers who work in our restaurants, they all, all of us, need them, and they we want them to be able to live as close to their work as possible, and we forget sometimes that that is very difficult, specifically in this region. So I appreciate you sort of putting it that way. Anything you want to add?
Sure. I mean, think Joni really covered it. One thing I wanted to note so shortly before I started in this role with the county, which is now almost two years, February, I started hearing from folks in Prince William County who already wanted to meet with me as soon as I started. But one of the things that I heard was that Prince William County was now becoming more unaffordable. I actually used to live in Prince William County previously a number of years ago, and I know for a long time, as you noted, this region is very expensive in terms of housing, and Prince William County was considered one of the places that was more affordable for a family or a single person to be able to purchase a home, but that has changed.
The housing prices have been going up across the board, and so that was literally one of the first issues that I started hearing from stakeholders in this county was that this area is becoming more unaffordable. People who work in a county can't afford to live in a county. They're moving to other counties to find those homes where they can live and support their families. And so that really made it very clear to me how urgent of an issue this is and how it's really critical for the county to take action to help to address it.
You know, I appreciate, over those last few years, for both of you, your leadership has kinda been on full display, in in the advancements that we've made as a county around this topic in particular. The board has certainly made some big decisions this year, in particular, around affordable housing as well. We have a new unit that, you know, we can talk about in in your office that that is particularly focused on affordable housing. So I wonder if maybe we could just spend a a few minutes talking about what the board has actually done by way of decisions, and action this year that brings us further along, around affordable housing.
The board has been awesome and recognizing that housing is a number one priority. I want to also remind us that we should never forget about our young, our children coming out of college, that they need a place to live, our elderly. We certainly cannot forget our elderly and the persons with disabilities. So it is our job, our responsibility to make sure that we ensure that everyone has housing. As far as the new, it's the Affordable Dwelling Unit Division under the Office of Housing.
I am so appreciative of the board and for their support and seeing that this is necessary in Prince William County. As I said, it's been a long time coming. And so with the approval of the ordinance that we now have, while it's voluntary, as I said before, we have developers that are anxious to provide housing market rate as well as committed or proffered units and now under the affordable dwelling units to develop those as well. And out of that also came the affordable housing fund. So the board has been very supportive and provided we have right now 16,000,000 in the pot.
We will be providing a notice of funding opportunity in January for developers. And so the board has allowed us to hire to create this new division, and we're ready to roll. Yeah. We're ready to roll.
I wanna take a step back for those who are listening in who may not fully understand what it means to have adopted an ordinance. I wonder if, Tanya, you could just explain what the ordinance is.
Sure. So the affordable dwelling unit ordinance was adopted by the board in June, and it actually just went into effect on December 1. So it is a great tool that does some amazing things in terms of supporting affordable housing in Prince William County. It first offers what's called voluntary bonus density for residential developments that provide affordable units at 50 of area median income and 80% of area median income. What bonus density does, it essentially provides the ability to build more units.
So in exchange for providing units that are at those affordable price points, the developer can build additional units. The other thing that it does is what Joni just talked about, which is establishing the affordable housing fund, which provides gap financing to support the production of and preservation of affordable housing. So that is an amazing tool that other communities have had. It's a proven tool and it will definitely help to both tools will help to incentivize the production of more affordable units. One thing I did want to add is that we actually currently have a way to get affordable units now.
The county's comprehensive plan which is our long term sort of framework to guide the future development in a county, future growth and development in a county. It has a housing chapter, and within that chapter it includes an incentive, again, for voluntary bonus necessity for affordable units at the 80% to 120% of area median income. So 120%, that range is more what we call workforce housing. So your firefighters, police officers, your nurses, what have you. And so now between the comprehensive plan guidance that has been in place for three years, and we are already getting affordable units provided that way through rezoning applications, and the affordable dwelling unit ordinance, we have a much wider range of incentives to get affordable housing at a much broader price I
wonder, Joni, if we could talk a little bit more about the fund now. I know that there have been investments already made. If you could talk a little bit about what's in the fund now and what we could expect and then how your new unit will be helping in
So exciting. The board approved the draft Affordable Housing Fund administrative procedures and guidelines on December 2. And that was our green light to get rolling.
So a lot happened in December.
December. It's a good month. And so currently, the board has appropriated $16,000,000 as I said, to the fund with a $31,000,000 commitment by the fiscal year 2029. But this is new for us. And so we want to learn from the developers. We want to listen to them that what will work best for them as well as what for the process as far as our division as well. So we're going to have two meetings with the developers to have these discussions and to work with them on on the processes, if you will.
When I think about the fund itself, so 16,000,000 now with a commitment for 31,000,000, could could you explain sort of what will that do for a
developer? Will that do for
Right. So is going to be gap financing. It is going to help get that development that they just may need a little more financial assistance to get that development to the finish line.
And I think that's an important point for our listeners so often with these developers who may really want to do more around affordable units or affordable housing but cannot afford to get over the hump. And what this does for them is essentially helps to fill that gap. Get
to the finish line. Not that there's not there's some great programs out there through Virginia Housing for LITECH development, through HUD. HUD has programs that provides financing. You've got your private investors. You've got your lenders.
But it's just that missing piece, that gap financing, that whether it's a small developer or even a large developer, money's tight right now. So it's just that gap to help them get to the finish line with their development and the fact that those units will be available, as Tanya said, at a price point that'll be a better affordability piece to it. So it will be a repayment. But it'll be a fixed interest rate tied to the ten year treasury bill, so that rate's pretty good right now. And so we'll be scoring.
Applications will come in. We'll be scoring the applications. We wanna do Prince William County and the Board of County Supervisors make you proud Absolutely. And help our citizens and our communities and our developers. We need them.
You know, a few minutes ago, you said, Joni, this this is a dream come true. I wonder if you could talk a little bit more about that and wrap in sort of your career. How long have you been with Prince William County? Sixteen years. Sixteen years. Okay.
I think I administered the county's funding from for the federal funds for eighteen years for the city of Manassas and Manassas Park through a nonprofit. So I feel like I've been with the county for a long time.
Long time, yeah.
It is a dream. I love housing. I love what housing does. I love what it provides. I love working with the people. I love working with the staff, watching them grow. I love working with new staff, with new agencies, learning new things. And I've learned a lot from Tanya. Absolutely. And so I've been doing this a long time. And we used to talk about homeless all the time, which is very, very important. But what do you do about homeless? You provide housing.
That's
right. You provide housing. That is the nucleus of everything. That is the nucleus of your families, of the schools, of our communities, of our workforce. It is the nucleus for all of us. Absolutely. So it's my passion.
Yeah, definitely want to add on. This was very much a multi agency, multi departmental effort. And we literally had weekly meetings every Monday afternoon for a long time working on this initiative. And so we all worked together to develop the draft ordinance. When we would meet with supervisors and community members, we were all there as a part of those efforts. And so it's a really great example of interagency collaboration to bring forth a great resource and tool to benefit the whole county.
Sure. And you've said it well, I mean, at the start of the conversation, the full spectrum of the individuals and families that need housing to actually see it coming into fruition like this is pretty amazing. So bottom line, in the coming years, we're gonna see not just more housing in Prince William County, but more housing that is affordable, attainable for And occupied. And occupied. Absolutely.
We could probably go on and on. I am going to wrap it up here and thank you both not just for coming on today but thank you for all that you are doing to make Prince William exactly what we want it to be and that's a place where folks can be born, grow, learn, and work and retire right here in Prince William County. For those listening in, thank you so much for listening in and we will see you next time on Shorter Topics Bigger Impact. Thank you.
I'm supervisor Andrea Bailey and I serve as the vice chair on the board of county supervisors in Prince William County. And I wanna welcome you to the Southern Quarter, the gateway to Prince William County. It hails from Marine Corps base Quantico, which is showered by Q Town, as we call it, or Quantico Town, and to the north is Dumfries. I'm so excited about the beautification pro
This transcript was automatically generated from the official public meeting video and is presented unedited. It reflects remarks made on the public record by elected officials, staff, and public commenters. Transcript accuracy may vary; view the original recording for reference.