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Campground closes next weekSilver Lake's future is unclear
"A lot of people kind of assume that it's us that's closing down and selling out," Teri Scott said. Scott and her husband run the campground that leases the Silver Lake land."It's just the natural process of what happens to land," Scott said.
In contrast to Dominion Valley's master-planned community and organized sports leagues, Mountain View has grown into a sort of un-planned community, where seasonal renters set up their RVs and spend nearly every weekend swimming, fishing and playing together.
"Some of them have been camping here since the 1970s," Scott said. "Their kids grew up here, and now they're bringing back their kids' kids."
That kind of history produced a strong tie to the leased land. It has been hard for campers to accept the idea that this piece of their heritage will be gated off in two weeks.
A devoted cadre of campers has organized the "Friends of Mountain View Campground." The Friends have lobbied John Stirrup, the Gainesville District supervisor. They have held a prayer vigil, built their own Web site and produced a DVD.
The DVD features a series of emotional appeals, like this from camper Nicole Heath: "They're paving over our memories."
As hard as it is to let go, the campground has always leased the land, and from the very beginning, the owners of the land have been looking to sell.
Troubled Past
Of the original group of investors who pooled their money to buy Silver Lake in the '70s, Andy Higham is one of the last men standing. "We have had several partners die in the years we've owned the property," Higham said.
Since the group purchased the land in 1971, improvement plans have budded and died without ever flowering. There was the old mine and quarry -- more than a million-dollar investment -- which led to a four-year, $75,000 lawsuit that went all the way to the Virginia Supreme Court.
Then there was Disney.
"No partner has ever taken a single dollar of income from the property with the exception of the forfeited deposit of Disney," Higham said.
Now there's a gaping chasm in the ground, filled with emerald water. The old quarry is loosely cordoned off with rusted barbed wire. Inside the fence, the overgrown weeds are strewn with empty beer bottles. It's an inviting, and dangerous, hideaway where a teenager died in a diving incident five years ago.
As property values along the Route 15 corridor rose in the late '90s, the revenue from the campground fell further and further short of covering real estate taxes, Higham said.
"It is time these old men sold and cashed in on a very poor investment," Higham said.
Taking a Toll
The 318-acre Silver Lake property just outside of Haymarket spoons up against the rear end of Dominion Valley. Toll Brothers began serious conversations with the property owners about a year and a half ago. The developer has a contract on the land. After withdrawing their first proposal, Toll Brothers submitted a new proposal to the county planning commission on July 12.
The first part of the plan is easy. Toll would split up the Silver Lake land. On the 122 acres on the northwest side of the lake, they would build 12 homes. According to David Grover, of the Prince William County planning office, this meets the Rural Crescent 10-acre lot requirement and is allowed by right.
Toll would shave off 40 acres for a middle school site for the county. And the remaining 155 acres would be returned to the county with the intent that it would go to the Park Authority.
"We've been discussing the lake with Toll, trying to ensure that some type of public access might be available," Jay Ellington said. Ellington is the executive director of Prince William County Parks.
He said the lake is fairly small, so it would probably be "controlled access" only.
According to Ellington, the Park Authority's priority at the moment is to complete their work at Long Park and at Sudley Park, so it would be nearly a decade before work at Silver Lake could begin, even if it were approved. And there are also funding issues. But the concept looks promising.
"It would be very complimentary of our facilities up there," Ellington said.
According to the plans Toll has submitted to the county, which are all very preliminary, the land that would go to Parks would include the old quarry.
Ellington said that many of the county's old quarries have the ability to be reused in some way.
It's not likely to see a Park Authority-sanctioned swimming-hole, but Ellington said the site can still provide some benefit.
Higham said the owners liked the idea that a wider range of people might be able to enjoy the property in its next life -- not just people who can afford to buy RVs and rent seasonal spaces.
However, Mountain View in its current incarnation is hardly expensive. Weekend campers can pitch a tent for $50-$60. For the truly strapped, five dollars buys a days' worth of fishing and swimming at the lake.
The Trade-offs
The Friends of the Mountain View Campground are obviously upset about the loss of this piece of their heritage. But the trade-offs go beyond Silver Lake.
This is where the proposal gets complicated.
In exchange for the donation of park land and a school site, Toll has a few other suggestions in its most recent plan.
They would like to build a total of 115 additional homes that would be included in their Dominion Valley planned community. Those homes would bring 115 new households, which would likely bring new children and new cars to share the same old roads, schools, golf courses, fitness facilities and restaurants that were approved for the earlier version of DVCC.
At a Town Hall meeting with Supervisor Stirrup in Haymarket last month, Dominion Valley resident Linda Budreika said, "our rights are infringed when [Toll Brothers] comes back to the table and says, we want to buy cheaper land ... so we can smack in 100 more homes."
Toll's proposal claims that added development will have "minimum impact on the transportation network" because traffic will be routed through the existing road network and main entrance to the community.
In order to offset the impact on the county's overwhelmed schools, the most recent proposal also proffers a site for another elementary school within Dominion Valley, and an increase in the percentage of age-restricted homes.
The proposal also asks to increase the residential cap within DVCC by an additional 420 units, though only 115 units are specifically discussed in the Silver Lake proposal.
In the meantime, campers are enjoying the last few weekends at their unplanned community on the lakeside. Last Friday, families romped at the sandy beach on the lake. Dragonflies danced in the long grass at the edge of the water. And when the gleeful shouts of the children grew silent and the breeze died down, a new sound could be heard across the water. It was the sound of hammers swinging in Dominion Valley.
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