Town Council rescinds Fields Farm vote
as County pulls last-minute switch

By Valerie Cury

At the March 14 Purcellville Town Council meeting, the Council voted 5-2 to rescind their Feb. 28 vote to approve the County’s proposal for a park and ride lot with 250 plus spaces on the 230-acre Fields Farm property, which houses Mountain View Elementary School and Woodgrove High School. The vote was 5-2 with Mayor Stan Milan, Vice Mayor Chris Bertaut, and Council Members Boo Bennett, Carol Luke and Ron Rise Jr. voting in favor of rescinding the vote, and Council Members Mary Jane Williams and Erin Rayner voting against.

At the Feb. 7 Board of Supervisors Business Meeting, the supervisors voted to execute a purchase agreement to acquire 142.71 acres for a Western Loudoun Recreational Center which is less than a mile away from the proposed Fields Farm project. The agreement is for $6,859,902, and is contingent on a feasibility analysis for the intended use of the property.

The very next day on Feb. 8, the Town of Purcellville received a letter from County Administrator Tim Hemstreet withdrawing the Fields Farm Park application that the Town and the County had been working on for eight months. The park portion of the application was supposed to include lighted tournament fields for baseball and soccer. 

On Feb. 28, Purcellville’s Interim Town Manager John Anzivino received a letter from Tim Hemstreet saying that with the application of the park and ride lot, Fields Farm Park Road would revert to the extension of the road through Mayfair Crown Drive. “Please understand that should the Fields Farm Commuter Lot be constructed the County intends to construct Fields Farm Park Road as the road is necessary in order to access the Commuter Lot,” the letter read.

The Town and the County had previously agreed to move the road further west, so as not to serve as an extension of Mayfair Crown Drive. After working on the new road alignment for eight months, however, the County reverted to the original alignment – but said they would be willing “to discuss a reasonable alignment and buffer from the surrounding residential communities.” 

“What surprises me is that they [the County] pulled everything back,” said Mayor Stan Milan at the Feb. 28 Work Session. 

He said the County pulled “the rug out from under us the week before the deadline” and reverted to the extension of Mayfair Crown Drive, which would have served as a collector road through the Mayfair community to the commuter park and ride. 

“We had spent months and months to get to a point where everybody was pretty much in line except for the lights,” Milan said. “It’s like saying, ‘Yes honey, I’ll meet you at the altar,’ and the day of the wedding – you don’t show up. So what do you do?”

“We sat down with the County for eight months; we came to an agreement to how the park and ride would look, where the road would not be connected.” Milan reiterated the County had agreed to move the road. “Yet, we go back to square one at the twilight hour.”

He said they also agreed on how the berms would be created to shield the neighborhood from the tournament fields, because the community did not want lighted fields on until 11 p.m. and did not want the fields closest to the neighborhood lighted.

“Why do we have to sit down again and go over what we have done?” he asked.

Milan said the County now wanted the Town to approve “something on a wish.” He said the Planning Commission had extra meetings to accommodate the County’s deadline. 

“They worked on weekends, on nights, and twice a week to get this done and at the last minute they switched horses on us. The citizens said they do not want the road connected … and now we are going to make this road go through there?”

He added that the schools “have been in operation for 10 years and the County had the opportunity to put in a second access to Woodgrove and Mountain View” all that time.

Vice Mayor Chris Bertaut said, “There has been a general lack of candor … from the County when it came to the lights. It became apparent rather late in this process that they really wanted the athletic fields for tournaments because they get revenue for the tournaments.” 

Bertaut said, “It was not the Town Council nor the Planning Commission that caused a delay in the consideration of these projects.” He added that the County project “sat there in the basement of Town Hall for a year, before it was brought to the Town Council and the Planning Commission.”

Milan pointed out that the park and ride lot in Hamilton is not fully utilized and the County has said that ridership is down two-thirds.

“We have been working very hard with the County to make this appealing to everyone involved, the citizens, the Town, the County,” Milan said. “We were mindful of the deadline for the County; they were not mindful of the concerns of the citizens of Purcellville. My job is for the health, safety, and welfare” of the citizens.

Trying to make a convincing point, GIS and Special Projects Coordinator Andrea Broshkevitch said that the Town has a water storage tank that they’re currently designing on land that the County is obligated to give the Town. She said the Town is relying on the road to be constructed for access to the storage tank.

“There is also a lot of trash on that property and Loudoun County was going to remove that trash for the Town and then put up a fence, so that trash can no longer be placed on that property,” she said.

Milan asked, “So the County will remove the trash no matter what we do, right?”

Broshkevitch said, “If the road is not built, we would have to get access to that site, either from existing easements from existing roads, and then go cross country to that parcel, or build our own road.” She said if the Town has to remove trash, put up a fence, and build a road, that would “take us over budget.”

Bertaut answered, “I also wonder about a County that would refuse to move trash before turning over the parcel that they are obligated to give to the Town under a previous agreement with the Town. That’s just unfathomable to me.”

In a March 14 email to Vice Mayor Chris Bertaut, Dale Lenhig, director of Engineering, Planning and Development, said, “It has not been envisioned that we would need a temporary road and we will need to reach out to Loudoun County to determine their schedule and if they plan to move forward with the road. I have also not been out to the site recently to see how much trash has actually accumulated on the site.”

At the March 14 meeting to rescind the Town Council vote, Council Member Carol Luke said she was not happy with the transparency of the County. 

Council Member Ron Rise Jr. said when he looked over the packet that the two recommendations — one from the Town staff and the other from the Planning Commission —  “could not have been further apart. One saying one thing and one saying completely the opposite.”

Bertaut noted that the thick agenda packet for the Feb. 28 Council Work Session came to the Council after noon on the same day as the meeting and vote.

“I heard tonight that motions to rescind the vote or reconsideration of a vote is highly unusual, but the County’s elected officials have taken that step twice within the last year,” he said.

Bertaut said there are also environmental issues since the proposed park and ride lot is within the stream shed of the South Fork of the Catoctin Creek, which is a concern both for this project and the 7/690 Interchange.

Milan reiterated that both the Town Council and the Planning Commission made a good faith effort. “They promised they would do this, they promised they would do that, and at the last minute they pulled the switch on us.”

“We asked the County several times” to put the Western Loudoun Recreational Center on this property and they said no. “So what do they do? They pull the plug, spend $6.9 million on property for a sports center, when they already owned property at Fields Farm.” Milan said the Rec Center would have been closer for the Woodgrove swim team.

At the March 14 Board of Supervisors Finance/Government Operations and Economic Development Committee meeting — which was taking place at the same time as the Town of Purcellville’s meeting — Mark Hoffman with Transportation and Capital Infrastructure said the intent for the newly purchased 143-acre property to the west of the Town of Purcellville would include the Fields Farm Park projects, the Western Loudoun Recreational Center and a library. 

County Administrator Tim Hemstreet said, “We actually signed the letter of intent, and we are in the due diligence phase. We will go to closing before June.”