Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 24, 1993 TAG: 9306240220
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
During a four-year fight over the fate of about 14,000 acres of mostly privately owned land, landowners complained that historic designation limited their ability to sell their property or develop it as they wished.
The board of directors of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources voted to lift the 1989 designations after overwhelming majorities of landowners near the proposed Brandy Station and Bristoe battlefields objected.
"It is a clear majority that does not accept this," Historic Resources Department Chairman Hugh C. Miller told the board.
Nearly all of the more than 300 landowners on or near the Brandy Station battlefield in Culpeper and Fauquier counties petitioned the board. Similarly, 34 of the 48 landowners at the much smaller Bristoe site in Prince William County objected.
Under a law passed by the General Assembly last year, a majority of affected landowners must agree to place an area on Virginia's register of historic places.
"We just objected to the ramrod approach that the department took here," said William Frazier, who owns land inside the proposed boundaries of the Brandy Station battlefield.
The state historic listing did not carry any legal restrictions on landowners. But they have always charged that the distinction depressed property values because potential buyers would not want the hassle of building on land formally deemed historic.
The Brandy Station site also was included on the National Register of Historic Places but was removed last year after landowners objected.
The battlefield site is among the nation's 11 most endangered historic places listed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. This year's list was released this week.
Wednesday's vote puts a formal end to wrangling over the status of both sites. But it does not solve the problem of what to do with the large Brandy Station area. In negotiations among state officials, preservation groups and landowners this spring, all sides said they were eager to strike a compromise that would set aside some smaller portion of the battlefield site for a park.
But Miller said Wednesday he could find no acceptable compromise.
"There was nothing that could carry a majority. It is still my belief that someone will buy some of the most significant sites" and develop them as a historic attraction, Miller said after the board meeting.
In lifting historic status, the board also We just objected to the ramrod approach that the department took here. William Frazier Battlefield landowner voted to reaffirm its earlier finding that both areas deserve historic recognition. That finding also carries no legal restrictions on land use.
Miller said an outside preservation group probably would need about $10 million to buy the land, where about 20,000 Union and Confederate troops clashed on June 9, 1863.
"We are actively in the fund-raising mode," said Tersh Boasberg, a Washington lawyer and head of the Brandy Station Foundation, a preservation group working to save the property.
Lee Sammis, a California developer whose plan to build a 1,500-acre industrial park set off the fight four years ago, has offered to preserve more than 200 acres where some of the most significant fighting took place.
But Sammis' development partnership is in bankruptcy and it is unclear whether his planned industrial park will go forward.
Boasberg said his group would like to buy all 1,500 acres of the Sammis property.
The Brandy Station land is mostly farms, although the 14,000 acres set as historic also includes a highway, industrial park and an airport.
There is a roadside marker, but no other formal acknowledgement of the spot where 138 died.
The Bristoe battlefield also is marked with a roadside sign.
by CNB