Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 23, 1994 TAG: 9403230092
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
"The Disney theme park is a national test case of our ability to recognize the significance of our fast-disappearing farmland and take the steps necessary to protect it," Edward Thompson Jr., director of public policy for American Farmland Trust, told a news conference.
Mary Anne Reynolds, a spokeswoman for Disney, said "Disney, Prince William County and the farmland trust all want responsible growth. But it's unreasonable that Prince William County's responsible development of Disney's America be held hostage to decisions outside its borders."
She said Disney has "already identified a number of environmental initiatives for Disney's America that will benefit adjacent farmlands." For example, she said, "We're restoring some forest areas and reconstructing 28 acres of wetlands destroyed by agriculture years ago."
Thompson and farmland trust President Ralph Grossi said the park should not receive government approval unless measures are adopted to protect the area's best farmland.
Those measures should include the designation of agricultural reserves in master plans and "right-to-farm" protection for agricultural operations, they said.
"Both in Northern Virginia and across the country, the land that feeds us and enriches our lives in many other ways is being taken for granted and, thus, is being paved over indiscriminately," Grossi said. "If this pattern cannot be changed here on the doorstep of the nation's capital, where will it change?"
Rick Lawson, the county's development services manager, said the farmland trust's concerns already are being addressed by the county and by a citizens' task force, which will examine all the issues "to assure that there are regulations in place that would ensure quality development."
"I think it needs to be pointed out that in the core of the Disney project, of the 3,000 acres they control, 2,100 acres previously were zoned as a residential planned community," he said. "This land is not being considered for rezoning from agricultural land, but it is existing zoning as a residential planned community."
The farmland preservation group issued a report examining the potential impact on the agricultural resources and production of 12 Northern Virginia counties within about an hour's commute of the proposed park site, Haymarket, 30 miles west of Washington, D.C.
The report said the area's 6,000 farms contain more than 1.2 million acres of agricultural land, or 14 percent of the state's farmland, and account for 15 percent, or $236 million, of the state's total farm production.
Fifty-seven percent of the state's orchard land is found in the region, the study said. The counties are Prince William, Fairfax, Fauquier, Loudoun, Warren, Rappahannock, Culpeper, Clarke, Page, Frederick, Shenandoah and Madison. The study was based on the 1987 census of agriculture, the latest available.
by CNB