People who want to build a campground off Belle Plains Road and a 1,050-foot pier into Potomac Creek in Stafford County have one thing in common with neighbors who oppose the venture because they fear the impacts the development will have.
They’re all enthralled by the beauty of the land, water and nearby Crow’s Nest Natural Area Preserve.
“That’s our chunk of heaven out there,” said Joni Kanazawa. She and her husband, Dane, live on a small farm where they raise pigs, chickens and rabbits, and their land would be surrounded by the proposed campground.
The Kanazawas are part of a “loosely formed coalition,” according to neighbor Mike Silver, of farmers, watermen, environmentalists and neighbors who have distributed hundreds of signs and stickers opposing the campground development. They’ve also talked with any local and state official who will listen to their concerns about additional traffic on the rural road and impacts to the water and woods.
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“We’re people who have seen the plans, and it’s either going to affect them or the environment they love,” said Silver, a farmer whose father, Jerry, was about his age when he opposed a commercial venture, with a 1,000-foot dock, in 1996. “It wasn’t a good idea then, and it’s not a good idea now.”
Mark and Vivian McLeod also have come to appreciate the unique surroundings of the Belle Plains area, off State Route 218 in a corner of southeastern Stafford.
They bought 75 acres of mostly woodland with the intent to build a small subdivision on large lots as “strictly a business venture,” according to the Facebook page about their project, which they’re calling Crow’s Nest Outdoor Adventure.
Then, “the land seemed to tug at our hearts,” the post reads. “It quickly became apparent to us that this land was special, not like any other land we had developed in the past.”
The McLeods want to preserve it, but their definition differs from that of their neighbors. They want to develop a campground with 151 sites, cabins, luxury bathhouses, camp store, playground, multiple courts for sports and dog parks with self-washing stations. They’d also like a large film screen where families could watch movies under the stars.
“We felt that it should be preserved for families in the surrounding area and beyond,” Mark McLeod wrote in an email to The Free Lance–Star, “to come and enjoy the outdoors and be able to get out on the water and kayak, canoe, paddleboard and fish.”
Tents and campers
The property’s agricultural zoning allows the McLeods to have a campground with tent sites and amenities.
The request to build a pier that’s longer than three football fields, through wetlands known as the Big Marsh, will be reviewed by both the Stafford County Wetlands Board and the Virginia Resources Marine Commission, known as VRMC. The project isn’t on either group’s agenda yet.
The issue won’t come before the Stafford Planning Commission or the Board of Supervisors unless the McLeods want to have RVs and travel trailers on the campground.
Opponents say that’s what the owners seek in the second phase, based on plans submitted to the county and VRMC that show 12-by-50-feet sites with hookups for water, sewer and electricity.
“I’m not a campground expert, but I don’t think you need any of that for a tent,” Silver said.
The county’s planning department staff also have raised questions, asking the McLeods “to clarify the use of the site,” said Shannon Eubanks, Stafford’s community engagement program manager.
They’ve told the couple that a conditional use permit is needed before there could be trailers and RVs on the site. That would have to be approved by the Board of Supervisors.
Mark McLeod, who lives in Hartwood and pastors a church in Woodbridge, promptly responded to questions from the newspaper, but his response to questions about the issue of RVs and traveler trailers did not clarify the matter. Asked repeatedly if he planned to seek a permit to have the wheeled units, McLeod said: “The campground will be open to all uses that are permitted by the ordinance.”
Fish and boats
Home to some of the few people who still make their living off the water or the land, Belle Plains Road comes to a dead end at Potomac Creek, which feeds into the Potomac River.
Across the creek is the Crow’s Nest Natural Area Preserve, “considered highly significant from numerous standpoints,” according to the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation. The DCR owns pieces of the 3,116-acre preserve along with Stafford County and the Northern Virginia Conservation Trust. The trust protects one of the largest blue heron rookeries in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
The proposed pier would extend 770 feet through the Big Marsh wetlands and jut into Potomac Creek not far from Crow’s Nest. The timber boardwalk would extend another 100 feet to a sundeck, then another 50 feet to a boat launch. There would be a pavilion at the end of the pier, which totals 1,050 feet.
“If you build a pier out through the wetlands, you’re going to destroy some of the wetlands, that’s just part of it,” said Dane Kanazawa. “Those are not little bitty boats that go in there and hammer those pylons. That’s all contributing to eroding the tidal wetlands which are a valuable resource, according to the state of Virginia.”
Silver, whose family has been in the Belle Plains area since just after the Civil War, said Potomac Creek is where commercial fish spawn, in shallow waters that are no more than 2 feet deep except for the channel.
While the creek is clear on the surface, its bottom holds mud and muck. Small watercraft that already use the creek tend to “mush the crab pots” into the mud and tear up fishing nets, Silver said.
Locals who launch canoes and kayaks from their own docks know not to cut through the nearby wetlands, no matter how pretty they look, because of the damage their boats can cause, said Joni Kanazawa.
RVs and no shoulders
Mark McLeod said he’s “totally aware of the need to protect the wetlands and intends to do everything we can to have as little disturbance as possible. There are docks and piers all up and down Potomac Creek that were constructed with the same care and intention that ours will be constructed.”
He had a similar response to concerns about additional traffic on the winding road, which has no shoulders in some places and steep drop-offs in others.
“The road already handles large farm equipment, school buses, delivery trucks of all sizes and all the boat traffic getting to the boat club at the end of Belle Plains,” he said. “There would not be anything traveling to the campground that would cause or add any additional concerns that is not already being dealt with on a daily basis.”
But it’s the daily traffic that’s kept Windsor Kanazawa, who’s 18, from getting her driver’s license. The threat of more traffic, with the possibility of wider vehicles driven by people unfamiliar with the lay of the land is one of the residents’ biggest fears.
“People who know this road, they even go off it and get stuck,” she said about accidents in which fish trucks and farm equipment have ended up in the ditch.
Her mother said neighbors did some math on the width of an RV, which is wider than 9 feet with mirrors extended. She said it would be physically impossible for two of them to meet on the road in some places.
“So how exactly would that work?” Joni Kanazawa asked.
Piers and people
The VMRC website includes the Crow’s Nest Outdoor Adventure application, various documents and a place for public comment. It’s at webapps.mrc.virginia.gov/public/habitat/. Type in the application number of 240216 and hit search.
As of last week, 48 people had commented with 35 opposed and 13 in favor.
Olivia McLeod’s comment described how her in-laws have been “harassed and threatened by neighbors” who’ve tried to scare them. Her father-in-law said the “hostile comments” were one reason he didn’t want a photo of his family included with the story.
Olivia McLeod added that neighbors oppose the campground “because they do not want change to come to their area. Many of the houses have piers/docks,” she wrote. “Saying this pier is any different than those is wrong.”
Silver and others who gathered for a photo were on a neighbor’s new dock that’s 148 feet long. He didn’t oppose that pier, he said, because it’s used by one family enjoying the river.
The campground proposal would bring people using 151 campsites plus cabins, he said.
“That’s just not one family having fun and recreating on the water,” he said. “That’s multiple families.”
“And families that don’t have a vested interest in the area,” added Joni Kanazawa.
Cathy Dyson: 540/374-5425
"The land seemed to tug at our hearts. It quickly became apparent to us that this land was special, not like any other land we had developed in the past."
- Crow's Nest Outdoor Adventure Facebook page
"That's our chunk of heaven out there."
- Joni Kanazawa, speaking about Crow's Nest Natural Area Preserve