Silver Lake will remain a natural escape for Haymarket residents.
A proposal by developer Toll Brothers to add 420 new homes to the Dominion Valley Country Club includes $2.3 million toward improving the lake and other recreational areas within Prince William County.
The Prince William Board of County Supervisors will hold a public hearing and are expected to vote on the application at their meeting on Tuesday.
Original plans called for closing the land off Antioch Road that contains Silver Lake and adding many more houses than the 12 on the current plans, said Supervisor John Stirrup, R-Gainesville.
“The lake was such a resource for the western part of the county, it really isn’t something that should be excluded from the public,” Stirrup said.
The 155-acre facility will include the entire lake, a multiuse trail around the park and the quarry. The Prince William County Park Authority will do further planning within the next six months if the board approves the proposal.
“We normally don’t get this size and this amount of acreage,” said E. Jay Ellington, the authority’s executive director. “This is one of the last freshwater lakes in Virginia that hopefully we can preserve for the public’s use.”
Several neighbors have voiced concerns about the condition of the quarry on the site.
The quarry has undergone various state-approved environmental mitigations to ensure the property is safe, said Fran Burnszynski, a Prince William County planner. She said that if additional work is needed on the quarry, Toll Brothers has agreed to finance it.
Toll Brothers will also build several new baseball and soccer fields at Long Park, Sudley Park and the new Antioch Park under the proposal, said Martha Hendley, Planning Commission vice chairwoman and Gainesville representative.
The application includes a provision that requires the developers to begin work on the ballfields as soon as possible so they will be ready by next season, Stirrup said.
