We need these homes. The job now is making sure the roads, schools and utilities come with them.

This week the Prince William Board of County Supervisors voted to begin the planning process for two large residential proposals in the county's west, together up to about 3,900 homes. Supporters pointed to an estimated $20 million to $25 million a year in real estate tax once built.¹

We'll say plainly what we think: the region needs these homes. Fairfax County alone created three times as many jobs as homes over the last decade, housing costs are pushing young families out of Northern Virginia, and every household that can't find a home here bids up the price of one that already exists or commutes in from farther away.² Nearly 4,000 homes is a meaningful answer to that, and the vote to begin review was the right one.

Starting review is not the same as approving the homes. Months of hearings and negotiation come next, and that is where a good project becomes a great one for the people already living nearby. The job of the review is to make sure the investment that comes with the homes is big enough to serve everyone who will live there.

What the approval should secure

• Roads built with the homes, not after them. The county has seen what happens when roads lag: a canceled bypass, repaid grant money, and a widening still looking for a place in the capital plan.³ The road improvements these homes need, the turn lanes, the widenings and the connections, should be committed in the approval with the developer paying its share, so the first families to move in aren't the ones stuck in the backup.
• School capacity and public safety. Thousands of homes bring thousands of students and the calls that come with any neighborhood. The approval should account for classrooms, fire and rescue coverage and the land or contributions that make them real.
• Water, sewer and power designed for the full build-out. Utilities sized for phase one and stretched to phase three are how a new subdivision ends up with low pressure and an overloaded substation. The infrastructure plan should match the whole project, and the connections that serve it should be funded by it.
• Commercial space that follows. Homes alone cost a county more in services than they return. Homes with the shops, offices and employers that serve them pay their way and then some. The plan should leave room for both.

Why this is the right conversation

Virginia gives counties real tools here. A rezoning can carry commitments, from the developer, to the roads, schools and utilities a project requires, and large projects in this region routinely do. The question in front of the board is not whether growth is allowed to happen. It is already happening, in the prices residents pay. The question is whether this growth arrives with the investment that lets new neighbors and current ones share the same good roads, full schools and reliable services.

That is a question with a good answer, and it is the one we hope the next months of review will reach.