Preservation Advocates Await Ruling on Challenge to Sprawling Wilderness Crossing Mega-development

(Orange, Va.) — The American Battlefield Trust, other preservation advocates and homeowners who challenged the zoning vote to allow a sprawling mega-development on the historic Wilderness Battlefield are awaiting word on whether the case will remain in the Orange County Circuit Court or advance directly to the Virginia Court of Appeals, as requested by the county and developers.

Circuit Court Judge David B. Franzén, who presided over today’s hearing, is still considering today’s motion to immediately move the case to the higher court without first having the case decided at trial. He rejected a similar request last fall.

The county and developers gave notice of their appeal with the Court of Appeals before the Circuit Court heard today’s motion to move the case. The Trust and its partners urged that the county and developers’ notices transferred control of the case from the Circuit Court to the Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals has taken no action on those appeals.

At today’s hearing, the Circuit Court declined to reach a ruling. Instead, Judge Franzén stated that he would rule on the motion to certify after the Court of Appeals acts on the appeals. The proposed development is poised to impose huge swaths of single-family homes, oppressive data center facilities, large distribution warehouses and other industrial development that would put a drain on resources and forever degrade the visitor experience at the historic battlefield.

The American Battlefield Trust, the Central Virginia Battlefields Trust, Friends of Wilderness Battlefield and nearby homeowners are seeking to protect historical and cultural resources from irrevocable harm by challenging the zoning on several points, including a lack of transparency and adherence to proper legal process.

“A rezoning of this magnitude, and the infrastructure it would necessitate, has massive reverberations that need to be properly vetted so the irreplaceable stories and historic landscapes are not lost to the selfish and shortsighted desires of developers,” said David Duncan, president of the American Battlefield Trust. “Today’s hearing was another indication that the Orange County Circuit Court is giving this issue the consideration it deserves.” 

The Trust and fellow plaintiffs filed suit in May 2023, challenging the rezoning as having been approved in violation of Virginia law governing rezoning processes, public hearings and the equal taxation of land.

The Wilderness Crossing project was approved over near-unanimous public opposition in the spring of 2023. The Board ignored repeated requests from the preservation community, the National Park Service and others to study the impact of this largest rezoning in Orange County history ahead of the vote. The project envisions construction of up to 5,000 residential units and intense development of more than 800 acres for commercial and industrial uses. Nearly 750 acres could be occupied by data centers and distribution warehouses.

All this would be built just across Route 3 from a battlefield widely regarded as a turning point of the Civil War, where 160,000 Union and Confederate soldiers clashed in May 1864. The Wilderness Battlefield is a unit of the larger Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park and creates a bucolic, forested gateway to eastern Orange County that would be forever marred by insensitive development of this scale.

The Wilderness Battlefield was named one of the country’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 2024. The area that was rezoned for development includes hundreds of acres identified by the National Park Service as within the historic boundaries of the Wilderness Battlefield. The National Parks Conservation Association, National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, and the Piedmont Environmental Council have filed briefs in the case detailing the extraordinary investments that have been made to preserve the Wilderness Battlefield and the serious threat to sacred ground that would be caused by the Wilderness Crossing development.

The Trust also is currently involved in a court battle challenging improper zoning in Prince William County to make way for a massive data center complex alongside Manassas National Battlefield Park.

The American Battlefield Trust is dedicated to preserving America’s hallowed battlegrounds and educating the public about what happened there and why it matters today. The nonprofit, nonpartisan organization has protected more than 60,000 acres associated with the Revolutionary War, War of 1812 and Civil War across 160 sites in 25 states, including more than 500 acres at the Wilderness Battlefield. Learn more at www.battlefields.org.