The planning process for Biscuit Run State Park is underway. The park’s Master Plan Advisory Committee met yesterday afternoon to discuss options for the state park’s facilities and hosted activities, along with ideas for a new name.
Biscuit Run is also the name of a creek that runs through the 1,200-acre former development site—once Albemarle County’s largest planned residential development, and the subject of competing land appraisals. (Forest Lodge LLC investors received $11.7 million in land preservation tax credits, according to documents received by C-VILLE, but requested much more.) According to Rex Linville, a Land Conservation Officer with the Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC), a new name would perhaps give the park a new life. For instance, the committee discussed, no public state park in Virginia is named after Thomas Jefferson.
Of course, a name isn’t everything. Committee members also focused on elements they wished to see in a state park—namely, space for sports fields, which was included in the original development and is in high demand, according to committee members. Calls for a nature center and trails for bicyclists and pedestrians were also well received, as were suggestions for outdoor shelters, similar to those currently in McIntire Park. Linville stressed the need for the park to be connected to other historical resource sites as well as the city and county by trails and new infrastructure.
A tour of the park is scheduled for the next committee meeting on May 2. The first public input meeting for the site will be held on June 6. For more about Biscuit Run, click here.
