This article was written by WTOP’s news partner InsideNoVa.com and republished with permission. Sign up for InsideNoVa.com’s free email subscription today.

Prince William County planners are proposing to ease some of the decades-old policies restricting development in rural areas.

The county has published a draft version of the land-use chapter of its Comprehensive Plan update, along with a long-range land-use map.

The Comprehensive Plan is a guiding document for county land-use policies. While not committing the Board of Supervisors to any decisions, it declares the county’s vision for future development. The land-use map is a visual representation of where and how the county wants to see development through 2040.

The revisions could threaten what’s known as the “rural crescent” – roughly 117,000 acres restricted to no more than one home for every 10 acres with strict restrictions on the expansion of public sewer lines.

The draft documents replace the rural designation with agricultural and forestry. Rather than one home per 10 acres, it would allow one home per five acres.

In other designated areas, the plan calls for Hamlet Mixed-Use, Village Mixed-Use or Conservation Residential designations, which would allow up to one home per two acres.

The county is holding an in-person community meeting on the Comprehensive Plan update on Thursday at the Beacon Hall Conference Center, 10945 George Mason Circle.

For more information on the Comprehensive Plan update, visit pwcva.gov/department/planning-office/pathway-to-2040.