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Madeira reluctant to allow trail
The Madeira School, an all-girls private boarding school in Great Falls, is careful about security. Twenty-four hours a day, two guards patrol the campus and visitors must pass through a gate to drive up to the sprawling school.
Now, the school needs to replace its wastewater treatment plant, and local trail advocates are urging Fairfax County to insist that Madeira construct a trail along the rear of the property before granting the required special exception permit.
“This has been delayed and delayed, waving that incident from 30 years ago like a red flag!” said MCA Environmental Committee Chair Frank Crandall.
In the 1970s, an intruder attacked a student on Madeira's campus, and school officials have cited the incident as the reason behind their longstanding reluctance to create public-use trails near the school.
“Security is our primary concern,” said Meredith Cole, Madeira's assistant headmistress. “We feel very strongly about it.”
Fairfax County encourages and often requires trail construction of applicants for special exceptions and, in fact Madeira agreed in the 1990s to grant a trail easement.
“We are not anti-trail,” Cole said.
However, the easement granted by Madeira runs across the front of the property, outside the security gate, and doesn't connect with any other trails. Trail advocates want Madeira to instead grant an easement along the back part of the property, a forested area bordering the Potomac River.
The segment of trail would eventually be connected to the Potomac Heritage Trail. The proposed trail passes through forest and near a nature preserve at Black Pond.
“It's like they have a warehouse full of master paintings and they won't let anyone look at them. It's unneighborly,” Crandall said.
There will be a public hearing on the special exception later this month.
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