Press Release
Campaign for Loudoun's Future

For Immediate Release:
April 20, 2005

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Andrea McGimsey, 703-477-4722
Laura Olsen, (202) 244-4408 x4#

Judge Accepts County/Developer Proposal to Revert to Old Zoning without a New Public Process

Loudoun Officials Abandon Interests of Residents, Prioritizing Developers’ Profits

On Tuesday, Judge Horne accepted the proposal from Loudoun County Supervisors that would remove the rural zoning provisions from all of the land in western Loudoun, undoing years of public discussion that resulted in a compromise that provided new business rights for rural land while limiting the amount of residential development.

“The County’s proposal confirms the Supervisors are not interested in protecting our property rights, business interests, and the financial needs of all Loudoun residents,” said Malcolm Baldwin, a farmer and vineyard owner in the Lovettsville area.

Generally when an ordinance is struck down on a procedural defect, counties re-enact it and cure the procedural problem, but this Board of Supervisors has refused to take this common sense action, despite three Supervisors proposing a motion to re-advertise the rural zoning in a manner that complies with the Supreme Court’s ruling. Instead they have sided with a small set of developers seeking to maximize their profits at the expense of Loudoun’s rural economy and all Loudoun taxpayers.

The judge’s ruling was surprising as under Virginia law, courts do not have the authority to make decisions on land use zoning.

Supervisors Backing Developers, Ignoring Constituents

"The Supervisors met a series of secret sessions and instructed the County Attorney to adopt a legal position that was extraordinarily favorable to the developers,” said Martha Polkey, a sheep farmer from Lucketts. “They gave the developers virtually everything they wanted without even giving the citizens of the County a chance to be heard. They need to listen to the citizens -- whose taxes will now go up and whose economy and way of life will be destroyed -- and not just the developers."

Against the wishes of thousands of Loudoun residents who have written, called and come to Board meetings, a majority of Supervisors worked with the developers to re-zone the land by court order thus sidestepping the necessary legislative process, a decision that would benefit the developers.

The Supervisors are adding fuel to the fire by claiming residents can voluntarily change the zoning on their land to rural zoning, which in truth would create zoning.

“A law, especially a zoning law, is meaningless unless the same rule applies to everyone. A crazy-quilt of zoning in which each landowner gets to choose his own zoning is really the same as no zoning at all. It is an abrogation of the supervisors' duties,” noted Stephan Budiansky of Lucketts.

“Without any public discussion, they hastily enacted a plan that is a recipe for zoning chaos. Many people are asking, if you can pick your own zoning, why have any zoning at all?.”

The entire point of zoning is to establish a uniform rule for an entire area. It's based on the obvious and straightforward proposition that what happens on my land affects everyone in the community. Most places that are seeking to encourage rural business ventures, including farming, set up zoning to protect both the farmers and suburban residents as farms and suburban communities don’t mix well and neither can then thrive.

In the last year, Loudoun County has absorbed 25% of the Washington Metropolitan Area’s growth. The action’s of Loudoun Supervisors seem to indicate they want to absorb even more of the region’s growth despite not having the transportation, school, recreation or other services needed for those new residents.

On Friday, the same judge allowed 25 Citizen Landowners from western Loudoun, representing over 4,000 acres of land, to be named as additional defendants in the rural zoning case between the developers and Loudoun County since the county is no longer defending the plan and Loudoun residents.

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