The Richmond Times Dispatch
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Sprawl marches to center of debate Growth is becoming a political issue in Va.

 

BY PAUL BRADLEY, KIRAN KRISHNAMURTHY AND BILL GEROUX TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITERS

Sep 10, 2000

LEESBURG The "slow-growth" movement, once believed to be the sole province of environmental activists, has vaulted into the political mainstream in an expanding list of Virginia localities where residents have grown weary of crowded schools, jammed highways and soaring taxes.

In Loudoun County, slow-growth advocates captured eight of nine seats on the Board of Supervisors in November. At-large Chairman Scott K. York received 65 percent of the vote, signaling a clear mandate for change.

In May, in Fredericks- burg, two slow-growth advocates and a planned-growth candidate won election to the City Council, one of them to the at-large mayoral post. In nearby Stafford County, two slow-growth advocates ousted two longtime members of the Board of Supervisors.

In Virginia Beach, the city is striving to preserve farmland by buying development rights from farmers, who get tax breaks by surrendering the right to develop the land they farm. Since 1996, the city has bought the rights to about 4,000 acres of farmland, said Bill Macali, a deputy city attorney.

In all of these places, slowing the march of suburban sprawl has moved to the center of the political debate.

"It depresses me to see the beautiful Virginia landscape plowed up. It angers me that I'm expected to subsidize it by paying for the infrastructure that supports this sprawl," said John Huennekens, a Northern Virginia resident.

Nowhere is the debate hotter than in Loudoun, the once-rural enclave now building a reputation for traffic jams, strip malls, polluted air, vanishing open space and vocal demands for change.

Agriculture dominated life in Loudoun for more than 200 years. It was noted for its pastoral horse and cattle farms, seemingly secure in its role as the sleepy neighbor to fast-growing Fairfax County.

But all that has changed. The opening of Dulles International Airport in 1962 triggered a development boom that has transformed Loudoun into the fastest-growing locality in the state, fourth-fastest in the country.

Its population has doubled during the past decade to 175,000. Willingly or not, Loudoun has become an example for both the problems unchecked growth can cause, and the difficulty in solving those woes.

This year, the Loudoun Board of Supervisors took back zoning powers it had surrendered in the 1970s. Under the old arrangement, all affected landowners had to sign off on any zone change. Now, the supervisors are trying to change land use without those approvals.

In June, the Loudoun Planning Commission voted to reduce the number of houses allowed on each acre. The plan would place half of Loudoun's 331,000 acres into a "rural economy" area, with restrictive policies meant to conserve large plots of property for farming, tourism and other nonresidential uses.

But that was just the first hurdle, and the fight is far from over. Public hearings and several additional rounds of approval will be required during the next several months. Thousands of new houses are already in the development pipeline for the property in question.

Some landowners have branded the county's efforts a land grab by politicians bent on imposing their vision of "smart growth" on land they don't own. Realtors contend the plan will put home ownership beyond the reach of the middle class. Opponents promise to fight the measures in court, should they become law. And a group called Citizens for Property Rights - CPR for short - has formed to counter the political muscle of the slow-growth advocates.

On the fringes of Northern Virginia, the Fredericksburg area continues to develop at a rapid clip. During the past decade, the area's population swelled by 40 percent, climbing from about 171,400 to more than 240,000.

Growth is squeezing much of the region, particularly Spotsylvania and Stafford counties, fast-growing localities that, combined, contribute more than 75 percent of the region's population.

The advancing growth has spawned anti-development sentiments and spurred the formation of a handful of political organizations. Residents rallying around causes ranging from historical and environmental preservation to education and traffic congestion have influenced recent elections in the region.

Some see a middle ground. "I don't see smart growth and good planning as being a liability to the real estate community," said W. Rodger Provo, a Fredericksburg developer and commercial real estate broker.

Local officials say they are trying to plan for the additional, inevitable growth. Stafford, for example, recently raised the fees it negotiates with residential developers from $4,800 to more than $20,000. Called proffers, the fees are meant to help offset the costs of schools, utilities and other services.

In Stafford, the supervisors also are looking to Virginia Beach officials for advice on curbing growth by buying development rights from farmers.

For its part, Virginia Beach has spread out into a vast, sprawling suburb. Subdivisions and shopping centers have engulfed the northern part of the Beach and spread west into Chesapeake and, more recently, northern Suffolk.

Virginia Beach, Chesapeake and Suffolk are all the size of counties. Suffolk extends for 481 square miles, the largest spread of any city in Virginia. Since 1977, Virginia Beach's population has grown from 236,400 to nearly 440,000 and Chesapeake's from 112,200 to 200,000.

The northern part of Virginia Beach is crammed with people, but parts of its southern end are rural. The city has discouraged development south of a suburban-rural boundary called the "green line."

In another part of Virginia Beach, the fight over sprawl is taking another form. Suburbanites living near Oceana Naval Air Station and nearby Fentress Field are organizing to try to force the Navy to reduce jet noise from the training flights there. Oceana is the main East Coast base for F/A-18 Hornet and F-14 Tomcat fighters, both of which are scheduled to be replaced by the Super Hornet, which is louder. About 125,000 people in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake live within concentric "noise zones" surrounding the base.

Only last month, Virginia Beach's planning commission approved new subdivisions in the "medium" noise zone despite the objections of the Navy.