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Loudoun's Slow Growth Survives Suit

By Michael Laris
Friday, December 8, 2000

The Virginia Supreme Court dismissed the first legal challenge to Loudoun County's slow-growth proposals yesterday, ruling that it would not block public hearings on a draft county plan that calls for tough new environmental regulations and sharp restrictions on home building.

The decision came after 69 landowners filed a suit Dec. 1 stating that the county had not completed a host of economic and environmental studies required by Virginia law when a county's development blueprint, or Comprehensive Plan, is revamped.

County officials hailed the decision as proof that their year-long effort to overhaul the county's development regulations, after the election of eight slow-growth supervisors in November 1999 has been strictly by the book.

"Chalk another one up for the Board of Supervisors and minus one for the developers," said Board Chairman Scott York (R-At Large). "They don't have any leg to stand on and they won't have any leg to stand on in this process, because we are way aboveboard."

Jack Shockey, president of the pro-development group Citizens for Property Rights and one of the plaintiffs in the case, said he was disappointed with the court ruling.

The suit offered county planners and politicians "a graceful way out of the Comprehensive Plan they've been pushing down people's throats," he said, adding that "other action can be taken."

In a three-sentence decision, the Supreme Court ruled that "under the facts and circumstances found in this case," there is no reason to compel Loudoun officials to complete certain studies, as requested in the landowners' petition. The state's highest court also ruled that it does not have the right to block public hearings on the plan scheduled for next week, as the plaintiffs had requested.

"The emergency motion for injunctive relief is denied, since the Court has no original jurisdiction to grant the injunction," the ruling said.

Sterling lawyer Thomas Plofchan, who filed the lawsuit, said he found room for optimism in the ruling, arguing that the decision left the door open for a lower court to address the question of whether the county has erred in its procedures for reviewing its plans. He also said he would ask the high court to rehear the case and explain why it came to the decision it did in so-called findings of fact and conclusions of law.

"I don't know what is the basis for their rejection. We're asking for clarification," he said. "Until someone interprets the law, I don't think there's any defeat at all. It's a procedural hurdle, that's all."

Loudoun County Attorney John R. Roberts said he is not concerned.

"The court found the petition baseless on its face. I don't know how you get around that," he said.

© 2000 The Washington Post