Growth Is Defining Issue in Loudoun

By Sandhya Somashekhar (Contact)

Sunday, October 7, 2007

Three years after Loudoun was named the nation’s fastest-growing county, few say they are happy with the results.

Preservationists lament the acres of farmland that have been gobbled up by McMansions. Developers are frustrated with a fickle government that lurches between pro- and slow-growth policies. And residents complain of traffic-choked roadways, crowded schools and taxes that climb higher each year.

Loudoun’s growth, and how the government is managing it, will be the backdrop when county voters choose a new Board of Supervisors Nov. 6. In the past few elections, voters have alternated between electing slow- and pro-growth majorities on the nine-member board.

“Every four years, there’s a shift,” said John Andrews II, a Loudoun developer and former school board member. “There’s no stability or predictability or consistency. It’s been the same problem for the past 20 years.”

In 2003, voters elected a slate of six Republicans promising to roll back restrictions on development that they said were impinging on individuals’ property rights and hurting the local economy. If the pendulum swings again, a slate of Democratic supervisors keen on limiting growth will take over in January.

“I don’t think the pendulum has ever swung too far in favor of people,” said Michael Keeney, 52, a Sterling psychologist.

Keeney moved to the area for the schools and the job market, he said. The drive to his old job in Tysons Corner, which used to take 30 minutes, is now an hour. And he says his blood boils every time he sees his inflating tax bill.

“We spend more time stuck in traffic,” he said. “We have to pay for schools. We have to look at never-ending houses everywhere. When is it going to stop?”

A Rough Transition

For many years, Loudoun was a country retreat beyond the orbit of Washington. That character is still prevalent in the county’s western reaches, with horse farms, quaint villages and breathtaking views of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

By the late 1990s, though, the eastern section beyond the Fairfax County line had blossomed into the quintessential outer suburb, with builders carving out high-end subdivisions for families seeking a little more space farther out.

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Growth in Loudoun

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At back-to-school night at Eagle Ridge Middle School, parents are greeted with political literature. In this photo, Liz Miller, left, wife of Loudoun County Board of Supervisors candidate Stevens R. Miller (D-Dulles), approaches parent Patty Geckler, of Ashburn. Jo-Ann Chase, a volunteer for House of Delegates 13th District candidate Bob Marshall (R), is on the right. (Richard A. Lipski)

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Leslie Demcsak, center, a volunteer for Dulles District school board candidate Kevin Turner, offers Diane Anzalone campaign literature. Anzalone is at Eagle Ridge Middle School for back-to-school night. Liz Miller, wife of Board of Supervisors candidate Stevens Miller (D-Dulles), also gives Anzalone some literature. (Richard A. Lipski)

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Nick Jones receives campaign literature from Liz Miller and Joshua Joki. Miller, wife of candidate Stevens Miller, and Joki, a volunteer for Miller's opponent, incumbent Dulles Supervisor Steve Snow, are at Eagle Ridge Middle School's back-to-school night. (Richard A. Lipski)

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Jo-Ann Chase, center, a volunteer for House of Delegates 13th District Bob Marshall, hands out literature to parents at back-to-school night. Leslie Demcsak, a volunteer for Dulles school board candidate Kevin Turner, is at right. (Richard A. Lipski)

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At center, Loudoun County Board of Supervisors candidate Stevens Miller (D-Dulles) passes out campaign literature to parents as they arrive for back-to-school night at Eagle Ridge Middle School. Leslie Demcsak, right, a volunteer for Dulles district school board candidate Kevin Turner, waits for the next group of parents to arrive. (Richard A. Lipski)

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But Loudoun seems to have collapsed under the weight of its own success, said James DeFrancia, a Colorado developer who chaired the Loudoun Democratic Committee in the early 1990s. Residents have begun associating their diminishing quality of life with the growth.

“There was a period where the anti-growth or no-growth faction was viewed as a radical fringe almost,” DeFrancia said. “There was this notion that growth stimulates business, et cetera. I think that’s now come full circle, and a great majority of the community is now saying, ‘Whoa, what have we wrought?’ ”

Loudoun’s suburban transition has had its perks, but it has also had tremendous disadvantages, said native Carol Taylor, 49, of Aldie, a throwback village anchored by an old mill.

“There are advantages,” she said. “I don’t have to travel as far to a grocery store, for example. Of course, with traffic, it takes me just as long to get to the grocery store as it did when I had to go eight miles away.”

Competing Visions

With the onslaught of new residents came the opportunity to carefully plan the county’s future, said Ed McMahon of the Urban Land Institute, a District-based national research group that largely serves the development industry. Using zoning laws, county officials could have protected open spaces while channeling suburban development into areas with a well-developed infrastructure. Instead, Loudoun “sprawls as far as you can see in every direction,” he said.

“There is a sense of disappointment that Loudoun didn’t do it better, considering it was one of the fastest-growing communities in America,” he said. “It could have been a model.”

In some ways, county officials have tried to channel growth. Loudoun’s comprehensive plan mandates a rural west and a suburban east, with a narrow buffer zone in between. Much of the growth is concentrated in planned communities such as Ashburn and Belmont.

But over the years, the county became mired in constant, bitter debate that has caused haphazard development, McMahon said. In addition, the board has made a habit of repeatedly revisiting its zoning rules, adding more homes at the behest of developers, he said. Last year alone, the county rezoned almost 1,700 acres.

Not everyone agrees that such rezonings are bad. For the past four years, Supervisor Stephen J. Snow (R-Dulles) has been the board’s most steadfast supporter of allowing developers to build high-density communities in exchange for their contribution of millions of dollars of road improvements, parks, land for schools and other amenities.

Snow, who works for Dietze Construction and has close ties with the development community, and others say that it’s the only way to bring in the kinds of transportation improvements and school sites the county needs without raising taxes.

He was incensed last year when his colleagues, under pressure from residents and slow-growth groups, voted down a proposal to add as many as 33,800 homes south of Dulles International Airport.

It would have transformed the buffer zone between rural and suburban largely into a dense suburban neighborhood. But the deal would have included $200 million in road improvements and other amenities paid for by the developer. Taxpayers now will have to pay for those improvements.

“It was a fantastic opportunity that I believe Loudoun County was squandering, in many cases, out of spite,” Snow said.

His opponent on Nov. 6, Democrat Stevens Miller, disagrees. The developer’s contributions and the expanded tax base would not have covered the cost of providing emergency services, teachers and amenities demanded by new and existing residents, Miller said.

“The idea that we can build our way out of problems caused by too many houses is ridiculous and absurd,” said Miller, a lawyer. “That’s not how you grow a county. That’s how you ruin a county.”

Catching Up

As in the rest of the country, Loudoun’s housing market has slowed dramatically. In 2006, 3,200 homes were built, a third less than the year before and about half of what the county added during the height of the housing frenzy in 2003, according to county data.

“In a sense, this downturn in the housing market allows us the opportunity to catch our breath and try to catch up some,” said Supervisor James Burton (I-Blue Ridge), one of the board’s most vociferous advocates for slower growth. “I don’t know how long it’s going to last, but I hope we take advantage of it.”

Over the next few years, county officials plan to build five new fire stations and 19 schools to accommodate a population of 270,000 that has nearly doubled since 2000.

To meet county standards, officials must open three recreation centers and create more than 100 new parks in the next 10 years. And by 2020, they expect to build eight highway interchanges in addition to the four under construction.

This year, county officials began hunting for space to build a 500,000-square-foot government center to replace the one they built in downtown Leesburg only a decade ago. And the sheriff’s office is facing crowding at a jail that opened just this summer.

“It has been the number one challenge facing this school board,” said Robert F. DuPree Jr., the board’s chairman. “We can’t build schools fast enough.”

The growth that brought 3,500 students to Loudoun this year may be slowing, but it isn’t over. More than 35,000 homes that have been approved by current and previous boards have yet to be built. Once the market picks up, Loudoun could see another housing boom.

Supervisors say they have striven to make sure the infrastructure will be in place for the residents who will occupy the houses once they’re built.

But for many members of the community, growth has become a four-letter word, McMahon said.

“Imagine this: You’re driving down the interstate highway and you hit a fog bank,” he said. “What are you going to do? You’re going to slam the brakes on. Why? Because you cannot see where you’re going.

“That’s exactly what many people want to do in Loudoun County because they simply can’t see where they’re going, because there is no coherent vision for the future.”

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