By Ronald B. Rise

Councilmember Erin Rayner recently wrote that Purcellville’s downtown is “waiting” and needs to be brought back. I agree that our historic downtown should remain strong, attractive and economically healthy. Where I disagree is with the premise that a few blocks of North 21^st Street represent a neglected center of town waiting for government to rescue it.

Walk North 21^st Street and you will certainly see vacancies and properties with redevelopment potential. But keep walking.

You will also see Nichols Hardware, a Purcellville institution serving this community since 1914; Magnolias at the Mill; BIA Kitchen; Monk’s BBQ; Tipped Cow Creamery; It’s Bazaar on 21^st Street; Southern States; and other businesses and organizations whose owners have invested their money, employ people, attract customers and contribute to Purcellville every day.

Those businesses deserve recognition before their neighborhood is characterized primarily by empty storefronts and buildings “waiting years for someone to care about them again.”

North 21^st Street is important. It is not, however, the whole of downtown, and it certainly is not the whole of Purcellville.

Purcellville’s existing Downtown Master Plan understood that distinction. The 2005 plan looked beyond a single street and addressed the Depot area, the commercial area between 21^st Street and Hatcher Avenue, Main Street east and west of 21^st Street, and the Town Hall/Tear Drop area. It identified East and West Main Street as principal gateway corridors into downtown. That plan remains identified by the Town as part of Purcellville’s comprehensive planning framework today.

That raises a question residents and business owners should ask before the Town spends another dollar on a new downtown master plan:

What, specifically, is broken in the plan we already have? 

This is not a small question. Town records show that consultant quotes submitted for a proposed new Historic Downtown Master Plan ranged from $100,000 to $350,000. Before existing businesses and residents are asked to fund a six-figure planning exercise, the Town should identify what recommendations in the existing plan no longer work, what measurable problem a new plan will solve, and why those issues cannot be addressed by updating the portions that actually need updating.

Planning is not free. Every dollar spent studying downtown is a dollar collected from taxpayers or unavailable for another public need. A new plan may ultimately be justified, but “we need a new master plan” should be the conclusion of an analysis, not the starting assumption.

The same care should apply when discussing zoning.

Rayner wrote that the recently adopted zoning ordinance “downzoned” parts of downtown and now allows no more than two apartments per building. That description leaves out an important part of the zoning history.

Under the former ordinance, an apartment dwelling was permitted in the C-4 and MC districts, but a multiple-family dwelling was not. The former ordinance defined a multiple-family dwelling as a building designed for or occupied by three or more independent families. Read together, those provisions effectively limited a building in those districts to no more than two dwelling units.

The new ordinance did not invent that limitation. It made it clear.

The Planning Commission’s own record is especially instructive: the Commission voted to “retain” the rule allowing up to two apartment units in a C-4 building while not permitting an apartment building.

Retain means preserve an existing rule, not create a new restriction.

There is a legitimate policy debate to be had over whether Purcellville should allow more residential density downtown. If someone believes three, five or more apartments should be permitted in a building, make that case openly. Explain the effect on water and sewer capacity, parking, traffic, infrastructure, neighboring properties and the character residents have repeatedly said they value. Then let the community weigh the benefits and costs.

But that is a proposal to change Purcellville’s policy going forward. It should not be presented as simply restoring a development right that the new zoning ordinance took away.

And the discussion must include the entire town.

Loudoun County’s 2026 assessment data identify 2,913 residential parcels in Purcellville and 252 commercial and industrial parcels. Those residential properties, together with businesses along East Main Street, West Main Street, Hirst Road and elsewhere, all contribute to the tax base and all have a stake in how limited town resources are spent.

A mayor is elected to represent all of them.

We should continue improving North 21^st Street. We should support property owners who want to reinvest, fill vacancies, improve pedestrian connections and preserve the historic buildings that make Purcellville distinctive.

But we should begin by recognizing what already works.

Before spending $100,000 to $350,000 on another master plan, tell taxpayers precisely what the existing plan fails to accomplish. Before describing downtown as waiting to be brought back, acknowledge the successful businesses already bringing people there. And before proposing greater density, explain honestly that it is a policy change and discuss its townwide costs as well as its benefits.

Community-led planning should start with the community that is already here.

Purcellville does not need to be “brought back.” It needs thoughtful stewardship of what generations of residents and business owners have already built—and a vision broad enough to include the entire town.

Ronald B. Rise is the former Chair of the Purcellville Planning Commission and is a Retired Aerospace Engineer and Business Owner.