Is that really a good idea?

By Charles Houston

I drove the new car down the entrance ramp onto the Greenway. A lot of horsepower was at the command of my right foot. I couldn’t resist and the speedometer surged upward. Sixty. Seventy. Eighty. Why not ninety? And a bit more.

Blue lights in the mirror. Oops.

Maybe ninety-three was not such a good idea.

Some decisions are great, some aren’t. Speeding like that was dumb. Decisions can be boneheaded. Unintended consequences show up.

What ideas are percolating here?

Traffic

The massive Rt. 15 widening project has not yet been approved, as an article in last month’s paper pointed out. Long-term relief for the Lucketts area would be illusory, anyway, due to the traffic engineering concept of “induced demand,” where new traffic arises almost immediately and fills the added road capacity. Worse, new road capacity can stimulate new development, meaning even more traffic.

A curmudgeon might ask why Loudoun citizens should be taxed for hundreds of millions of dollars, while primarily benefiting Maryland commuters.

Political Pimping

Years ago, Georgia undertakers were losing business to cremations. They hired a powerful lobbyist and, presto, the state legislature passed a law requiring that corpses be embalmed before being cremated. A truly venal idea.

Loudoun just avoided something stupid and harmful. State Senator John Bell pimped for AT&T and its proposed tower atop Short Hill Mountain. More venality. Bell’s constituents fiercely opposed the tower, and Bell’s plan failed.

Affordable Housing

Many people support the egalitarian goal of providing affordable housing to residents who lack the resources to buy or rent housing at market rates. (The new term is “Attainable Housing.”) The devil, though, lies in the details, and I have questions.

First: The County’s website says that its Affordable Dwelling Unit program “provides newly constructed housing for income-eligible citizens…” Why must this be newly-built housing? There are thousands of older houses, townhouses and apartments that should be perfectly adequate, often more conveniently located and available at prices below the cost of new construction.  

Second: How do we get more affordable housing? The new zoning ordinance contains incentives for developers to build some affordable units. This might be a good idea.

Third: Who will be eligible for the affordable residences? New zoning text suggests that families with income up to the “average median income” (AMI) can qualify. The County uses an AMI figure that could benefit folks making almost $130,000 a year. This seems like a bad idea, and I don’t feel that generous.

Last question: County managers have proposed funding an affordable dwelling program with a property tax increase that would bring in almost six million dollars next year. In normal times, that might be (or might not be) acceptable to taxpayers. In these parlous times of raging inflation and pending property tax increases, imposing any additional tax is a bad idea.

Here’s a better idea. Denver imposes a tax of $0.66 per square foot on new residential units, and $1.86 per square foot on new commercial projects. Let’s do that. Supervisors: A good idea, and also better politics than taxing voters.

Plastic Bags

A nickel a bag? Our supervisors do a good job, but this new tax shows that they are not perfect. New tax revenue will be negligible. Significantly, the bag tax is clearly regressive, which means our poorest citizens will get hurt the most.

Rural Commercialization

Some commercialization in the west has been good, but even B&Bs are now seeing some eyebrows raised about their appropriateness in certain areas. Wineries have generally been well-liked.  Breweries are popular, but their neighbors are often apoplectic.

Future breweries and most new commercial projects should require a zoning Special Exception from the Board of Supervisors to ensure legislative review to make sure we want them. (Existing breweries would not be affected by this requirement.)

Snyder’s Stadium in Loudoun

I’m sure to write more about this grotesque idea in the future.

Unpaved Roads

Preserving Loudoun’s network of unpaved roads is a good idea; a necessity really, if we want to preserve our heritage and comfortable ambience.

Unpaved roads can have more potholes, but they are softer-edged than the sharp-edged potholes on paved roads. These roads can get dusty in dry weather. On the plus side, there is usually less traffic on unpaved roads, and that traffic is slower and safer than it would be on asphalt.  Some people complain about dust, but the dust on my car proudly proclaims, “I live in western Loudoun.”

Charles Houston developed more than six million square feet of office buildings throughout the south for an Atlanta-based firm. He lives in Paeonian Springs.