Is the policy in western Loudoun to protect rural areas?

Dear Editor:

Laura Longley’s “Is Western Loudoun already gone?” certainly brings to mind Joni Mitchell’s lyric “they paved paradise … you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.” We live on a 36-acre farm just down the hill from the 47-acre property mentioned in the article, soon to be turned into a Cluster subdivision on a mountainside.

As long as we have lived here, over 20 years, that particular property was densely planted with white pines on the lower half and hardwoods going up to the top of the mountain. It is home to abundant wildlife. Black bears have been spotted many times coming down from the mountain and crossing our property; wild turkeys are everywhere, as are deer and Canadian geese, of course, but also owls, hawks, eagles, herons, mallards, and even wood ducks.

Short Hill Road is a historic road going back perhaps 200 years, and it currently gets much flooding during heavy rains particularly at the corner where the entrance to the proposed development is. The ruts and gulleys can be extremely hazardous. With a great loss of trees on the mountainside, flooding will increase.

We knew the property had sold to a developer; we heard the wells being drilled and the roadways being cleared. But it wasn’t until we saw the public notice that we were shocked to find that the property was being divided into 9 lots.

The public notice was posted on Short Hill Road on March 22. It listed the application file-date as Jan. 11, 2022, and the comment period as April 4, 2022. Comments could be addressed to the Director, Building and Development. We sent off a letter that day, perhaps naively assuming this application could be at least modified.

It was only after we sent a similar letter to the Board of Supervisors that we found out this was pretty much a done deal. We were told, “The unfortunate situation is that this application is by right, and the 9 lots are permitted as AR-1 Cluster Subdivision.

“As it currently stands, it is simply an administrative application and not legislative, therefore it will not come before the Board of Supervisors for approval or denial.” We were also told we could access the application online and leave a public comment for the staff, but when we did so we saw no way to leave a comment.

What’s the point of posting a Public Notice at such a late date, with an insultingly brief comment period, when it seems the decisions have already been made? We also found out in this week’s Washington Post list of recent Purcellville sales that one of the lots in the project has already sold.

This development and others mentioned in Longley’s article will destroy assets that can never be recovered, along with the loss of habitat for so many species, and create increased light, noise and air pollution.

We were under the impression that the policy in western Loudoun was to protect our historic rural areas by eliminating the kind of overdevelopment and destruction of habitat characterized by this application, but now we find out developers are grabbing as much as they can before that policy goes into effect.

Thank you, Laura Longley, for bringing all of this to light in your skillfully researched and well-written piece.

Sally and Mark Pfoutz

Purcellville