A family feud

By Charles Houston

Byne Rood was in the sunroom when her husband returned from his office. She had a wan smile and was still in barn clothes.

“What’s up, Byne?” queried Robert. “You don’t look happy.”

“I’m just puzzled. Maybe a bit irritated.” 

“’bout what?”

“You know how much I’m trying to follow the new zoning ordinance that’s being drafted?”

Robert nodded. 

“Well, the good guys seem to be fighting each other. “They all want to save western Loudoun, just like we do, but their ideas don’t always mesh. You’ve got the active preservationists. That group keeps pushing for a lower density for new housing.”

“A worthy goal. Everyone hates sprawl.”

“Yep, but they are tilting at windmills,” stated Byne. “There’s no way politicians are going to reduce density, at least for now. Even without the developers chiming in. Now you have landowners – especially large farmers – squawking that lowering the density would reduce the value of their land. Then you hear conservation easement people complain that lower density would make easements less attractive.”

Robert had his own perspective. “Even with a lot of easements in the past few years, we would still expect more than 10,000 new houses out here. Easements can’t fix everything. Some of the easement folks are our good friends, and I hate to say it, but it usually comes down to money and a conservation easement itself is not the entire picture.”

“What do you mean?” Byne asked.

“Well, if somebody buys a good piece of property and does an easement, they might also get stream bank credits, nutrient credits, money for carbon sequestration. That could do a lot towards offsetting any effect of lower density.” Robert opined.  

Byne’s strained smile was gone; she was animated. “Alright, that’s the preservationists versus the conservationists, but there’s another group. Farming advocates have focused on soil quality.”

“Dirt,” Robert chortled. 

“Dirt with names like ‘Eubanks Loam’ or ‘Tankerville,’ and all dirt is not equal,” explained Byne. “Prime agricultural soils only amount to 19 percent of the county.  That’s why the Supervisors want to protect them. There’s more.”

“Like what, Byne?” Robert asked.

“It’s not like there’s one large, contiguous area of prime soils. It’s more like a checkerboard of small pieces. That makes it hard to figure out just how you could really protect good soils and have parcel sizes that could be farmed. Plus, some people seem to think that protecting prime soils would be a de facto way of reducing housing density.”

Robert understood. “That wouldn’t be bad.”

Byne explained, “The easement people worry that the prime soils initiative would do exactly that – reduce density, which, they say, would make conservation easements less attractive.”

Robert smiled wryly and mentioned another nuance. “There are really two farming groups. One advocates for agriculture in general, and then there’re the farmers themselves. I’ve heard one of those guys refer to his land as his 4.01(k) plan.”

Byne suppressed a shudder. “His 4.01(k) is our traffic.”

“Farming holds a mythic position in American lore, doesn’t it?” Robert commented. “It has a strong emotional appeal.”

“True, but the question is what we do now.”

“Well, there’s a family feud, and there’d still be battles ahead with developers. Maybe you need to knock some heads, Byne.”

She shook her head; that was not her style.

“Suggest some simple things that everyone likes. Get concurrence on them first. Maybe start by setting out a vision for western Loudoun that everyone likes,” offered Robert.

“Yeah,” answered Byne. “I could even show photos – horses, cattle grazing, forests, pretty barns, corn fields, the whole shebang. Get everyone to nod that this should be our future.”

“After you get agreement on things like that, challenge the groups with this: ‘You should think about what you could live with, not what you want in some perfect world.’ When they finally nod, bring up more difficult topics.”

“I could, Robert, but why don’t you do it?”

“Because people like you more than they like me.”

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.