We have all become painfully aware that Loudoun County planners and decision makers made serious mistakes in allowing more “by right” data center development than the available resources or the public’s good will could sustain.

There’s nothing to be gained by assigning blame. But it is important to avoid repeating the same mistakes.

Sadly, the County is doing exactly that—by allowing more “by right” development in rural Loudoun than the area can possibly absorb.

Our small towns, historic villages, residences, and businesses are entirely dependent on pumping water out of the ground. Currently, we have 19,000 wells and the average distance between them is 500 feet. This is already unsustainable and our water tables are falling.

Nevertheless, the County’s Zoning Ordinance allows developers to build 10,000 more rural residences “by right.” Each new unit would require yet another well, nearly doubling the demands on our already stressed groundwater resources.

Rural Loudoun’s hilly, winding, narrow roads are clogged with much more traffic than they were designed for. Frustrated drivers make bad decisions. We have the highest number of deer collisions in the state. Our roads are increasingly unsafe and expensive to drive on.

Allowing for 10,000 more residences entails adding 100,000 more vehicle trips per day to the already existing congestion. That would severely exacerbate an already serious bottleneck in rural Loudoun, in the same way that adding allowing 100 more data centers is overwhelming the available supplies of power and water in our urban and suburban areas.

Rural Loudoun is on a course for the same kind of crisis we’re already facing with data center development—not enough resources and not enough infrastructure to support the scale of development the County has allowed for.

The County Board of Supervisors has legal authority under state law to decide how much “by right” development it should allow. And, despite strong opposition from wealthy and powerful corporations, a groundswell of public anger has persuaded a majority of the supervisors to “move forward toward a temporary pause in processing new data center applications.”

This is a lot like closing the barn door after the horses have escaped. But a belated something is better than nothing at all.

Unfortunately, the Board has yet to even recognize that the County is making the same mistake with respect to “by right” development in rural areas. They are currently in the process of reviewing rural zoning standards, but have explicitly decided not to even consider whether allowing 10,000 more “by right” residences, 10,000 more wells, and 100,000 more vehicle trips
per day is smart public planning.

It’s time to re-think the scale of all “by right” development in Loudoun, including in our rural areas. If we do, it might still be possible to keep some of the horses in the barn.

Before finalizing the ongoing review of rural zoning, the Board of Supervisors should re-visit the scale of “by right” development in our rural areas and ramp it down to a level that will not overwhelm the available resources and infrastructure.
We’ve been fooled once. It’s on all of us to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

John Ellis
This letter is submitted on behalf of the Board of Directors of Save Rural Loudoun, a non-profit public education and rural advocacy organization based in Loudoun County.