Santa Ain’t Coming

By Charles Houston

I don’t think land use will change much with the upcoming new zoning ordinance that’s being written now. I hope you can accept life under Loudoun’s existing zoning, which has been harmful to rural Loudoun.

The zoning rewrite is based upon the 2019 General Plan, adopted after much input from a group of “Stakeholders.” It’s full of aspirational balderdash, like “The County’s land development approach for the Rural Policy Area is to limit residential development so that land will remain available for the continued operation, expansion, and establishment of agricultural and rural economy uses.” 

The Stakeholders group was dominated by business types and frankly, they won.

How would you interpret that italicized statement from the General Plan? 

Protecting true agriculture is great, but the Plan seems to subordinate residences to rural economy uses, and “rural economy” includes noxious operations you would not want anywhere near you, like feedlots. 

The “rural economy” also includes many questionable or vague things that promoters can abuse, such as “agritainment,” farm tourism, country inns, and outdoor recreation establishments. That last one would seem to allow a go-kart track next door to your home. 

I’m on the Zoning Ordinance Committee, which is advising Planning staff on the new zoning code and ZOC is now using a subcommittee structure as it finalizes its zoning recommendations. While this has been a very long process since its gestation as the “Envision Loudoun” public hearings in 2018, things seem rushed now. Pity.

I’ll be on the Uses subcommittee, which will focus on what things can be located where. Other subcommittees are Zoning Districts, Development Standards and for some idealism, Attainable Housing. Each committee could advocate zoning provisions that would protect rural Loudoun, but there are obstacles.

There are five members of each subcommittee. Our Uses group includes a conservationist, an architect, a planner, a land-use attorney and me. There will be comity, but we do have different perspectives. That’s a fundamental obstacle for every subcommittee and could tilt deliberations toward keeping the status quo as a compromise. That would be dreadful for rural Loudoun since current zoning is drowning us with sprawl.

Shouldn’t residents of an area control what happens around them? Why should I get a vote on land use issues in eastern Loudoun? Why should people elsewhere have a voice on what happens here in the west? In the spirit of populism, I strongly object to giving business advocates any voice at all. Sure, listen to what expertise they may have, but they should not participate in deliberations. The county belongs to the people, not LLCs and Inc.’s.

There isn’t one now, but there should be another subcommittee that deals holistically and comprehensively with the Urban Planning Area, which is near Metro and where urban development will be encouraged. I’ve suggested this to the powers-that-be, but I’m not optimistic.

ZOC started with great hopes but another obstacle is that, ultimately, the County planning staff controls the process. Our planners are good folk, but have you ever heard of a planner advocating the status quo? In my experience developing major office buildings in many states, planners want to plan for something new.

Consider me a luddite, but in general, “new” is usually bad. I don’t want more growth or more “rural economy” or tourism schemes. Leave us alone!

Still another difficulty is the incredibly detailed process the subcommittees will follow. Staff wrote this as an example: Issue: Bicycle parking requirements. Where: Multifamily areas. Ordinance Section: Chapter 10, Section 7.A.2 Finding: Draft text does not require enough bicycle parking. Recommendation: Increase requirement. Opposing comment: Let market decide. Should ZOC Vote, yes or no: Yes, it should vote.

Here’s one more challenge: There are 86 pages of these kind of questions, tables and new text. Each subcommittee will have to slog through a similar document. Working through these massive processes will be brutal and I hope my attention span lasts.

So, will Santa come with gifts of preservation and conservation? Perhaps he will bring one or two chestnuts, but by and large, his sack will be empty.

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.