The Last Flower of Fall

By Charlie Houston

Those words popped into my head one morning with a poetic ring—love, death, autumn’s crisp days, tenderness. They seemed rich with meaning. Maybe they could even make me rich and famous. I tried turning them into a song, scribbling stanzas without music to guide me. My wife said that couldn’t work. A songwriting specialist in Brooklyn agreed: “Nice title, Charlie, but it’s poetry, not a song.”

I sent the piece to a poetry magazine. Rejected again: “Does not fit our program.” Still unwilling to quit, I thought, Why not start an op-ed with it? So here we are at the onset of autumn.

Candy from the Board

For years, most data center rezoning requests came with a “SPEX”—a Special Exception. A SPEX allows developers to exceed base density rules. A data center’s base density is 0.6. On a twenty-acre lot, that equals 522,720 square feet of building. With a SPEX bumping density to 0.9, the building grows to 784,080 square feet—an enormous freebie to a problematic industry.

Base densities exist for a reason: they reflect Loudoun’s Comprehensive Plan and its Zoning Ordinance. SPEXs, in theory, give the Board of Supervisors discretion to allow uses that might “harm public health, safety, or welfare” or to adjust development standards, e.g., density. In practice, purpose number one is ignored, while purpose number two gets rubber-stamped for every slick developer who asks.

It’s not corruption so much as weakness. Developer’s sweet talk replaces scrutiny. If someone tallied all the extra building area granted by SPEXs, the number would likely top ten million square feet. When elections come, voters should remember who handed out all that candy.

Acronyms

The federal government loves acronyms: DOD, CIA, HUD, FBI. The military, especially, thrives on them. In World War II, Admiral Nimitz was CINCPAC—Commander in Chief, Pacific. Below him was COMPACFLT (Commander, Pacific Fleet), then COMNAVSURFPAC (Commander, Pacific Surface Forces) and COMNAVAIRPAC (Pacific Air Forces). Acronyms save time in speech and writing. They also create a closed fraternity of initiates.

Hand acronyms to bureaucrats and they turn goofy. Take Loudoun’s “Emerald Ribbons”—a visionary trail project named by citizens. County renamed it LPAT (Loudoun Parks and Trails), pronounced “El Pat.” Awful. Then they hired a consultant and rebranded it “Loudoun Trails and Waterways.” Now they toss around LTAW (“El Taw”). Worse. The poetry of Emerald Ribbons was lost to bureaucratic vapidity.

What Is a Farm?

Our new zoning ordinance refuses to define “farm.” That omission speaks volumes. During the zoning rewrite, debates pitted business interests and speculators against conservationists. The businesses won.

Case in point: breweries are listed under “Agriculture” instead of “Food and Beverage.” Why? Because “farm” might have limited their metastases. Conservationists pushed back, but the Board and Staff caved. Leaving “Farm” undefined lets commercial operations masquerade as agriculture, eroding both land and language.

A Windfall, but for Whom?

Last year the County raked in $259 million more tax receipts than expected, thanks largely to data center taxes. Officials called it a “one-time windfall.” Citizens saw only a pittance—just twenty-five measly bucks from eliminating the license plate fee.

The Board stashed or spent the rest: $69 million for future capital projects, $60 million for a rainy-day fund, $10 million for schools. Meanwhile, personal property taxes on our cars—$200 million—kept pouring in. Imagine a fairer balance: $290 million from data centers, $200 million in tax relief to citizens, and the rest in reserve. Voters would then reward the Supervisors.

Unfortunately, the County has a spending addiction. Unless checked, every “windfall” will vanish into bureaucratic nooks and crannies. This is serious and also fodder for aspiring Board candidates.

Voters to Stop Sprawl

In 1999, a grassroots group rallied voters sick of sprawl. They threw out the entire Board. For a while, growth slowed. Then business interests crept back in, often hiring pricey lawyers to shill for them, and sprawl resumed.

Today, the threats are bigger: data centers, breweries, event centers (AKA party barns,) cluster subdivisions. Is it time again to clean house? In 2027, perhaps this Board would be remembered as the last flower of unchecked development, and evicted.

There are better ways than tossing out every Supervisor. Two reforms could make the difference: voter referenda and term limits. In 2027, citizens should demand candidates who back both ideas. 

Epilogue

I once helped create Atlanta’s sprawl, developing office towers that paved farmland. Now I know better. Even if “The Last Flower of Fall” never becomes a song or poem, maybe it works best as a reminder: beauty, once lost, is hard to reclaim. 

Charlie Houston formerly developed large office buildings as Senior Vice President of a huge Atlanta real estate company. His clients included Coca Cola, AT&T, UPS, MetLife, Norfolk Southern, Duke University and even the Dule of Milan, Italy. Now he lives on a small horse farm between Paeonian Springs and Waterford, where he tries—and often fails—to control his imagination. Or his opinions.