Update on Loudoun Development: Growing Houses at Blue Mount Nursery

By Laura Longley

As dogwoods go dormant at Blue Mount Nursery, this 20-year-old, family-owned, family-oriented garden center on Rt. 7 in Ashburn is about to grow things other than trees and plants. With an application for rezoning now in Loudoun County’s Planning Department pipeline, the nursery’s nearly 20 acres may soon grow houses—a lot of them.

The 485-unit community to be called Dogwood Farm Station is a project of U.S. Home Corporation, a subsidiary of Lennar Corporation, with Good Works, LP, the affordable housing development firm headed by Kim Hart, who may be best known for his work with Middleburg’s nonprofit Windy Hill Foundation.

Situated directly opposite the vast One Loudoun complex, the new project is set for departmental review, Planning Commission review, and a public hearing expected to take at least one year. It is predicted to be in front of the Planning Commission in February 2022.

Dogwood Farm Station’s 485 units would reportedly consist of 165 affordable dwelling units (ADUs). The rezoning application that was filed with the County in mid-August, however, cites only 100 ADUs. At that number, the project would just make the 20 percent benchmark of Loudoun’s new Unmet Housing Needs Strategic Plan.

Approved for implementation by the Board of Supervisors on Sept. 8, the strategic plan calls for every new development in the County to meet that bar.

Supervisor Mike Turner (D-Ashburn) raised a warning flag at that meeting when, after thanking the County’s planning staff for its work, he added, “I’m not sure the developers have figured out yet that the benchmark for new development is 20 percent in this plan. We really need to start holding their feet to the fire. So the word should go out to the development community: ‘You’d better be looking at 20 percent aggregate affordable here.’”

At the same time, however, he also put responsibility for achieving that goal on Supervisors and staff. “This is not going to be on the backs of the developers alone. Just asking them to do so much percentage is not going to cut it anymore. We have to put substantial financial skin in the game to meet the affordable housing plan.”

More large development applications

Meanwhile, with recent changes in the County’s Comprehensive Plan that allow for more residential density in areas with ready access to the Loudoun Gateway Station of Metro’s Silver Line, applications for large developments are increasing.

One recent application was filed by Retail Properties of America, Inc. Better known as RPAI, the developer wants to rezone land and reduce entitlements for 450,000 square feet of unbuilt commercial office space. The aim: to develop nearly 2,000 residential units, which, given COVID’s impact on office occupancy and the County’s residential needs, makes all kinds of sense for RPAI. The residences would occupy nearly 80 acres close to Rt. 7 and Loudoun County Parkway.

South of Leesburg’s Heritage High School, Loudoun developer Leonard “Hobie” Mitchel is moving forward with the Village at Clear Springs on Evergreen Mills Road. He has looked forward  to breaking ground in 2022.

Mitchel filed his plans for the 246-acre project with the County in June. Among the 1,230 units he plans for the site are 203 single-family detached homes, 585 single-family attached homes, and 450 apartments. At this point in the process, he has set aside only 180 units as affordable housing—a far cry from 20 percent of units in new developments that the County’s Unmet Housing Needs Strategic Plan calls for.

What also may factor into approvals for the Village at Clear Springs is the project’s location—nearly 10 miles shy of Loudoun’s Washington Metro Silver Line station.

Silver Line proximity and County caution signals

Proximity to the Loudoun Gateway Station promises to be a key factor in County approvals of large-scale developments. As Supervisor Juli Briskman (D-Algonkian) pointed out, “COG”— the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments—”is really pushing jurisdictions to build in high-capacity transit areas and activity centers, and to make sure we have multi-modal forms of transportation, including bike paths and walk sheds…To me, this precludes some of the larger applications that are coming in that aren’t anywhere near Metro. And in some ways I think it might give us a little bit of leverage to rework, reconsider, or even turn down some of these larger applications because they’re not near the high-capacity transit area.”

Supervisor Turner, who led the Board’s Transportation and Land Use Committee through its labors on the strategic plan, is focusing on measures that promote transit integration.

“I am supportive of the 2019 Comprehensive Plan, which calls for a mix of commercial and residential along Rt. 7,” he says. “We have several large developments going in along this corridor, and, as the Transportation and Land Use Committee chair, I’m trying to ensure they all integrate with each other to ensure we develop a walkable, bikeable, connected community concept. The recent completion of the Riverside Parkway and, hopefully, the Russell Branch Parkway someday, would make circulator transit along the corridor a possibility as well.”

Back to Dogwood Farm Station: What’s in a name?

The development application for Blue Mount Nursery in eastern Loudoun is filed with the County as Dogwood Farm Station—a name likely to confuse at least a few western Loudouners who know Dogwood Farm as Loudoun’s last dairy farm, owned and operated by the fourth generation of the extended Potts family of dairy farmers.

In 1950 Loudoun could count 405 dairy farms; in 1978 it was down to 76. By 1990, the Potts family was among the very few still in the dairy business. Today only Dogwood Farm near Lincoln remains. Perhaps there’s something to be said for honoring the integrity of a name associated with Loudoun’s history of Holsteins and daily milk runs to Washington on the W&OD Railroad. How? Maybe finding another name for a housing development?

If you’d like to learn more about Dogwood Farm, the dairy farm, visit https://facebook.com/pottsdaleholsteins/