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Showdown in Loudoun
Smart growthers
battle developers as one of the country’s fastest-
growing counties tries to decide “how fast”
and “how much”
by
Jack Milligan
for Virginia Business
April 2003
Jim
Burton is not the kind of guy who backs down from a
fight. Twenty years ago, as an Air Force lieutenant
colonel overseeing weapons-testing programs at the Pentagon,
he took on the military establishment over the then-controversial
Bradley Fighting Vehicle, an armored troop carrier.
He was instrumental in forcing important design changes
in the Bradley that may have saved soldiers’ lives
in the Gulf War, but the battle cost him his career.
Forced to retire in 1986, his experience was later dramatized
in a 1998 HBO movie, “The Pentagon Wars.”
Burton
is fighting another war — this one for the future
of Loudoun County in Northern Virginia. Burton is a
member of Loudoun’s Board of Supervisors and chairman
of its finance committee. In January the board approved
a sweeping revision of the county’s zoning ordinance
in a dramatic — and controversial — effort
to bring its runaway growth under control. Basically
the change restricts development on two-thirds of the
county’s most rural land. The slight, bespectacled
Burton has helped lead the charge by arguing loudly
that the county can no longer afford to keep pace with
the new schools and expansion of essential services
that fast growth demands.
Loudoun
is the second-fastest-growing county in the country.
But according to Burton and an overwhelming majority
of Loudoun’s nine-member board, that growth has
put the county deep into debt and is driving up property
taxes as it struggles to provide vital services for
its new residents. Also at risk is the bucolic beauty
of the county’s western end, with its rolling hills,
winding roads and open fields that extend all the way
to the Blue Ridge.
The
reaction to Loudoun’s rezoning has been swift and
sharp. Nearly 200 lawsuits have been filed against the
county, pitting an angry coalition of large corporations,
developers and landowners against Burton and a majority
of his colleagues on the nine-member board of supervisors
— eight of whom ran for election in 1998 on pledges
to curb housing growth. The local Republican Party has
been actively recruiting pro-growth candidates to oppose
Burton and his slow-growth allies — comprised of
Democrats, Republicans and Independents like himself
— when the entire board stands for reelection this
fall. “The smart growth crowd is not interested
in people,” says John T. “Til” Hazel,
Jr., a partner in the Washington, D.C.-based law firm
of Reed Smith and a former developer. He believes that
the real agenda of Burton and his slow-growth allies
is to “shut the region down.” Says Hazel:
“They want to keep people out.”
Indeed,
Loudoun County is the epicenter of a high-stakes land
war that may determine the shape and character of Virginia
communities for years to come. Certainly it is a battle
over money — development corporations seeking to
protect their commercial interests in Loudoun filed
most of the lawsuits. But it is also a contest that
may greatly influence how Virginia grows and where people
will live in years to come. If growth is the irresistible
force, then Loudoun has positioned itself as the immovable
object, and its fate could spell out the future of many
fast-growing suburban areas throughout Virginia. The
battle is being watched closely by other high-growth
counties across the state who are suffering similar
pressures, says James D. Campbell, executive director of the
Virginia Association of Counties. “We’re going
to be watching how the courts react,” he says.
“The question is, will the courts recognize the
local legislative prerogative that a governing body
has through its zoning ordinances?”
On
a sunny day in early March, with several inches of snow
still blanketing the ground from a recent storm, Burton
drove two visitors down back country roads in western
Loudoun as he delightedly told stories about the area’s
rich heritage. Burton moved here after leaving the Air
Force, and lives in a restored 19th-century house that’s
listed on the National Registry of Historic Places.
He
clearly loves this part of Loudoun and worries that
much of it could disappear if residential development
continues unchecked. Due in large measure to a powerful
Northern Virginia economy, Loudoun has grown like the
vine in Jack and the Beanstalk — its population
soaring from less than 100,000 in 1990 to an estimated
206,000 today. The county projects that its population
will continue to climb, exceeding 250,000 by 2006. As
neighboring Fairfax County to the east became more crowded
and less affordable, the availability of cheap land
drove the demand for housing in Loudoun. The county
also succeeded in luring two large New Economy employers
— America Online and WorldCom — which further
fueled the demand for new homes.
Early
on, county officials were happy to make room for all
the newcomers as a slew of new residential developments
sprang up on fields and pastures that once serviced
a largely agrarian economy. Loudoun has added approximately
34,000 new homes since 1995 and has a backlog of another
32,000 or so approved residential units yet to come.
By
the mid-1990s, environmental groups like the Piedmont
Environmental Council and elected officials like Burton
were becoming alarmed by the county’s rate of growth.
All nine board seats in Loudoun come up for reelection
at the same time, and in 1998 eight of the candidates
ran on promises to rein in the county’s galloping
housing market. In 2001, the board amended Loudoun’s
comprehensive land-use plan to restrict development
in a 200,000-acre section of western Loudoun that accounts
for about two-thirds of the entire county. And in January
seven of the supervisors voted to revise Loudoun’s
zoning ordinance to make the new restrictions the law
of the land.
Under
the previous plan, zoning in much of western Loudoun
would have allowed one house per three acres. Now, the
southwestern part of the county is zoned for one house
per 50 acres, while northwest Loudoun is zoned for one
house per 20 acres. Developers have maneuvered to allow
cluster houses on smaller lots surrounded by lots of
green space that may be approved for a density of one
house per 10 acres. The county’s comprehensive
plan also encourages small-scale business enterprises
in this western region — including inns, wineries,
nurseries and country retreats — to preserve and
nurture its rural character. “We want to put an
emphasis on growing that rural economy,” says County
Planning Director Julie Pastor.
The
primary purpose of the new zoning plan is simple —
wall off western Loudoun from the suburban sprawl that
has consumed much of the county’s eastern side.
The new plan also encourages using “smart growth”
principles there, such as mixed-use developments and
increased residential density. Lastly, a new set of
countywide environmental rules prevent building near
streams, marshes and low-lying land.
Downzoning
two-thirds of the county was a drastic measure, to be
sure. But the board felt it had to act because of the
effect rapid growth was having on the community. Vice-Chairman
Eleanore Towe, who represents parts of western Loudoun
and voted for the rezoning, says many people there worried
that continued development would overwhelm the narrow,
winding country roads they cherish. “We don’t
want the Virginia Department of Transportation cutting
down trees and widening roads,” she says.
Burton,
likewise, complains about the clash of rural and suburban
cultures in Loudoun, between the great massed subdivisions
in eastern Loudoun and the farmers, equestrians, urban
refugees and old-timers to the west. “There’s
a social upheaval associated with rapid growth,”
he says.
But
the ramifications of such rapid growth have gone well
beyond culture and aesthetics. It has also played hell
with the county’s finances. Since the current board
took office in January 2000, the county has built 16
new schools at a cost of $364 million and hired 922
teachers, along with many more deputies and fire and
rescue personnel. Another 12 schools will have to be
built over the next six years just to handle students
from the new housing developments the county has already
approved.
It
is the residential growth that hurts the county’s
finances the most because it forces the expansion of
the school system, mostly at local expense. Burton estimates
that a home in Loudoun doesn’t cover its share
of county services until its assessed value reaches
approximately $600,000. The break-even point in 1999
was $427,000. The only way Loudoun could afford to finance
all those new schools was to raise money in the bond
market. But borrowing has its price, and the county’s
annual debt service has ballooned to $85.5 million.
To put that into perspective, consider that Loudoun’s
entire operating budget in 1996 was just $86 million,
whereas today it has grown to well over $700 million
a year.
As
one might expect under these circumstances, Loudoun’s
property taxes have been shooting upward as well. The
average tax increase was 22 percent in 2001 and 14.7
percent in 2002 — resulting in an average annual
tax bill of $2,689 compared to $1,550 in 1994. Burton
hopes the county can limit the tax hike this year to
just 15 percent, although he says that won’t be
easy because the county’s costs are still climbing.
Burton
and other supporters of a managed growth policy say
the county can’t afford to suburbanize at such
a rapid rate. “One problem has been the speed at
which it has come,” says Towe. “We can’t
keep up.” She partly faults “out-of-town developers”
whose opposition to the zoning changes are motivated
by their own economic self-interest. “They’d
love to build wall-to-wall houses and leave us with
the bill,” she says.
Developers
argue that the county is ignoring the importance of
affordable housing. A recent study by George Mason University,
paid for by the housing industry, concluded that the
greater Washington area had a housing deficit of nearly
8,000 units in 2000 — and forecast this shortfall
to grow exponentially as the region’s economy expands
unless local governments permit more building. A recent
article in The Washington Post also concluded that land-use
restrictions in 14 Maryland and Northern Virginia counties
that were intended to protect rural areas were triggering
suburban sprawl by forcing people to move further out
from the Washington area in search of affordable housing.
“This will lead to significantly higher-cost housing
and more sprawl in other parts of the state,” says
Michael L. Toalson, executive vice president of the
Home Builders Association of Virginia. Among those people
hurt by Loudoun’s downzoning were individual landowners
who hoped to one day develop their property, though
Burton says that most of the suits were filed by large
developers. The big development corporations which own
land in Loudoun will at least see the value of their
holdings skyrocket thanks to government-mandated scarcity.
“If you’ve got a building lot in Loudoun County,
you’ve got a gold mine,” says Hazel.
But
that could be bad news for smaller developers like Mike
Gorman, president of Oak Ridge Inc. in Leesburg. “They’re
driving the small homebuilder out of the market,”
he says. “The small builders are going to find
that it’s harder to purchase land.” An even
bigger loser may the thousands of middle-class families
who might be priced out of the market. Gorman points
to an average new home price today in Loudoun of $360,000
and says many middle-class families can’t afford
that.
Critics
of the Loudoun rezoning contend that capping the growth
of new housing in Loudoun puts the economy of the entire
state at risk. “If you take Northern Virginia off
the map, you’ve taken the entire state off the
[map],” Toalson says. Companies that might come
to Northern Virginia will look elsewhere if the cost
of living there is too high. “They’re not
going to relocate to Richmond. They’re not going
to look at Danville. They’re going to Raleigh.
They’re going to Atlanta.”
The potential impact on the state economy underscores
the stake that state lawmakers have in Loudoun’s
zoning fight. Yet one reason the Loudoun board used
the blunt instrument of rezoning is because state lawmakers
have resolutely refused to give localities other tools
to manage growth. In recent years, a parade of elected
officials from Virginia counties have asked the state
legislature for so-called adequate public facilities
measures that would either permit them to limit the
rate of growth in residential housing to their ability
to fund the necessary infrastructure improvements, or
to allow developers to help fund the improvements if
they don’t want to wait. A handful of public facilities
bills introduced this year in the Virginia Senate and
House of Delegates went nowhere.
Burton,
who has testified before a House of Delegates subcommittee
on the importance of adequate public facilities legislation,
says that he resisted the rezoning option for several
years in hopes of getting more tools from the General
Assembly. But Burton and others say state lawmakers
advised them to use their zoning authority. “The
[Loudoun] Board of Supervisors did what the legislature
dared them to do — use the tools available to them,”
says Peggy Maio, Loudoun County field officer for the
Piedmont Environmental Council.
For
his part, Toalson’s group also has opposed adequate
public facilities laws. “The 25 fastest-growing
localities in the state would grind to a halt if those
slow-growth measures were ever passed,” he says.
“The housing industry, according to people like
[Federal Reserve Chairman] Alan Greenspan, has helped
keep the economy from falling into a recession these
last two years.”
One
remedy that Burton and Toalson might both support would
be some type of tax reform on the state level that would
lessen the dependence of local communities on property
taxes, thereby easing the financial impact of high growth.
But tax reform hasn’t gone anywhere in Richmond
in recent years either, and given the state’s ongoing
fiscal crisis, it probably won’t anytime soon.
Virginia communities lack even the authority to impose
special local taxes without the state legislature’s
permission. “If we want to impose a cigarette tax
in Loudoun County we should be able to do it,”
Burton says.
Backed
into a corner, Loudoun’s leaders are ready to fight,
Burton says. The county has set aside $6 million to
cover the costs of defending its zoning laws. “We’re
committed to spending whatever it takes to win these
cases, because if we lose, the whole state loses.”
He predicts some of the lawsuits will ultimately end
up before the Virginia Supreme Court.
That
assumes, of course, that a new board doesn’t rescind
the zoning changes long before then. This fall’s
election could be pivotal with the local Republican
Party busy recruiting candidates with avowed pro-growth
agendas. Board of Supervisors’ Chairman Scott York,
a Republican whose strong advocacy in favor of the rezoning
measure cost him the support of his local party, is
running as an Independent. Towe has decided not to run
for a third term, while another supervisor who voted
for the rezoning has decided to run for the state Senate.
Burton
is running for reelection as well, and he believes the
current board is only following the wishes of Loudoun
voters who three and a half years ago overwhelmingly
elected supervisors who favored slow-growth policies.
This fall’s election will be a referendum on what
that board has done, he says. “It is going to be
the election issue. If they want to go back to unbridled
growth, they’ll elect people who are pro-growth.
And we’ll be back to the races.”
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