Posted on 01/23/2006 8:15:38 PM PST by Lorianne
Virginia's Loudoun County is 'a little test tube' for coping with hypergrowth on the far fringes of many American cities. ___ LEESBURG, VA. – A decade ago Virginia's Loudoun County, tucked 25 miles from Washington, D.C., at the West Virginia border, was best known for its pastoral horse country and gracious farms. Today it's the poster child for development run amok.
Just ask Juan Bocher, whose commute to his job just outside Washington has gone from 30 minutes to nearly 90. "It's gone from bad to worse, and there's no end in sight," he says.
Or Nancy Meissner, who lives in what remains of rural Loudoun County, where McMansion-style subdivisions are being built with septic tanks because there are no water lines. "This awful sludge is bubbling out of the ground," she says. "And these are the new septic systems that are already failing!"
The growing pains of Loudoun, the nation's fastest-growing county in the past five years, not only has residents up in arms, but have also drawn the attention of land-use experts across the United States. That's because exurbs - suburbs at the fringes of metropolitan areas - are growing faster than any other kind of community, according to census data. While high-speed growth has transformed suburbia for decades, what is new - and worrying - is that it's now occurring in areas without the infrastructure or experience to deal with it, these experts say.
"How Loudoun deals with its growth can teach the rest of the country a great deal," says James DeFrancia, a trustee of the Urban Land Institute. "It's become a little test tube."
The hypergrowth has political ramifications, too. Last fall, traditional Republican strongholds like Loudoun County and other Virginia exurbs voted for Tim Kaine, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate who won on a platform of controlled growth and traffic management.
"It is unusual that Kaine won in all of the traditionally Republican exurbs," says Larry Sabato of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. "The obvious lesson for politicians is to pay attention to how much development people can tolerate. It's limited."
Loudoun County's growth has been nothing short of phenomenal. Spurred by the Washington area's boom in high-tech and government jobs, along with the search for affordable housing in Washington's sizzling real estate market, its population has tripled in 15 years. In the past five years alone, it surged 46 percent, from 169,599 to 247,293. In 2004, its growth accounted for one-quarter of the population increase throughout the Washington metro area - itself one of the fastest- growing parts of the US.
The effects of such rapid development have been intense. At rush hour, rural Loudoun's scenic two-lane byways crawl with traffic that moves more slowly than the new six-lane access road to the east. Air quality has worsened as smog levels have shot up. As thousands of new houses go up each year ahead of water and sewer lines, residents face water shortages and newly polluted streams. If current growth continues, the county estimates it will need 125 grammar schools in the next 15 years.
Land-use experts say what's happening in Loudoun today will challenge communities on the outer fringes of cities like Atlanta, Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Seattle over the next 20 years.
"Loudoun is the poster-child example of what can happen when a community is developing too fast," says Laura Olson of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. "It can't keep up with schools, services, roads, recreation - and especially water and septic needs."
Land-use experts say there's only one solution: heavy regulation. "The trouble with managing smart growth is that it requires almost complete governmental control," says Anthony Downs, a land-use analyst at the Brookings Institution.
Mr. Downs and others call for regulated "smart-growth" zoning, with dense, mixed-use developments alternating with swaths of open land. They also stress the need for regional planning, which they say is lacking in many metropolitan areas facing exurban sprawl.
Until recently, such tight zoning regulations would have been unthinkable in a place where landowners cherish their autonomy and fight down-zoning.
But lately, "the outcry to do something about the growth has been a lot louder" than the outcry for property rights, says Jim Burton, who sits on the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors. "The great American dream is turning into the great American nightmare."
After years of political battles, Loudoun officials last spring drew up a zoning plan with input from experts like Downs, which would have limited development in rural parts of the county and encouraged denser, mixed-use, mixed-income growth in the developed parts. The Supreme Court of Virginia threw out the plan, on a technicality, and county planners hope the plan will be approved this year after a rewrite.
Meanwhile, development is "nearly a free-for-all," says county planner Julie Pastor, as builders rush to start projects before regulations are in place.
That's where other communities on the fast-growth path should watch and learn, says Mr. DeFrancia. "The lesson to be learned is to put in a master plan and rigidly adhere to it."
Should have sold all your liquid assets and bought farmland in Fairfax Cty.
You would probably not advance the same argument about Marxism if a developer bought the land next door to you and then had the laws changed so that he could put in a sewage treatment plant, a landfill, a used-tire dump, or some other stinking atrocity that ruined your quality of life and compelled you to move. You might then say that such a thing should not be allowed and that the developer's right to make a profit stopped at the end of your property line. Yet this is essentially what is happening in Loudoun County. Developers are asking that sections of land zoned for agriculture be rezoned for residential or commercial development. They're asking that laws be changed so that they can make a profit at everyone else's expense. Their profit also requires local citizens to come up with far more money in property taxes to pay for the new roads and schools the developer's project will require.
I stay here for spite and act really mean. That's my right!
They don't find out until after they've moved out there and have been there awhile.
Developers are landowners and are in the business of making profit. It is called the free market and anyone who wishes to participate in it if can do so they are ambitious enough.
BMW is in the business of making a profit, too. They have a product to sell, and I can choose to buy it or not, as I please. But developers force their profits on all of us. The rest of us have to come up with the property taxes that are required to pay for all the additional services, the schools, the water-treatment plants, the police and fire protection, the government administration, the libraries, and of course the new roads the new developments require. We have to live with it all while they live in Palm Springs or Palm Beach.
Also, this country is vast enough to live in a rural setting for those who feel cramped. I, for one, have chosen to do this, and when my area becomes too developed for my taste, I'll up and go.
Very convenient for you. Pray, how do you make a living?
"First, no investor is entitled to have legislation, and the American taxpayer, protect his investment. Yet this is what landowners often do. Owning land with the expectation that it can be developed constitutes making an investment. And when landowners demand that government change rural zoning to accommodate their desire to make a profit, they are asking the people to guarantee that their investment in land was a profitable one."
So how do you feel about a community scrambling to enact zoning that will effect property that it is believed might be developed? Is that not a partial taking? Is that not a local government accomodating the desire of the community so that their property values remain intact? Isn't that why zoning exists, at least in part? Good ole profit motives, huh? You know, government protecting the investment of some, but destroying that of others they deem to have less than honorable motives (obscene profits).
"You would probably not advance the same argument about Marxism if a developer bought the land next door to you and then had the laws changed so that he could put in a sewage treatment plant, a landfill, a used-tire dump, or some other stinking atrocity that ruined your quality of life and compelled you to move. You might then say that such a thing should not be allowed and that the developer's right to make a profit stopped at the end of your property line."
Actually, I would advance the same argument - I am intellectually consistent. I would MOVE. In fact, some pain in the butt neighbors bought the house next door and they are loud and obnoxious so we are selling in two years when we complete our projects. Simple.
Those jerks next door bother me more than the development down the street.
So no, I wouldn't say it should stop at the end of my property line. After all, at the end of my property line begins someone else's. :)
Assuming you are a Rand fan...
Do Objectivists believe that no monetary transaction can ever be immoral in itself, so long as the cash value equals the return? Specifically, I mean this in reference to "selling out"- such as one's values and heritage.
I suppose the question also applies to anything from spying and treason to civil liability claims for things like murder and manslaughter. If the price is right, then there is no right to complain?
If there is nothing but housing developments and strip malls between you and your job, you may not be able to get a job closer to home. A lot of people are in this situation.
Juan is still stupid, so are a lot of those people in that situation. I don't feel for him or them. If he wanted to be with his horses he should get a job closer to home, now he spends 2 hours and 20 minutes in the car a day? I live in Loudoun and see these stupid people move out here and expect to commute to DC. They aren't thinking and despite what he says it never took 30 minutes to get there, not in the last 25 years at least.
"They don't find out until after they've moved out there and have been there awhile"
They cannot determine that there is a large population until they are there for a while? If ten thousand move to a neighborhood, has the nine thousanth been duped?
"BMW is in the business of making a profit, too. They have a product to sell, and I can choose to buy it or not, as I please. But developers force their profits on all of us. The rest of us have to come up with the property taxes that are required to pay for all the additional services, the schools, the water-treatment plants, the police and fire protection, the government administration, the libraries, and of course the new roads the new developments require. We have to live with it all while they live in Palm Springs or Palm Beach."
I thought that the politicians did this to increase the tax base? The way tax rates are calculated, increased population usually equals lower tax rates for a community. The increases in "services" rarely equals the boost in revenues.
Again, profits are not forced on you - you can leave.
"Very convenient for you. Pray, how do you make a living?"
Self-employment. Another act of free will.
Government is not, in this case, destroying the investment of the developers. The developers are perfectly free to sell the property they bought. They can either build houses on it at the existing zoning or sell it as they bought it, as farmland. They aren't entitled to make unbelievable amounts of money on their real estate purchase any more than I am guaranteed by law to make money on my more modest one. No one is even saying they can't build on the land they bought. They just can't build endless thousands of houses whose occupants will swamp local infrastructure.
Did you read the bit in the article about how the new immigrants to the county will require 125 new schools? At millions of dollars per school? The developers sure-God aren't going to pay for that. The taxpayers have to shell out for it. Do the developers have the right to demand the rest of us do that? I dispute that. Taxes are already bad enough, thanks. There's no reason the taxpayers of Virginia should fork over money to further enrich a development corporation.
You're not from around here, are you? Come visit us sometime. Spend a few hours parked in motionless traffic on Route 7 or I-66 every morning and afternoon for a week. You may come to feel differently.
Good night.
Huh?
Well I'll do my best to decipher what I believe to be the meaning of your statement and respond to it.
No monetary transaction is immoral in itself. A transaction is a contract, and if you are willing to engage in an action that puts a pricetag on your values and another is willing to accept that price, then you have engaged in self sabotage.
But I have no idea what you are getting at.
"Government is not, in this case, destroying the investment of the developers. The developers are perfectly free to sell the property they bought. They can either build houses on it at the existing zoning or sell it as they bought it, as farmland. They aren't entitled to make unbelievable amounts of money on their real estate purchase any more than I am guaranteed by law to make money on my more modest one. No one is even saying they can't build on the land they bought. They just can't build endless thousands of houses whose occupants will swamp local infrastructure."
You are clearly of the socialist mindset. You actually stated that they are not "entitled" to make "unbelievable" profits. Do you understand that farmland is no longer a wise investment in the year 2006 (we are not an agrarian culture as the Soviets were in the early 1900's) and that if it must be sold as such, then the property has been devalued by the community, yet they happily enact zoning laws to esure that their own property values remain intact.
Also, infrastructure should not be burdened by development since there are such enormous increases in tax revenues, unless the funds are not appropriated toward updating said infrastructure. Unfortunately, what often happens is that the local governments squander the money on various school "programs" and other unnecessary projects and then cry about the burdened infrastructure and propose tax increases. That is not the fault of developers, but of the voters.
Understand that the tax base increases proportionally to the services that are required. If there is not enough money coming in from the tax payers for additional services, then they do not "require" such services.
And here is a newsflash for you - developers pay taxes for as long as they own the property. Please get it through your head that you aren't forking over anything that pays for development property. In fact, if your home is modest - the developer's property taxes, which are probably much higher than those on your property, are likely contributing more to your community than you are.
So you should say thank you if you choose to stay.
"You're not from around here, are you? Come visit us sometime. Spend a few hours parked in motionless traffic on Route 7 or I-66 every morning and afternoon for a week. You may come to feel differently."
No thanks, I like it rural. That is why I choose to live in a rural community. When it no longer is one, I'll choose another. :)
Yup, by not making a decision, one indeed makes a decision.
I thought that the politicians did this to increase the tax base? The way tax rates are calculated, increased population usually equals lower tax rates for a community. The increases in "services" rarely equals the boost in revenues.
?
Could you point me towards one example of this?
(yes this is a trick question)
Yes, I understand that farmland isn't a good investment. All investments are a gamble and investors cannot require that laws--zoning laws or others--be changed to guarantee them a profit. And no, the property has not been devalued by the community. The property has maintained its former value as the agricultural land it is. The developer who buys land in anticipation of building houses on it, or the farmer who plans to clean up on selling the family farm, cannot be guaranteed his profit any more than I can require that the government and taxpayers guarantee my profit on a stock purchase I make.
Also, infrastructure should not be burdened by development since there are such enormous increases in tax revenues, unless the funds are not appropriated toward updating said infrastructure. Unfortunately, what often happens is that the local governments squander the money on various school "programs" and other unnecessary projects and then cry about the burdened infrastructure and propose tax increases. That is not the fault of developers, but of the voters.
Actually this is not true. Statistics show clearly that townhouse developments, for instance, generate far more costs to a community than their owners can possibly pay in taxes. And because the cost of housing here is so high and land is getting scarce, much of the new development is in townhouse rather than single-family development. Naturally it's pretty difficult to tell a homeowner that he has to fork over an additional thousand dollars a month in property taxes in addition to his mortgage, to pay for the new schools.
Building schools, police stations, fire stations, water treatment plants, and schools cannot be said to be squandering the money. Roads, of course, are beyond the purse of any local community, and roads are paid for by state and federal government, a process that takes far longer than the speed of putting up a stick house. In any case there is not a great deal of open space left around here for road construction without condemning and taking private residences, which is a government taking nobody wants to see either.
Understand that the tax base increases proportionally to the services that are required. If there is not enough money coming in from the tax payers for additional services, then they do not "require" such services.
Fine. Tell that to the people whose houses burn down, who are the victims of crime, because they don't "require" such services according to you.
And here is a newsflash for you - developers pay taxes for as long as they own the property. Please get it through your head that you aren't forking over anything that pays for development property. In fact, if your home is modest - the developer's property taxes, which are probably much higher than those on your property, are likely contributing more to your community than you are. So you should say thank you if you choose to stay.
Land that is zoned agricultural is taxed at a far, far lower rate than residential land. Near me, 153 acres of farmland generates about half the taxes of my little lot. No, I do not thank developers.
No thanks, I like it rural. That is why I choose to live in a rural community. When it no longer is one, I'll choose another. :)
Well, how very nice for you. I too am leaving suburbia for the country this spring. But you must see that there is something inherently selfish about this attitude for both of us: the attitude is, "I'm going to be just fine, but the millions who are facing overcrowded roads and schools, crime, gang activity, lack of water, and sewage on their lawns are just out of luck." Those people have to live and work somewhere. They can't all pack up and leave and go out to the country; they need jobs and schools. We need to think about them and do some more intelligent planning. The entire DC metropolitan area is not all that different, and the crime, crowding, and traffic problems are prevalent in every county here. We can't all move away and live in the middle of nowhere. How do you expect four million people to buy food and heating gas in the middle of nowhere?
As I say, unless you live here you cannot understand what exactly it is you are commenting on. In general it may be best to refrain from offering advice about issues in parts of the US one is not familiar with.
A decade ago Virginia's Loudoun County, tucked 25 miles from Washington, D.C., at the West Virginia border, was best known for its pastoral horse country and gracious farms. Today it's the poster child for development run amok.
"Run amok"? Hardly. Fast, yes, but as the author notes below, that's primarily due to the booming economy. If development had run truly amok then Loudoun would have a housing surplus and the values of existing homes would not have increased 25-30% per year for the last several years. Anyone who had taken Econ 101 would understand that.
Just ask Juan Bocher, whose commute to his job just outside Washington has gone from 30 minutes to nearly 90. "It's gone from bad to worse, and there's no end in sight," he says.
So find a job closer to home. I did. Instead of going from Sterling to DC every day I go from Sterling to Chantilly. It takes 20 minutes each way even at the height of rushhour, I pay no tolls (I HATE THE TOLL ROAD), and I don't have to deal with HOV restrictions. I also took a pay cut when I changed jobs, but my net income went up because my commuting costs decreased. There are plenty of big-name companies paying big salaries in Chantilly, Herndon, Reston, Fairfax, etc. In fact, many are moving out of DC to Fairfax and Loudoun Counties because commercial rental rates are lower, and to be closer to where their workforces live.
Or Nancy Meissner, who lives in what remains of rural Loudoun County, where McMansion-style subdivisions are being built with septic tanks because there are no water lines. "This awful sludge is bubbling out of the ground," she says. "And these are the new septic systems that are already failing!"
With regular maintenance a septic system will last for decades. If they are failing then the builder didn't install them properly or the owners failed to get regular pump-outs.
The hypergrowth has political ramifications, too. Last fall, traditional Republican strongholds like Loudoun County and other Virginia exurbs voted for Tim Kaine, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate who won on a platform of controlled growth and traffic management.
"It is unusual that Kaine won in all of the traditionally Republican exurbs," says Larry Sabato of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. "The obvious lesson for politicians is to pay attention to how much development people can tolerate. It's limited."
It also doesn't help that the Loudoun County Republican Committee leadership was AWOL last year. Between Potts siphoning off votes in the western half of the county, and the District Chairs in the east having to be talked into staying on b/c their morale was in the toilet due to internal problems, there was very little done at the grassroots level to get out the vote.
Also, President Bush carried Loudoun by six points in 2004. The Republicans lost the Governor's race by six points in 2005. A Party doesn't lose 12 points worth of voter support in 12 months due to growth. There were many other factors in play, most of them internal to the Party.
Loudoun County's growth has been nothing short of phenomenal. Spurred by the Washington area's boom in high-tech and government jobs, along with the search for affordable housing in Washington's sizzling real estate market, its population has tripled in 15 years.
Translation: booming economies = growth. The only way to stop the growth is to slow down the local economy, which isn't going to happen. There are reports now that the Federal government is going to add 80,000 additional jobs to the region in the next few years. Those people - and the people who will move in to provide services to them - will all have to live somewhere. If they don't move into Loudoun, they'll go to Clark and Fauquier Counties and travel through Loudoun on their way to and from work.
But lately, "the outcry to do something about the growth has been a lot louder" than the outcry for property rights, says Jim Burton, who sits on the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors. "The great American dream is turning into the great American nightmare."
Jim Burton represents Middleburg. Think "hunt country" and very old money. This area is in no danger from rampant development because the folks who live there can afford to maintain their large estates. More power to them. I wish I could afford one!
After years of political battles, Loudoun officials last spring drew up a zoning plan with input from experts like Downs, which would have limited development in rural parts of the county and encouraged denser, mixed-use, mixed-income growth in the developed parts. The Supreme Court of Virginia threw out the plan, on a technicality, and county planners hope the plan will be approved this year after a rewrite.
Meanwhile, development is "nearly a free-for-all," says county planner Julie Pastor, as builders rush to start projects before regulations are in place.
That's where other communities on the fast-growth path should watch and learn, says Mr. DeFrancia. "The lesson to be learned is to put in a master plan and rigidly adhere to it."
Under the current "master plan" developers can and do build communities "by right", which means no proffers to the county for such trivialities as parks, libraries, school sites, and road improvements to handle the subsequent increases in population. It's because of the proposed re-write - and the zoning in the proposed plan - that the landowners and developers are rushing to platte their properties now. They don't have to break ground for years once the platte is approved, and when the time comes to break ground in five, ten, or twenty years Loudoun County officials won't be able to stop them.
Totally unmentioned is the fact that the farmers who are selling up and moving out are doing so because they're aging, farming is hard work and their children aren't interested in pursuing it, and it doesn't pay the bills. These people don't have IRA's and 401k plans, and they can't afford to keep farming at a loss year after year. The equity in their land is their retirement plan, and right now only the developers can afford to purchase the land.
I've lived here in Loudoun almost all of my life. I remember when Route 7 was a single lane in each direction. I used to hunt deer where Ashburn Farms is now. Yes, the growth has been tremendous but not out of control. It's just not what many people here want.
On the issue of Loudoun going to Kaine... well, I was in the thick of that and I'll just say that Loudoun went to Kaine because Kilgore picked some very poor people to work his campaign. I posted an email on FR that was sent out by Mr. Ken Hutcheson to one of the core support groups for the Republicans. It was one of the most offensive pieces of email I've ever seen from any political entity.
Also, as was mentioned, the LCRC leadership was a serious issue. Some with irrational personal hatreds withheld sending vital information out in a timely manner (and still do... I'm waiting now to see when a communication goes out that was requested over the weekend). All of this contributed to not only Kaine winning but to losing Delegate Dick Black.
Anyway, I digress. Loudoun has always been home to me but as of late, I find myself tiring of the political BS and the back stabbing. Loudoun has been and will remain a conservative area for a long time. The key is to not piss your base off and to make sure that the voters come out to the polls.
As for the traffic, It'll never get better. Loudoun is a high job area and is strategically located for businesses and travel. No matter what road improvements go in, it'll just keep getting worse.
My advise is if you don't like it, don't move here or just move out. That is what I'm doing.
Mike
Sure. In my community the tax rate decreased due to population increases (larger tax base). Our town calculated costs and created a budget and adjusted tax rates accordingly.
Now if only the federal government could do that...
My point is that there is an objective dollar figure required to run a town/city (determined at budget hearings). If that cost exceeds the revenues collected from the taxpayers then one of two things must happen: Either the tax rate must be increased or the services must be cut. If towns stick to the necessities then low tax rates are possible. When entitlements kick in, so do increases.
How can the costs of a town without any NEW services being provided (meaning keeping the existing structure, providing the same services to more people) cost any more when the new residents are paying the same tax rate? All should remain equal.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.