In March 2001, a Loudoun County developer told a local land-use group about plans to build nearly 4,000 new homes there — many of them quite close to western Fairfax County.
Monday night, the same group got another update, but this time the picture was far different. With a slow-growth board of supervisors and a new Comprehensive Plan adopted last July, Loudoun has taken serious measures to put the brakes on rampant development.
"Hearing some of the details, it's not as ominous as we originally thought," said Jim Katcham, chairman of the West Fairfax County Citizens Association (WFCCA) Land-Use Committee, after Monday's presentation by two members of Loudoun County's Planning Department.
At the WFCCA's invitation, Ray Ocel, a program manager, and Monty Lowe, a planner, spoke about Loudoun's zoning changes and what they mean to the county. By placing a firmer grip on the timing, character and location of new development, they explained, the supervisors will be better able to deal with traffic there, protect the environment and provide the level of services necessary to preserve a certain quality of life for the residents.
But that doesn't mean nothing's happening in Loudoun — or that future development there won't eventually affect western Fairfax County. Big doings are planned in Loudoun's Dulles section, on the western edge of Fairfax County, near Dulles Airport.
This area contains four communities — Brambleton, Stone Ridge, Kirkpatrick and South Riding — and numerous residential and commercial projects there are already in the pipeline.
"In the Dulles area, about 16,000 housing units have [already] been approved through rezonings," said Ocel. "About 2.1 million square feet of retail are planned, and 19 million square feet of office and industrial space in the South Riding area." Another 200,000 square feet of commercial development is slated for Arcola, just over the Fairfax County line.
Lowe also noted some 400 homes that have already been green-lighted in the Pinebrook area, plus 200 more in a new community called South Riding Station. "And there's the potential for more," he added.
Ocel said Loudoun is encouraging developers to design residential communities with more open space by building homes in clusters "so [they're] not spread out all over." Doing so also makes it less costly to bring in water and sewer.
Lowe said town centers are planned as destinations and commercial entities serving a particular area: "Arcola is potentially going to be the town center for the Dulles South area."
The two Loudoun planning areas closest to Centreville are both in Dulles South — the southernmost portion of the Dulles section — and are in the area envisioned for cluster development. They're called Lower Foley and Lower Bull Run.
Both are just west of Centreville's Fairfax National and Bull Run Estates communities. Builders are allowed to construct one home per three acres in Lower Bull Run, and Lower Foley could have some neighborhoods where development is permitted at three homes per acre.
"Our folks are generally south of Route 50, by your Lower Foley or Lower Bull Run [areas]," said the WFCCA's Jim Hart to the Loudoun planners. "We're going to be interested in how that area develops. [Residents there] will use Braddock and Bull Run Post Office roads — and we would like to interact, where possible, with respect to the development of Lower Foley and Lower Bull Run, because we'll receive the traffic impacts."
He also noted that Loudoun's zoning board is currently defining what can be built there, and he stressed that the uses — such as retail — that Loudoun allows for these two areas "are of higher intensity than we would have here [in Fairfax County]." After all, he added, this land lies within the environmentally sensitive Occoquan Watershed.
Speaking of further development planned there, Lowe said South Riding will get a community center and Arcola will probably have a shopping mall. "The problem isn't the buildings," said Hart. "It's the critical mass trying to get to Route 28 and Westfields [to go to work]." But, replied Lowe, "Perhaps they'll go to business centers in Loudoun, instead."
Sully Station's Gil Kesser asked about Loudoun's plans for its portions of Route 50, Braddock Road and the Tri-County Connector (linking Loudoun, Fairfax and Prince William counties). Lowe said Braddock will be four lanes divided, with bike trails, and Route 50 will be six lanes with turn lanes.
The Tri-County, called the Loudoun County Parkway on that side of the border, is already constructed from Route 7 to Route 50, although parts of it are still dirt. "It will run through South Riding," said Lowe. "You can see part of it already under construction there."
Responding to a question from Judy Heisinger, president of the Bull Run Civic Association, Lowe said police and fire stations, a hospital and recreational facilities are anticipated to be built near the airport. "We also plan a sports-complex just west of South Riding, and a new high school for South Riding, with athletic fields," he said. "And South Riding Station will have a recreation center."
This information came as good news to those worried that South Riding's residents would jam up the new Sully District recreation center planned to open in a few more years. However, the WFCCA members were wary about some of the other things they heard.
"I think the commercial space sounds like a lot," said Katcham. And Hart worried that the area immediately south of Braddock Road would be built at a higher density than Fairfax County would like and impose greater burdens on that road. Said Hart: "I think we're going to have to monitor that area because we're going to get that traffic."
Once Loudoun adopts its zoning ordinance, he warned, Fairfax needs to learn what special-exception uses could be allowed because "some of these things may be incompatible with the uses of the Occoquan. It makes you see how important it is for the two counties to interact."