Three years of public work on the Loudoun County General Plan were wiped out Tuesday by a judge's order.
Despite his assertion in an April 15 hearing that his function is not to zone land, an order by Loudoun County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Horne reverts all western Loudoun land — nearly 230,000 acres — to zoning that allows one house per three acres.
In their first response to the ruling, supervisors voted Tuesday to allow landowners to opt-in to the stricter zoning, which allowed one house per 10 to 50 acres.
"I think the opt-in solution offers a referendum by the people," said Supervisor Stephen Snow (R-Dulles). "I can think of no better way of doing that."
Western Loudoun land had been zoned one house per three acres — known as A-3 zoning — prior to a lengthy process that installed strict growth restrictions in the west upon adoption of the Revised General Plan in January 2003.
A group of 200 landowners and developers sued the county soon thereafter and the case went to the Virginia Supreme Court. In March, the court found that the county had failed to properly notify landowners about the impending downzoning of their land.
The decision created havoc in an already contentious debate about how Loudoun will continue to grow. And Horne's order is just the first step in determining what will happen to the rural west.
The question now is whether supervisors will keep A-3 zoning in the west or seek a middle ground between that zoning and the recently-discarded strict-growth measures.
"It still leaves the policy debate on what to do with rural policies and rural zoning," said County Attorney John Roberts.
SUPERVISORS INDICATED Tuesday that they were willing to work toward a compromise — even those who ran on platforms against the Revised General Plan in their 2003 elections. As Vice Chairman Bruce Tulloch (R-Potomac), a first-term supervisor, pointed out, no one could have predicted they'd be in a situation to re-do years of county planning work in a matter of weeks.
"I feel that whether by design or by divine intervention, this is one of the most important things we have to do in Loudoun County during this term," Tulloch said.
Chairman Scott York (I-At Large), who was chairman when the county adopted the Revised General Plan, is now one of a three-member minority on the board who wants to see the strict zoning re-enacted. He expressed a little confidence that the majority would recognize that A-3 was not the way to go in western Loudoun.
"They seem to keep saying they're not in favor with A-3, so we'll see what they do," York said.
But what exactly A-3 zoning means in terms of number of homes in the west is a point of contention. The Revised General Plan holds that 58,000 homes could be built under A-3 zoning, but that's a figure that the majority of supervisors has disputed.
On Tuesday, county staff presented a hastily-gathered new report on build-out figures in the west. Given only two weeks' notice, the staff attempted to determine the maximum potential number of homes that could be built in the west, minus already built-out land, land with conservation easements and land with environmental barriers.
In its report, county staff held that there were 167,310 developable acres in the west that could hold 48,801 new houses under A-3 zoning, compared to 10,918 under the stricter measures.
BUT THOSE NUMBERS still weren't good enough.
Both supervisors and residents lined up to criticize the methodology used in the staff report.
"A more detailed review of previous subdivisions should be made," said Leesburg surveyor Joe Paciulli. "To comprehensively assume that every lot will be divided is unrealistic."
"I am very disappointed in our planning staff because I am not convinced that the data provided me is as good as it can be," said Supervisor Jim Clem (R-Leesburg).
Tulloch said he'd done his own research. "The more I got into this, the more I understood that A-3 doesn't mean a house every three acres," he said.
County staffer Ben Mays defended the numbers, noting the "tight turnaround time" and the goal to give prospective, not actual, figures.
"When we examined this, our approach was to look at the potential development capacity and build out of western Loudoun. The important words to our perspective were 'build out' and 'potential,'" Mays said. "There was never any intention on our part to be predictive. It really was just to project how many houses could potentially develop under certain scenarios."
Supervisors agreed to hold a series of work sessions to discuss publicly whether to keep the A-3 zoning in the west. The Rural Economic Development Council will make a presentation to the board during its May 3 business meeting, followed by the first work session May 5, at 6:30 p.m., in the county Government Center, 1 Harrison St., Leesburg.