On April 15, Loudoun County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Horne allowed a group of 25 landowners to intervene in the Virginia Supreme Court ruling that threw out slow-growth measures in the west.
While it was a preliminary victory for the landowners, who wanted to keep strict-growth measures in the west, their victory was short lived.
On Tuesday, Horne ruled that the Supreme Court decision means that the land reverts to the zoning it held before the Revised General Plan was adopted in January 2003. The ruling brings the court’s involvement in the Loudoun zoning debate to an end. What happens next is up to the Board of Supervisors.
Horne’s ruling was consistent with the position held by the county and the attorneys representing the original filers of the case — that the ruling reverts the land to the previous zoning, which allows for one house per three acres.
At the hearing, attorney Philip C. Strother, representing the landowners, said that was impossible, noting that the old zoning map was repealed with the adoption of the comprehensive plan in 2003.
"What they're asking you to do is get out the scissors and glue and patch together the new and old zoning maps," Strother said.
John Foote, a lawyer representing the developers and landowners who fought the change in zoning, called Strother's memorandum "a political manifesto."
"This is not so much a motion to intervene as it is a press release," Foote said.
Still, Foote claimed to be unsurprised when Horne allowed Strother to take part in the case.
"I'm never surprised by anything," he said after the hearing.
County Attorney John Roberts worried that by allowing the 25 landowners in on the case, more would follow.
"If they can intervene now, will the court allow others in?" Roberts asked.