I haven’t kept up with this story as I promised, but it looks like Greenvest LC’s push for greater development densities in the Dulles South area of Loudoun County is heading for defeat. According to Dusty Smith with Leesburg2day:
The board of supervisors last night signaled the defeat of a proposal to increase the residential densities in Loudoun’s Transition Policy Area near Rt. 50, even after offers came to reduce the number of new homes permitted from more than 33,000 to fewer than 8,000.
What comes next, I don’t know. The virtue of the Greenvest project was that it made an honest effort to create a growth-that-pays-for-itself business model, in which the developer would have used the Community Development Authority mechanism to make massive up-front contributions to local schools, roads and other infrastructure. Foes raised legitimate concerns that Greenvest wasn’t taking all costs into account, and made a strong argument that growth could be more efficiently accommodated in other parts of the county.
Now the county has new issues to deal with: If Greenvest and neighboring developers cannot build an additional 33,000 homes in Dulles South, as they proposed, where will those 33,000 houses go — and what kind of monetary contribution will Loudoun County get from the developers of those homes?
Will growth leapfrog to Clark, Warren, Frederick and Fauquier counties, forcing people to commute longer distances and congesting even more miles of Interstates and arterials? Or will developers focus on Leesburg, Ashburn and Sterling, overloading Route 7 and other local roads? If so, will they match the financial contributions that Greenvest was willing to make?
My high-altitude perspective from down here in Richmond is that channeling development into the Route 7 growth corridor makes the most sense — if the development is done right. It needs to be compact, it needs to permit a finely grained mix of uses, and it needs to allow spots of urban-level density. Developers and planners also need to integrate shared-vehicle systems such as buses and vans into the design. If Loudoun just gets more of what is already there, it will be a disaster.
Perhaps readers from Loudoun can illuminate where the inevitable growth will occur and what that growth will look like.
Update: It’s official. The Board of Supervisors has spiked the rezoning. The Washington Post has the morning-after report here.