Most of the debate emanating from the General Assembly campaigns this fall is depressingly ignorant and simplistic. But there is one race where the level of discourse on the critical issues of transportation and land use is remarkably thoughtful and well informed. In a solid piece of reporting, Chelyen Davis with the Free Lance-Star compares the thinking of Republican Richard Stuart and Democrat Albert Pollard Jr., who are contesting the 28th district Senate seat in the Fredericksburg area now occupied by John Chichester.
The two candidates have much the same vision for growth in the fast-developing district. As Davis writes, “Both advocate improving VRE service, controlling growth, extending HOV lanes south through Stafford, requiring developers to pay for more of the infrastructure that growth requires, and expanding commuter lots.” They just disagree on the details of how to implement it.
The most marked disagreement is over the Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance. Pollard says that a locality “should have the ability to turn down developments if there are not adequate roads, schools in place.” Stuart worries that the ordinance would allow for too much subjectivity. He favors “requiring landowners to go through the zoning process so localities can control what’s done.”
Otherwise, the two candidates sound a lot alike. Pollard believes that growth should be “compact and contiguous.” He likes the idea of using Transferable Development Rights to create a market-based mechanism for both preserving open space and concentrating growth in areas served by infrastructure and transportation. And here’s a fresh idea that I haven’t seen anywhere else: Pollard also wants to get rid of “stale zoning” — subdivisions that were platted 10 or more years ago and are still on the books, but were never built.
Stuart, too, supports compact development that utilizes infrastructure more efficiently, but he emphasizes cluster development that concentrates houses in a smaller area, leaving more open space, and the end of “by right” development in which farmland can be converted into subdivisions without going through the zoning process. Says Stuart: “You can’t undo what’s already been done, but you can avoid the future sprawl by concentrating growth and requiring necessary infrastructure be built to accommodate it. And you do that through zoning.”
I agree with some aspects of the candidates’ logic and disagree with others. What I most appreciate, however, is the prospect of a debate between two candidates who have thought extensively about the issues. Whoever wins the election, the new senator from the 28th district will elevate the level of senatorial discourse about trasnsportation and land use in 2008.