We see the same problem replicated in county after county across Virginia: an overhang of thousands of lots that can be developed by right. Typically, these lots are located on off-the-beaten track farmland that will be inefficient and expensive to serve with the utilities, public services and other amenities that urban refugees demand. By definition, property with by-right development rights can be developed without obtaining approval from local government. Lacking any leverage, local boards are powerless to negotiate proffers to offset the cost of upgrading roads, utilities and services.
Spotsylvania County, on the growth fast track, is wrestling with that very issue. According to Dan Telvock with the Free Lance-Star, county guidelines allow for 28,512 by-right homes over 25 years. With proffers per home averaging more than $35,295, that’s $1 billion in revenue the county will never receive, argues Mike Jones, a principal with Tricord, a major home builder in the region.
Ironically, county proffers of that magnitude will encourage the wrong kind of growth. Home builders developing by-right properties will enjoy a huge price advantage — $35,000 — over those developing properties subject to proffers. All other things being equal, the by-right lots will be developed and sold sooner, the lots linked to proffers will be developed later. Here’s the real kick in the groin for taxpayers: The by-right lots tend to be more scattered and more remote than the lots with proffers, which tend to be clustered together, higher density and located closer to transportation arteries. Thus, the lots that yield the least in county revenues also will cost the most to serve.
What’s a county to do?
I don’t know the particulars of Spotsylvania County, so any comments I make are wary and tentative. However, I would suggest that The Comprehensive Transportation Funding and Reform Act of 2007 might reverse the perverse logic of the status quo. Spotsylvania will be required to designate an Urban Development Area comprising enough land to accommodate growth for the next 20 years. Presumably, the county will see the logic of concentrating its capital improvements within the UDA. Landowners outside the region will be served notice that they’re largely on their own. Indeed, landowners who develop their land outside the UDA may be subject to impact fees.
If Spotsylvania follows the spirit of the Reform Act, it also will permit greater densities within the UDA and encourage developers to follow “new urbanism” design principles that utilize infrastructure more efficiently and create environments that encourage people to walk, bicycle and use transit.
A critical key to success is drawing the proper boundaries for the UDA. There may be a temptation to simply wrap the UDA around existing arterial roads and other infrastructure. But the matter needs to be given thought. Drawing UDA boundaries gives fast-growth counties across Virginia an opportunity to create what Ed Risse calls balanced communities, places where there is a balance of housing, jobs and amenities and a transportation system designed to serve it.
Spotsylvania suffers from an inherent disadvantage in creating balanced communities: A large percentage of its workforce hops in cars and drives north on Interstate-95 every day. Many of its jobs are located in Prince William, Fairfax, Alexandria or Arlington. Furthermore, in all likelihood, any balanced community in the Fredericksburg region would incorporate the City of Fredericksburg and chunks of Stafford County. But, with an influx of 250,000 people expected in the region over the next two decades, Spotsylvania has the potential to evolve into a balanced community itself. The time to start planning that evolution is now.
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