Media Advisory
Campaign for Loudoun's Future
For Immediate Release:
October 10, 2006
For more information
Andrea McGimsey (703) 726-0646
Residents Call on Supervisors to
Reject Transition Area CPAM
Loudoun Citizens Want to Keep
Their Sensible Growth Plan
Loudoun Residents and community groups were joined
by Senator Mark Herring, Delegate Chuck Caputo and Delegate
Bob Marshall in expressing their STRONG opposition to proposals
to change the County’s growth plan to allow 26,000 or 33,000
new houses in the area west of Dulles Airport at Loudoun Board of
Supervisors public hearing on Tuesday, October 10. Over 125 people
signed up to testify on Tuesday evening, but not all were able to
testify. The hearing will be continued at 9 AM on Saturday, October
14.
“There is nothing reasonable or wise about proposals for
26,000 or 33,000 houses in eastern Loudoun,” said Karen Ficker,
Ashburn resident and member of Ashburn Citizens United. “Neither
residents nor elected officials are required to entertain such ridiculous
proposals. Loudoun has a growth plan and developers who want to
follow it should be welcome, but it is not in the County’s
interest to change our plan to fit the private financial desires
of development companies.”
Speculative developers are proposing a massive change to the existing
growth plan in Loudoun, despite the County’s notable struggles
to meet the transportation, school, recreation, and other service
needs of existing residents and the 36,000 houses that are already
approved but not yet built.
Under Loudoun County’s current growth plan, the area west
of South Riding and Ashburn and south of Leesburg is slated as a
transition area from the suburban east to the rural west and at
build-out would accommodate 4,608 houses. Current proposals would
change that build-out to 26,000 – 33,000 houses in this part
of the transition area. The proposal would be a 500 to 700% increase
to the existing growth plan.
The Virginia Department of Transportation did an analysis of the
impact of this major change to Loudoun’s growth plan earlier
this year and warned local officials that the proposal would create
gridlock not only in eastern Loudoun but in neighboring Fairfax
and Prince William counties as well.
“Traffic here is miserable. It’s a nightmare,”
said Kathy Worek, a ten year resident of South Riding, lifetime
resident of the Route 50 corridor, and mother of three. “We’re
going nowhere fast. I have to pay a high school student to help
my son warm up for his baseball games, because my husband can’t
get home. By 4pm, Route 50 already starts backing up at Route 28.
My neighbors and I don’t leave this neighborhood after 3:30
pm unless we have to. Our family time is getting shorter with every
new house that goes up.”
It is clear that public opinion and professional advice runs strongly
counter to these proposals. There has been an outcry of public opposition
across the county to these massive development proposals for the
past two years. Residents understand that if the County provides
such open permissions to speculative developers, the area will never
recover.
They understand that neither the County nor the state nor any private
company can address the traffic gridlock that would occur, much
less the necessary services. In addition, two and half years ago,
the county planning staff recommended that all five of the developer
proposals along Route 50 be rejected. Instead, the Planning Commissioners,
appointed by the Board of Supervisors, voted to move forward with
the proposals.
“This huge amount of development will create competition
for county and state funding needed for our existing communities.
This development would stick us with a huge amount of debt, which
will cause our taxes to rise – or else we’d have to
cut critical services. That’s an unacceptable dilemma, and
it’s not one we need to face if the county supervisors do
the right thing and reject the CPAM,” said Susan Klimek Buckley,
Sterling resident and leader of the Eastern Loudoun Schools Association.
Loudoun residents are angry, dismayed with the public process and
aghast that public officials would allow such a boon for private
developers at the expense of Loudoun residents.
“Citizens have received an onslaught of development spin
for the past two years. We even get deceptive marketing brochures
up here in Sterling. Do they not get that we know how crowded our
roads are and how high our taxes have been going? And the Board
majority seems to welcome the developer shenanigans over the honest
concerns of citizens. It’s absolutely outrageous,” said
Mike Keeney, Sterling resident. “I hope they’ll prove
me wrong and vote this CPAM down.”
Ultimately, Loudoun residents want to keep their sensible growth
plan that was created in 2001. Almost any resident will clarify
that they are not anti-growth, they just want to be able to get
to work, have schools, ballfields for their kids and other services
without sitting in a constant traffic jam. That was the goal of
the County’s comprehensive growth plan put in place in 2001.
It allows for growth in all parts of Loudoun, while making an effort
to provide services to the existing communities and the new residents
coming in 36,000 houses that have been approved but not yet built
in Loudoun.
The public hearing before the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors
is currently scheduled as item # 12, for the October 10th general
public hearing that begins at 6:30 pm. The hearing will be continued
on Saturday morning, October 14, at 9:00 am.
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