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CAMPAIGN FOR LOUDOUN’S FUTURE

For Immediate Release: Tuesday, October 10, 2006
For More Information: Laura Olsen (202) 244-4408 x 4# or
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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Delegate Bob Marshall's Testimony before the Loudoun Board of Supervisors

More information about the proposals for over 33,000 new houses

See a copy of the television ad on Google Video

The public hearing should be able to be viewed on the County's website at: http://loudoun.granicus.com/ViewPublisher.php?view_id=2