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The debate rages in Stafford: a

August 28, 2005 1:06 am

S MEMBERS of the Stafford County Board of Supervisors, we feel that recent opinion pieces by Kathy Beard and Ferris Belman of the Stafford Council for Progress--a development-industry lobbying group--require response.

We believe that the Stafford Board of Supervisors is exercising its constitutionally defined powers to consider land use as it affects the public safety, health, and welfare of the citizens who elect us to represent them. The collective interests of one sector of the economy have no standing in this debate.

As individual workers and businessmen, who live, vote and pay taxes in Stafford County, all of the members of the development community are a part of the dialogue, and we welcome their input and expertise. But, despite their collective political influence, corporations are not citizens--and should not override citizens' rights.

An important concept, that of "vested rights," needs to be explained for a proper understanding of land use. Vesting refers to an individual's right to proceed with the use of their land in accordance with the provisions for the zoning category to which it belongs. This acknowledges that a property owner makes an investment to rezone a property, or to approve specific use plans, and that government action should not take that investment.

This is proper, but in Stafford it can have unintended, detrimental consequences.

Stafford has enough residential vested land inside our Urban Service Boundary to build 22,000 more homes. This would double existing residences inside the USB.

The Board of Supervisors cannot require this vested growth to pay its own way in the form of proffers for schools, transportation, public safety, libraries, or parks.

Our current calculations put the infrastructure cost to the county of a new home at $38,000; that is $836 million worth of additional debt that all taxpayers will suffer to maintain service quality and levels that we currently enjoy.

All county taxpayers will have to equally share that burden, which is a massive subsidy to the homebuilding industry. The profit goes to the homebuilder, the equity to the homeowner, but the costs are forced on all taxpayers.

Outside the USB, in rural areas that will never be served by public water and sewer, Stafford allows residential development at one home per 3 acres. All of the counties surrounding Stafford have a higher standard--usually one home per 10 to 25 acres. In Stafford, our present vesting allows about 24,000 units. That adds up to an additional $912 million in infrastructure costs that must be borne by our taxpayers, as these rural developments exercise their vested rights.

So the current total of the direct costs to the taxpayers of Stafford of the vested zoning that exists today is $1.75 billion.

This reality faces the Board of Supervisors for the foreseeable future. The charges by the developers lobby that the board is missing opportunities to have growth pay its own way by not considering rezonings are false. Proffers can pay for the cost of new growth--but they can't pay for vested units that are built as fast as the market will allow.

Any new proffered subdivision would create a collective impact that would further strain our infrastructure to the breaking point. It would not reduce the $1.7 billion price tag for existing vested development.

Rising property values and lower interest rates, market trends and the desirability of larger lots have resulted in an increase in rural development, not changes to zoning ordinances. The primary goal of a change to the zoning ordinance made five years ago--which cut density in half, but provided for recapturing of that density through use of cluster-type development--was to encourage an environmentally sound approach to development that maximized use of open space.

The assertion that density was lowered inside the USB to control growth is wrong.

As property values rise, the ability of folks to cash out equity from homes, coupled with much lower interest rates, has let more people build larger, more expensive homes on larger lots. Because Stafford has the highest density allowed in rural areas of any county in the region, we have been a target of that development.

The development industry has aggressively opposed any of the proposed ordinances that would have increased the minimum lot size allowed by right on agricultural lands.

Residential zoning and agricultural zoning are not equivalent. The idea that a lack of rezonings in the growth area pushes development into the rural area is foolish. Residential subdivisions are usually on lots smaller than three-fourths of an acre, served by public water and sewer and usually close to major roads.

Rural residential subdivisions, by contrast, are typically on lots of three to five acres, needing wells and septic fields, and often located on narrow, two-lane country roads. Because of greater land costs and the need to be self-contained in regard to water and wastewater, most of these rural homes start at nearly twice the price of their suburban counterparts.

There are two basic tools for managing growth in other states that are not available in Virginia: adequate-public-facilities ordinances and impact fees. Stafford is the only locality in Virginia that has an impact fee, which currently is only for transportation and is limited to secondary roads.

If we could assess an impact fee for education on each new home built in Stafford at the time of the issuance of a building permit, our financial picture for the future would improve considerably.

Adequate-public-facilities ordinances could control the growth rate, because a locality can issue the number of building permits each year that can be supported by the available infrastructure. The fact that we are still unable to do this is a stark demonstration of the developers' and homebuilders' power in Richmond.

Stafford is being forced to issue building permits for two to three times the number of homes that can be accommodated each year. This lowers our quality of life, and benefits only the development industry's bottom line.

The options for the future are limited. First, we need to lobby Richmond for proper growth management tools. Our Dels. Howell and Cole, and Sen. Chichester, are willing to carry the fight for Stafford forward, but they cannot do it alone. We need to have a coordinated effort across the commonwealth from both government and the development industry to make necessary legislative changes.

Second, all parties involved in land use need to realize that the vested inventory of potential homes in the USB and in the rural area may already exceed the maximum sustainable number. Any future proposals for development in Stafford need to look for creative ways to reorganize and rethink where we put new growth and what its nature should be.

We believe a sustainable future is possible for Stafford County, but only if all participants put aside personal and corporate agendas and focus on one overriding question each time a land use issue is discussed: How does this act make Stafford a better community for all of its citizens?