Residents of Loudoun County, the fastest-growing county in America, might be forgiven for thinking that the acrimony between local advocates of development and champions of open space couldn't get much worse.
The latest drop of poison in the well is a developer's complex proposal to build a huge new subdivision on 400 acres of voter-approved county parkland. The fact that the county supervisors are actually considering the proposal, in direct opposition to voters' wishes, shows just how bad things can get.
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But at the same time, the controversy points to a solution for relieving some of the growth-related tensions while also saving open space: Loudoun should start buying land for preservation immediately.
There are lots of reasons to do so. The pastures and foothills of western Loudoun County are a national and state treasure. Young George Washington rode through Loudoun County to visit his mentor, Lord Fairfax, in neighboring Clarke County. Leesburg had a historic commercial relationship -- via road and then early railroad -- with Old Town Alexandria. Loudoun's homes and villages of indigenous stone are not only beautiful, they are a living museum. But the county's growth juggernaut endangers all of them.
The developer's proposal highlights the difficulties of preserving land through zoning. Over a decade or two of continual, intense development pressures, a community's zoning nearly always changes to allow more intensive uses: more homes per acre, more commercial space. Anyone who's been a planner in a growing region for 20 years or more has seen zoning densities increase. Arlington and Fairfax counties are prime examples of this phenomenon.
Among communities around the nation that face similar contests between development and the desire to preserve some of the landscape that drew people in the first place, the most successful preservation strategy is to buy the land the community wants to preserve. The citizens of Boulder, Colo., voted in 1967 to dedicate a local sales tax -- on meals, clothing and entertainment -- to the purchase of land and easements around the growing city. So far, they've acquired about 44,000 acres, an area larger than the city itself. They have built 130 miles of trails on the land and lease some of it back to farmers for grazing and crops.
In the 1980s, according to former Nantucket, Mass., planning director William Klein, 340 real estate agents were selling about $1.2 billion worth of real estate on the island annually. Concerned residents realized that the community owned only 1 1/2 miles of an 80-mile shorefront and precious little of the island's beautiful moors. In 1983, they voted to levy a 2 percent tax on real estate transactions to fund the purchase of island properties for what they call the Land Bank. As of today, according to the bank's director, Eric Savetsky , the bank has purchased about 2,300 acres, about 6 percent of the island's total area, although nearly half the island's land is protected through the purchases of nonprofit groups and state statutes.
The Land Bank's five elected commissioners choose parcels based on availability, price and the value of the land to the island's overall open-space plan, the same criteria used in Boulder. In Nantucket, waterfront parcels, or properties that connect other parcels of open space, are priorities. As money becomes available, the bank enhances the recreational value of the land by planning and building improvements such as trails, retaining walls, stairs or docks.
"Many communities want to fight developers," Klein told me when I interviewed him in 1990, "but we hitched our wagon to this runaway real estate market, and now everyone walks away happy from the land bank process. Neither the landowners nor the developers are victimized."
There are important reasons for buying land or easements -- permanent liens that prevent development -- instead of trying to conserve through regulation. Paying owners the market rate defuses the issue of property rights that has poisoned the debate in growing areas such as Loudoun County. Acquiring easements does the same by giving the owners a financial benefit for never developing their land. But buying land also reduces the antagonism between developers and local boards and planning agencies, because it conserves land without adding to the complex web of regulation that frustrates developers.
Finally, and perhaps best of all, designating taxes or bond issues for conservation can be accomplished by referendum, giving people -- not politicians or exploitative interests -- the power to decide what's right for them and their community. This tends to reduce resentment over the outcome.
Some developers argue that conserving land just takes acreage needed for development and makes housing leapfrog further out. But development is already leapfrogging over the rising prices of Loudoun homes to accommodate a different set of home buyers.
There is no ultimate solution to perpetual growth -- nothing that solves every problem. There are only tough choices. Taking up land -- buying it for either conservation or development -- will eventually make housing more and more expensive, as Arlington and Fairfax found as development intensified. According to a 2003 report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, anyone making under $23 an hour can no longer afford to rent a decent two-bedroom apartment in Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, Spotsylvania, Stafford or Prince William counties.
So why preserve land? Because the alternative is worse. Growing communities must buy open space if they want to have any, and they must subsidize affordable housing if they want to be fair to residents in lower-paying professions.
