Of course, Loudoun should not have to bear the entire burden of preserving the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains by itself. There are Virginia agencies, such as the Virginia Outdoors Foundation (VOF), that have an interest in this process, too, and they could be helpful if adequately funded.
But neither the state government nor the nonprofits working in Virginia want to own land outright, arguing that it's too expensive to buy and maintain. Instead, the VOF holds conservation easements on more than 250,000 acres across the state, including 17,000 in Loudoun. Nonprofit groups hold easements on roughly another 14,000 acres in Loudoun, most donated by landowners. Along with 3,750 acres of parkland, the easements protect just over 10 percent of Loudoun's land from development.
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Many localities, such as neighboring Fauquier and Clarke counties, operate programs to purchase easements on threatened rural land that they see as a community asset, just as Loudoun did until the Board of Supervisors recently and injudiciously abolished the program. So do some states, notably New Jersey and Massachusetts.
Easements, while important, only protect land as scenery and for certain agricultural uses, such as farming and grazing, while public land ownership allows it to be developed for recreational use -- with hiking and biking trails and the like -- making the community truly its owners.
Loudoun County draws both local visitors and national visitors. It bears regional and, thanks to Dulles Airport, national traffic. Its fate is tied to growth throughout the region, as it becomes not only a suburb of Washington but a transportation corridor for commuters farther out. So its fate should be considered a regional problem, if not a national one. The commonwealth should not only buy Loudoun land but should strengthen regional planning authorities to allow them to plan better across county lines and better manage the way growth in one county affects another.
As Northern Virginia's growing population reaches a critical mass, Virginia's current posture of indifference to many of the region's problems may be softening -- and for good reason. According to figures provided by the Cooper Center of the University of Virginia, Northern Virginia was home to one out of every four Virginians in 1990 and is now home to roughly one in three.
One day, half of Virginia's population will reside in the growth-burdened region. These millions of residents will face together the problems created by crowding: congested transportation routes, overburdened schools, typically expensive housing markets and insufficient recreational and open space. State government will increasingly have to address these concerns.
The question is, what will be left by then?
Author's e-mail:
annewmackin@yahoo.com
Anne Mackin is a planner who grew up in Arlington and now lives in Boston. Her book, "Americans and Their Land," will be published in 2006 by the University of Michigan Press.
