Wednesday, January 18, 2006

IN THEIR ATTEMPTS to plan and manage real estate development, local governments in Virginia have long lacked meaningful authority. State laws, as well as the courts, have deferred to the rights of property owners, leaving counties, especially, with few tools to regulate the pace and shape of growth. That has contributed to patterns of development in Northern Virginia and elsewhere that are plain to see: ever-expanding bands of sprawl, lengthening commutes and a pervasive sense that when it comes to road capacity and land-use planning, the left hand and the right hand are not well acquainted.

In his campaign for governor, Timothy M. Kaine (D) cleverly tapped the popular frustration arising from that disconnect, parlaying it into big suburban vote margins. And so before announcing the long-term revenue package for transportation that he has promised in the coming days, he has unveiled a solid strategy for connecting land use and transportation planning. The proposals in his State of the State speech Monday, wrongly dismissed as insignificant by some Republican state lawmakers, have set the stage for what could be Mr. Kaine's first major showdown as governor.

It is important that he wins it. By proposing that localities be empowered to reject rezoning requests that would overwhelm roads, Mr. Kaine is restoring balance to the development equation. The response by home builders -- the governor's plan would mean "death" for the industry, their chief lobbyist grimly declared -- is hysterical. It ignores the reality that developers are doing quite well, thank you, in other states where local governments have the clout that Mr. Kaine proposes.

It is true that the governor's ideas would have a limited impact on semi-urbanized localities in Northern Virginia. In Fairfax County, which has a population of well over 1 million, the major development boom has already taken place; in Prince William and Loudoun counties, tens of thousands of new homes are in the pipeline as a result of already-approved rezonings. But Mr. Kaine's proposals could matter a lot to outer suburban jurisdictions, in Northern Virginia and elsewhere around the state, where major development battles remain to be fought. And the decisions made in those contests will affect traffic throughout the region.

Of course, the governor's land-use ideas are just a start -- the first half of a one-two punch designed to deal with the state's transportation problems. He has promised to announce the more important piece, regarding new money for road building and public transit, by the start of next week. It makes good political sense to highlight first the planning and development proposals, which are bound to be broadly popular with the voters who put him in office. But given the state's enormous need for new road-building funding, the success of Mr. Kaine's transportation initiative will be judged on his inevitably more controversial ideas about taxes and revenue.