Supervisors Scale Back Proposal for Dulles South

The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors agreed this week to reduce the scope of a proposal to open up a largely undeveloped area west of Dulles International Airport to thousands of new homes.

Supervisors tentatively agreed Tuesday to eliminate from the proposal a large area of land south of Braddock Road. County planners are still calculating how many residences would be knocked from the proposal, which in its previous form would have allowed more than 33,000 homes in an area now zoned for about 5,000.

But the move strips at least 6,700 residences from the proposal, and probably more, planners said.

Supervisor Stephen J. Snow (R-Dulles), a leading proponent of opening up the Dulles South area to dense suburban development, said the scale-back was necessary to preserve the remainder of a proposal that is under fire from hundreds of residents and anti-sprawl activists.

Those critics say the new residences would cause area roads to be jammed with extra traffic and push property taxes through the roof to pay for schools and other county services that the new residents would demand.

"I'm a realist," Snow said. He added that critics fail to see that allowing developers to build dense suburban neighborhoods would force them to donate hundreds of millions of dollars in badly needed infrastructure, particularly roads.

Snow said he hoped that by scaling back the proposal, county officials can still negotiate enough road contributions. The roads are essential to the success of George Mason University's plans to open a Loudoun campus in the heart of Dulles South, he said.

"How are you going to put the university there if you can't get the roads in?" Snow asked.

Supervisors have scheduled a public hearing on Dulles South for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. They agreed this week to continue that hearing at 9 a.m. Oct. 14.

If supervisors stick with their decision to leave the area south of Braddock Road alone, at least two developers' proposals will probably stall. Greenfields, proposed by the Vienna-based developer Greenvest, calls for about 5,900 homes on 2,000 acres. Braddock Village, proposed by Winchester Homes, calls for 860 homes on 150 acres.

Greenfields is the largest of four developments Greenvest hopes to build in Dulles South. The developer is awaiting the board's decision on whether to open the area up to residential development before its rezoning applications can move forward.

The board's unanimous vote to scale back the Dulles South plan doesn't eliminate the possibility that Greenvest and Winchester would continue to pursue the rezonings they need to build their developments. The board is simply considering changes to the county's comprehensive plan, which is simply a guideline for development.

But that guideline is often invoked when supervisors make land-use decisions. They are less likely to approve a rezoning request if it does not conform with the comprehensive plan.

The decision also doesn't prevent the board from coming back to the area in question later. In the current political climate, smaller attempts to remap the Dulles South region are much more likely to prevail than larger ones.

"Clearly this was an attempt to reduce the magnitude of the objections," said Supervisor Jim G. Burton (I-Blue Ridge), who has long opposed the Dulles South plan. "By cutting out portions of it and throwing it to the wolves, they leave two-thirds of it, and that reduces the numbers and the magnitude of the public outcry."

Burton voted for the scale-back, but not without voicing his suspicions to Vice Chairman Bruce E. Tulloch (R-Potomac), who authored it and said he offered it in good faith to appease critics of the scale of the original plan. Burton also said Tuesday's change to the proposal wouldn't alter his plans to vote against it.

"There's got to be a trick," Burton said.

Retorted Tulloch: "You've got to get some medication for that."