For Now, Loudoun Curbs Dulles Growth

Next came a series of electoral victories in Loudoun for slow-growth Democrats. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine stunned Virginia by winning the county last year alongside state Del. David E. Poisson, who upset four-term Republican Richard H. Black. State Sen. Mark R. Herring won every precinct in a special election in January to replace Republican William C. Mims, who took a job in the state attorney general's office.

Finally, supervisors were confronted by overwhelming and well-organized opposition to Dulles South. The Piedmont Environmental Council, the Warrenton-based anti-sprawl organization, and a handful of local groups took to the Internet to rally Loudoun residents and persuade them that Dulles South would overwhelm highways and send property taxes soaring to pay for demand on such county services as schools and public safety.

Supervisors received hundreds of e-mails from opponents, and they listened to 10 hours of testimony, most of it in opposition, at hearings.

"We're thrilled with the outcome," said Sandra Chaloux, who founded the Gum Spring Regional Citizens Network to oppose Dulles South. "I think for me personally what was really important about it was to see that the voice of citizens mattered. Prior to this week, we really didn't have a whole lot of evidence of that."

Board members who opposed Dulles South from the start believe the majority's about-face on growth is an illustration of political expediency and not a change in philosophy. All nine board seats come up for election next November, and so far in the gubernatorial and state legislative elections, Loudoun voters have shown support for a more modest pace of growth.

"It helps to have a national election in the same week," said Supervisor James Burton (I-Blue Ridge). "Board members realize that when the general public gets angry about a particular subject, they come out and vote. Many of the board members saw a parallel between what happened nationally on Tuesday and what happens a year from now."

The other Republicans to vote against the plan were Vice Chairman Bruce E. Tulloch (R-Potomac) and Supervisor Mick Staton Jr. (R-Sugarland Run). Both represent districts that have overwhelmingly chosen Democrats in recent elections. Staton, in fact, was the Republican candidate who lost soundly to Herring in the special state Senate election in January.

Tulloch and Staton disputed the idea that the board has changed.

"We were trying to get innovative ideas on development," Tulloch said. "What we got was a monolith. At the end of the day, it just couldn't sustain itself."

Staton said he had opposed the density of Dulles South for months. He said Loudoun should be doing more to attract commercial development because, unlike houses, it would bring jobs, decrease the tax burden on homeowners and reduce commuter congestion on eastbound routes into job-rich Fairfax County.

"There's been a great effort by special-interest groups to portray this board as pro-development, pro-rapid growth, even corrupt in some ways," Staton said. "And I dispute all of those characterizations."

The Dulles South vote is not the first that seeks to restrain growth. In September, supervisors voted to dramatically restrict the building of houses in the county's rural west. Although conservationists were disappointed that the board settled on a less restrictive plan than had been originally debated, the measure, which comes up for a final vote next month, would reduce the total number of houses that could be built in the western two-thirds of the county from about 37,000 to roughly half that.

The restrictions would replace similar rules thrown out on a technicality a year ago by the Virginia Supreme Court -- rules that few in Loudoun would have predicted that this board would bother replacing at all.

That unpredictability has frustrated developers, who have spent two years and millions of dollars drawing up blueprints for planned communities in Dulles South. They began the process believing there was support for their vision among supervisors. They ended it Wednesday knowing that, at least at the moment, there is not.

"At the end of the day, you push for where you want to go," said York, who has opposed Dulles South all along. "Sometimes you win; sometimes you don't. Two years ago, I wouldn't have thought we'd be where we are today."