3 Counties Attempt to Put Brakes On Growth

"It's going to affect [builders'] ability to be in a position to keep moving forward and stick to their business plans," said Shawn Cody, president of Cherokee Homes, a small-scale custom builder. "A significant portion of our county is based on this industry."

Ed Risse, a land-use consultant based in Warrenton, said that the moratorium could have the unwanted effect of bogging down the county's land-use policy in court. What Prince William and the rest of Northern Virginia really need is more control over funding and building roads, he said.

"It's nice that Prince William's evolved to the point where it can put its foot down, but it will take some reallocation of powers for transportation planning until something happens," he said.

In Loudoun, the new building rules, which would reduce by about half the number of homes allowed in the west, were the culmination of a drawn-out process to replace a 2003 downzoning that was struck down on technical grounds by the state Supreme Court. Supporters of the compromise passed yesterday say that it would go a long way toward protecting the county's rolling piedmont.

But smart-growth advocates are much less enthusiastic, saying that the rules, although stricter than the limit of one home per three acres allowed now in the west, will allow many more homes than what was struck down in court.

"This is not a compromise. This is considerable density for a rural area," said Malcolm Baldwin, a Loudoun sheep farmer and member of the Piedmont Environmental Council, a slow-growth group. "It's a backward step in terms of what the board tried to do in its last life."

In Montgomery, the temporary moratorium, which has a long way to go before becoming law, would cover all major residential and commercial projects except those near Metro stations. In reassessing its land-use rules, the county is expected to consider an approach used in other Maryland counties: banning new homes in areas without the school or road capacity to handle more residents.

That approach, based on the state's "adequate public facilities" ordinance, had been adjusted in 2003 by former county executive Douglas M. Duncan (D) in favor of charging developers' fees to pay for added infrastructure.

Knaap, of the University of Maryland, released a study this year criticizing the adequate-facilities approach for pushing new homes out of developed parts of the state and into more rural areas. It would be better, he said, if the state and counties built more schools in developed areas rather than cut off new homes.

But with many residents in Montgomery saying that growth was too rapid under Duncan, that approach is now back on the table. To Susan Matlick, director of the Maryland-National Capital Building Industry Association, it's an unfortunate reversal.

"As far as we're concerned, it's just pandering to the electorate," she said. "It's to show they're doing something, without any real relation to the facts."