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Remaining ‘rural’
THE XEROX Corporation, which was welcomed with open arms in Loudoun County, has been rejected by Greenwich, Conn., and for an interesting reason. Granting a requested re-zoning for an office building, the Greenwich zoning commission decided, “would result in a proliferation of office buildings and change drastically the rural characteristics of the area.”
It is somewhat ironic that officials in Loudoun —a jurisdiction which has stated officially, on several occasions, its desire to remain rural didn’t even question Xerox’s impact. We suspect that they didn’t because the alternative to a “clean” industrial facility (in this case, a training school for the corporation) was considered to be infinitely more destructive of a “rural” objective. The rank upon rank of subdivision tract housing that would have undoubtedly moved in if Xerox hadn’t preempted one particular parcel of land, undoubtedly made any alternative attractive.
All of this is not intended to disparage Xerox or any corporation, but as we said, it is interesting to note that some communities are not all that enamored of “clean industry,” the' kind that so many counties in this area? say they want. And it serves to point up how planning choices must be backed up by political action. Just saying you want to remain rural isn’t enough; you’ve got to do something about it, too.
RAPPAHANNOCK officials took a long step toward controlling their county’s own destiny with adoption of new subdivision and zoning ordinances which were designed to maintain Those qualities which make life in the county desirable—without, at the same time, depriving anyone of reasonable and appropriate use of property.
No one should pretend that this is an easy balance to attain or maintain, and it is gratifying to see that provisions are being made for a continuing examination of Rappahannock’s land use regulations.
After all, we all agree with Greenwich, Conn., in wanting to avoid anything which would “change drastically the rural characteristics of the area.”D
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