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adequate tool for achieving the goals.” The revisions will also reflect an added goal, McNear said, providing for population growth at a rate consonant with the ability of the county to raise revenue and provide services.
“When talking about Fauquier’s plan, many will hasten to say “You have a plan and look at all the growth,’” McNear said. But “Fauquier is on the front lines or in the big leagues, so to speak,” he said. “What would Fauquier be like if it had not adopted a comprehensive plan and the Supervisors had not been committed to it? Prince William.is a fair example of a county that has had neither, and I will let you draw your own conclusions.”
McNear showed a map of Fauquier’s master plan. “We have had no subdivisions in the conservation district and only several minor subdivisions in the agricultural district,” he said. The definition of a subdivision in Fauquier is currently in lots of ten acres or less, but that is in the process of being increased to 25, McNear said.
The comprehensive plan has provided the legal basis for several substantial rezoning requests, McNear said. One was a proposed development in the Great Run Valley that would have doubled the county population in just a few years. Another request, denied on the basis of the comprehensive [dan, would have allowed a shopping center on the corner of Route 29-211 and a secondary road.
SUCH A location might sound ideal for a shopping center, but the comprehensive plan specifically states that no further commercial strip development be permitted along that highway, McNear said.
Pete Luke, chairman of Rappahannock’s Supervisors, was worried about the state enabling legislation that allows counties to draft a comprehensive plan. “The language of that does tend to make it a plan for growth,” he said. McNear agreed, but said Rappahannock has a better opportunity for drafting a no-growth plan than other areas.
“No one thinks this area will grow a whole lot,’’McNear said. “There’s no railroad here, no navigable river, no real road, except 211, and no labor force.” So, he said, Rappahannock could probably author a reasonable nogrowth plan. Besides, courts today, are more tolerant of no-growth policies than they were several years ago, McNear said.
Fanning Baumgardner wondered if growth had to always be thought of in terms of population. “We could make it a point to enSee
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