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to the critics of Agricultural and Forestry Districts.
“The subject 22.5 acre parcel is and has been used for farming. There is no evidence that it has ever been used for any other purpose,” Home found. The property in question “is located in community characterized by farmland, fields, scattered woodlands, and neat and well kept singlefamily residences. There is no industry, and local commerce is limited to a turn of the century country store,” the judge wrote in his opinion.
Then, in his summary, Horne concluded that “The commercial zoning previously connected with the property was and is consistent with the general character of surrounding users, a fact which has become more evident with the placing of lands near the parcel in Agricultural and Forestry Districts...”
When Virginia’s General Assembly adopted the Agricultural District legislation, it did so intending that creation of such districts should be used as a tool to protect and encourage the state’s embattled farming industry AND to help local government control and direct development ^toward those same ends. Judge Home’s decision shows that the tool can be used effectively. And that’s something that has to be measured against the adverse impace—if any—that Agricultural and Forestal Districts have, now or in the future, on Rappahannock’s tax base.
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