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The revised first chapter of Rappahannock’s comprehensive plan has good news for the county’s controlled growth advocates: provisional estimates from the University of Virginia’s Tayloe Murphy Institute show no change in the local population since 1980.
Bob Strider, executive director of the Rappahannock Rapidan Planning District Commission, presented the county planning commissioners with the first chapter and introduction to the comprehensive plan now under review by the commissioners with technical assistance from the Planning District staff.
“This is very, very similar to the existing plan,” Mr. Strider said, passing out copies of the first installment at last Wednesday’s Planning Commission meeting. “There have been a few changes and updates, but this deals primarily with soils and geology, and those don’t change.”
He noted that statistics compiled from the 1980 census data highlight population trends. From 1850 to 1970, the county’s population shrank from 9,782 to 5,199, a decrease of almost 47 percent. Then, the curve turned upward again, with the population going to 6,093 in 1980, an increase of just over 17 percent. By comparison, for that same 10-year period, the state’s population grew by 14.9 percent, according to the comprehensive plan.
But the growth spurt here appears to be leveling off. “Between 1980 and 1985, the county’s population hasn’t increased very much,” Mr. Strider said, pointing to the information from Tayloe Murphy which puts the number of people here at only seven more than those
95.5%