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development planning, including local input on state plans for road expansion.
"It is incumbent on local people to attend the (Department of Transportation’s) pre-allocation hearings and give their opinions. ”
On the local level, “it might be necessary, in master plans and zoning ordinances, for the Board of Supervisors to say, ‘We can’t rezone, our roads can’t support it’.”
The outer beltway or western bypass proposal, “makes very little sense, if at all,” Del. Guest said, “until we have an eastern bypass first,” using the Route 301 corridor. “If the through traffic can be diverted using that route, there might be less need for a western route. That might ease the congestion on the feeder roads in the western D.C. suburbs.”
Given that people, and development, follow the extension of roads and sewer networks, Del. Guest said the larger question is whether high density development should be allowed to proceed “helter-skelter” in an area where everyone depends on wells and septic.
He added there once again is the question of groundwater.
“It’s a real consideration, particularly in Rappahannock, Warren and Clarke, because of the limestone geology. In this region it should be mandatory that roads and sewers be planned at the same time.”
Groundwater studies, he said, are underway by both the Virginia Water Study Commission, which was formed at the direction of the General Assembly, and the Center for Water Studies at Virginia Tech.
With growing local tax bills meeting head to head with declining farm revenues, there have been predictions of an uncertain future for the state’s land use taxation system, where Agricultural and Forestal Districts, Horticultural Districts and land reserved for recreation or open space uses is assessed at a far lower tax rate than its fair market value.
In addition to the loss of tax revenue to localities, the system also has left rural counties with a shortfall in money for education since the complex distribution formula uses the lower land use tax value rather than the full value assessment.
Mr. Guest has tried unsuccessfully to convince the legislature to change the formula, which he maintains has left the “tax versus the ability to pay considerably out of whack.”
Transfer of development rights is a concept which allows a landowner
(See GUEST, p. 18)
92.6%