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the audience at the annual meeting of the Rappahannock League for Environmental Protection last month. Several speakers alluded to the need to protect Rappahannock from the threat of people fleeing from the Washington area and seti tling in the county. • - t
I’m one of those threats. I’m baclt in the Fairfax County house where t lived in high school. My husband, ait environmental lawyer at the Justice Department, and I bought it from my parents several years ago. And,‘ once again, I hate it. If my husband can convince his employer to let hirrf work from home via computer hook* up, we will join my parents in Rapn pahannock County.
Thereafter I will probably feel the urge to chime in: “No more new* comers. They’re driving up the cost of land, ruining vistas and beautiful streams writh their selfish building sites, and clogging the roads with more cars. The last thing we need if another Fairfax-that’s what we fled from!” *
But I hope I resist the urge, t hope I recognize the hypocrisy of it’ I hope I remember that even the old; est oldtimers cannot claim to have been the first in this beautiful county-the Indians were. $
Yes, Rappahannock is a treasury that must be protected. But surety there are ways to protect it without childishly saying, “I found it first* It’s mine. You go somewhere else. * Or effectively zoning out young peed pie who need jobs and poor people. ^
I have some ideas: Well-laid ou$ villages that promote walking, small shops, and low-impact recreatiofl (fishing, volleyball, horseshoes, and such.) I don’t envision a sterile de* velopment, just individual plots of land on which people can build ag they like. I am thinking of some of the lovely villages I once visited iq Great Britain where resident^ strolled to the local pub or bakery. *
“But I don’t want to live in a vili lage,” I can hear some of you saying (including my privacy-loving husband). • *
Fine. But do you really need 50 acres for privacy? How about limits ing yourself to five, and donating thd rest to preservation or to common use, such as trails for horses and hikers? I. {
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