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Last Thursday, the U. S. Census Bureau reported
that Loudoun County was the fastest growing
county in the nation (30.7 percent growth rate), an accolade that 40 years ago would be cheered on the front pages and nightly newscasts across the region.
The blood was up for growth across America in 1960s and 1970s: Fairfax County, Virginia; McHenry Comity, Illinois; Ventura County, California and a host of others proudly carried the accolade of “fastest growing.”
Millions of acres of farm pastures and forests were ground up for “growth,” that sort of indefinable expansion that many cheered in America. The singlefamily house, the big lawn, the shopping mall were all part of this American Dream.
But the cheering is muted, now that the reality is that you can’t drive across Fairfax County on a Saturday without facing a half dozen major traffic jams, or that 52 percent of Virginia’s waterways are environmentally impaired, up from 5 percent in 1996.
School budgets are staggering, highway construction is stalled, and medical, fire and rescue services are often overburdened.
Rappahannock County is on the fringes of this mammoth sea of growth; threatened but not devoured.
It behooves the county to marshal every weapon in its defense against suburban sprawl.
One small weapon is now before the Board of Supervisors: a proposal to purchase the development rights from working farmers, so they can continue farming and resist selling their land to major developers t
Under this plan, a working farmer could sell the county an easement over the land, in exchange for cash payment. This would allow him to continue to profit from farming his land, and for the land to be taxed at a lower rate while in production.
When the farmer was ready to sell his land, the buyer would have to use the land for farming and there would be no chance that it would become another Clevengers Corner.
The small amount of Rappahannock County’s money to do this won’t stop all development, but every effort will help retain the beauty and life of this special place.
We urge the Rappahannock Board of Supervisors to approve the proposed “Farmland Preservation Ordinance,” which will provide for the purchase of development rights.
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