THURSDAY, JANUARY 27, 2005

THURSDAY, JANUARY 27, 2005

Our View

How does our

garden grow?

Apparently with single-family houses all in a

row. With the decision of the Culpeper Board of

Supervisors to approve the Centex request for rezoning, South Wales in neighboring Culpeper County will now be surrounded by a village — perhaps like a Rappahannock village.

It will have a collection of quaint, modest homes where community members can stroll leisurely, visiting at will and chatting about what makes them happy which is basically the freedom to stroll leisurely and look out on their pastoral and preserved settings.

Well, not exactly.

All those extra people are going to mean extra cars, need for more services, and a way of disposing of all that oxtra waste.

That shouldn't be a problem with the Rappahannock River ever ready to receive effluent offerings and the rest of it can be sprinkled on what agricultural land is left or it can be burnt or even sold.

When one of those nasty thunderstorms drops gallons of water, VDOT can be trusted to have held the developer to a high standard for handling runoff from those extra parking lots and streets.

Clevenger s Comer is the kind of garden that we re growing these days and the developers aren’t entirely to blame.

Whether we believe that they are fulfilling a need or creating one for their own benefit, the truth is that collectively we've hit what many have aimed for — a chance to live in the country, commute to a faraway, more crowded place, and eventually lobby for what we left — more services, more amenities, more buildings, more cars and more ways and things to bolster our sense of living from the maddening crowd.

Ten years ago you wouldn't have seen a Ryan Homes or any large developer in nearby Fauquier County. It wasn't profitable enough, there wasn't the clientele but all that has changed now.

Fauquier's garden has become a thicket to get through.

Let's be mindful what we plant here.