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Rural zoning challenge stretches on
Five western landowners are still waiting to learn whether their legal challenges to the county's rural downzoning in 2006 will be dismissed or go to trial.
Only five plaintiffs remain of 25 who went to court in 2007 to invalidate the Board of Supervisors' remapping of the western half of the county. The remaining cases claim that the county's restrictions on subdividing land in the west were imposed in a piecemeal manner, that they violated owners' rights to develop their land, and that the county's action was "arbitrary and capricious."
Judge Thomas D. Horne heard the county's arguments June 12 that the five remaining cases should be dismissed. One landowner has appealed to the state Supreme Court to reverse Horne's earlier ruling that the newspaper advertising of the downzoning in the Times-Mirror did not meet legal requirements.
Before December 2006, most land in the west could be split into 3-acre lots. On Dec. 5, 2006, the Board of Supervisors adopted the new zoning, which limits subdivision to 20- or 50-acre lots – with more density under certain clustering and open space requirements.
Attorney John Sabourin argued that the new zoning didn't apply to everyone in the county and was therefore piecemeal.
Randall Greehan argued for the county that the new rules apply to fully two-thirds of the county. Of the 330,000 acres in Loudoun County, Greehan argued, 220,000 were mapped into the new AR-1 and AR-2 zoning districts. That can hardly be called "selective," Greehan said.
Sabourin shot back that the law does not require him to analyze the entire Comprehensive Plan in his complaint. "We will analyze the Comprehensive Plan at trial," Sabourin said. "This case calls out to be tried."
Attorney Patrick Taves rebutted the arbitrary and capricious argument for the county, arguing that "the ordinance is inherently equitable. The intent of the board is to enable rural economic uses, and to preserve agricultural and forestall lands."
The plaintiffs, Taves said, focused on only one use of the land – building houses. The ordinance allows more than 100 other uses, he said.
"The plaintiffs may want the whole county in 3-acre lots for residential use," Taves concluded. "But enabling legislation [from the General Assembly] has given the Board of Supervisors wide discretion."
That same board, Mari Hommel argued for the landowners, "is trying to have its cake and eat it too. These zoning amendments should be invalidated."
Horne will decide which, if any, of the complaints will proceed to trial.
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