Letter to the LoCo BOS Regarding Purcellville JLMA Land Use

Dear Chairman York and Board of Supervisors

We are very concerned with the ongoing Town of Purcellville annexation process of properties adjacent to the Wright Farm community (i.e. the Kline/Purcellville Crossroads and Roncaglione/RSR Gateway Farm properties). First, the Town’s current annexation process is not balanced, equitable, informed, or impartial. While benefits to the Town are being considered, multiple costs are being ignored. Second, the decision-making approaches for land use in a Joint Land Management Area (JLMA) are egregiously inconsistent with the assumptions, intent, goals, and objectives specified in the County’s Revised General Plan. Third, conflicts of interest exist that bring to question the impartiality of key decision-making bodies. We appeal to you to stop the annexation decision-making process until such time that our concerns are thoroughly considered and remediated. We now outline, in greater detail, these concerns.

1. Annexation considerations are not being made in a balanced manner that accounts for the costs to all stakeholders. There should be no doubt that the Town of Purcellville is focused on annexation of the Kline and Roncaglione properties (and others in the JLMA) for one reason: the Town is struggling to find additional sources of tax revenue to ameliorate the financial burden of approximately $60M of debt. At a recent Town Council strategic planning session, the Town’s manager stated,

“… there are direct benefits where we can grow our way out of, both in Town and right on the perimeter, some of our utility debt ....” (1)

There also is a rush to annexation:

“Council will have to make another decision of whether we want to look at one, or more projects, or none, north of Town but those decisions are not going to be out there for councils ten years from now to make. And this council, and maybe the next council, which may be the same council sitting here depending on what happens in May… the next three years will probably be that window where if something doesn’t occur out in the County, it’s going to develop residential or something which will prohibit the Town from having an ability to have a say in what’s happening.” (2)

While myopically and urgently focused on the upside of growth through annexation, many Town officials neglect to consider the costs of annexation, especially those to the Wright Farm community and to the greater rural Loudoun County area. The Kline and Roncaglione developments proposed for the annexed properties will present an abrupt change of land use on the Route 287 corridor north of Route 7. The boundary-line of this discontinuity will be literally drawn onto the front yards of Wright Farm landowners. On one side of the boundary will exist three acre homes and on the other, a hotel parking lot. The value proposition (measured in dollars) for purchasing a home north of Route 7 is the scenic and quiet nature of the surrounding environment. With annexation, this environment will be destroyed with Wright Farm and nearby landowner property values significantly impacted. The town is not seriously considering these community costs because they do not translate into political costs. At the strategic planning session previously referenced, one town council member stated,

“We have to understand what the [Purcellville] citizens are looking for, and not the Wrights’ Farm [sic] or anybody else, it’s what the citizens in Town want.” (3)

Additional costs (to both the County and the Town) that have yet to be addressed in any required detail include those related to added road maintenance, traffic pressures, police enforcement, increased student populations, environmental impacts, and the opportunity costs created by migration of existing Town business to new outlying areas. The bottom line is that the Town of Purcellville’s decision-making framework is incredibly biased and fixated on immediate potential financial gains. It currently lacks the sophistication required to accurately estimate and compare all costs and benefits. This leaves those on the shores of potentially annexed lands fearing a tsunami of poorly planned developments that will cause measurable harm to their property and quality of life.

2. The current approach to annexation lacks clear and updated County and Town strategic planning guidance. In addition, the associated developments so far proposed are completely inconsistent with the intent of the planning guidance that does exist.

The properties at issue are contained in Joint Land Management Areas (JLMAs). As the name implies, JLMAs were created with an acknowledgement that decisions regarding these border areas have an impact on the equities of both the Towns and the County. Detailed land use and growth management policies in Purcellville JLMAs were at one time provided by the Purcellville Urban Growth Area Management Plan (PUGAMP). Those processes became invalidated by an amendment to the Revised General Plan in March 2013 that eliminated PUGAMP. The documented recommendation for that amendment stated,

“On March 20, 2012, the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors initiated a Comprehensive Plan Amendment, CPAM 2012-0002, to amend the policies of the Revised General Plan in regard to the Purcellville Urban Growth Area Management Plan (PUGAMP) and the Town of Purcellville. This amendment is in response to a recommendation by the Purcellville Joint Policies Review Committee (JPRC) at their February 21, 2012 meeting which called for the Town and the County to consider the repeal of the PUGAMP an Town/County Annexation Agreement. The JPRC’s recommendation was affirmed by the Town Council of Purcellville at an August 14, 2012 Town Council Public Hearing by the adoption of a Resolution calling for the repeal of the PUGAMP and the rescission of the Town of Purcellville/ County of Loudoun Annexation Agreement….BOTH THE JPRC’S AND TOWN COUNCIL’S ACTIONS ACKNOWLEDGE THAT NO INCREASED GROWTH POTENTIAL OUTSIDE THE CURRENT INCORPORATED TOWN BOUNDARIES INTO THE JLMA IS ANTICIPATED.[emphasis added]” (4)

This excerpt illustrates that the assumptions going into erasing PUGAMP and amending the Revised General Plan are no longer valid. Specifically, “no increased growth potential outside the current incorporated Town boundaries into the JLMA is anticipated” is no longer the case given the current annexation and development requests. Thus, the Revised General Plan is by its very nature out of date and of marginal utility to drive what should be subordinate decisions related to JLMA land use.

In place of PUGAMP, the Revised General Plan amendment instituted the statutory corporate boundary line adjustment or annexation processes administered through the courts as the governance mechanism for Purcellville JLMAs. This is quite unfortunate as this process is a piecewise and perfunctory legal exercise. In other words, this annexation process is first examined solely by the Town (which we have shown is a biased review process), and once approved, solely by the County. Historically and statistically, once approved at the Town level, annexations are a “done deal”. The result of the now distorted JLMA strategic guidance is this: over the last year, the rural Loudoun electorate, living in and around the Purcellville JLMAs, has suffered from an undesirable lack of elected representation in the planning dialogue. Over the past month, there have been plans to create a joint Town-County committee to review the annexation request, but the formation process of this committee has been riddled with confusion and debate (again, the outcome of the lack of strategic guidance).

A rigorous and simultaneous joint Town and County process must guide JLMA land use activity. This process should be driven from the top-down by a broader and contextual strategic governance framework. The governance framework is of course the County’s Comprehensive Plan and the Town of Purcellville’s Comprehensive Plan. Both must be updated (the Town’s Comprehensive Plan is likewise not fully prepared to address the new land use contexts) and co-aligned to properly guide the decision making process. County and Town citizens should have the ability to drive the development of these updated plans from the bottom-up.

The recommendation for PUGAMP termination goes on to state,

“The JLMAs are intended to be jointly planned to accommodate growth emanating from the respective Town and establish distinct boundaries between the Town and the adjacent Policy Areas (Rural, Transition or Suburban). In the case of Purcellville, with PUGAMP superseded and the Annexation Agreement terminated, the land use intent for the JLMA will be to protect and preserve that distinction by having the Plan mirror the existing development pattern, uses and residential densities (predominately one dwelling unit per 3 acres) currently permitted in the Zoning Ordinance JLMA districts. Retaining the existing policies, land use designation and boundaries of the Purcellville JLMA respects the existing development pattern in the JLMA and affords the desired visual and spatial transition between the more intense development pattern within the Town limits and the rural residential and agricultural pattern of the Rural Policy Area as envisioned by the Plan.” (5)

The current proposals for the Kline/Purcellville Crossroads and Roncaglione/RSR Gateway Farm properties – properties which propose Data Centers, Jiffy-Lubes, and economy hotels are grossly at odds with the vision painted by this supporting documentation, and hence are antithetical to the intent of existing strategic planning guidance for the County. We find this existing guidance to be consistent with that embraced and embellished by other recent Loudoun County rural strategies. These properties are indeed gateways into the Town of Purcellville heading south. But, likewise, they are gateways into Rural Loudoun heading north. As currently proposed, the Kline and Roncaglione developments do not say, “welcome to Rural Loudoun”. Annexation of these properties would be a clear circumvention and violation of the County’s own existing land use policy, which notes the desire for a clear spatial transition from the Town to Rural Loudoun.

3. Conflicts of interests exist that degrade trust and taint impartiality in the decision-making processes involving the considered annexations. A member of the Purcellville Town Council is employed by Bowman Consulting. Bowman provides engineering consulting services for properties being considered for annexation by the Town. The council member has publically recused himself from participating in any activities related to the Kline annexation in his capacity as a Bowman employee (6). Although both the Town’s lawyer and the Commonwealth’s Attorney are of the opinion this is sufficient, we believe this recusal is entirely inadequate. The council member must instead recuse himself from participating in any activities related to the annexation in his capacity as an elected official. Failure to recuse himself in this manner is a conflict of interest as defined by the Code of Virginia § 2.2-3103, which specifically states,

“No officer or employee of a state or local governmental or advisory agency shall: …

"5. Accept any money, loan, gift, favor, service, or business or professional opportunity that reasonably tends to influence him in the performance of his official duties….”

Given the council member’s involvement in annexation decisions in his official elected capacity to date, we further believe that the decision making process by the Town of Purcellville has already been tainted, potentially irrevocably.

We are further disturbed that it appears a member of Loudoun County staff employed by the Department of Building and Development is one of three owners of the Purcellville Crossroads property under consideration for annexation (7). As you know, this department ensures the proper subdivision of land, review and approval of design and construction plans, inspections during the construction phase, and final approval of projects for occupancy or use. This situation creates the appearance of a conflict.

The Town of Purcellville is focused entirely on the possible benefits of annexation without regard to the cost incurred by immediately adjacent Loudoun County residents. The failure to consider the equities of all stakeholders is not only unfair, but it is in direct contradiction of the intent of existing Loudoun County strategic guidance set forth in the Revised General Plan. Given that this guidance is outdated, it would be fully appropriate that the Revised General Plan, as well as Town of Purcellville Comprehensive Plan, be updated and co-aligned. This update and alignment must be performed before any further land use decisions related to the Purcellville JLMAs of concern. This long-range planning activity must be open to citizen discussion and would be most appropriately led by a new board representing the evolved interests of the electorate. In addition, conflicts of interest exist which taint the current decision-making process. Given these issues, we call upon you to do all that is possible to put a halt to the current process of annexation of the Kline/Purcellville Crossroads and Roncaglione/RSR Gateway Farm properties by the Town of Purcellville until such time that our concerns are fully addressed and resolved.

The Undersigned,

References
(1) Rob Lohr, Purcellville Town Council Strategic Planning Session, September 19, 2015, Audio Recording.
(2)Ibid
(3)Joan Lehr, Purcellville Town Council Strategic Planning Session, September 19, 2005, Audio Recording
(4)CPAM 2012-0002, Amendments to the Policies of the Revised General Plan to Revise and Supersede Policies in Regard to the Purcellville Urban Growth Area Management Plan (PUGAMP), Department of Planning Staff Report, February 13, 2013.
(5)Ibid
(6)Disclosure Statement under the Conflict of Interest Act Council Member McConville July 28, 2015
(7)Purcellville Town Council Regular Meeting/Committee of the Whole Work Session, July 28, 2015, Meeting notes