A fascinating debate over growth management is playing out in Albemarle County. The Board of Supervisors is considering two new ordinances — phasing and clustering — designed to protect 95 percent of the county acreage designated as rural. A number of farmers and small property owners vehemently criticized the proposals in a hearing yesterday, arguing that the restrictions would confiscate much of the value of their land. The Charlottesville Daily Progress describes the ordinances this way:
To slow such development, phasing would allow two subdivision rights on each parcel every 10 years. To reduce any impact on natural resources, clustering would entail grouping small parcels together and leaving a large preservation tract undeveloped. The Planning Commission has recommended that the two ideas be used together to achieve both of those goals.
Albemarle County is a beautiful place, and I am sympathetic to the desire to protect it from development. But I’m not convinced that these ordinances are the best way to do it. Phasing development over years and decades would slow growth, but in doing so, it would guarantee that growth took the form of small, piecemeal projects. Large, well-financed developers would steer clear, effectively precluding any comprehensive, well-planned development. Growth would be scattered, disconnected and low density — in a word, it would be sprawl.
The clustering idea can be charitably described only as “less bad.” Clustering development in compact areas makes sense on the micro scale. But in the larger, Albemarle-wide context, it won’t make much difference. Instead of 10-acre lots smeared across the countryside, we’ll see compact little subdivisions strewn across the countryside. Such a development pattern still will put stress on local road networks and the delivery of county infrastructure and services.
The only way to “save” the countryside without ruining it is to allow already-developed portions of Albemarle County, particularly along U.S. 29 north of Charlottesville, to evolve into a more urban settlement pattern, and thus accommodate a larger population. If the county also allowed for the expansion of urban enclaves (the pattern and density of small towns) in places like Crozet and Scottsville, there would be little demand to build scattered subdivisions in the countryside… and no need for landowners to feel like their property rights were being violated.
