“Be careful what you wish for,” warns Corey Stewart, chairman of the Prince William County board of supervisors. SB 786, which would eliminate proffers and impose uniform impact fees on new real estate development, “will shut down residential development all over the county. I will make sure it shuts down residential development in Prince William.” So reports Kipp Hanley with the Manassas Journal-Messenger.
Under the bill, Northern Virginia jurisdictions could impose impact fees of no more than $8,000 to offset the cost of improving roads and building public facilities. Although the bill would collect impact fees from by-right developers, who don’t need to file rezoning requests and consequently pay nothing, local governments would not come close to covering the costs of growth. In William County, proffers currently run around $38,000 per dwelling; Stewart has pushed to raise them to $51,000.
The bill would boomerang on the very home builders who help draft the legislation that was submitted by Sen. John Watkins, R-Powhatan. Supervisors in fast-growth counties would routinely deny rezoning requests — including larger, better planned, mixed-use, pedestrian friendly and transit-friendly projects. Virginia would experience an acceleration of scattered, disconnected, low-density development — sprawl on steroids. My initial, ill-considered reaction to the bill was favorable. But now that critics have surfaced with powerful arguments against it, I have to say the legislation would be a disaster.
