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Senate committee bypasses growth-limiting bills for this session of Virginia General Assembly. Date published: 1/29/2003
RICHMOND--The General Assembly won't be dealing this session with efforts to give local governments more tools to control growth. After a two-hour hearing, a Senate committee yesterday sent to a commission for further study three bills--including one sponsored by Sen. John Chichester, R-Stafford--that would have let local governments limit development based on the available public infrastructure. The Senate Committee on Local Government also sent to the state water commission a fourth bill, sponsored by Sen. Edd Houck, D-Spotsylvania, that would have limited development based on the water supply. The bills--called "adequate public facilities" bills--would allow local governments in high-growth areas to deny approval of subdivision plats if the localities determine the existing infrastructure--such as roads, water and sewer service, or schools--can't support new development. The legislation in question varied in how much authority localities would have--one bill said localities had to build the infrastructure within 12 years, for example, and all required that the local governments anticipate future growth and infrastructure needs in their comprehensive plans. Chichester's was limited to certain localities in Planning Districts 9 and 16, and Houck's addressed only water infrastructure. Proponents of adequate public facilities legislation argued that local governments need more tools to control--not necessarily limit--growth. Roger Wiley, representing a coalition of 27 communities, said local officials are "desperate to control the spiraling costs growth creates." Stafford County Supervisor Peter Fields put those spiraling costs into hard numbers. Fields said Stafford's population grew more than 50 percent from 1991 to 2001. The average annual population increase is 4.5 percent. Stafford's school population has grown at an average of 6 percent a year, Fields said, and the county needs to build eight new schools in the next five years--at a cost of $194 million--to keep up. The county also has growing needs in water service and law enforcement. Fields also said Stafford's real-estate tax, at $1.14, is the third-highest among counties in Virginia. Counties are limited in the taxes they can increase to raise revenue, and most rely heavily on their real-estate tax rate. Fields said adequate public facilities laws in other states "allow communities to match the pace of their own capital improvements schedule with the pace of residential government." Fields wasn't the only local government official there to support the bill.
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