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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.
Spotsylvania County Supervisor Gary Jackson said said Houck's bill "will allow us to take a commonsense approach to managing water resources."
He said the county has tried everything--including building a new reservoir--to make its water supply keep pace with growth.
"Despite our efforts, we cannot guarantee our citizens adequate water," Jackson said. "No matter how much we plan and how much we spend, we can't make it rain."
Representatives from Spotsylvania, Fairfax and Hanover counties and Suffolk, spoke along with officials from the League of Conservation Voters and the Virginia Smart Growth Coalition.
The coalition commissioned a survey by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research of Washington that showed a majority of Virginians favor giving local government more tools to control growth.
But opponents of such bills worry about what local governments would do with those tools. They fear officials would use the excuse of inadequate facilities to delay development indefinitely.
"We truly believe this is a flawed concept," said Mike Toalson of the Home Builders Association of Virginia. "Infrastructure improvement follows growth."
Toalson also said restrictions on development "could have a potentially devastating impact" on Virginia's economy.
Representatives of Realtor associations argued that adequate facilities laws would raise the cost of housing. They said reforming the tax structure is a better way to address localities' needs for more revenue, rather than letting localities restrict the things they have to spend that revenue on. And, they said, local governments should be better at planning and anticipating growth.
In the end, despite pleas from bill patrons Sen. Leslie Byrne, D-Fairfax, and Sen. Tommy Norment, D-Williamsburg, the committee chose to refer their bills and Chichester's bill to a commission that's studying growth. Several committee members worried that the bills did not address questions of property owners' rights.
The commission will consider the bills during the summer and report back to the Senate committee in the fall.
The committee also declined to approve Houck's bill, sending it to the state water commission. Committee members said the substance of his bill--allowing localities to limit development when they don't have the water supply to support the development--should be part of a statewide water policy.