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Stafford's supervisors are considering a plan to change |
BY JONAS BEALS
Stafford County supervisors are scheduled to adopt a new comprehensive plan in September.
If approved, it would be the first major revision of the county's master development document in more than 20 years.
The proposed plan focuses on the center of the county along Interstate 95--where supervisors hope to locate a majority of the commercial, industrial and residential growth in the next 20 years.
But what happens outside that corridor may have a greater impact on Stafford's future. That is where suburban sprawl could occur--the type of growth that has a reputation for chewing up natural resources and putting a financial burden on existing taxpayers.
Half of Stafford County is zoned for agriculture, or A-1. That land can be, or has been, subdivided by right into 3-acre residential lots. That is the smallest minimum lot size for rural zoning of any county between Washington and Richmond.
The Stafford zoning ordinance says: "The purpose of the A-1 district is to reserve areas for traditional agricultural activities and to provide for their continuation as well as preservation of areas of rural character."
Jesse Richardson, an associate professor of urban affairs and planning at Virginia Tech, does not believe agricultural zoning achieves what most localities intend. Instead of preserving rural land, he said, it can encourage the sprawl that many localities try to avoid.
"Agricultural zoning has never worked," he said. "I don't think it will ever work. A lot of localities probably know that it doesn't work.
"A community needs to get together and decide two things," he said. "Is there enough agricultural property to preserve, and is that really what you want? Some communities don't want farmland, and they don't want real agriculture."
Instead of preserving farmland, agricultural zoning may only be preserving development value for owners of large tracts of land.
DOES LOT SIZE MATTER?
In most areas of Stafford, A-1 property has its highest value when developed for residential use.
"Agricultural zoning in and of itself is pretty worthless as far as preserving agriculture," Richardson said. "It often generates sprawl. It's mostly turned into residential or country estates. To call it agricultural zoning is disingenuous. Large lots is the definition of sprawl."
But that does not necessarily mean having larger minimum lot sizes preserves more rural land.
Kevin Schmidt is a coordinator for the office of farmland preservation in the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. He prefers an approach that uses specific agriculture preservation ordinances, rather than zoning classifications, to preserve farmland.
"Generally, there are different schools of thought on agricultural zoning," he said. "If you're truly trying to protect agricultural land for agricultural use, what is a viable size? With large lots, you may be encouraging further conversion of agricultural land. You can kind of chew up the agricultural resource faster."
Between 2002 and 2007, only six of Virginia's 95 counties lost farmland at a faster rate than Stafford. The small lot size in Stafford may be responsible for making agricultural land more attractive to developers.
Local real estate broker Alex Long has marketed farmland and commercial property in the Fredericksburg area for decades. He said that property value is directly related to how that property can be used. In the case of agricultural land in Stafford, that use is often residential.
"The ability to create 3-acre lots buttresses the value of real estate in Stafford County," he said. "Whether that's the most appropriate land use is another issue."
"Stafford's real estate market is much more robust and vibrant than Spotsylvania's right now," Long said. He suggested that Stafford's closer proximity to Northern Virginia jobs is a major factor, but so is the potential found in 3-acre residential development.
He said that existing zoning could indirectly promote development on agricultural land. There are 7,066 existing dwellings in the A-1 district in Stafford, another 3,436 approved dwellings on the books and the potential for 11,399 more.
"Why would a developer want to buy land with public water and sewer to rezone and pay a proffer when they could go out and buy agricultural property and build houses on 3-acre lots?" he asked.
Two components of Stafford's revised comprehensive plan are designed to direct development in the county--the urban services area and the urban development areas. Both designations have a direct bearing on where future growth could be concentrated.
If they encourage higher-density growth in the Interstate 95 corridor, it might redirect potential sprawl from the agricultural zones. But since agricultural zoning regulations are likely to remain the same, development could continue apace in the more rural areas of the county.
Supervisor Paul Milde said that 3-acre lots do not work very well to preserve open space or encourage agriculture. He also pointed out that the zoning was in place before any of the current supervisors took office.
"That being the case," Milde said, "we can still work with voluntary programs such as purchase of development rights and transfer of development rights.
"Our new comp plan should envision much less density in our rural areas, but aim to accomplish that without trampling on people's property rights."
A DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD
Preserving agricultural land and slowing sprawl are not the same thing. The former can, in theory, lead to the latter, but it can be difficult to draw connections between lot size, farming and residential growth in the way some localities hope to do with agricultural zoning.
The task of preserving farmland may fall to individual property owners like Jerry Silver of Silver Ridge Farm in southern Stafford. He views his property in terms of agricultural business potential rather than subdivision potential. County zoning regulations have almost no meaning for Silver, who has no desire to sell.
But not all property owners make a similar effort to profit from their land, and fewer are capable of actually farming their property. For them, development is more attractive. That may hold true regardless of lot size.
"Promoting open space can just as easily promote sprawl," Richardson said. "None of the things we do really increases the open space we'll have at the end of the day."
Richardson suggests focusing on the inverse--increasing density in more urban areas rather than lowering density in rural areas.
"My position is that the rate and amount of development is going to be the same," he said. "You'll have the same number of people no matter what you do. If you have eight units to the acre, you'll be able to fit those people in a smaller area. The only way to increase open space is to increase residential density."
Jonas Beals: 540/368-5036
Email: jbeals@freelancestar.com
--2007 Census of Agriculture and the 2007 National Resources Inventory
Stafford County's A-1 agricultural zoning allows property to be divided into residential lots with a minimum size of 3 acres.
Even the highly urbanized Prince William County has a 10-acre minimum lot size for property zoned A-1.
Loudoun county has myriad rural zoning classifications, one of which requires a minimum lot size of 40 acres when subdividing.
Other counties, such as Fauquier, use complex sliding scales to calculate the maximum number of lots that can be subdivided from a given parcel of agricultural property. Typically, the larger the parcel, the lower the number of lots that can be broken off.
Still other counties, such as Culpeper and Chesterfield, have a minimum lot size requirement but add caveats. In Culpeper, agricultural land can be subdivided into 10-acre parcels, but that can be lowered to 5 acres if the lot has at least 250 feet of frontage on a state-maintained road.
Some Fredericksburg area localities take time into consideration. In Culpeper County's A-1 districts, only two property subdivisions are allowed every five years.
All of these criteria are designed, in part, to preserve open space and rural character while discouraging residential growth. Whether they work in practice is debatable.
--Jonas Beals
In Stafford, 30 acres of environmentally suitable A-1 property can be subdivided by right into a maximum of 10 lots.
In Spotsylvania, by comparison, agricultural zoning requires at least 10 acres per lot. In Spotsylvania, a 30-acre parcel zoned A-3 can be subdivided into only 3 lots.
The most common minimum agricultural lot size in Virginia is 5 acres. In theory, Stafford's 3-acre minimum lot size could spare rural land by using up only 3 acres at a time, rather than 10 or 20. But smaller lots can mean more lots--with more people and traffic requiring infrastructure and county services.
"Minimum lot sizes in A-1 districts are all over the place," said Ted McCormack, director of governmental affairs for the Virginia Association of Counties. He said that in some counties A-1 districts are used as "holding areas" for future growth.
"In terms of the local government toolbox to foster and support agricultural uses," he said, "larger lot zoning in the A-1 districts is one of the tools. A number of jurisdictions have done that."
--Jonas Beals
