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A developer wants the county to approve land-use plan changes to allow construction of more than 14,000 houses plus commercial space on four sites over 4,200 acres along U.S. 50 in south Loudoun.
To sweeten the request, Greenvest L.C. of Vienna proposes doing major road improvements, building six schools and offering sites for a hospital and a park, at an estimated cost of more than $500 million.
A big selling point, said Greenvest's Packie Crown, is inclusion of what is being called "workforce housing" for middle-income workers struggling to find housing in Loudoun. It also will include affordable housing for low-income residents. If approved, the first units would be completed in 2008.
The proposal was submitted to the county for review. It will face intense public scrutiny through the zoning hearing process. Ultimately, the Board of Supervisors must approve it.
The proposal would upend one of the jewels of the county's land-use plan crafted by the last Board of Supervisors.
It would load development on four tracts in a "transition" area, designed as a low-density buffer between dense suburban-style development and rural open space. The transition-area rules limit development to a minimum of one house per acre. Some of Greenvest's parcels are zoned one house for three acres
Greenvest wants the county to approve an average of 3.5 houses per acre.
Crown said the county must approve the heavier development or the projects won't happen. "We do need the critical mass [of housing] to make it work," Crown said. "The cost is so high."
The project includes some 477 acres around Arcola once held by one of the leading critics of the county's land-use policy, Jack Shockey of Aldie. He has sold four parcels to Greenvest for an undisclosed sum and is listed as a co-applicant on two tracts.
Greenvest's projects are:
Arcola – 583 acres with 623 single-family detached
units, 561 attached units and 681 multifamily units, plus 280,000
square feet for a hospital, medical office and commercial space
plus an elementary school.
Broad Run Village – 1,132 acres mostly age-restricted
housing in 1,617 single-family detached units, 1,435 attached
units and 1,578 multifamily units and about 120,000 square feet
of commercial space plus a golf course and a school.
Lenah and Greenfields – straddling Braddock Road (now
unpaved), over 2,451 acres that would include 3,525 single-family
detached units, 2,098 attached units, 1,944 multifamily units
plus 394,000 square feet of commercial space. The sites would
have four schools, a town center with government buildings and
a 450-acre regional park.
One surprise was a potential site for a hospital. It is "within
the cone," Crown said, of a hospital site included in a
plan the county is now reviewing.
Loudoun Healthcare spokesman Tony Raker said "there have
been discussions" with Greenvest to donate a 50-acre site
for a hospital.
"The developer recognizes the need for health care services
along U.S. 50," Raker said.
To serve those developments, Greenvest will undertake major
road work, including widening a stretch of U.S. 50, relocating
and widening Route 659 from its intersection with Evergreen
Mill Road at Arcola to the county line with an overpass at U.S.
50, paving a section of Braddock Road, building the Lenah Connector
at Route 600 and U.S. 50.
To pay the estimated $250 million for roads and $250 million
for schools, Greenvest will create a Community Development Authority
to issue bonds, backed by the developer.
The projects will be connected to water and sewer lines operated
by the Loudoun County Sanitation Authority.
The projects will undergo the county's zoning review and amendment
process and must be approved by the Board of Supervisors.
Also Tuesday, Toll Bros. filed for land-use plan changes on
a U.S. 50 property called Westport, adjacent to Greenvest's
properties south of the highway. Details were not available.
-Washington Business Journal, Tuesday, August 31, 2004
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