Here is the LEC Headquarters.
Looks long-term!
- Front door?
Really says, “Visitors welcome!”
Look, it’s no secret how I feel about the CBPO. I’m in favor of clean water and higher land value due to clean water.
Not that this proves anything one way or another
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About the process, what was the point of all the HOAs voting, and the Stakeholders meeting hours a week over the holidays, if the agreed consensus of the group was going to be ignored in favor of what the PEC wants, ie 100 foot buffers.
What is wrong with 35 foot buffers? ALL of the HOAs wanted 35 feet, except Leisure World and that rep was also the democratic political appointee to Loudoun Water. Why is what the HOAs want (representing tens of thousands of actual residents) less important than what the PEC wants, when the PEC is a special interest group, not a citizen of the County and is primarily funded from outside of the County? Why is the big money in Fauquier more important than the HOAs in Loudoun– to determine Loudoun’s future?
The Stakeholders reached “consensus” — but now that they took the time to work on the Ordinance as the Board wanted, they are being dissed and ignored. The whole group agreed without any objection as to what would be “consensus” and now that is no longer being treated as consensus, since the PEC did not get their way… and the staff is so un-transparent, now they won’t even use the word “consensus” which the moderator pushed on the Stakeholders in the beginning when the Chamber was worried the HOAs would side with the PEC against the “developers”–
If 35 feet is good enough for the EPA and the State, and all but one HOA wanted 35 feet, and there was consensus in the Stakeholder group for 35 feet, why is 100 feet still being pushed? Why won’t this Board do what its citizens want, and why does it ALWAYS defer to the PEC, and the PEC big money?
David, then neither are any of Ms. McGimsey and the PEC’s groups which operate out of the same facilities under any long term commitment or connection to the community, are they?
Goose, gander, and so on.
The dismissive attitude I perceived had in part to do with my mistake that it was your reply in reading that it is wonderful that we can watch all this (yes it is–the fact that we can, but not always what we see!), and if after all this input there may not be any chance for dialogue because some people may just be avoiding the fact that they’re wrong about how good this will be.
David, the problem is not adequately quantified.
Is there any specific plan for doing that (no, but we do “envision” grants to do lots more in the way of regulation)?
There needs to be a lot more discussion of remedies crafted to specific problems with specific solutions that are neither overburdensome nor overexpensive.
Please don’t read that as lazyness and greed, because that in itself is an often dismissive response received from some.
As to a very few staff members, I have issues with the politically active ones who have stayed on the project as a supposedly impartial public instrument.
They shouldn’t be out hawking petitions or fighting with people on blogs, both of which has occurred.
In addition, to have a staff member uniformly tell not only the public but the board that the ordinance MUST be adopted in its entirety if it is to be opted into at all, and then, when an environmental consultant to the stakeholders group (who has helped other counties adopt the ordinance!) said that that was not required, and to them have staff say “well we thought that would be best”…!
That needs some attention.
It was maverick stuff like that that got a senior planning staffer fired a few years back. And by their staff boss in planning, not by the board.
As to stormwater management, how about this for meaningless overreach: if a stormwater pond is simply a stormwater pond (already extensively buffered in our community, and let me tell you with entropy those buffers may be beautiful in the “no distrub” sense, but with the endemic cedar and scrub willow and such in this area, they look like hammered ****), then staff can except it being exempt, but if it is also crafted to be an amenity (even simply visual) it is not.
Gee, if that’s so, why can there be trails in the buffer?
The whole thing has been badly (and in some cases not forthrightly) done, and needs better treatment than simply passing it because it’s “good”.
If it really IS just all about clean water, whether here OR in the bay for which it is named (and occasionally advocated).
Barbara, this is actually helpful. Whether you believe it or not, my interest is in the best possible outcome. I don’t want to see people screwed over because they happened to buy a house that was allowed under flawed setback requirements, or are burdened by some bureaucratic HOA process, or some combination.
I know you weren’t addressing me, but I want to be clear that I am not dismissive of concerns like this. What I’m dismissive of are claims that there is no problem that needs to be solved, threats to “investigate” the staff (who are hired on the basis of their expertise in their fields) for fraud, and the self-serving nonsense from Mr. Delgaudio, who seems pathologically incapable of making even a single factual statement. I will not back down one inch from that, because those people are only trying to monkeywrench the process, not improve it.
Where we seem to agree is that the process has been flawed, and that the problem is more complicated than this one ordinance can address. For one thing, and I’ve written about this before, these engineered stormwater management systems themselves are a big part of the problem. Interestingly, the rep from the Dulles real estate group reports that the developers she’s talked to about it are very receptive to changing those practices to a model that’s sustainable – and they should be, since it would save them money. But how do we fix all the development that’s already been created using these poor practices? It’s not the homeowners fault it was done that way, or that the setbacks are inadequate. Maybe there’s a way to retrofit one part of the problem in a development as a trade-off so that individual homeowners don’t have to be so restricted. That’s the kind of thing we should be talking about, IMO.
Sorry David, I missed that that was Paradox. my previous post is in reply to his of 17:37.
Paradox, mine of 17:55 replies to you.
My mistake.
(and David, I know you and Paradox are two different people)
David, the opportunity for meaningul public input passed some time ago.
The first supposed stakeholder process concluded without any inclusion whatsoever of the HOAs or any community associations representing homeowners, and that was noted to the chair of the planning commission after the very first stakeholder meeting well over one year ago by one of the environmental consultants participating.
The letter saying so is a matter of record.
In response to Planning Commission action (they asked why they were spending time on it if they were not allowed to make any alteration to it, and were told “you serve at the pleasure of the Board. The text was not advertised before the Planning Commission public hearing (also over a year ago) because no opinion is required from the commission on the process the Board and staff selected to run with it.
Paradox raised an interesting point–it should have been treated as zoning, because then there would have been mandatory notification resulting in a much more transparent and inclusive process.
The day before the item went to the Board, the HOAs were invited to an “outreach” session with staff, in case they had any questions.
HOAs are bound by the Property Owners Associations Act, and have a process to be fulfilled by their own corporate boards in taking any community action or position, including the action to participate in what little process made available to them.
Sending out a letter the week the county process is moving forward is quite frankly bull****.
The letter went to a three year out of date list (no excuses there–the state maintains an up to date contact list for all VA HOAs). Ours went to a man who had had two successors since he had served as our general manager, so our Board never got it.
We were not alone.
The first uproar came then.
The response to that uproar engendered the brief reconvened process that occurred in the Tranportation Land Use Com over Thanksgiving and terminating right before Christmas.
Not only an inconvenient time of year for BoS, staff and stakeholders, but again not much time for HOA corporate boards to run their own meeting process to take any official positions.
Yes, we can go to the educational meetings and watch on TV if we don’t want to drive to Leesburg.
But official information has been pretty poor overall, particularly because so much of it was handled on a one-on-one basis, and through informal supposedly educational meetings–one or two to a district.
The process sucked.
But it is pretty much over now except for the voting, so all anyone has (which is almost all they ever has) is their two minutes here and there.
I know this ordinance (or rather perhaps the results you seem convinced that the ordinance will produce) is important to you, but please, throttle back the dismissive attitude.
If it has been fine with you from the get go, and you have therefore not bothered to follow it closely, you have missed a lot.
And so did a lot of people who actually tried to pay attention to it.
I DO find it interesting that we CAN watch how this is being done. As in, it’s quite transparent, with a plethora of opportunities for public input and involvement from myriad local groups (regardless of their provenance).
I assume that the opponents of the CBPO will at least compliment the transparency and thoroughness with which this issue is being addressed by the Board? Or is this a situation where, regardless of the extent of public input and amount of public comment, if the outcome is not what they wish then the process must have been flawed?
Because if that is the case, I fear there actually isn’t room for reasoned debate, because there’s a side that is unwilling to accept that they might be wrong about the best outcome.
Oh, and Jonathan, I looked it up for you:
Airport/landing strip is a special exception/public and institutional use in both AR-1 and AR-2 of the Revised General Plan, with additional regulation for the specific use cited under Section 5-633 of the Revised 1993 Zoning Ordinance.
See the use tables sections 2-100 and 2-200 of the Revised 1993 zoning ordinance for verification.
You might end up with an airstrip literally in your own backyard!
At least it is a SPEX, and not simply “permitted”, eh?
Jonathan, the webcast of the second Tuesday Feb BoS meeting.
The last item before they adjourned, in Committee of the Whole discussion of the CBPO.
David, it may have gone there not because people have supposedly chanted playset, but because that is a fairly innocuous item that has received a lot of pushback from staff.
Bearing in mind that we’re discussing the possibility of a backyard that is on an engineered stormwater management system being retroactively overlaid with rules designed for the equivalent of undeveloped land, and a cumulative 10 X 15 feet total distrubance including wheelbarrow tracks in and out, the land under which temporary stacks of lumber or filldirt is placed, the swingset, doghouse, shed over the life of the property or the Plan, whichever comes first, should it involve a half hour to an hour back and forth with staff before there is any grudging resolution?
You guys NEED to actually watch how this is being done.
I think that this supports my point rather nicely; the creation and repetition of an emotional meme for a political purpose has resulted in the degradation of what needs to be a serious discussion into something ridiculous. Of course supervisors used the word “playsets” repeatedly. How could they not? Isn’t that the demand? And if they did not give serious attention to this exemption, wouldn’t you just accuse them of not listening to you?
Having said that, I tend to agree with you about the 150 sq ft. My question is, how can we elevate the conversation back to where it should be so that those very reasonable criticisms can get a fair hearing?
Where?
David and Jonathan, you might want to go back and watch the webcast of two Board meetings ago when they discussed the 150 sq ft cumulative–the last item before they adjourned.
It was interesting in its contentiousness, and had some people literally arguing against any “disturbance of the land” as wording for the point.
Bear in mind that what was under discussion was specifically suburban lots, on stormwater management systems.
That it involved a cumulative total disturbance and footprint of anything in the yard, including the land “disturbed” by rolling in any pieces, digging out any foundation holes, and so on.
Some didn’t want to exempt literally playsets, and they used that word repeatedly themselves.
It doesn’t take long to accumulate 10 X 15 feet if you want a shed AND a swingset, and neither does it seem (at least to me) to be GREEDY to perhaps want to have the ability to have both. Without going hat in hand to potentially pay a lot of money for a government process, with the delightful recourse of appeal to an unelected review board if you “fail”.
Really, instead of ridiculing people for purporting to want Taj Mahals to play in (or CONFLATING a 150 sq ft cumulative land disturbance on a small lot with a stormwater management system with MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL, of all things), watch the webcast.
Certainly, the lack of a physical address doesn’t prove anything – a lot of organizations do the same. Taken alone, it’s a cheap shot. But it’s not alone. It’s one data point in a growing body of evidence, all of which points to the same conclusion: This is not a group with any long term commitment or connection to our community, and not a group that has any solutions to offer – in fact, not even any interest in solutions.
I’ll say it again: Insisting that there is no problem is a non-starter, and eliminates all credibility.
Just released it.
Actually, it’s quite reasonable to wonder what you folks think a “playset” is, and what is hysterical is speculating about what kind of “playset” could conceivably cause that much land disturbance or involve that much impervious cover. What on earth are you people building?
Obviously, the only reason for mentioning “playsets” at all is that the silly meme was created and repeated ad nauseum. Again, look at the source. I have yet to see a single piece of evidence that would disconfirm my analysis of the exploitation of this issue for electioneering purposes.
playsets playsets playsets playsets playsets playsets
asphalt slabs asphalt slabs asphalt slabs asphalt slabs
tennis courts tennis courts tennis courts tennis courts tennis courts
landing strips landing strips landing strips landing strips landing strips
strip mines strip mines strip mines strip mines strip mines strip mines
mountain top removal mountain top removal mountain top removal
what’s the diff? what’s the diff? what’s the diff? what’s the diff? what’s the diff?
tiptoe through the tulips
NO, in the RPA they are not allowed in the RPA– that is why the Board spent so much time crafting an “exemption” for “play sets” up to 500 sf (still not adopted) — and why Mr. Miller had to critically assess whether someone would try to build something else and “call” it a play set, hence the debate over what is a play set and how big a play set should be…. such a royal waste of time…
Staff said they were not allowed because of impervious cover….bad in the RPA.
Deny it all you want, it is on utube… and hysterical! “I don’t know what a play set is” Stevens Miller famous quote…
Really? You’re going to criticize my husband’s productivity as a lawyer? Unless you’re a client of his, you have no basis to know. And if you’re a constituent of his, it would only be appropriate to criticize His outside productivity if his outside work got in the way of or created a conflict with his elected position.
In any case, Tiptoe, I will not bring down the Hammer of Moderation upon you this time.
Barbara, like I said, a mail drop isn’t proof of anything, and it was, perhaps, a cheap shot.
Enough with the “playsets” zombie lie. It’s ridiculous. The CBPO would not prohibit playsets, period. It wouldn’t prohibit ANYTHING! It just requires mitigation.
As for ad hominem attacks on our elected officials, I think I’ll let them speak for themselves and let the public judge the validity of comments.
Looks like Andrea McGimsey’s “Sidewalks and Cyberspace” to me. Her PEC astroturf alias, remember?
Does she still have a “business” now that she is -sigh- “working”? Scratch that, green parachute, no time clock, job and $$$ handed to her. Those nice people paying her way, so she can continue to push (their) policy.
Where is the Miller green parachute, with people handing Miller money? hmmmm. Miller is a lawyer, just an unproductive one, who can’t seem to read the parts of Ordinances that prohibit play sets… LOL!
I posted a link to Ms. McGimsey’s office as Executive Director of the Climate Prosperity Project–before they removed her from (most of) their website, and then announced their FIRST executive director. It may be held up in the queue because of the link, or I may have simply made a mistake.
It has a photo of the Mail Center over in Sterling.
But she has a documented history of professional astroturfing, so……
Guys, you have better arguments than this, don’t you?
Seriously.
Gee, kind of like Ms. McGimsey’s office for the Climate Prosperity Project?
http://novatownhall.com/2009/12/09/video-of-andrea-mcgimsey-in-delaware-giving-presentation-on-climate-prosperity-project/
When she was briefly their executive director, before they removed her from their website (sort of), and announced their FIRST executive director?
Not that that’s astroturfing…
lol
So then I guess calling them an “astroturf” group is kinda incorrect.
Maybe we should use “cardboard” instead?