This text was taken from an email alert sent out on Oct. 1, 2024. Sign up for email alerts →

Dear Supporter,

Farmland is being lost to sprawl across Virginia, but rural areas like in Orange County, situated between rapidly growing Fredericksburg and Culpeper, are especially vulnerable. Orange County’s Planning Commission is attempting to slow down development by placing limitations on those subdivisions that don’t require public or legislative input. These are known as “by-right” projects. 

We hope you’ll join us in supporting the proposed zoning amendment by voicing your support in person this Thursday, Oct. 3 or in writing with an email to: [email protected]. 

Why It Matters

The proposed amendment would bring Orange County’s policy more in-line with neighboring counties. It would delay, if not reduce, development impacts that many small residential lots have on rural areas where there are no services. It would also strike a reasonable balance between protecting productive farmland and protecting property rights: landowners who wish to divide more than is allowed by-right would still be able to apply for a special use permit or rezoning to accomplish their goal, while giving the community the chance to consider the various community impacts noted below.

Current Guidelines are Too Permissive

Currently, land in the county’s agricultural district can be unlimitedly divided into lots as small as two acres by-right, without public or legislative input. The proposed amendment would limit the number of divisions to four within a 10-year period. Orange County’s current rules for subdividing rural land are too permissive and invite the following problems:

• Stimulates sprawl: Developers are incentivized to speculatively buy undeveloped rural land, which often includes areas of prime agricultural soils, wildlife habitat and tree cover, and convert it into car-dependent, single family homes on large lots. This, in turn, creates the need and cost to expand County services like schools, water and public safety.
• Intensifies the conversion of farmland: In American Farmland Trust’s “Farms Under Threat” study, “poorly planned development and low-density residential sprawl” were found to continually “rapidly convert farmland. Low-density residential land use includes scattered subdivisions and large-lot housing, which fragment the agricultural land base and limit production, marketing, and management options for the working farms that remain.”
• Strains groundwater resources: In areas without existing public services, new homes mean new wells drawing out more water from our already limited groundwater resources.

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By itself, a timed delay on the number of lots is not a long-term solution. Ensuring agricultural viability in Orange County would involve introducing protections for prime agricultural soils or increasing the two-acre minimum lot size so that rural parcels remain large enough to farm. But the Commission’s proposed amendment is an important step in the right direction, and we urge you and the people you share this email with to support it. 

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out, and I hope to see you at the Planning Commission meeting on Oct. 3.

Sincerely,

Don McCown 
Land Use Field Representative 
Orange & Madison Counties
[email protected] 
(434) 977-2033 x7047