By Renss Greene, Loudoun Now

Incumbent Catoctin District Supervisor Caleb E. Kershner (R) and independent challenger John Ellis debated their competing visions for preserving the county’s rural west during a debate Sept. 21 at Hillsboro’s Old Stone School.

Ellis and Kershner fielded questions on a wide variety of topics, but their answers returned tocompeting visions for protecting Loudoun’s farms and green spaces. With the potential for thousands more homes in western Loudoun under current zoning, Ellis argues that the county board should use its zoning authority to restrict development in the west, while Kershner argues for encouraging conservation easements and programs to allow rural landowners to sever and sell the development rights from their land, either to the county government or to eastern developers.

“The main difference between us, between your two candidates here, is that I think the only way that we can ensure that we preserve this area the way we want it—that we keep the traffic from overwhelming our rural roads, that we make it safe, that we preserve our gravel road system, we preserve our farms and things like that—the only way to do that is to reduce the number of houses that you put in new rural subdivisions in western Loudoun,” Ellis said. He pointed to rural zoning in Loudoun which allows more houses than surrounding jurisdictions—“you are allowed to put three times more houses in a cluster subdivision than you can if you’re in the Middleburg area, or in Fauquier, or in Clarke, or in Prince William in their rural areas. Why on earth does Loudoun say, ‘’come here because we'll give you three times more houses for the same acreage?’”

Kershner said a potentially years-long process to change zoning would take too long, and pointed out that a future board could change zoning to allow more development again. He pointed to a recent decision by the Prince William County Board of Supervisors to eliminate its 80,000 acre “rural crescent,” clearing the way for tens of thousands more homes and new commercial development.

“What happened in Prince William should wake every single person in this room, it should shake you to your knees,” Kershner said. “… There is incredible pressure right now to build anywhere and everywhere. So the only way we are going to permanently preserve western Loudoun is not to say, ‘oh, let’s use our zoning ordinance’ and these sorts of things, it is to accelerate preservation programs."

But those programs may rely on the market value of the property, which is typically higher if the land can be sold to a developer to build up. On conservation easements in particular, land buyers have said limiting residential development through zoning, including the push to restrict development on prime agricultural soils, would undermine the tax benefits of setting up conservation easements.

“When Caleb talks about preserving easements, it's important to be aware that when he's talking about is maintaining the highest possible development density in western Loudoun in order to incentivize easements,” Ellis said. “The thing about that is it also incentivizes development,which is the problem.”

But both agreed the county should pursue both Purchase of Development Rights and Transfer of Development Rights programs. The first would allow the county to buy and retire development rights from landowners—both agreed revenues from taxes on data centers should fund that. The second would allow landowners to sell the development potential to residential or potentially commercial or data center developers in other, targeted areas of the county. That may allow increased development density without going through a legislative zoning process.

“Our eastern supervisors have been really resistant to that, because they lose a certain level of control over how data centers are developed,” Kershner said.

“This has been portrayed as a favor that eastern Loudoun does for western Loudoun. It is not,” Ellis said. “It’s something that’s beneficial to the entire county. It helps to reduce our future tax burdens. It preserves an area that lots of people in eastern Loudoun value extremely much.”

Both also agreed that trucks over some length should be restricted on Rt. 9. But the two displayed sharp contrast on plans to widen Rt. 15 north of Leesburg and build a bypass around Lucketts.

“This decision is not going to get reversed, I’m just going to tell you that,” Kershner said. “This project is well down the road. We have spent millions and millions of dollars on this project. I have championed this project. This project was onboard when I came on, and I have accelerated this project.”

“I still don't get how speeding up traffic through a rural area, onto an area that then narrows to two lanes, or opens from two lanes to four lanes, is going to improve traffic safety,” Ellis said. “… I would like to see safety improvements like signage and pull-outs for enforcement and roundabouts that will keep traffic moving safely. The cost is really significant, too.”

The debate was organized by the Coalition of Loudoun Towns in partnership with Loudoun Nowand the Loudoun Times-Mirror. Early voting began Friday.