Loudoun Supervisors Approve Prime Farmland Preservation Ordinance

Supervisors on Wednesday approved a Zoning Ordinance amendment with the goal of preserving the county’s prime agricultural soils and regulating rural cluster subdivisions after 40 community members spoke both supporting and opposing the change.

The project started in 2020 amid concerns that the goals of the cluster ordinance to create larger out lots for rural economy purposes were largely unmet. The lots were often unusable for farming because they are located on steep slopes, wetlands or poor soils, critics said.

The adopted revisions will apply to properties with at least five acres of prime soils, requiring that at least 70% of those soils be preserved in agricultural lots. According to the county planning staff’s research, 705 parcels covering 54,000 acres meet that criteria and the proposed regulations would protect 12,250 acres of prime soil. 

Credit: Hanna Pampaloni/Loudoun Now

During Wednesday night’s meeting, County Chair Phyllis J. Randall (D-At Large) unsuccessfully made a motion to increase the five-acre trigger to 10 acres. Supervisor Laura A. TeKrony (D-Little River) succeeded with an amendment to reduce that number back to five acres.

“Our objective is to preserve prime agricultural soils and it meets the 2019 Comprehensive Plan objective,” TeKrony said. “… We save more prime land, prime soils than we do with 10 noncontiguous acres. We save an additional 194 parcels and an additional 1,450 acres of prime agricultural soils.”

Many of the county’s small farm owners spoke in support of adopting the amendment, specifically mentioning the five-acre trigger.

Read more at Loudoun Now Thanks to Hanna Pampaloni for the coverage.