Defend the Blue Ridge #3 Definition

Dear Friends of the Blue Ridge Mountains,

Loudoun County is in the process of writing a new zoning ordinance. A part of the new ordinance sets regulations for development in the Blue Ridge Mountains. In the ordinance this is known as the Mountain Development Overlay District (MDOD) and the regulations are in Section 4.04.

What can you do?

The draft zoning ordinance is open for public comment until July 18^th. FBRM as an organization has already submitted detailed information about our concerns: click here to view.

Now the county needs to hear directly from its citizens – directly from you.

How do you take action?

FBRM has strong concerns about 4 areas of the ordinance we’ll address over 4 weeks:

1. Inadequate enforcement in the MDOD
2. The uses that would be permitted in the MDOD are inappropriate for the mountain environment
3. The definition of the MDOD
4.  The criteria used to evaluate proposed development in the MDOD

This week’s instructions apply to 3) the definition of the MDOD. We will provide detailed instructions on the other three areas of concern in other emails.

There are four steps to objecting to the proposed narrow definition of the mountain environment.

STEP #1 — Review the following FBRM comments:

Section 4.04 B.1. a. Applicability: Both the current and the proposed Zoning Ordinance defines the Mountain Development Overlay District (MDOD) on the basis of soil types and steep slopes. The definition is too narrow in that it fails to consider a mountain as one interconnected whole. Defining the MDOD by soil type and steep slopes would result in a patchwork district that would not cover the entire area of a mountain. The MDOD must be defined so as to protect the entire mountain from inappropriate development and use

• FBRM Recommendation — This draft Zoning Ordinance should be revised to define the MDOD geographically.  FBRM recommends:
  • that the entirety of the elevated terrain above that boundary should be included in the MDOD.
  • that this MDOD’s boundary should be defined to follow around the base of the mountain; and
  • that there should be only one MDOD that includes the entirety of any mountain.

FBRM recommends that a mountain’s base be defined as that encompassing line where the surface slope at a mountain’s base first exceeds 8%.  [Generally, this 8% slope boundary can be obtained from USDA soil type maps.]

This definition will result in a clearly defined, contiguous MDOD that overlies the entire mountain region, above where the flat or undulating land at its base first steepens to form the elevated mountainous terrain.

STEP #2 – Copy and paste FBRM’s comments from this document into a new word document so that you can easily make changes in the wording.

Make changes to the wording to make your comments unique – the Zoning Department counts identical comments submitted as one comment.

When you have re-worded FBRM’s comments to your satisfaction save the document so that you can paste it into the text of the draft zoning ordinance as will be explained in Step #4.

Step #3 – Go to the submit comment section of the draft ordinance.

1. Click here to view the Zoning Ordinance
2. This will take you to the entire draft Zoning Ordinance. On the left of the page is the table of contents.
3. In the Table of Contents, click on Chapter 11 – Definitions and Rules of Interpretation
4. Under Definitions and Rules of Interpretation click on 11.03 – Definitions
5. Under Definitions click on M
6. Under M click on MDOD
7. Once at MDOD, click the vertical comments tab on the left

Step # 4 – Fill out your name and email address on the form.

Copy the comments on MDOD definition – as you have re-worded it — into the comment section. Hit submit.

Congratulations you are done! You have now officially and formally submitted your comments on the definition of the MDOD.

Instructions on how to comment on the other sections of the MDOD regulations that are of concern to FBRM are contained in other emails from us.

Questions?  Email us at info@friendsofblueridge.org

Thanks so much for making this effort to protect the Blue Ridge!

Peter Weeks
President, Friends of the Blue Ridge Mountains