Casting Off the Reins of Tyranny

Loudoun County, Virginia residents who are opposed to the "fast growth" zoning ordinances scheduled to go into effect soon have come up with a way to stop the process - form a new county that requires more acreage per new development. "Just as the Founding Fathers freed themselves from the yoke of the British, this is a similar effort," said Robert W. Lazaro Jr., an aide to county board Chairman Scott K. York (I) and member of the town council in the western Loudoun community of Purcellville. Growth control activists, residing mostly in the western part of the county, have even decided on the name of their new jurisdiction - Catoctin County, a reference to the local mountain range. In dispute is the recent ruling by the Virginia Supreme Court that lowers required acreage surrounding new development from up twenty acres to three. "If the Virginia Supreme Court won't help us, and the Virginia legislature won't help us and the local legislature won't help us, we've got to help ourselves," said Purcellville resident David Eno. "We're darn well sick and tired of being bullied by the developers and the big money."

Thanks to Peter Buryk