On Monday, May 10th, 2010 the Loudoun Board of Supervisors will hold a public hearing on Kincora's request to rezone their property near the intersection of Rt. 28 and Rt. 7

The developer wants the County to approve 1,400 multi-family units and an additional 3.7 million sq. ft. of office and other uses (nearly 4x the amount already approved). This makes absolutely no sense given current vacancy rates and what we know about the glut of development already in the pipeline.

In exchange for approval, Kincora is promising to complete Gloucester Parkway and Pacific Boulevard. But as outlined below, these are just promises, and the known costs well exceed the potential benefits.

Urge Loudoun not to continue saddling residents with the long-term costs of poorly planned growth. Ask the Board to Deny Kincora's Rezoning

Consider these facts about Kincora's proposal:

• The school system estimates that the students from the 1,400 unit development would generate an unanticipated capital cost of roughly $13 million and annual operating costs of over $4.37 million. More boundary line adjustments would be needed, and our roads would get an additional 14,000 unplanned vehicle trips per day.
  
  
• County staff estimate the capital facilities required by residents of Kincora to cost upwards of $33 million. However, the developer's proffers fall short of that number, and are directed almost entirely towards road building, leaving Loudoun residents to foot the bill for schools and other facilities.
  
  
• In order to entice the County into approval, the developer is promising to complete Gloucester Parkway and Pacific Boulevard through one of two mutually exclusive funding schemes:
  
  1) The developer would promise to pay. However the "trigger" for Pacific Boulevard wouldn't come until 57% of the residential units or 35% of the non-residential uses are built. For Gloucester Parkway the trigger comes even later, after all 1,400 residential units are built or after 74% of the non-residential uses are complete.
  
  2) Under the second proposal the developer would use Community Development Authority (CDA) bonds -better known as "dirt bonds"- to fund the roads. CDA bonds that include residential are risky and particularly vulnerable to default. The County's bond rating agencies have stated emphatically that they would expect the County to step in to repay the bonds should the developer default.
  
  
• The developer argues that the addition of housing is necessary to appeal to high end office users. However, within one mile of the Kincora proposal, there are already over 10,000 residential units either built or approved but unbuilt due to the lack of demand.
  
  
• The developer is proposing an additional 3.7 million sq. ft. of office space and other commercial uses (for context, Verizon's campus is just under 2 million). This is unnecessary, given that Loudoun's Rt. 28 Corridor has over 2 million sq. ft. of office standing vacant, and 13 million sq. ft. approved but unbuilt.

All of this information is available on the Loudoun Online Land Applications Map. To find it, you have to use the "searchable list" link, and then search for "Kincora Village". The information about approved but unbuilt development can be found in the County's 2008 Annual Growth Summary.

Attend the Public Hearing or Send an Email Today 

The traditional exchange of "housing approvals for roads" has not worked so well for Loudoun residents, buying us more development than we can afford, with roads that are promised but delivered late, if at all. How about transportation solutions that don't also require taxpayers to foot the bill for more growth?

Please join us in speaking out at the public hearing on Monday, May 10, at 6:30pm in the County Government Center, 1 Harrison St., Board of Supervisors Meeting Room. If you can't attend in person, send an email to the Board today!