Make your voice heard – Ask the Board to prioritize your safety and quality of life
This text was taken from an email sent out on March 11, 2026 Sign up for email alerts →
Dear Supporter,
For the last 16 months, my colleagues and I have shared updates about progress on long overdue revisions to zoning ordinance standards for western Loudoun. These standards have a huge impact on residents’ day-to-day lives and how communities grow.
As a representative for The Piedmont Environmental Council, I have spent years participating in the zoning amendment process. In 2021, when the Board of Supervisors decided to split up the Zoning Ordinance Rewrite for Loudoun County and create a separate process to consider zoning changes in western Loudoun, residents accepted it in good faith. They saw it as a genuine opportunity to realize the vision for rural Loudoun laid out in the County’s Comprehensive Plan: a rural community that supports agriculturally-based businesses, while prioritizing safety and quality of life.
Unfortunately, at a Board of Supervisors committee meeting on Jan. 29, representatives from a few of the most influential event-based businesses unexpectedly filled the meeting room. I watched as the committee ignored many of the staff motions intended to address residents’ long-standing concerns and instead, the focus of the discussion shifted towards appeasing event venues, whose priority is their own bottom line.
The critical staff recommendations, which aimed to balance community impacts with business interests, appeared all but forgotten.
Residents Have Been Voicing Concerns For Years
Residential communities dealing with the impacts of event-centered businesses near their homes have long voiced concerns about noise and traffic. They have called for better property line setbacks for event venues next to homes and reasonable limits on event sizes and hours of operation–factors that significantly impact people’s quality of life.
In other words, many families are dealing with an unreasonable amount of traffic and noise from frequent, large events in a part of the county that was never planned to accommodate them. They’ve been asking for a more balanced approach that respects and supports tourism, farms and residents alike.
The recommendations that county staff carefully developed reflected residents’ needs, as well as the full scope of public input since the rewrite process began six years ago. However, on Jan. 29, those concerns were ignored.
Motions passed by the Board’s Transportation & Land Use Board Committee:
We’ve included the most troubling motions below with links to read more details on our website about the specific recommendations, along with helpful talking points to inform your comments to the Board of Supervisors.
- allowing unlimited events with no size limitation for all ABC-licensed businesses (referred to as ‘private parties’ in the motion).
- continuing to waive the agricultural requirement for breweries (Despite their name, farm breweries don’t have to grow their own ingredients or even source locally.)
- allowing later business hours to extend to 10 p.m. on weekdays (which can amplify the impacts of noise and traffic on locals).
- allowing overflow parking in fields next to homes (The increased traffic and noise impacts this causes are exacerbated by the lax property line setback requirements mentioned next.)
- and reducing property line setback requirements to a mere 25 feet (More reasonable setbacks do a lot to help buffer the impacts nearby residents experience from frequent events.)
These motions, passed by the board committee, had little to no input from the public or discussion at the previous stakeholder sessions. Should they end up in the final zoning ordinance, they will do nothing to help improve safety and quality of life for residents, farmers, and small local businesses. Instead, the proposed changes will largely benefit a few influential event-based businesses. The long-standing problems that community members have asked county officials to fix will also continue and, in some instances, will become worse.
To top off this whole debacle, at last week’s 2027 budget meeting, the Board of Supervisors chose to delay funding the positions needed for proactive zoning enforcement, despite a decision by the Transportation and Land Use Committee in January to implement it. The supervisor representing western Loudoun that had pushed for proactive enforcement, is now proposing to kill it in classic backdoor government fashion – by defunding it.
There’s Still Time to Act
The good news is that it’s not over yet! But the window of opportunity to affect these outcomes is slowly closing. The Board will adopt the budget by April 1 and give staff its full direction on the Committee-approved motions in May and June. At that point, the future path will be more or less final, so there’s no time to waste – your action is critical! Now is the time to make your voice heard.
If you share our concerns, speak up now to oppose these motions before they become law. Otherwise, residents will pay the price.
4 Things You Can Do:
1. Submit online comments and send a letter to the Board. Both steps are needed and are the most important things you can do right now.
Post a comment: First, please post a comment expressing your concerns on the Western Loudoun Rural Uses and Standards (WLRUS) county website, which will enter it into the official county record.
*If you previously submitted input on your lived experiences in Western Loudoun, please reference it.
Send a letter: Then, send a letter to the Board directly. This first-hand awareness that people are not happy – and are paying attention – will give them an opportunity to change course. We’ve provided a letter for you to customize and send to the full board with one click.
We encourage you to include your own experiences and specific concerns, as your personal stories are even more impactful with the Board.
2. Attend the TLUC meeting on Wednesday, March 18 at 5 p.m. in the Board Room at the Government Center, 1 Harrison St., SE, Leesburg, VA 20175, where the committee will be giving their final directions to county staff and voting on any outstanding zoning issues. We are joining our partners in encouraging attendees to wear black to show solidarity with your fellow community members.
→ Check the meeting page on the Loudoun County government website on Thursday evening or Friday to view both the agenda and the meeting.
Note: It may not be possible for members of the public to speak at this working session, but it helps for the committee to see interest from the community. You are welcome to bring signs, but as a reminder, yelling and other disruptions are not permitted.
3. Attend (and speak) at the full Board Meetings in May and June.
This is when the Board will give staff its final direction on all of the TLUC committee recommendations to date – prior to staff drafting language to support and implement these damaging policies. Again, we are encouraging participants to wear black in a show of solidarity.
→ You can speak during the public comment portion of the full board meetings. If you plan to speak, please sign up in advance here.
There are additional speaking opportunities at the regular board meetings on March 17, April 7 and April 21. While this item will not be on the agenda for these meetings, there is substantial time for public comment at the beginning of the meeting on any topic.
We will share the specifics and dates of the May and June Board meetings with you when we have them, and you can also check the committee website for updates.
4. Share this webpage with your friends and neighbors and encourage them to take these four actions. The more members of the western Loudoun community know about this, the more members can weigh in, and the louder our collective voice will be.
What’s a Zoning Ordinance?
While the comprehensive plan serves as a guide, the zoning ordinance actually dictates how land is to be used. The zoning ordinance expressly states what landowners are and are not allowed to do with their property, with greater specificity and enforcement, according to the zoning district in which the property is located. It also specifies how natural resources and historic resources are protected. Zoning districts specify the types of land uses allowed in a given area, such as conservation, agricultural, residential, business, mixed or industrial uses.
The western Loudoun portion of Loudoun’s ordinance has not been fully updated for more than 20 years and does not reflect the impacts to residents and small businesses of the influx of newer, event-centered businesses to western Loudoun.
Originally part of the 2023 Zoning Ordinance Update, the Western Loudoun Rural Uses and Standards (WLRUS) review has been carried out in a series of meetings with a select and limited group of residents, farmers and business owners and the Transportation & Land Use Committee (TLUC). The purpose of those meetings was to discuss the issues and respond to questions from staff in preparation for drafting new language for the ordinance.
Details on How the Committee Voted
We have many more details specifically about how the committee voted, as well as talking points for you to use when voicing your concerns with the adopted motions. We encourage you to read more below to gain a more complete understanding of the implications and to plan your remarks to the Board. As a resident of western Loudoun, you will be directly affected by what ends up in the final zoning ordinance.
- Unlimited Private Events: Their adopted motion would allow unlimited private events – with no guest limits – for all ABC-licensed businesses, regardless of parcel size, road conditions, safety permits, building code inspections, or actual permitted use in county records. These facilities already create significant negative offsite impacts for many of our residents – and may pose safety risks for visitors as well – and yet, this unvetted proposal was neither discussed in a stakeholder group nor were residents given an opportunity to comment or weigh in.
- Waiver of the Agricultural Production Requirement for Breweries: The committee’s adopted motion would waive all agricultural production requirements and enforcement for breweries, despite explicit state requirements for onsite production of ingredients and a comprehensive plan that prioritizes agriculture first for all western Loudoun businesses. Board members were swayed by false claims that ingredients used in beer cannot be grown in Virginia, despite the fact that many Loudoun farmers grow the barley, small grains, apples, rye and many other fruits that are often used in craft beers.
- Inadequate Setbacks: The committee’s adopted motion would allow a minimum setback of just 25 feet from neighboring property lines for outdoor party areas, at both ABC-licensed venues and overnight stay venues. Instead of setting a larger standardized distance for all businesses, this decision actually expands the current weak standard, putting large-scale events with alcohol consumption within a frisbee’s throw of backyards where children play, in what is supposed to be a rural residential area. This creates significant quality of life and safety issues for residents with families and dogs in their yards and patrons of these businesses.
- Extended Hours of Operation: The committee adoptedlate night closing times for ABC-licensed businesses: 11 p.m. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday. PEC had suggested 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday as being more respectful to nearby residents because these events often are noisy and include lighting. Loud music, bands and festivities, and cars parking and pulling out can all be very impactful to nearby residents, especially with such lax setback standards.
- Unlimited Private Party Size: The committee adopted an unlimited size for private parties for all overnight stay venues, regardless of room number or facility size. The new limit endorsed by TLUC is up to 25 events with no attendance limits per year, in addition to daily private events at their tiered size limitations.
- Overflow Parking in Fields: The committee voted to endorse the Visit Loudoun motion to allow overflow parking in fields. Per proper planning process, staff had proposed a formula for required parking that considered outdoor and party spaces in addition to indoor building size. This would have 1) regulated the number of cars that can safely be onsite based on a particular parcel’s size, and 2) addressed longstanding safety issues associated with large numbers of cars traveling and parking on gravel roads, as many residents have observed.
→ Many of the motions approved at the Jan. 29 meeting, particularly the motion for unlimited events (aka, “private parties”), were proposed by commercial interests and had never been disclosed or discussed in public prior to the vote.
- Reduced Environmental Protections for the Mountainside*: The Mountainside Overlay District (MOD) encompasses sensitive mountainside areas characterized by steep slopes, forests, groundwater recharge areas, etc.
The adopted motions reduce the 300-foot setback fromSpring and Ridgeline features to 100 feet; permit unmonitored paving repairs, introducing a potential new loophole to expand impervious cover and increase runoff; and allow structures up to 600 square feet (20 feet x 30 feet of garage space), with no county oversight.
* These motions were discussed and made at the Jan. 22 committee meeting. In addition, supervisors altogether ignored residents’ long-standing call for restrictions on future commercial development on the mountainside.
Thank you for your continued engagement on this critical issue. I know this is a lot of information, but we hope it is useful for understanding how these decisions that are being made now will affect the future of western Loudoun, and how your input can help to shape it. Please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions. I look forward to seeing you at the committee meeting on March 18.
Sincerely,
Tia Earman
Senior Land Use Field Representative
Loudoun and Clarke Counties
[email protected]
