originally published in
The Free Lance-Star, July 1, 2001

Miss Amissville, Samantha Smoot, waves to the crowd during the Fireman's Parade and Carnival in Flint Hill. The fund-raising event has been a Rappahannock County fixture since 1966.   Eddie Williams of Williams Orchard in Flint Hill mows the apple orchard. The farm sells peaches and apples to visitors in the summer and fall. It's one of the oldest farms in operation in the county.   Looking west from U.S. 211 at Ben Venue, travelers get a breathtaking view of Rappahannock County with the Blue Ridge Mountains in the background. The houses are three of the few existing brick slave quarters in the country.   Longtime Rappahannock County official Newbill Miller helped enact the 1962 zoning ordinance that has helped keep the county rural. More cows than people live in the county. The law limits high-density development to a few village centers.

By DONNIE JOHNSTON
Date published: Sun, 07/01/2001

Midway between Amissville and Ben Venue, motorists heading west on U.S. 211 crest a low mountain and are suddenly struck by a spectacular view that all but takes their breath away.

Before them lie thousands of acres of beautiful farmland framed by the majesty of the Blue Ridge Mountains and intersected only by the highway on which they travel.

This is arguably the most beautiful spot in Rappahannock County, the place where travelers from the Washington suburbs gasp and exclaim, "This is where I want to live."

Most, however, will find the dream of living in the last truly rural area within 50 miles of the Capital Beltway an unattainable goal.

For all practical purposes, Rappahannock is a closed county. Its leaders saw growth coming almost four decades ago and took measures to stop it at their doorstep.

Twice during the intervening years, zoning laws have been tightened. Now 25 acres are required to build a home in all but the few village areas of the county.

The effects of such stringent laws have been dramatic. While counties such as Spotsylvania and Stafford--approximately the same distance from Washington--saw population increases of more than 50 percent between 1990 and 2000, Rappahannock grew by only 15.7 percent.

And while Stafford and Spotsylvania are each closing in on 100,000 in population, census figures show that fewer than 7,000 people live in Rappahannock.

It is a county without a single stoplight, fast-food franchise, airport, shopping center or supermarket. Rappahannock's schools are not crowded and its crime rate is the lowest in the state.

Its largest industry is farming and 92 percent of its land is either zoned agricultural or is part of a state conservation program. And there hasn't been a small subdivision built in the county in eight years.

Rappahannock is truly the last unspoiled county in Northern Virginia, and the vast majority of its residents would like to keep it that way.

But is that possible? On a clear day, an observer with binoculars can see the Washington Monument from some of the high spots in Rappahannock. Can a county that close to one of the largest metropolitan areas on the East Coast logically expect to escape suburban sprawl forever?

Can those developers who congregate along the fringes of the county and lick their chops at the prospect of opening up virgin territory to small-acreage subdivisions be held at bay indefinitely?

Most Rappahannock residents hope so, but some admit that changing times are making it more and more difficult to keep the county the way they want it.

And they concede that zoning laws are only as tough as the officials who enact them.

As one official put it, "With a five-man board of supervisors, we are always just three votes away from opening up the county."

While counties such as Stafford are attempting to slow residential growth, Rappahannock never let it get started.

Leaders there began to get an inkling of the future in the late 1950s, when two subdivisions were created at the high-mountain community of Chester Gap near the Warren County line.

Blue Ridge Mountain Estates, originally marketed as vacation properties, began selling 60- by 120-foot lots beginning in 1956. Within a few years, about 440 had been bought.

Another 70 lots near Chester Gap were created and sold in 1958 as the Skyverge subdivision began to take shape.

Newbill Miller, who has served Rappahannock County most of his adult life in a number of different capacities, says problems at Chester Gap became evident from the beginning.

"There was no suitable situation for septic systems on some of the lots and they put in roads--some were just trails--that the state would not take over because they were not built to [Virginia Department of Transportation] standards," Miller says.

Watching subdivisions pop up with alarming regularity in neighboring Culpeper, Fauquier and Warren counties, Miller and several other county leaders decided it was time to act.

In 1962, far in advance of many other area jurisdictions, the Board of Supervisors enacted the county's first zoning laws.

Both Miller, who was on the county's first Planning Commission, and Pete Estes, current Board of Supervisors chairman, credit the late George Davis with forging a zoning ordinance that would protect the county.

"He worked on that ordinance day in and day out," Estes says of the local lawyer's efforts. "George Davis was the biggest promoter of that 1962 zoning ordinance."

Once the ordinance was written, its backers secured the blessing of Sperryville lawyer Jim Bill Fletcher--at that time the undisputed political leader in Rappahannock--and passage was a foregone conclusion.

County Zoning Administrator John McCarthy admits that all the 1962 ordinance really did was restrict high-density development to village centers and set minimum standards for construction in agricultural zones.

But it required all subdivisions to be approved by county officials and informed developers that they had obligations to meet before they could chop large farms up into small lots.

"That ordinance was the key to our whole situation," Estes says.

But Rappahannock was not finished. When the next wave of migration to the country began in 1973, officials tightened the restrictions even more.

A new ordinance dictated that no more that five five-acre lots could be created from any parcel of land in an agricultural zone.

That law slowed growth dramatically. And an even tougher 1986 ordinance just about stopped it in its tracks.

The same year the final section of U.S. 211 between Warrenton and Sperryville became four lanes, Rappahannock officials decided to all but close the county gates.

Understanding the implications of having a four-lane highway stretching all the way to the nation's capital, supervisors voted to require that building lots be 25 acres or more in size except around village centers.

And since only one village center in the county (Washington, Va., known as "Little Washington") is incorporated, supervisors would still have the final say when it came to proposed developments, even in established communities.

Steep terrain, flood plains and existing ponds on farmland were cited in the 1986 ordinance as reasons why some lots had to exceed even the 25-acre minimum.

And every lot had to be served by a road that was either already state-maintained or up to VDOT standards.

It was a tough law--one that outside developers have thus far been unable to crack. And to the amazement of many, county residents overwhelmingly backed the strict zoning plan.

That support continues to this day. Between the large landowners--some farms have been in the same family for seven generations--who want to keep Rappahannock agricultural and the mostly affluent newcomers who move to the county for peace and quiet, there are few who would even suggest relaxing zoning restrictions.

Tough zoning "is the one thing almost everyone in Rappahannock agrees on," McCarthy says. "Not many people come to Rappahannock to live in a subdivision."