And that's where it ends. That's where it always ends.
"The county's policies have also been clear," Rappahannock County Administrator John McCarthy said. "On the other side of the fence (for developers) they've been notorious. I think a lot of those debates don't happen because people know what the answer is."
Let's say you want to build a house, and you're choosing between two counties - Culpeper and Rappahannock - to build it in. Up to 90 percent of the land in both is zoned for agriculture and rural areas. But there's a difference between the two.
In Culpeper, you can only build a single home for every three to 10 acres of agricultural land. By contrast, Rappahannock code allows for only one house per 25 acres. In certain areas, the uneven elevation means even less than that.
That means developers have little chance of recouping their investment in Rappahannock. Theoretically, the local supervisors could rezone the property to allow more housing. But they seldom do.
"You could not run for election in this county on the 'let's open the county to development' platform," McCarthy said. "It won't sell. Whether you've been here for five generations or five months, people generally agree."
How do you build a house in Rappahannock? Quite simply, you don't.
Years after a housing boom hit the Piedmont region, Rappahannock has barely changed. The county has no fast food joint, no big box stores, no Wal-Mart and no supermarket. It remains one of two counties in Virginia without a stoplight.
"I think it's scary to us to see that (growth) happening to Culpeper and other counties," Rappahannock League for Environmental Protection President Paul Farmer said. "One of the reasons some people come here is because Rappahannock wasn't subject to the extreme growth the surrounding areas are experiencing."
The Piedmont region endured a population increase that began sometime around 2001. Faced with high homes prices in Northern Virginia, many Fairfax-area residents moved south to more rural areas.
Developers met the demand, and build huge subdivisions for the Northern Virginia refugees. In the process, many counties experienced the most rapid growth in their history.
Culpeper grew approximately 22 percent between 2000 and 2006, making it the region's fastest-growing county, according to the Rappahannock-Rapidan Regional Commission. Orange County ranks second, followed by Fauquier and Madison.
Those estimates show that Rappahannock's population actually decreased.
McCarthy disputed the RRRC numbers, and claimed that Rappahannock's actual population stood at 7,100. If true, that means the county grew by 1 percent since 2000 - still far below its neighbors. The county could even double its growth rate, without much change.
Development once tried entering Rappahannock, said McCarthy. Several developers in the late 1950s divided land into smaller parcels in the Chester Gap area, close to the Warren County line. Presumably, they would soon sell them off to developers.
"Developers were beginning to discover that this county was ripe for subdivisions and started to do it," Piedmont Environmental Council co-founder Phil Irwin said. "And it was not done in what we might call responsible manner."
That resulted in Rappahannock's famous zoning. County government adopted the first subdisivion and zoning regulations in 1962, then substantially revised them in 1972 and 1976.
"It's a real interesting phenomenon," Farmer said. "You've got various segments, and yet they seem to share this idea, large extent stay like it's been. We have people whose families have been here for generations that feel that way. Others, once they came here, felt the same way."
But to McCarthy, that's beside the point. It's Rappahannock's lack of a major road - more than the zoning - that kept the growth at bay.
Fauquier has Routes 66 and 29, Culpeper has Routes 29 and 3. Rappahannock has Route 211 - important for the locals, but not nearly as efficient. And potential commuters must drive through more developed communities, meaning an even longer morning drive.
"A lot of people say Rappahannock is elitist, that it basically wants all the benefits of being in Northern Virginia but doesn't want the costs by having housing," McCarthy said. "But why would someone commit to an extra 45 minutes on their commute?
"There are plenty of those who would throw themselves in front of the bulldozers, but why would the bulldozers come here?" McCarthy asked.
The tremendous growth in Culpeper and Fauquier likewise protected Rappahannock from development, said the administrator. With new homes readily available in Fauquier and Culpeper, potential homeowners had little reason to search the whole region.
But the locals can see things changing before too long.
Many Rappahannock residents are past their child-bearing years, said McCarthy. As a result, county citizens are typically older than others in the Piedmont region, which is older than the state average to begin with. Last year Rappahannock's school population even dropped by 5 percent.
With an aging population comes a need for more services, among them more emergency medical staff and adult day care providers. Such services need workers.
"I'd love if our population growth doubled," McCarthy said. "I'd love it if we approved 5 or 10-lot subdivisons around out villages, so we can have that mix of community. Any community that is developing entirely on one track, or isn't developing at all, is headed for a problem."
Also concerning is Lane Industries, a Chicago-based company that owns about 8,000 acres around Woodville. Talk of a resort community or retirement center emerges from time to time, but nothing concrete.
Other disagree that growth will come at all.
"We don't have to accept the inevitability of growth," Farmer said. "We've got an opportunity as one of the few places to set an example of how to do it better, how to organize our lives and space in a way that makes sense."
In the meantime, Rappahannock's only issue could be its reputation.
McCarthy noted that a Virginia tech professor recently accused Clark and Rappahannock counties of elitism, and claimed that other localities had to take the growth they had refused.
"Winchester's developing because it's on 66 and 81, because it's on Route 50, because it's a transportation hub," McCarthy said. "It was transportation hub in the Civil War, the damn place changed hands 12 times during the War. Rappahannock is in the proverbial sticks.
"Why you should blame Clark for wanting to stay like it is completely escapes me," Mccarthy said. "It's not what they're about, it's not what we're about. If you can do it, do it. But if you can't, why get in that game?"
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You may contact Jason Peck at 825-9882 or e-mail jpeck@timespapers.com
