LOUDOUN COUNTY’S COMMUNITY-OWNED NEWS SOURCE
LoudounNow
[ Vol. 4, No. 21 ]
[ loudounnow.com ]
■ PUBLIC AND LEGAL NOTICES - PAGE 34 ■ EMPLOYMENT PAGE 40
■ RESOURCE DIRECTORY PAGE 41 [ April 18, 2019 ]
County’s Farmland Loss Accelerating BY RENSS GREENE
law. Liz Whiting, the town attorney for Hillsboro and Lovettsville, said towns often have redundant ordinances because offenders can be charged and convicted of the local ordinance and required to pay their fine to the town, rather than the county. One of Round Hill’s copycat ordinances makes it unlawful to “frequent, reside in or at or visit, for immoral purposes, any bawdy place,” with “bawdy place” defined as any place used “for lewdness, assignation or prostitution.” Another Round Hill ordinance makes it unlawful to sell tobacco products to minors under the age of 16. That not only mirrors state law, but it’s also clearly outdated. Virginia law made it illegal to sell tobacco products to those under the age
A press release from Loudoun County government last week celebrated a U.S. Department of Agriculture census that found Loudoun led the state in the production of grapes, hops, honey, alpacas and llamas, and having the most minority farmers. “The Board of Supervisors have made it a priority to preserve our farmland and support those who are putting their land to great use,” stated County Chairwoman Phyllis J. Randall (D-At Large). “It’s gratifying to see that those efforts are paying off with another positive report on agbased economy in the county.” But a look at the report shows farmland in Loudoun is disappearing—and more quickly than before. From 2012 to 2017, Loudoun lost 137 farms and 12,860 acres of farmland—20 square miles, a loss of 9.5 percent of Loudoun’s farmland. That’s faster than the 6 percent drop statewide, and nearly twice the rate of decline during the previous five-year period. The USDA’s 2012 Census of Agriculture found 1,396 farms in Loudoun with 134,792 acres of farmland. Five years later in 2017, those figures were down to 1,259 farms and 121,932 acres. Between 2007 to 2012, Loudoun lost 7,660 acres, about 5.4 percent of its farmland. Only 31 farms shuttered in that time. “Losing 10 percent of your farmland every five years—there’s only one way that ends up,” said Loudoun County Farm Bureau president Chris Van Vlack. He said as Loudoun loses farmland, it is approaching a point where farmers will no longer be able to find the support services they need to keep farming. “Folks that are serious about farming are finding ways to utilize the acreage they have, but that will only work up to a certain point,” Van Vlack said. “You have to have enough critical mass to make it feasible for all of the various service providers to operate in the area.” He gave an example from his own small farm near Lovettsville—he can no longer find a local business to provide agricultural lime, an essential tool to adjust pH lev-
ORDINANCES >> 47
FARMLAND >> 34
Patrick Szabo/Loudoun Now
Leesburg Mayor Kelly Burk reads through the 1813 town ordinance book in the Thomas Balch Library. Most of the ordinances listed there have either been rescinded or amended to conform with modern times.
Hitching Posts, Stone Throwing and Chaste Women
Our Towns’ Little Known, Little Enforced Laws BY PATRICK SZABO No fireworks in Hillsboro? No riding horses on Hunt Country sidewalks? No speaking ill of Purcellville’s women? Those are among the crimes still listed in the ordinance books and town charters of Loudoun’s municipalities, some dating back more than a century. While some are simply outdated, others might seem unnecessarily arbitrary in the modern world. Some of the most antiquated ordinances that are still in place today come from the Town of Hillsboro. In the times when horseback riding was the leading means of transportation and President Ulysses S. Grant was leading the nation through 12 years of Civil War Reconstruction, Hillsboro adopted an ordinance requiring business owners to install hitching
posts to accommodate their customers’ horses. Five decades later, in 1923, the town adopted an ordinance prohibiting the “willful and defiant contempt for the sanctity of the Sabbath day,” requiring businesses to close on Sundays. The town also adopted an ordinance restricting fireworks within the town limits. Mayor Roger Vance said he’s unaware of any previous Hillsboro Town Councils ever rescinding those ordinances, which means it’s technically still illegal for the Hill Tom Market to not have a hitching post or to remain open on Sundays—or for the town to celebrate Independence Day with its popular fireworks display.
Mimicking State Law As is often the case in other towns, some of the ordinances reiterate state
ECRWSS Postal Customer
Permit #1401 Southern MD
PAID
U.S. Postage PRESRT STD