LOUDOUN COUNTY’S COMMUNITY-OWNED NEWS SOURCE
LoudounNow
[ Vol. 5, No. 4 ]
[ loudounnow.com ]
[December 12, 2019 ]
■ PUBLIC AND LEGAL NOTICES - PAGE 27 ■ RESOURCE DIRECTORY PAGE 37 ■ NOW HIRING LOUDOUN PAGE 39
County Planning Commission Set for Overhaul BY RENSS GREENE
In addition to keeping a close eye on the few hundred blue spruces he has left, Kok has also been planting a new species of trees that, he said, promise to be more resistant to the fungus. He’s been planting up to 6,000 of them each year for the past two years. Those most prominently include the
When the new Board of Supervisors takes the dais in January, one of its first jobs will be to appoint members to the county Planning Commission. And the commission will see even greater turnover than the county board, putting familiar faces on the panel and giving the rural west greater representation. The Planning Commission’s main task is to advise the Board of Supervisors on land use and development planning in the county, serving in most cases as the first round of legislative review in rezoning applications. The new commission will also oversee work to write new zoning ordinances to put into law the vision laid out in one of the biggest projects for the current board and commission, the new comprehensive plan. And the new commission will count among its members both individuals who were critical of that plan and those who helped write it. County Chairwoman Phyllis J. Randall (D-At Large) will be appointing Waterford resident Forest Hayes, who competed for the Catoctin District seat on the Board of Supervisors in November. He’ll replace Jim Sisley, who has served the past four years. Hayes is Senior Advisor on Real Estate and Economic Development Issues in the office of Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser and is listed as the president and CEO of Camden Consulting in DC, a development and government relations consulting firm. He has also staffed House of Representatives committees on Capitol Hill, as well as for several Democratic members of the House. He has worked in economic development, including as the director of the Gary Economic Development Corporation and the Gary Commerce Department in Gary, IN. He has also worked in real estate development and consulting. And although he did not win in November, in 2020 Hayes will begin serving Loudoun County government as a planning commissioner instead. “He has worked especially on hous-
FUNGUS >> 41
PLANNING COMMISSION >> 42
Patrick Szabo/Loudoun Now
Middleburg Christmas Tree Farm Owner Frans Kok examines the branches of one of his blue spruce trees to determine if it has been affected by the same fungus that has killed thousands of others in his fields.
Tree Farmer Fighting Tree-Killing Fungus BY PATRICK SZABO For many Loudouners, bringing home a Christmas tree is more than heading to the nearest shopping center to grab one that’s already been cut—it’s a day-long excuse to bundle up and hike through the countryside to cut down their own. But this year, some families are finding their annual tree-cutting traditions have fewer options than in years past. That could be because a fungus, thought by some to be the product of warmer winter temperatures and hot and humid summers, is killing thousands of trees, specifically Douglas firs and Colorado blue spruces. The fungus has hit hardest at the 125acre Middleburg Christmas Tree Farm, which closed for the remainder of the 2019 season after selling just 360 trees during the Nov. 29 to Dec. 1 weekend. Owner Frans Kok asserts that steadily increasing temperatures are killing his trees, which have cut his sales by 48 per-
cent in 2018 and by 42 percent this year. “Really, it’s the effect of climate change that is hitting us very hard,” he said. According to the National Weather Service, this year’s average temperature at Dulles Airport was 58.5 degrees Fahrenheit, or 3.2 degrees warmer than the annual average temperature for the airport property. The average temperature at Dulles has remained above the annual average for the past five years. The last time it fell below the average temperature prior to that was in 2003. Kok said the rising temperatures have been an impediment to Christmas tree sales for years, noting that he can no longer plant Fraser firs or Scotch pines because they’ve became susceptible to the heat and subsequent fungal attacks. But while Kok said he has been able to control the fungus in previous years, those measures are no longer effective. “Now, it’s totally out of hand,” he said. “Next year is not going to be good, either.” The disease has affected his Douglas
firs to the point of no return, he said. He couldn’t sell a single one this season. Kok’s Colorado blue spruces have also been hit nearly as bad, which he said was surprising because that species is the most resilient one he sells. Come February, Kok said he’ll be busy cutting down thousands of trees and burning them, rather than taking them to the county landfill where they could spread the disease to other plants. “We’re going to have some major fires,” he said.
Relying on New Tree Species
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