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Developers Get All They Want From Legislature

By Thomas H. Lewis

From the Northern Virginia Daily

March 19, 1999

       "There is a tremendous disconnect," says Stafford County Supervisor David Beiler, "between what people want and what they’re getting from the Virginia General Assembly."  The case in point, and the one that has motivated Beiler to action, is the fact that of 27 pieces of legislation offered to this year’s General Assembly session to help localities control growth, not one passed.

       An unprecedented coalition of 22 Virginia counties and towns begged the legislators for permission to limit, impose impacts fees on or deny developments that would over-stress a locality’s ability to pay for support services such as education.

       These officials enjoyed a remarkable level of public support, and not just from their own precincts.  In January, a Virginia Commonwealth University poll done for the Virginia Environmental Endowment found that significant majorities of Virginians support efforts to manage development and prevent the loss of open space.  And a Bannon Research poll taken for Americans for the Environment reported that 68 percent of respondents said they would elect a candidate who opposed growth as a solution "to solve environmental problems caused by over building."

       Opponents dismissed the polls on the grounds that they were sponsored by environmental groups and one was conducted by a Democratic polling organization.  But while the General Assembly was in session, the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star revealed the results of a similar poll taken in November 1997 by one of the most prominent Republican pollsters in the nation.

       Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates, pollsters to former Gov. George F. Allen and presidential candidate Bob Dole, found that more than 83 percent of their respondents favored "requiring builders and developers to pay a mandatory impact fee to partially cover the cost of building new schools and pay for other services in the immediate area."  More than 46 percent said they believe growth and development had increased their property tax burden.  Only 6.3 percent said their taxes had decreased as a result.  Until the newspaper found out about them, the poll results were kept secret.

       Faced with credible evidence of overwhelming public support for growth controls, the legislators not only refused to enact any new controls, they banned one that Fauquier County had found useful:  requiring additional permits for large developments in areas already zoned for residential use.  In the 1999 session of the General Assembly as Beiler puts it, "the developer lobby got everything it wanted, the local governments got nothing they wanted to control growth."

       What could possibly motivate elected officials to thus ignore the will of the people they represent?  Money.  "The reason is that developers are putting up to $2 million into this year’s election campaigns," says Beiler, "and that gets them an awful lot of influence.  It’s very clear that right now money is just screaming in Richmond.  Because there’s no money on the side of fair growth, the developers are just getting whatever they want."

       To counter this fiscal stranglehold, Beiler and others in the Fredericksburg area have organized the Fair Growth Coalition, determined to fight money with money.  The coalition has formed a political action committee to receive donations, and plans to spend $75,000 in the 1999 General Assembly elections in hopes of becoming a political player in Richmond next session.

       Beiler is unfazed by the laughter that erupts on the assertion that $75,000 can make one a player in Richmond, when your playmates are bringing $2 million to the sandbox.  The Fair Growth agenda, he points out, is nonpartisan—both parties detest it equally.  The coalition’s strategy will be to fund independent candidates willing to run on its agenda.  With the General Assembly almost evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, Bieler insists, "If we can elect one or two independents in the Senate and three or four in the House, they could hold the balance of power, and could make this agenda the requirement for organizing the General Assembly."

       The coalition is opening an office in Fredericksburg from which to raise money and recruit supporters and candidates statewide.  It is especially hopeful about the participation of the northern Shenandoah Valley, whose local officials did not join and whose legislators did not support the coalition of fast-growing counties and cities.

       Beiler, who is a senior editor at Campaigns and Elections Magazine, a trade publication for politicians, know that the problem in Virginia goes beyond attitudes toward growth controls.  "Virginia is very backward in terms of campaign finance laws.  It is one of only four states in the whole country where any corporation can give as much money as they want to any candidate.

       "I think that’s why we have the disconnect between what people want and what they get."

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