Friday, December 09, 2005

Loudoun County - Part III

Even though the development was basically confined to the eastern half of the county, it generally filled in from the eastern side (nearer Washington D.C.) and slowly crept west. As that line of development moved westwards like a slow ocean tide coming in, the property taxes of the farmers in the western half of the county went up.

The really funny thing about all this was that the new couples and families moving into the eastern part of Loudoun county had no clue that they were being used by the Horse Money(tm) folks. They were just happy to get a decent house that was new. Some of the older residents on the east knew better and they started complaining about the increased crowding and traffic.

This went on for a while with the Horse Money caucus agreeing hand in hand with the developers and it went on for years through several changes in the Board of Supervisors. However, one day something big changed. The developers looked ahead into the future and realized that space was running out on the eastern half of the county. Where were they going to build next?

They wanted to buy and develop land. Who wanted to sell land because they couldn' afford it any more? So now, there were 'allies' in the farmers bordering the eastern part of the county. Finally, some of the farmers saw that their solution was to sell their land at a substantial gain, stop paying the property taxes that had been climbing and I am sure some of them wanted to stick it to the Horse Money people that caused this whole thing to start in the first place. If only the Horse Money had left things well alone in the beginning - it wouldn't have gotten this bad this fast.

Of course the Horse Money didn't want the farmers to sell their land to developers! Why, that would mean that suburbia would become their neighbors! People living in the new townhouses could see them riding their fine equines! How unpleasant! How could those farmers do this to us? How could those developers dare to encroach on our area after all that we have done supporting their development in the east? Traitors!

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