With the results of the census coming in, the local redistricting is announced
Loudoun County has continued to rank as Virginia’s fastest growing county over the past decade, and by no means little.
According to the US Census Bureau, Loudoun has grown approximately 35% over the past 10 years. The next fastest growing county in the Commonwealth was New Kent County, which grew by 24.5% over the past decade to a population of 156,927, well under half of the 420 959 inhabitants of Loudoun. Statewide, the population grew 7.9% over the past decade, and the national average was 4.7% growth.
That was enough growth to propel Loudoun into fourth place among Virginia’s most populous counties. And this growth has occurred primarily in a relatively concentrated area of eastern Loudoun, particularly southeast Loudoun.
This growth will guide electoral politics in Loudoun for the next decade, as the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors will draw this term the new local electoral districts for the next county council and school board.
Supervisor Matthew F. Letourneau (R-Dulles), whose district encompasses Dulles Airport and the southeast corner of the county, said it will mean changes in how the Loudoun government thinks about its priorities.
“I think the part of the county that I represented is underrepresented in terms of council focus,” Letourneau said. “It’s not necessarily anyone’s fault, but the population is now such that we’re going to have to be more careful about how these neighborhoods are drawn.”
New neighborhoods will need to be roughly equal in population. This is far from being the case today.
The Blue Ridge District, considered a western district, actually extends from the western border of Loudoun to the edge of Dulles Airport and encompasses half the county in area. It is also the largest district by population, with around 86,000, more than double the least populated district, Sterling, with 41,000.
Current neighborhoods can also seem very strange to anyone named after them. The area that most people would consider “Ashburn” is actually split between the districts of Ashburn, Broad Run, Algonkian and even Dulles. And the Catoctin District, the county’s northwest district with communities like Lucketts, Neersville, and Hillsboro, wraps around the Leesburg District to include River Creek to the east of the city.
These districts were drawn this way in 2010 at least in part to incorporate enough population to put two West Loudoun Supervisors on the county council. Supervisor Tony R. Buffington (D-Blue Ridge) said he plans to ask the board to reinstate two western supervisors to the board, but that becomes more difficult as the difference in population between east and west is tall.
President Phyllis J. Randall (D-At Large) said, “I will not gerrymander for any reason, including gerrymandering for the purpose of getting two seats in Loudoun Ouest.”
“I think numbers are numbers, and you can’t do much with numbers,” Randall said. “One of the things that has always bothered me a bit about the way the districts are drawn at the moment is that, although we have two seats in western Loudoun County, the way they are drawn, no supervisor shall live in the west.”
Population changes in Loudoun and the new neighborhoods that will follow, Letourneau said, will need to be reflected in how the county spends its money, such as in road projects. While the county completed a long-running project to convert intersections on Rt. 7 to interchanges, relieving traffic in the northern part of the county, Rt. 50 in the southern county remains rumbled into lengthy backups.
“It made sense to do that at the time – that’s where the population was and that’s where we had traffic jams,” Letourneau said. “The only thing that concerns me is that I don’t want the board to lose sight of the fact that we have the same problem on Rt. 50, except it’s arguably worse.
And for Dulles District residents today, he said, county services are hard to come by — they’re centered in Leesburg and Sterling.
“It’s great to have a wonderful trail system, I totally agree, but we have people with mental health needs in the South Riding area that we don’t meet because we don’t we don’t need it anywhere,” Letourneau said.
This is reflected in the county’s capital improvement plan, which contains long-term plans to create a new government center, similar to the Ridgetop Circle offices in Sterling, a miniature version of the services brought together in the central government building in Leesburg, southeast of Loudoun. .
State and federal guidelines for creating new districts state that communities with similar interests should stay together. Letourneau said that was not the case today.
“It’s always been absurd that StoneSprings Hospital isn’t in the Dulles District, even though the people it serves are across the street,” Letourneau said.
County supervisors have already made a decision on the new districts – there will still be eight districts and a chairman elected by the entire county. The county council plans to hear a report on the new census data in October, with a publicly available mapping tool launching Nov. 1 and taking public submissions through Nov. 30. Supervisors plan to see a summary of possible scenarios on January 18. 2022, and on March 15 choose which one to send to a public hearing on May 11.