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Fairfax County, Va. This pleasant suburban area outside Washington, D.C., has been troubled by a population surge. In 1969, residents organized to vote out county supervisors who wanted more growth and to vote in candidates who pledged to control it. By 1971 the new board knew that it had to do more than slow growth. It appointed a task force, led by Rufus Phillips, a county supervisor and professional regional planner, to figure out how the county should grow. Surprisingly, guidelines were found everywhere. "We researched everything that is going on here and abroad," says Phillips. "We sat down with the city planners; we studied Ramapo's action. We looked at British and Scandinavian efforts, where the governments largely control development planning. Then we turned to the citizens, sent out questionnaires through the county, held open workshops and public hearings. It took six months to put a program together and another 18 months to put it all into effect."
Fairfax's 161-page program reads like a comprehensive planner's primer. The plan will deploy a full arsenal of conventional planning devices: a new master plan and a zoning ordinance, staged capital programs, an inventory of all the area's resources, from buildings and playgrounds to fields and streams. Beyond that, the county will require developers to describe the environmental impact of their projects before construction is approved. Some $2,000,000 from revenue-sharing funds will be budgeted for buying unspoiled property for "land banks."
More important, the county is starting to tackle the hard issues that have direct social effects. It has passed an ordinance, now being contested in the courts, to make all developments of more than 50 dwellings include some housing for low-and moderate-income groups. Next on the agenda is an investigation of whether Fairfax County can recapture through a "rezoning tax" some of the increased land value created by public spending on new roads, schools and sewers. Says Phillips: "What we are trying to do is orchestrate growth. We want to balance such things as transportation, housing and schools with the quality of life."
Lake Tahoe, Nev. and Calif. Parts of the spectacularly beautiful Lake Tahoe basin have become popular resorts, complete with trailer parks, motels, casinos, water skiers and tacky little houses. Sewage, seeping from ill-planned septic tanks, has begun to pollute the once crystal-clear waters. Because the California-Nevada boundary cuts across the basin, officials of both states recognized that joint action was necessary to prevent any further deterioration. In 1969, the states joined to create an agency with a wide enough jurisdiction to cope with the ills of the entire basin.
The Lake Tahoe Regional Planning Agency was given broad powers to impose development standards on the counties in the basin. The agency first made a study of how much development the basin's soil and water could support and the kind of development that would least harm forests, parks and scenery. From the study, the agency produced land-use maps and set ground rules for what developers could and could not do.