The following is a letter to Gov.-Elect Tim Kaine from the Advocates for a Sustainable Albemarle Population (ASAP)

December 27, 2005
Dear Governor-elect Kaine:

On behalf of Advocates for a Sustainable Albemarle Population, I am writing to express enthusiastic support for your plan to grant localities more control over local growth and development issues.

We applaud the foresight, understanding, and courage your position reflects, particularly in the face of the opposition it will arouse from the powerful minority who profit from growth.

ASAP is a grass-roots non-profit organization concerned that population growth in Albemarle County (and other counties in Central Virginia) is eroding our quality of life, damaging our environment, and raising our taxes. Through education, research, advocacy, and policy development, ASAP is working to slow local growth and development, and to introduce the notion that each community should try to define and level off at its "optimal" size population. Too often we are told by local officials that their hands are tied by the state, and that little can be done to effectively control the pace of growth.

Like you, we believe that localities must have the ability to democratically determine what is in their best interest concerning growth. Like you, we view this as pure common sense.

In this regard we hope you will support (at least) two significant changes in the balance of power between the Commonwealth of Virginia and its constituent localities:

1. We endorse your efforts to permit local authorities throughout the state to use a wider range of tools to respond to growth in ways defined by thoughtful and informed local residents. It is unconscionable that Virginia localities do not have the blanket authority to require Adequate Public Facilities to be in place before new developments are constructed, for example, or to impose reasonable impact fees on developers, to create programs encouraging the transfer of development rights, etc. Those of us who have the good fortune to live in Virginia's communities should not be required to pay for infrastructure improvements to allow future population growth that, in turn, we know will reduce the quality of our communities.

2. In addition to the explicit authority you would grant to local governments to provide for adequate public facilities, we would encourage you to add a provision to the state laws authorizing local planning and zoning that would limit the application of the Dillon rule in these local government policy sectors. We recognize that the so-called Dillon rule as a judicial standard may make sense in some areas of state-local relations, but it is destructive to reasonable local government flexibility in managing local growth. Unless there is clear arbitrary and capricious use of local powers, the courts should recognize that managing growth is an area where localities should be encouraged to innovate because of the threats to local community welfare and harmony.

Thank you for making the issue of local population growth a focus of your campaign and your first days as Governor. We will eagerly follow your progress in empowering local communities by giving city and county decision-makers the tools to grapple more effectively with these issues.

Sincerely,
Jack Marshall, Ph.D.
President