Even though it’s just an advisory board, the County Planning Commission wields significant influence over many major development projects, suggesting which can move forward—and how they will look upon completion. So we caught up with the most recently appointed commissioner, Duane Zobrist, who replaces departing Jo Higgins. “I’m not the kind who says, ‘I’m here, I don’t want anybody else,’” says Zobrist, who practiced law in Southern California for 35 years before buying a Crozet farm in 1998—following a two-year search for the ideal place to live. Here’s more of what he had to say.
C-VILLE: Was Crozet a good spot for a designated growth area?
Duane Zobrist: Well, it’s got to be somewhere. The Board of Supervisors made a very wise decision a number of years ago that they were going to push the bulk of growth in the growth areas and they were going to retain the county as rural as possible. I think the jury is still out on what Crozet is going to look like. Certainly Crozet being designated a development area implies a large change in the future.
I think the community of Crozet is doing a very good job of speaking for themselves. There are concerns of unrestricted growth—that’s a concern I would voice as a resident owning a farm there.
Should developers be held responsible for providing funding for transportation for their projects?
Developers tend to be pretty willing to step forth and help vitiate the impact on a county vis-a-vis infrastructure, schools, etc. when they come into an area. The biggest problem in development I’ve seen, both in California and when I came here, is that infrastructure tends to follow development instead of the contrary. I think the Board of Supervisors is trying to balance that out.
How does your experience on the West Coast inform your views on development?
Urban sprawl is the real problem. What we’re doing here is forcing development into certain areas for your more extensive development, and I think that’s really, really good.
I think we should do everything we can to encourage conservation easements and come up with a system of trading development rights. Say there are a certain number of development rights in the county—and I don’t know what that number is. If someone wants to build a Biscuit Run, they want to build 4,000 houses—well, let them go acquire those 4,000 rights from people. That’s was the exact process we followed in Los Angeles with the air rights. It gives all landowners the opportunity to participate in the growth without being prejudiced by it.
I’m a market capitalist, I believe the market will resolve this stuff. I think it’s unfair to the guy who’s sitting on 500 acres in White Hall, who’s a mile out of the development area, to have somebody who’s inside the development area get $1 million for his land.