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Issue 39: 65 Years Ago: County Adopts Zoning Ordinance
 | On September 28, 1942, Loudoun County became the first rural county in Virginia to adopt a zoning ordinance, and the first county in the United States with an anti-billboard ordinance. After what the Loudoun Times-Mirror described as “a lively discussion that continued for nearly two hours at the county courthouse,” the Board of Supervisors adopted the ordinance by a vote of 4-2. Supervisors Daniel C. Sands, J. Terry Hirst, Irvey W. Baker and H. R. Tillett voted in favor of the ordinance, with Chairman M. H. Whitmore and Supervisor J. Homer Mock opposed. |
| Adoption of the zoning ordinance was the ulmination of a long-term grassroots campaign led by Vinton Liddell Pickens and the Leesburg Garden Club to prohibit billboards in Loudoun County and to create zoning to preserve and protect the county’s beauty. The grassroots campaign had led the Board to create the county’s Planning Commission in February 1942. Under Pickens’s leadership, the commission drafted a proposed zoning ordinance and submitted it to the Board that same year. The zoning ordinance provided for five classes of districts – rural, highway agricultural, highway commercial, village residential, and village commercial. The ordinance covered all unincorporated areas of the county. It authorized the Board of Supervisors to accept or deny building applications after receiving a recommendation from the Planning Commission, based on whether the proposed use would be detrimental to the neighborhood, community, or county as a whole. The ordinance set requirements for the minimum distance between buildings, the highways on which they were situated, and their side lot lines. It also limited the number and size of signs on commercial properties. Sources: Loudoun Times-Mirror Eugene M. Scheel, “1,000 Years of Loudoun,” in the Washington Post Board of Supervisors Meeting Minutes Image: M. H. Whitmore, Chairman of the Board of Supervisors, 1915-1943 This is one of a series of weekly releases from the Loudoun County Office of Public Information highlighting landmark events in the Loudoun County government during its 250-year history. | |
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