Get Involved: Help Identify Ashburn’s Future Needs

Are there enough parks in Ashburn? How about commuter options? Gas stations? Police stations? Shopping centers? Or ways to get to all of these things?

The future of the Ashburn planning area – one of the many incongruent areas bearing that name – is the subject on a multi-step process intended to build consensus on future development and services.

“The county wants to hear from you – residents and business owners in Ashburn – about your experiences living and working in our community!” Supervisor Lori Waters wrote in a letter to constituents earlier this year. “The purpose of the project is …  to identify neighborhood and communitywide priorities and to develop recommended strategies to aid in future planning and programmatic activities."

Take the survey:

• Resident Survey
• Ashburn Business Owner Survey
• Non-Ashburn Resident Survey

The Ashburn Community Outreach project is the second such project in a series intended eventually to touch on the entire county. The Ashburn project follows a similar exercise in the Potomac and Sterling communities. The goal is to help the Loudoun Board of Supervisors fine tune county plans and policies to meet the needs and desires of residents.

“It really is looking at the future,” said Miguel Salinas, the outreach project manager. “There’re a lot of opportunity for citizens to have a dialogue with us and the board to identify future priorities.”

Some of those priorities relate to roads, transit, business development, bicycle and pedestrian safety, public safety facilities, revitalization opportunities or anything else resident may or may not want in or near their communities.

“The other goal is to try to have a process that’s comprehensive and inclusive,” Salinas said, adding that planners also hope to capture comments that reflect Ashburn’s demographics. Residents who want to participate have the chance to get involved early and leave their mark. “We’re just getting started on it, actually,” Salinas said.

The first step calls for residents and business owners in the planning area to go to the Loudoun Department of Planning’s web site and fill out the survey. Planners will continue to solicit survey responses through August and then consolidate those responses into a report.

Once that report is released, Salinas said, planners would hold a series of four workshops.

“The four workshops will be a more in-depth discussion with residents, Salinas said. Afterward, a more detailed report will eventually be forwarded to the board of supervisors.

Supervisor Stevens Miller (D-Dulles) said that while he hopes the outreach project will result in positive progress, he’s concerned that what has been termed a community planning exercise could be used as a campaign event. Neither Miller nor Waters are seeking reelection.

Miller said his constituents are primarily concerned with roads and traffic congestion, an issue that’s hard to address without more state assistance.

“The are sick to death of traffic,” he said. While recent state plans to move forward with some Loudoun projects – such as the Sycolin flyover in Leesburg and the Route 7-Belmont Ridge interchange – as well as developer-assisted plans to complete Gloucester Parkway from Loudoun County Parkway to Route 28 were welcome, Miller said they are long over due; meanwhile residential construction has continued.

“We are victimized by unbalanced growth,” he said.

But Miller also pointed to recent local level successes that he believes have served the community well, such as the rezoning of Loudoun Valley Estates III to residential uses and making progress on the Gum Spring Library.

Besides traffic concerns, various community needs are the types of things Salinas said residents and business owners can discuss: libraries, parks, quality of life, environmental issues.

For more information, visit the Ashburn Community Outreach program website, where residents and business owners can also fill out the survey through August. So far, more than 600 resident surveys have been posted, more than halfway to the minimum goal of 1,000.

To stay informed, request to be added to the Ashburn Network by emailing ashburn.outreach@loudoun.gov.