Small Area Plans

What is a Small Area Plan?

Just what it sounds like: a plan for a small geographic area.

Why do villages want or need one?

We all want our villages to remain great places to live and visit.  Maintaining or improving our villages’ quality of life requires neighbors to focus on what works and what could be improved. A small area plan process is designed as a way for planners to incorporate community residents’ preferences and set goals for what citizens want the future to look like. The plan will describe steps to reach those goals and can provide design guidelines for things like official village signage, road, street, and trail improvements, landscaping in public spaces, and more.

Also, we all know that there’s a lot of “suburban sprawl” pressure on rural western Loudoun. And County decision makers are often responding to applications from developers and land speculators seeking permission to build new housing projects in and around our villages.

Small area plans are the best way to ensure that the County’s decisions about these kind of applications and other government actions—think road “improvements,” location of county facilities, support for local businesses, conservation and environmental protection—are guided by village residents’ preferences for the future of their communities.

Who makes these plans?

Village residents are the ones telling the planning team what are the challenges and aspirations for the village.  The planning team’s job is to be really good listeners and learn as much as possible about the community and its environs.

LHVA members have working with the county to expedite this planning process (which never was completed following adoption of the 2000 Comprehensive Plan), and use an outside consultant experienced in working with similar historic rural communities.

To prepare rural Loudoun residents for this upcoming planning, LHVA representatives have also given presentations to residents in many of the rural villages. Follow this link to view presentation slides from those gatherings.

When does this process begin?

The next step in the Small Area Plan process for the Loudoun Historic Villages (listed in the Comprehensive Plan Amendment [CPAM] No. 2024-0004, Rural Historic Village Classification)  is set to begin after February 12, 2025, when the Board of Supervisors is scheduled to vote to enact the CPAM. Staff and resources to begin the process are currently allocated in the Department of Planning and Zoning (DPZ) work plan presented to the board earlier this year.

Which villages are first?

The villages of Lucketts, Paeonian Springs, and Willisville are listed as the first villages to be tackled.

Please contact us if you have questions. We'll endeavor to keep this page up to date as the process continues.