Local leaders in Virginia vowed to fight what they are calling Gov. Bob McDonnell’s Big Brother intrusion into local planning matters even while McDonnell’s administration insists that it is just trying to prevent the state from being billed for local mistakes. A newly enacted state rule requires local governments to match their land use and transportation plans with the state’s six-year transportation plan. If the local officials vary from the state plan, the Virginia Department of Transportation could take away any state funding for those projects or force localities to pay for changes.
“This bill ties the hands of local government, makes us answer to the state, removes any flexibility we have and runs in direct opposition to the mandates reform that the governor has trumpeted,” said Fairfax County Supervisor Jeff McKay, D-Lee.
Local officials and smart-growth advocates said they feared the new law would allow the state to push through major highway projects, such as an Outer Beltway, even if locals object. Some said they would fight to have the new law — which they labeled a “my way or the highway” rule and a “Mother, May I?” mandate — overturned in the General Assembly’s next year.
Both the Virginia Association of Counties and the Virginia Municipal League opposed the rule.
“There’s a lot of ambiguity in terms of the local planning and how VDOT will review those local plans,” said Joe Lerch, the municipal league’s director of environmental policy. “We still have major concerns that they may not have the staff or the knowledge on how to review these plans.”
But state Transportation Secretary Sean Connaughton said VDOT already reviews the local plans and offers recommendations. The new rule is intended to prevent localities from nixing roads they had previously planned to build, leaving it to the state to fix potential traffic problems, he said.
“Our big issue is we’ve seen in many instances the localities approve growth plans then remove the transportation facilities for various reasons,” Connaughton said. “So we get the growth but we don’t get the transportation, and then the state is the one left trying to foot the bill as well as put up with the grief of the citizens.”
