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Lawsuits put brakes on western high school
Chances of a high school appearing on the Fields Farm in Purcellville anytime soon grew dimmer Oct. 10 as town and county officials continued legal action at the local and state Supreme Court levels.
Circuit Court Judge Thomas D. Horne ruled Oct. 10 that the Town of Purcellville's lawsuit challenging the county's approval of a high school on its borders will go to trial in late January.
The judge turned down the county's arguments that the lawsuit be dismissed.
In another front of the ongoing legal battle between the county and the town over who decides what can go in the town's urban growth area, the Supreme Court of Virginia received the town's petition that it rehear arguments in other lawsuits.
The town and county have failed thus far to resolve their differences out of court. The county's offer of financial support to alleviate the high school's contribution to traffic problems in the town is reportedly $2 million short of the amount the town says it must have.
The case in court Oct. 10 dealt with the county Board of Supervisors' grant of a special exception, or land use approval, for the school to be built on land zoned for residential use. The county gave that approval over the strenuous objections of the town.
That lawsuit argues the county's approval of a high school on the Fields Farm doesn't comply with the Purcellville Urban Growth Area Management Plan, or PUGAMP.
It further argues that the traffic studies the county relied on in granting that approval were incomplete and flawed, and that the county is violating its own zoning ordinance by approving a school use on the property without complying with the PUGAMP.
The PUGAMP was developed and signed by elected leaders of both the town and county in 1995 as a way to share decision making on land use in the 3,100 acres surrounding the town that are slated to be annexed into the town at some point.
When the county went ahead in 2006 with plans to build a high school on the Fields Farm, in the urban growth area, the town turned to the courts. The county's plan violates PUGAMP in several ways, the town argued: it would serve the high school with on-site wells and waste water disposal, and it would not do enough to lessen the traffic impact of another 1,600 students and their teachers and staff commuting through Purcellville every weekday.
A Sept. 12 Virginia Supreme Court decision ruled the county must get a Planning Commission permit before proceeding with construction of the school, but that it has to get that permit only from its own Planing Commission.
The town has asked the Supreme Court to revisit and clarify that decision, which appeared to lump planning and zoning into one category.
The current case, the town's challenge to the county's award of a special exception to the school project, is on the court's schedule for the week of Jan. 26, 2009.
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