n LOUDOUN
4 | n LEESBURG
8 | n EDUCATION
10 | n OBITUARIES
19 | n PUBLIC NOTICES
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LIVING 50+ PGS. 20-22
VOL. 8, NO. 27
We’ve got you covered. In the mail weekly. Online always at LoudounNow.com
MAY 25, 2023
Supervisors Again Consider Development Rights Marketplace BY RENSS GREENE
rgreene@loudounnow.com
County supervisors are again looking into a program that would let landowners in rural areas of the county sell the development rights on their land to developers in the east, aimed toward protecting rural land while giving developers more flexibility in their projects. Transportation and Land Use Committee Chair Michael R. Turner (D-Ashburn) brought the idea of a Transfer of Development Rights program to the committee after attending the Loudoun Together summit April 11, where that was a central topic. A TDR program would aim for a marketplace solution to managing development in Loudoun, in which the Board of Supervisors would designate where those rights can be sold and where they can be bought. Virginia law also allows residential rights sold in the sending area to be purchased as commercial rights in the receiving area. That would permit landowners in the sending area to realize a profit from the development potential of their land without developing it, and give developers in the east an option for DEVELOPMENT RIGHTS continues on page 42
Alexis Gustin/Loudoun Now
Douglass High School alumnus Rosetta Bush, Sterling Cook, Ronald Hampton and Almeta Ferrell Johnson joined Acting Superintendent Daniel Smith, Chair Ian Serotkin (Blue Ridge), Vice Chair Harris Mahedavi (Ashburn), Chair of the Board of Supervisors Phyllis J. Randall (D-At-Large), Leesburg Mayor Kelly Burke, NAACP Loudoun Branch President Pastor Michelle Thomas and several of the DHCC members to cut the ribbon at the rededication May 21.
Historic Douglass High School Rededicated BY ALEXIS GUSTIN
agustin@loudounow.com
The Historic Douglass High School Education & Development Campus officially opened Sunday with a rededication and ribbon-cutting ceremony. The school on East Market Street in Leesburg opened in 1941 following a campaign by the Black community to expand secondary education opportunities for their children. After the families raised $4,000 to buy the eight acres on the outskirts of town, the School Board still refused to build a school until the land was conveyed to the district for $1. It was the only high school for Black students until
Loudoun schools desegregated in 1968. Since then, the campus has been used as a middle school, a special education and alternative school and community center. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1992. Douglass High School Commemorative Committee Co-Chairs Erica Bush and Charles Avery welcomed school officials, county and town government officials and Douglass alumni in the new gymnasium. Bush said the 17-member committee, formed in 2021, had worked diligently over the past two years to determine the best way to commemorate the school and its rich history. The renovation of the school was a partnership between the
committee, the School Board, the Board of Supervisors and the Town of Leesburg. The May 21 ceremony began with remarks from Bush and Avery and the pledge of allegiance followed by a moment of silence lead by Jaxon Roberts, the grandson of James Roberts, a Douglass graduate from the class of 1956 and DHSCC member. “Each of you are participating in a historical repeating of the history of Loudoun County and Douglass High School. We are a living legacy of those citizens of Loudoun County who thought something
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DOUGLASS REDEDICATED continues on page 43
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