In the northernmost tip of Virginia, U.S. Route 340 is a scenic and bucolic ride, winding through the farmland, mountains and trees of Warren and Page Counties. It’s a favorite route of many who live nearby. But traffic on the two-lane road is becoming congested as growth spills over from the sprawling Washington suburbs to the east.

Tim Youmans, Winchester city planner, and Kris Tierney, Frederick County planner, in front of the $70 million H.P. Hood manufacturing plant. Photo by Wayne Scarberry

Route 340 has become a flashpoint in an increasingly hot debate over how much these rural counties should grow, or whether they should grow at all. Predicting that traffic will double on the rural road over the next 20 years, the Virginia Department of Transportation wants to invest $26 million in a four-lane expansion project. The project would improve access for local industry, such as a Merck pharmaceutical plant, but many local residents, often refugees themselves from the Washington suburbs, are mobilized in opposition. Widening U.S. 340, they say, will only bring more sprawl and more traffic.

The northern Shenandoah region – which includes the city of Winchester, town of Front Royal and counties of Frederick, Warren, Shenandoah, Page, and Clarke – are caught on a fault line between clashing tectonic plates. The suburban mass of Northern Virginia is colliding with rural, small-town Virginia. Only a decade ago, the rallying cry of many Loudoun County residents was "Don’t Fairfax Loudoun." Over the past 10 years, Loudoun has seen its building permits triple and its population shoot up 101 percent. Projections call for the population to double again in the next decade. Residents of the fiscally stressed county recently threw out the old board of supervisors in favor of a "smart" growth slate.

Now, having swamped Loudoun County, growth is marching up Interstate 66 into the Valley. The mountain communities in its path want to preserve their quality of life. They fear being "Loudounized." But it’s difficult to halt growth without also shutting off economic opportunities for a still largely rural, manufacturing-oriented population.

Here’s the problem: Many newcomers fleeing Northern Virginia’s suburban sprawl are techies. They have no interest in working for manufacturing companies. Rather than support improvements like the widening of U.S. 340 that would support local industry, they oppose anything that would accommodate more growth. Local outrage also spiked a major investment by Cardinal Glass Company several years ago on the grounds that its manufacturing processes would generate unacceptable levels of pollution. With more than half of the work force of some localities commuting to jobs in Northern Virginia, these no-growthers represent a powerful political constituency.

For decades, Winchester and surrounding areas have been known for their rolling hills and apple trees – land that gave birth to the Harry F. Byrd dynasty, which ruled the Old Dominion’s politics for years. The Byrds have retired from the public scene, but residents still guard their small-town lifestyle and the natural beauty of their land. At the same time, business and civic leaders don’t want national prosperity to pass them by. They want to promote economic opportunities for local residents.

Homes in the Meadow Branch suburb, an upscale housing community in Winchester

Local officials have forged a consensus for a not-too-hot, not-too-cold pace of development. Local planners believe they can achieve that elusive mix by fine tuning their residential and commercial zoning, controlling where they build water and sewer lines, and steering the investment in road improvements.

Stephen Heavener, the economic development director for Front Royal and Warren County, says his county’s 30,000 residents want to stop sprawl in its tracks by focusing development into a district along Route 522 that comprises less than 10 percent of the county’s acreage. The rest of the land is zoned for agricultural use and some residential. "We don’t have the land [zoned] for excessive growth," he says.

Since 53 percent of Front Royal’s residents commute each day to Northern Virginia jobs, Heavener says he would like to develop new jobs locally that would reduce the number of residents commuting outside the county. Commuters demand more in local government services than they pay in residential property taxes. By contrast, the office parks where they work – in the Dulles corridor – fill the coffers of Fairfax and Loudoun counties. But there is limited space zoned for commercial businesses and Heavener doesn’t see that changing any time soon.

Reasonably comfortable with their quality of life, neighboring counties also are hesitant to disrupt it. And they are following similar game plans. In Shenandoah County, manufacturing supports 34 percent of the labor force. "Our focus is on [bringing in] manufacturing and distribution businesses," says Garland Miller, director of the Shenandoah Economic Development office.

"We want modest, progressive growth," says Charles Ballard, county administrator of Page, an agricultural county where 36 percent of the work force commutes out. Since Page County is away from the threat of big development, uncontrollable growth doesn't seem to be a big concern there.

Dave Klotz, senior vice president of Judd's Online, a Winchester-based Internet company

Clarke County, next door to Loudoun, also is dominated by agriculture and commuters. Sixty percent of its workers leave the county every day. While the county would like to reduce the number of commuters, it has strong growth controls in place. So resistant is Clarke to development, local leaders say, that development may skip past the county in favor of the region’s population centers in Winchester, Frederick and Warren.

Residential development in Frederick and Winchester is cooking. "We are averaging 600-650 homes per year here," says Kris Tierney, Frederick County Administrator. That’s an impressive number for a region with a combined population of 54,367 – and a considerably higher than average rate of construction for an area its size, according to the National Association of Home Builders.

Indeed, fast-paced growth is sounding alarm bells for residents and county planners alike. Too many new homes can throw the county budget out of balance. New families need new services such as schools, police and fire departments but property taxes don’t pay for them. The trick is to attract industrial development, enough to make a positive tax contribution – but not enough to stimulate the immigration of more families.

Folks in Apple Country want to have their pie and eat it too – low taxes and decent services, economic opportunity and quality of life. One strategy is to stimulate creation of high-paying tech businesses that will appeal to citizens commuting to Northern Virginia.

The Technology Zone, a two-block strip of office buildings in downtown Win-chester, is designed to attract software and Internet companies. The city hopes to attract start-ups that will move into the county once they expand beyond a size that downtown can accommodate. Judd’s Online did just that. The Internet application company started with three men working in the Strasburg plant for Perry Judd’s Inc., a Wisconsin printing company. The company moved 20 employees into the Tech Zone three years ago. When it continued to grow, the company migrated to Pegasus Court, a business park in the county. Although The Technology Zone has its success stories, it’s too small to soak up more than a fraction of the county’s new residents.

Can Frederick and its neighbors avoid drowning in the Northern Virginia wave? There aren’t many alternatives: Either submit to sprawl, clamp down on growth or find some way to muddle through the middle.