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Committee asks staff to draft farm-labor housing options; short-term dorm size to drop from 200 to 100 sq. ft.
Summary
Stakeholders pushed for flexible on-farm housing—campground-style, tiny houses, shared kitchens—while county officials warned of building, health and fire-code limits. The committee directed staff to return with concrete proposals and agreed to lower the seasonal dormitory minimum to 100 square feet per laborer.
Loudoun County planners, building officials and farm operators spent much of the Transportation and Land Use Committee's Jan. 29 meeting examining how the zoning ordinance should accommodate farm labor housing, including seasonal dormitories, tenant dwellings, tiny homes and an "agrarian campground" model for shared lodging.
Committee members directed staff to return with detailed proposals that attempt to balance farm needs with building, fire and health code standards. As a near-term procedural change, the committee endorsed lowering the zoning's minimum area per seasonal laborer in dormitories from 200 square feet to 100 square feet.
Why housing is on the table Farm operators told the committee that lack of affordable, close-to-work housing forces workers to live far from farms, complicates recruitment and retention, and increases labor turnover. Stephen Bradford Rose of Potomac Vegetable Farms described an…
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