Briskman: April 22 letter full of 'misinformation'

Briskman: April 22 letter full of ‘misinformation’

Mr. Erickson’s letter of April 22 was full of misinformation and innuendo that needs correcting.

As far as I know, nobody from BOS or BOS staff made any sort of incentives or suggestion of incentives to the applicant, Christopher and Companies, who had filed a pre-application for a housing development on combined properties, Hidden Lane Landfill/Askegrens. I would be very surprised if another supervisor office engaged with Christopher on a pre-application outside of their district as that is certainly not BOS practice. And I can say with confidence that my office did not offer any “incentives” to Christopher to continue with or to pull their application. To imply such a thing in his letter is an egregious attempt to misinform the public.

Also, it is not accurate that the developers pulled their rezoning application completely of their own volition. They would have been moving forward if not for the work of my office to stop it, along with a plethora of hurdles from planning and zoning and community pushback. I have availed myself to Mr. Erickson and the Broad Run Farms community to discuss the process and how many times I met with the applicant before they finally decided to pull the plug. I remain available to do that. However, the community should be aware that “by right” development could still happen on the land not in a flood plain.

Large areas of the landfill already is largely “condemned” as a Superfund site so I see no positives to having the county condemn the entire 150 acres, even if we could. And I wouldn’t include the Askegrens property in there, as is what I am assuming Mr. Erickson is suggesting by saying the BOS should condemn the entire 230 acres?? Mr. Askegrens might have a real problem with that as his property is not associated with the Superfund site!

Lastly, it is not “against EPA mandates” to redevelop the Landfill site outside of the plume and outside of the flood plain, which is what this application would have done, except for the road they wanted to build to cross the floodplain. Acres and acres of that site are not impacted by the plume nor would development disturb it. In fact, the EPA is supportive of some sort of development that would allow the owners to pay back what they owe the Federal Government for the clean up. Having said that, the county and EPA have been working hard on the remedial issues and both have been transparent. And the county is helping with water issues for the community, as initiated by my predecessor. You can find information on that on the Loudoun Water website.

Mr. Erickson should get his facts straight before publishing such nonsense.

Juli E. Briskman
Algonkian District Supervisor
Loudoun County