Zoning Ordinance Committee

meeting

Loudoun County Board Committees and Advisory Boards 1h 53m 2 speakers 8 agenda items transcribed 2 days ago official recording ↗

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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

What is the purpose of the Zoning Ordinance Committee meeting and who are the participants?

Unknown 0:02

but it's funny we just got it that's christian christian

0:40

Adobe

Unknown 0:49

Dale Polen Myers 0:49

asking

Unknown 0:59

for my birthday. She knew. It was very fun to have Ella send me the information. Hi, can you please send this because? And then I couldn't find it because I was reading it off my phone. I texted and said, where exactly is it? Number 19. It's not as extensive. Are you good? Yeah, the monitors blink on and off. Does that mean we're good? Yes, we're good. So I'll give an example. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the November 5th, 2025 Zoning Ordinance Committee meeting. We have two people signed up to speak. I'm going to call up. I think you can speak where you are. Oh, wait, you want us to do introductions? Yeah, if you could just have everyone state their name. Can we go around and just do introductions?

Dale Polen Myers 2:25

Just

Unknown 2:26

names.

Dale Polen Myers 2:27

Holly Gillis.

Unknown 2:28

Rich Brittingham.

Dale Polen Myers 2:29

Laura Walsh-Copeland.

Unknown 2:31

Matt Lawrence. Bill Junda. Lauren Mullen. Harriet Wegmeyer. Keith Zerschneid. Gwen Kennedy. Maggie Auer. Bill Hatch. Beth Erickson. Joe Paciulli. Jen Bingle. Steven Peckrell. Josh Uphins.

Qwendolyn N. Brown 2:50

Stephanie

Unknown 2:52

Capps. Jake Schangenberg. Ryan Reed. Michael Caprandi. Brian Nilsen. I'm sorry. So, Harriet, you're signed up. I'll start with you. I am. Three minutes. I have to start a timer. Hold on. Oh, wow. Unless Stephanie can do a timer. Hold on. Hold on. I feel like I'm in the middle of the fishbowl here. I'm just going to go over here. Stand wherever you want to stand.

Unknown 3:24

Got you. Okay, I'll stand right here. All right, you can start the timer. Good morning, Harriet Wegmeyer. Thank you for the opportunity to speak this morning. I own and operate Wegmeyer Farms along with my husband, Tyler. Our farm was formed in 2002 and has been an agricultural destination for families since that point. I had the opportunity to serve As a stakeholder at the January 29th TEALAC Transportation Land Use Committee meeting, when I read the proposed draft language for Ag Processing and Agritourism, I was surprised for this meeting as there are several points that were not discussed during that TEALAC meeting. Overall, I find the language very limiting for agricultural producers in Loudoun County.

Unknown 4:13

If we want to create an environment for rural businesses to thrive and succeed, the size limitations placed on production building size and visitor limits must be removed. So Wegmire Farms is a well-known pick your own farm that raises strawberries and pumpkins. Our farm offers the opportunity for families to come to the farm and pick produce right from the field. For many, this is how they learn how food is grown. The overly strict and visitor limits shared in the draft language would threaten the viability of our business. I'll speak just about the strawberry crop. We have four field locations. Three of them are open for families and the public to come and pick their own strawberries. A crop needs to be picked when it's ripe.

Unknown 5:01

Due to the nature of fragile crops, our visitors to the farm increase during our peak times during the season. On average, our fields are open for strawberry picking seven weeks, seven days during those weeks. However, depending on weather, it can range from three weeks to nine weeks. For example, when the strawberries are flush, we offer 64 reservations per hour. Reservations are offered per family, which is usually one car, but sometimes two. Because our reservations are per hour over the course of the day, we would be at the upper limit or exceed the car limit at the suggested car limit that you have in place in your language. With fruit, if not picked from the field, it will spoil and affect the quality of the new fruit coming on.

Unknown 5:49

We use a digital gatekeeper in our reservation system to manage the crop and to crowd. This has been a very effective means of management for all. Farms in Loudoun have multiple crops to harvest each year and follow a similar cycle with each of these crops. So this is just the strawberries. So I was just speaking about the cars. Then there is the occupancy allowed. And I was very confused about that because that would have each person driving like five cars to the field or to the farm. So your occupancy allowed for us on our main farm, home farm,