During his report to Town Council, Mayor Frank Etro announced that the Loudoun County Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Services (PRCS) has scheduled a public hearing regarding a pool and community center in the Round Hill area. This meeting is to be held at the Round Hill Center (old elementary school, 20 High Street) on Thursday, July 22, at 7:30 p.m.

The point of the meeting, as Mayor Etro understands it, is for the PRCS department to gauge the interest in, and the need for, additional public facilities in the Round Hill community. PRCS is considering expanding the pool facilities at Franklin Park (possibly adding an indoor pool) and renovating the old elementary school (currently the Round Hill Center) for use as a community center. The Loudoun County School Board, which owns the old school building, has set a January 2005 date to deed over the building to the county.

These projects would be funded through proffers made to the county as part of the rezoning application for the property that is now the Villages of Round Hill, Mountain Valley and Lake Point. The proffer language states that the county has the option for the developer to either build the facilities or make an equivalent monetary contribution to the county. This contribution is due prior to the issuance of the 800th zoning permit.

Despite the language of the proffer, Oak Hill has recently claimed that the promised facilities should not be for public use but rather be restricted to members of the Oak Hill homeowners association (HOA). The county's zoning administrator has reviewed the proffer language and determined that the proffers are in fact promised as county-owned facilities.

According to Mayor Etro, precedent has been set with the current Board of Supervisors to allow developers to build HOA-only pools in lieu of proffered county facilities. In these cases, the facilities have been situated in the midst of large planned communities such as Ashburn or South Riding where the majority of the facility's users would be HOA members. Consequently, in these instances, the supervisors determined it would not be cost-effective for the PRCS department to operate and maintain what would essentially be an HOA facility.

There is the possibility that the supervisors could make the same determination about a facility in the Round Hill area. This would allow Oak Hill to build an HOA-only pool, which it has promised its residents, and, in effect, forgive Oak Hill of its obligation to residents of the Round Hill area to build public facilities.

A major goal for this public input meeting will be to convince the PRCS department and Board of Supervisors that there really is strong interest in and need for a pool in the immediate area. Mayor Etro urged members of the Town Council, Planning Commission and the public to attend this meeting and speak in favor of holding Oak Hill to its promises for community facilities.

The Town Council voted 5-0 to have Mayor Etro speak at the meeting on behalf of the Council and urge the county to apply these proffers to public facilities. The Council members expressed their support for using the contribution to convert the old elementary school into a community center and to either expand the pool facilities at Franklin Park or build a pool on the old elementary school property. In either location, the Council would prefer an indoor pool.