Loudoun County has identified roughly 199 county- and school-owned parcels that could potentially support attainable housing, according to a staff analysis presented to the county's Transportation and Land Use Committee. But officials caution that most of those sites are not simply shovel-ready — many would require policy decisions, new partnerships, or even the formal conveyance of school property before a single unit could break ground.
A County-Wide Land Audit Years in the Making
The findings stem from a presentation detailing the results of a suitability analysis of publicly owned land, as outlined in a Loudoun County meeting record. The results were also made available through a public ArcGIS dashboard, giving residents and developers alike a map-based look at where the county and Loudoun County Public Schools hold land. Of the parcels flagged, about 199 were deemed potentially suitable, though the same analysis determined that most parcels are either not physically developable or would only become viable if redevelopment or plan changes occur, according to reporting from Citizen Portal.
Nearly half of the flagged sites were reported to carry environmental encumbrances or conflicting planned uses, per the same account, underscoring just how much work remains before any of this land could translate into actual rooftops. During the committee discussion, Chair Randall asked staff to pin down a full definition of what counts as “land for public use,” while Supervisor Glass requested information on mixed redevelopment that would blend public facilities with attainable housing on the same site, the meeting record shows.
A Project Already Underway in Sterling
The clearest example of the concept already in motion is the former Arcola Elementary School in Sterling, described in county records as the county's first multiclassroom school before it sat dormant and fell into disrepair. The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors approved an amended $4.9 million loan to Wellington Development Partners, LLC and Cornerstones, Inc. to build Old Arcola School Apartments, which is slated to provide 73 one-, two-, and three-bedroom rental units, according to a Loudoun County announcement.
Beyond Arcola, a joint venture between Enterprise Development and LT Development Group has floated apartments on a county-owned commuter parking lot in Ashburn, after an earlier, larger proposal for the same site fell through, as Washington Business Journal reported. According to the seed reporting from Bisnow, county officials are also discussing redeveloping the Cascades Library and senior center in Sterling into senior and family attainable housing, part of a broader push to deploy public land to help developers build more housing, particularly for lower-income households.
Why Land Costs Matter So Much
Ben Miller, a principal at Wellington Community Partners, an affordable housing developer based in Virginia, said not having to pay for land removes a substantial cost from a housing project, per Bisnow's reporting. His firm is involved in ongoing discussions with the county about public-land development, but Miller also cautioned that free land does not resolve all development challenges, and he said he gets frustrated when building permits are delayed even on projects where the county itself is a partner.
Eric Keeler, who along with a colleague presented site suitability data to the county's Transportation and Land Use Committee and later at a joint meeting of the Board of Supervisors and School Board in September, said the county needs to identify its own public parcels rather than relying solely on private developers to supply housing, according to Bisnow. The county maintains a division overseeing this public-land component, and developers reportedly use the county's land dashboard as a resource and approach officials directly about potential opportunities, the outlet reported.
The Numbers Behind Loudoun's Housing Squeeze
The push comes against a backdrop of strained housing supply. Loudoun County was home to 443,380 people and had 150,833 housing units in 2024, and has added an average of 9,200 people and 2,900 housing units annually since 2010, according to the Housing Indicator Tool maintained by the Housing Association of Nonprofit Developers. Twenty-two percent of county households are renters, and 44 percent of those renters face unaffordable housing costs, the same tool shows.
Production has also lagged behind the county's own targets. Loudoun built 2,428 new housing units in 2025, short of its annual target of 2,513, and cumulative production since 2019 has likewise fallen below the seven-year goal of 17,591 units. The county has set a broader goal of adding 8,200 new units affordable below 100 percent of area median income by 2040, according to the housing indicator data.
Looking to Fairfax for a Blueprint
Loudoun's neighbor to the east offers a model for how public land deals can pencil out. Fairfax County redeveloped a county-owned site beside George Mason University into 240 affordable units for families and seniors alongside more than 300 market-rate student apartments, leasing the land at a nominal rate for 99 years in a deal estimated to add a $12 million subsidy, according to the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Fairfax Crest, a separate project planned on two underused parking lots beside county offices, is set to include 279 affordable rental units for households earning 30 to 70 percent of area median income, per the same Lincoln Institute report.
Fairfax has used similarly low-cost arrangements elsewhere, too. The 270-unit Residences at Government Center is being built on county-owned land that Fairfax is leasing to developers for $1 per year in exchange for creating affordable housing, according to Affordable Housing Finance. These kinds of public-private partnerships help make affordable housing projects viable by stripping land costs out of the capital stack entirely, a dynamic Loudoun officials appear eager to replicate as they work through their own list of 199 potentially suitable sites.
Legal Hurdles Still on the Table
Any path forward involving school-owned land will have to clear legal ground as well. Virginia law grants school boards authority to lease real property, among other powers, according to Virginia Code § 22.1-129, though the statute alone does not spell out every requirement for converting a specific school parcel into housing. That legal ambiguity is part of why county staff flagged conveyance of school land as one of the hurdles still to be resolved before Loudoun's inventory of public parcels can become an actual pipeline of attainable housing.
