There are several interesting and useful posts on the Virginia sub-reddit (/r/Virginia) about legislation and engagement at the state levels. The first is Check the Bills your representatives are proposing this session. This post leads with the following (also shown above in the image):
Please look at lis.virginia.gov
Please be an engaged citizen. Please look to see the bills your elected representatives are proposing and say something about them. I don't care what flavor you vote, but please be part of the process. You might be surprised at some of the utter crap some people push for reasons that are not transparent or good for anyone they are supposed to represent.
Find your legislators using this link.
The second post is Post the 2023 Bills you want to share, comment, highlight here! As time goes on, this will be an interesting read and a post that should be bookmarked.
While these are obviously about legislation at the state level, many will have an impact on the Northern Neck. Consider this from the second post:
HD 55 Buddy Fowler HB1473 Land use plans; zoning, notice.
SUMMARY AS INTRODUCED:
Land use plans; zoning; notice. Alters the notice requirements related to local government adoption of land use plans and zoning ordinances by no longer requiring the notice to contain a descriptive summary of the proposed action but continues to require the locality to identify in the notice the place or places within the locality where copies of the proposed plans, ordinances, or amendments may be examined. Furthermore, such notice must include the street address or tax map parcel number of the parcels as well as the approximate acreage subject to the action. With regard to notice of proposed zoning actions, the bill also (i) removes the requirement to state general usage and density of the proposed zoning action and (ii) eliminates the requirement for an extra public hearing when land is zoned to a more intensive use classification than was contained in the previous public notice.
TL/DR: This bill reduces the transparency of developments, reduces the amount of information available. This could enable a bait-and-switch eg where initial proposals are for very low density development, it gets switched to a higher density or even another use partway through and not properly published.
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