We want Loudoun County to create a new country!

That's right, country. Planning documents from Loudoun County reveal that "Dulles South" would be stuffed with 28,000 homes and eventually have a population of more than 77,000. Bigger than Silver Spring, Gaithersburg, or Frederick. Another Ashburn or two Leesburgs. And yes, bigger than Liechtenstein, Dominica, or Greenland. This plan is expected to go to the Board of Supervisors amid media reports of questionable developer tactics. The Washington Post was moved to comment (editorial 0ct. 3) that "proponents of limitless growth in Loudoun County keep inventing new ways to railroad their designs into law."

Sure, let's approve a comprehensive plan calling for 77,000 people. Let's send it to the Board after only one public hearing. Never mind the irregularities reported. Never mind the assurances that roads will fail and taxes will go up. Never mind that Loudoun is already growing faster than any country (and six times the global rate).

But for goodness sake, we've at least got to have a flag!

But should it be a bulldozer? What should the colors be? Black for Asphalt? Maybe green would be better. Green for what we swept away? Or for the piles of money going into developers' pockets? These are questions you can't enter into lightly. It would be unfair to impose a flag upon these people without SOME sort of process. I mean, there will be 14 schools to buy flags for. 16,000 students that will need to face it every morning. We could use the American flag, but... no wait. We live in a democracy. This place is just going to need its own flag because clearly this sort of process wouldn't happen in America.

Ah, but it is happening. Here's how. Developer interests gave unprecedented sums of money to certain candidates for the Board of Supervisors (check it out at www.vpap.org). These candidates get elected, and (surprise!) new policies kick in.

Just little things. Sewer lines for instance, are now needed (for safety) across huge swaths of semi-rural land. An Outer Beltway around Washington is called for through (coincidentally) the same area. Now, these Supervisors are poised to junk the growth restraints in (you guessed it) the same area. 28,000 houses might be too much for, say, Gibraltar (population 27,884), but not for Dulles South!

According to the CIA's World Factbook, 38 of the globe's 239 countries would be smaller than a built-out Dulles South. So you'd think we'd have some big-time planning here. But the proponents of this "State of South Dullesia" seem to be suffering from a "state of self delusion". And delusion of course it is, to park this new country 15 miles by road from the airport entrance and call it "right next to the airport." 15 miles also happens to be the distance from Dulles to Tysons. But oddly, no one says Tysons is right next to the airport, and a dedicated access highway connects the two.

But the traffic from Dulles South to the airport isn't bad. Oh wait. This plan won't fix traffic? Loudoun County's official report says every road will fail or at least get worse? Check for yourself online at http://inetdocs.loudoun.gov/planning/docs/transition_/092605_/transportation/transportation.pdf or www.loudounsfuture.org? Na. Why bother. We're getting a university campus out of the deal. Possibly at taxpayer expense, but whatever.

Ok. We really do need to be fair. It's true that Dulles South WOULD be the World's 202nd most populous country, bumping the Isle of Man (pop. 75,049) down next to Aruba (pop. 71,566). The problem is with the CIA, which seems to be having a little problem with this country thing. The Faroe Islands for example (pop. 46,962), are technically not a country. They're a self governing region of the Kingdom of Denmark. To quote the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, "a close and continuous co-operation exist between the Danish government and Faroese and Greenlandic home rule governments." I can see the real estate ads now: "Bigger than Greenland, but oh the traffic."

Dulles South would have other similarities with these quasi-republics. You've got the regular government for times of crisis, and this new instrument called a Community Development Authority (CDA) that provides the amenities people expect in today's walkable transit communities. Ok, skip the walkable transit community part. Here's how it works. Each year, residents pay a non tax-deductible assessment to the CDA. The unelected CDA board decides what to do with it and often doesn't have to deal with messy things like public hearings. But in times of crisis, like when the CDA goes bankrupt, you can still count on good old fashioned taxpayers to step in.

And one thing is absolutely clear. The Faroe Islands don't fly the Danish flag. So it is simply unjust to deprive these future Dulles South people of one.

Developers of Dulles South want Loudoun County to create a CDA to finance schools, roads, and other public amenities. The CDA would be a public subsidy to the developers, since they won't have to assume the obligation and risk of amassing hundreds of millions of dollars of debt. It's a mechanism that's only been used once before by the county, but this CDA debt is expected to be larger than Monaco's gross domestic product. This transforms the CDA into a mechanism for issuing highly speculative "dirt-bonds," Wall Street's name for bonds repaid by assessments on individual projects that do not yet exist.

"Dirt-bonds"! How colorful! How appropriate! The developer-friendly Board of Supervisors majority appoints the CDA's leadership, which is, well, fitting for this new country. Democracy isn't for everyone. But the CDA's default is a real threat if the projects aren't completed on schedule. That's what happened in Colorado's Douglas and Aurora counties, and elsewhere, in the late 1980's and early 1990's.

A financial analysis commissioned by the Piedmont Environmental Council shows that despite CDA financing, the plan leads, at a minimum, to a 20-year real property tax increase for all Loudoun taxpayers of about $120 million. This assumes the income from the units would match school budget needs -- so the actual property tax increase could be much higher. The total cost for building out this new country of Dulles South would likely be over a billion dollars, before annual operating costs.

Maybe a simple red flag would be in order.