URGENT: Lennar is building a subdivision in Lovettsville which will senselessly and unnecessarily destroy wetlands and streams.  The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is currently reviewing Lennar's permits for this construction project, but the company is already building a road through these sensitive wetlands, creating a dangerous intersection next to a blind curve in Lovettsville Rd.  

DEQ's Virginia Water Protection (VWP) staff and the Army Corps of Engineers (COE) have the authority and obligation to require Lennar pursue a far less damaging alternative route for this road, which has been offered to Lennar.  In light of this, we are therefore urging DEQ and COE to pause construction of this road and investigate these unpermitted impacts before irreversible damage occurs. 

PLEASE ADD YOUR SIGNATURE TO THE FULL LETTER, WHICH IS PASTED BELOW:

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Dear VWP and COE staff,

We are 450 residents of Lovettsville, and the surrounding towns and communities.  Our names and addresses appear below.  We are writing because it has come to our attention that Lennar is seeking to modify their existing VWP and SPGP permit coverage in several substantial ways.

Lennar is currently building a 34-home subdivision called the “Schoene Project,” which is located between the Lovettsville Community Center (57 E Broad Way, Lovettsville, VA 20180) and the St. James Cemetery (39592-39598 Lovettsville Rd, Lovettsville, VA 20180).  This project received permit coverage under VWP permit WP4-22-2520 in 2023 and SPGP permit NAO-2021-00979 in 2024.  However, despite having already started construction, Lennar recently proposed a number of substantial additional impacts and changes to their project that have not previously been reviewed by DEQ or COE.

While this subdivision will include homes built in the Town of Lovettsville, and on an adjoining parcel in the unincorporated part of the County, the entire subdivision would be served by a single access road called “Schoene Farm Place”.  This road is extremely poorly designed.  It not only cuts directly through a large swath of sensitive wetlands and streams along Lovettsville Rd, but it would also create a dangerous intersection directly next to a blind 90-degree turn in Lovettsville Rd.

The changes Lennar has proposed to its existing coverage came in the form of a “Notice of Planned Changes” (NOPC) and a “State Surface Water Delineation” (SSWD), which were submitted to DEQ in September and October, 2025 respectively.  We believe these changes will result in substantial increases to wetland and stream impacts, which Lennar has both failed to acknowledge and address.  

We are particularly concerned with include the following issues in these proposed changes:

Lennar starved more than 0.5 acres of wetlands along Lovettsville Rd (referred to as “Wetland D” in their permit application), preventing any inflow of rainwater for over 2.5 months;
There is no analysis supporting the claim that the modified culvert and weir designs, proposed by Lennar, will restore the flow of water into all of these wetlands;
Lennar has recently proposed permanently deforesting a large swath of forested streams and wetlands on the south side of Lovettsville Rd, and falsely describes these as “maintenance” activities; and
This deforestation will not only cause permanent biological, chemical and physical impacts to the streams, and vegetation conversion in the forested wetlands, but also destroy critical habitat for the State Threatened species, the wood turtle.
There has been no analysis by Lennar, DEQ or COE of a less-environmentally damaging practicable alternative that would massively reduce all of these newly proposed impacts: namely, connecting Schoene Farm Place to North Church St, instead of Lovettsville Rd.
 

 In light of the ongoing review of these changes, we request that DEQ and COE:

Grant public hearings so that the voices of hundreds of concerned local residents can be heard, and numerous aspects of the project which have not been reviewed can be considered;
Deny these modification requests, and instruct Lennar to re-apply for individual permit coverage if they wish to continue with their newly-proposed design;
Request that Loudoun County Building and Development’s Natural Resources Team, be provided with an opportunity to review and give comments on the recent NOPC and SSWD submissions; and
 Pause Lennar’s current permit coverage until all of these reviews are completed.
 

Each of these impacts is discussed in more details below:

1) Lennar has starved more than 0.5 acres of wetlands along Lovettsville Rd (referred to as “Wetland D” in their permit application) of any influx of rainwater.  These wetlands previously received runoff from a roughly 66-acre watershed, including both on-site and off-site drainage basins, prior to Lennar beginning construction.  However, upon beginning construction, Lennar excavated and blasted in the locations where Schoene Farm Place and an adjacent detention pond will be built.  As a result, for over two-and-a-half months, no rainwater reached most of these 0.5 acres (shown as “not impacted” on page 16 of their NOPC), despite Lennar having no approval to carry out this draining from DEQ, the Army Corps of Engineers, or Loudoun County.  No temporary impacts to Wetland D were ever authorized. These unauthorized impacts were noted and documented by DEQ and County staff as SWM and ESC plan violations during their November 5th, 2025 site visit, and photos of the impounded water, and the transfer pump being used to redirect water around Wetland D are included in the site visit inspection report.  While corrective measures were mandated, but no post-hoc permit coverage for these temporary impacts has been requested or received.

2) Lennar’s NOPC makes an entirely unsubstantiated claim that these impacts will not become permanent, because of modified designs to the culverts that will eventually run under Schoene Farm Place, and restore water flow into Wetland D.  However, in Lennar’s original permit application, they acknowledged that water flow into Wetland D prior to construction was primarily in the form of “sheet flow”.  By channelizing this flow into three narrow culverts and a single overflow weir, water inundation will be severely restricted, and likely permanently reduce inundation of much of the >0.5 acres of un-excavated wetlands along Lovettsville Road.  In addition, by creating a new, massive extended detention pond, designed to accommodate a 100-year flood event, substantial amounts of runoff will recharge into the groundwater before even reaching Wetland D via the proposed weir.  Lennar has not provided any hydrological analysis supporting their claim that these wetlands will not be permanently impacted.  Particularly in light of their unpermitted draining of Wetland D, this is deeply concerning.  We believe such analysis must occur before this NOPC can be approved.

3) Lennar’s SSWD incorrectly characterizes the permanent deforestation of a sight-distance easement on the south side of Lovettsville Rd.  Some context here is necessary.  In order for the intersection of Lovettsville Rd and “Schoene Farm Place” to meet VDOT traffic safety standards, the entirety of the “SI1 easement” on the south side of Lovettsville Rd must be permanently deforested.  This intersection lies just west of a blind 90-degree curve in Lovettsville Rd, and if the large, mature trees in the SI1 easement (which lies on the inside of this curve) are not cleared, there will be no way to see oncoming traffic.

For the past several years, Lennar has prevented DEQ and COE from engaging in a rigorous review of these impacts.  During the original review of their WP4 and SPGP permit coverage, they failed to disclose these impacts at all, despite the fact that Lennar had already acknowledged to VDOT that such deforestation would be required.  On August 22, 2024 five environmental organizations notified DEQ and COE that this area would need to be permanently cleared, but because permit coverage had already been verified, no action was taken.  On February 25, 2025 the developer submitted incorrect documentation to DEQ, suggesting that only “64 linear feet of intermittent stream channel” of the SI1 easement would need to be cleared, and only one time.  DEQ was notified on March 6, 2025 of the errors in Lennar’s documents by concerned citizens - namely, that the clearing would in fact impact a much larger area, and need to be repeated in perpetuity.  However, DEQ stated they were “unable to discuss” these concerns because they were “outside of the purview of the DEQ-VWP SSWD process” - essentially stating that DEQ was bound to defer to claims made by Lennar, through their environmental consultant Bowman Consulting.  We believe this was, and remains, a misreading of the avoidance and minimization requirements associated with any VWP permit modification or SPGP re-verification.

Now, after three years of delay, Lennar has finally acknowledged that they will permanently remove all of the mature trees along the streambanks and in the forested wetlands in the SI1 easement, including over 200 linear feet of stream channel.  However, contrary to all available evidence, Lennar and Bowman have continued to make incorrect claims regarding this clearing:

First, in their October 1, 2025 SSWD, they stated that this clearing was unrelated to the Schoene Project, but rather part of a new project called the “672 Sight Easement”, and that it constitutes “maintenance” of an existing utility, and thus should be excluded from VWP review.  Both of these claims are unfounded: VDOT has mandated this clearing specifically because of the Schoene Project, and in particular, the road Schoene Farm Place.  Furthermore, this clearing in no way represents maintenance, because the line of sight through this easement does not yet exist.  Nothing is being “maintained”: rather, mature forested streambanks and wetlands are being destroyed anew.  

4) Lennar also claimed that the clearing will have no impacts on the wetlands and streams, but this too is incorrect.  As early as May 28, 2024, Anna Dougherty, with Loudoun County Natural Resources Team, correctly noted that with regard to the SI1 easement, “removal of vegetation within wetland areas is considered an impact.” The reason for this is clear: whether or not tree stumps are removed, regularly cutting all aboveground portions of the mature trees will lead to vegetation conversion, which itself is a regulated impact when it occurs in protected waters.  Furthermore, by deforesting the streambanks, stream water temperatures will increase, leaf litter deposition will be removed, and perennial root systems will die and decay, increasing erosion and sediment runoff.  All of this will negatively impact the aquatic life in these streams and wetlands, as well as the downstream Catoctin Creek.  These consequences constitute impacts to the biological, chemical and physical characteristics of the streams and wetlands, which are also regulated impacts.

Finally, this area is important habitat for amphibians and reptiles, including critical habitat for the State Threatened species, the wood turtle.  Reports to DWR of observations of wood turtles in the SI1 easement date back to at least 2023.  This is unsurprising, as per the DWR, the habitat for the wood turtle consists of forested streams with slowly flowing water, sufficient amounts of leaf litter for overwintering, and surrounding forested floodplain with a mix of trees and open grasslands.  This is precisely the habitat that currently exists in the SI1 easement, and by permanently removing trees and leaf litter, the deforestation proposed by the applicant will also permanently destroy this habitat.  Indeed, in their original JPA (which excluded the SI1 easement), Bowman Consulting stated that it was only because they were at that time not proposing to impact the forested tributaries on the south side of Lovettsville Rd, that they did not anticipate any impacts to the wood turtle.  However, it is this exact area that they are now proposing to permanently deforest, without any mention of how this clearing will impact this State Threatened species.  To state the obvious: VWP permits cannot be modified if there will be impacts to State Threatened species, and SPGP verification cannot be provided for projects that will impact species proposed for listing under the Endangered Species Act (which the wood turtle is).

5) All of these newly disclosed wetland impacts to the sight-distance easement are completely avoidable: Lennar received approval in November of 2024 from Loudoun County and VDOT to construct a much safer access road to their property by routing Schoene Farm Place to an alternative existing road: “North Church St”.  North Church St is a 450’ long, 36’-wide, 4-lane road which currently has very little traffic, since it serves only a local post office.  It has a 25-mph speed limit and stop signs.  Lovettsville Rd, by comparison, is a 16-18’-wide, 2-lane major rural collector road that already serves thousands of more vehicles per day than it was designed to accommodate.  Accessing the Schoene Property via North Church St would eliminate all of the wetland impacts associated with this access road, including impacts discussed here, and have the added benefit of being much safer from a traffic design perspective.  In fact, this access is so readily available, that the developer has started using North Church St as their primary site access, because they currently have no legal construction entrance along Lovettsville Rd.  The included map compares this alternative option to the currently proposed design.  Importantly, this connection would not represent any additional cost to Lennar, as the owner of the adjoining parcel, New Era Ventures Development, has offered an easement to North Church St at no charge to Lennar.  Despite all of this, Lennar has declined to connect Schoene Farm Place to North Church St.

Given the above, we respectfully request that DEQ and COE grant public hearings to better understand these aspects of the project, and the concerns of local residents.  We will note that we represent 18x the minimum required number of concerned citizens for DEQ to consider a public hearing request. 

We also request that DEQ and COE pause existing permit coverage for Schoene Farm Place, until this review can be completed.  Pausing construction of the Schoene Farm Place entrance onto Lovettsville Rd would prevent additional unnecessary damage from being done to our environment.  Because Lennar can continue constructing the rest of their subdivision while this review is ongoing, we do not believe this would impose any significant burden upon them.

Thank you very much for your careful review of this permit application.