“When you zone more property in any year than the market will absorb, then you have over-zoned,” says Kirk Turner, the county planning director. “A healthy growth rate is 2 percent. Anything less doesn’t support the growth, anything more stresses our ability to provide public services.” (Chesterfield’s population growth rate was higher than 2 percent for most of this decade, with a high of 2.75 percent from 2005 to 2006.)

Durfee asked the board about plans for public facilities. She was told repeatedly that those would come later. In response, she formed the Responsible Growth Alliance in 2002 and six months later, founded the regional Partnership for Smarter Growth.

Durfee — described by acquaintances as committed, persistent and driven — became known as a go-to person for bringing up issues with the supervisors.

By early 2007, Durfee had addressed the board more than 200 times. Other residents and smart-growth colleagues encouraged her to run for an open board seat representing the Matoaca district. Durfee was mourning the death of her father and preparing her older daughter for college. She didn’t want to think about campaigning. But right before the April deadline, she jumped on board, making it a four-way race to replace Renny Humphrey, who had decided not to seek re-election.

It looked like a long shot; Durfee was an independent candidate in a predominantly Republican county with no political machine backing her. Her campaign went online, aided by a YouTube video featuring supporters’ testimonials and Durfee talking about shortcomings of county leadership and her ideas for solutions. Her unusual tactics worked; she won with 43 percent of the vote and took office in January 2008.

A Seat at the Table
“We can do better,” is what County Administrator Jay Stegmaier says he hears from Durfee in almost every conversation. But he adds, “There’s a lot from 20,000 feet that looks like it could be done better. When you get down on the ground, there are obstacles you didn’t see from [there] — whether they are unforeseen consequences or political realities.”

Case in point: her push to complete the revision of a countywide comprehensive plan in 18 months. “It’s pretty aggressive,” Stegmaier says, adding that such a revision typically takes two to three years.

But Durfee sees progress, even if at a slower pace than she’d like. The board has approved hiring a consultant to work on updating the comprehensive plan and appointed 32 residents to an advisory committee. At June’s meeting, supervisors discussed transportation, economic development, levels of service, the environment and revitalization as part of the revision process.

Last summer, the supervisors approved a revised Upper Swift Creek plan that designates a portion of the 446.5 square miles as a growth-management area, where rezoning for residential and commercial development is discouraged until sufficient public facilities are extended to the area.

A group of land owners filed suit afterward, arguing that the growth-management designation would harm their property rights. However, the group is not pursuing the suit for now. Jack Wilson, one of the lawyers representing the property owners, says the revision of the county’s comprehensive plan could resolve their issues.

Bruce Moseley, one of the property owners, says his family has owned land in the area for eight generations. “We weren’t looking to develop now but felt that if we wanted to in the future, it stifled the ability of our children who may not want to farm anymore,” he says.

Meanwhile, the economic slowdown has led to a sharp decline in building-permit applications. In 2004, there were 3,811 building-permit applications for single-family homes, including apartments; projections for the current year are in the 600s. Turner also estimates the county’s population increase from 2008 to 2009 was less than 1 percent.

Recently, Durfee has set her sights beyond Chesterfield. In May, she led a team project with the Leadership Metro Richmond program and helped launch a Web site, transittalk.com, to point out the benefits of mass transit and seek public participation in the issue. Durfee also represents Chesterfield in four other regional organizations. The half-dozen boxes and binders of paper work in the back of her SUV are a testament to her perpetual involvement.

She also is among a group of regional leaders who are positioning Virginia to compete for a chunk of the $8 billion in available federal funds for high-speed rail. She says that if the high-speed rail project comes to fruition, Richmonders eventually could travel to D.C. in 45 minutes.

In a July news conference, the group announced that nine area jurisdictions and four regional organizations have passed resolutions supporting an application for $1.6 billion to fund high-speed rail in Virginia. Proponents hope the strong regional support, combined with Gov. Tim Kaine’s backing and the state’s proximity to the nation’s capital, will give them an edge in the competition for money.

Because of Durfee’s “smart growth” stance and not infrequent record of being the lone dissenter in 4-1 votes, some have pegged her as a tree hugger. Asked about the label, Durfee pretends to flick it off her shoulder. “You keep putting those labels on me and I’m going to fling ‘em,” she says. “My dad taught me to never let anybody get you down and to persevere.”