Leesburg Homes for Sale

Leesburg is the Loudoun County seat and also an incorporated town, so two governments, two zoning ordinances and two real property tax rates apply depending on which side of one invisible line a parcel sits on. That line does not appear on a listing sheet and cannot be read off a mailing address. Layered on top of it are a locally designated historic district with binding design review and a town-owned airport whose regulatory noise contours still trace back to a 1985 study. Add a local floodplain map broader than FEMA's and a county tax base that leans heavily on data centers. What follows is the material that changes what you offer. Everything here is current as of August 2026; zoning, tax rates and project schedules move, so verify before relying on any of it.

A Leesburg Address Does Not Tell You Which Government You Are Buying Into

A Leesburg postal address covers far more ground than the incorporated town. Loudoun County's own Lucketts Community Center is addressed 42361 Lucketts Road, Leesburg, VA 20176, and sits in unincorporated county well north of the town line. The difference shows up on the tax bill. For tax year 2026 Loudoun County's real property rate is $0.805 per $100 of assessed value; inside the corporate limits the town adds $0.1774 per $100, roughly 22 percent more on the same assessment. Since January 1, 2019 the county has billed and collected real estate taxes for Leesburg and four other Loudoun towns, so both rates appear as separate line items on one combined bill paid to the county. Town parcels follow the town's zoning ordinance and receive town police service and town trash and recycling collection. County parcels follow the county ordinance and the Sheriff's Office. The town also requires its own zoning permit before work that needs a county building permit can begin on a town parcel; confirm the current procedure with the town zoning office. What does not change at the line: Loudoun County Public Schools is one countywide division, and its attendance zones are drawn without regard to the town boundary. Confirm jurisdiction parcel by parcel. Note also that Leesburg is rewriting a zoning ordinance last comprehensively adopted in February 2003. The Planning Commission held its public hearing on the draft on April 16, 2026, Town Council review began in summer 2026, and as of August 2026 the town anticipated adoption by the end of the 2026 calendar year. A Council public hearing is required before adoption; check the town's calendar for the scheduled date.

The H-1 Old and Historic District, the Board of Architectural Review, and the Demolition Clock

Leesburg's Town Council established the Old and Historic District in 1963, when Virginia had only four such districts: Alexandria, Richmond, Charlottesville and Williamsburg. The H-1 overlay, created under the authority of Virginia Code § 15.2-2306, sits on top of base zoning, and the underlying district still controls uses and setbacks. Inside H-1 a Certificate of Appropriateness must issue before exterior work begins, and the town applies that broadly to exterior alterations, including in-kind replacement of material. The ordinance reaches driveways, walkways and other paving, fences and walls, windows, doors and chimneys, porches and decks, additions, new construction, signs, demolition, and changes to exterior paint and color. Under Section 7.5.6 the town's Preservation Planner may approve a defined short list administratively without a public hearing, including a change to an existing exterior color scheme, fences, driveways and walkways, and small rear-yard items subject to a square-footage cap. The town's published materials have carried more than one figure for that patio cap, so get the operative number from preservation staff before you design to it. Everything else goes to the Board of Architectural Review, which meets monthly on a published application-deadline schedule; staff track a critical action date 75 days after the first public hearing on an application. The ordinance provides an appeal from the Board to Town Council. From a final Council decision, § 15.2-2306 requires the locality to allow an appeal to circuit court filed within 30 days. Filing that court petition stays the governing body's decision, with one exception: it does not stay a decision denying the right to raze or demolish. Do not assume the same stay applies at the Council stage — confirm the Council-stage deadlines and stay rules with preservation staff, especially while the ordinance is being rewritten. Demolition also has a separate track from ordinary alteration: work above a percentage threshold of a building's exterior wall and roof surface is treated as demolition and requires a Historic District Demolition Permit rather than a COA. Confirm the current percentage with staff. Separately, state law gives an owner a route to demolish even over the Board's objection. Under § 15.2-2306(A)(3) the owner must apply for that right and then offer the property for sale for a set period, with no bona fide contract executed in that window. The offer must run to the locality or to a person or entity giving reasonable assurance of preserving the building, not simply onto the open market. The period is keyed to the offering price and runs from three months under $25,000 up to twelve months at $90,000 and above. Those dollar thresholds are old, so in practice a Leesburg house falls in the twelve-month tier. That period is a state statutory minimum; a purchase contract does not shorten it. H-1 is not the only design-review overlay in town — the Historic Corridor overlay along the Route 7 approaches and the Gateway District also require certificates. Confirm which overlays touch the parcel and their current procedure as of August 2026.

Town Water and Sewer, the Service Boundary, and Availability Fees

Leesburg Utilities is a town-owned system, and its service territory is not the same shape as the town line. Loudoun Water serves the county's Central Service Area and, under the county's comprehensive plan, is the presumed provider of new water and sewer service in the county land to the town's east and south. Rural parcels outside both systems run on private well and septic permitted through the county. Rates come from a five-year plan the Town Council adopted January 9, 2024, which set water and sewer user rates rising 4.1 percent a year. Higher out-of-town rates remain in the adopted schedule, but as of August 2026 out-of-town customers are billed in-town rates. That change came out of the Compass Creek annexation settlement, under which the county pays the town $2 million a year as an economic development grant, subject to a 3 percent annual escalator, to offset the forgone revenue. Before the change, out-of-town customers paid a 40 percent differential. The town states the reduction holds only as long as both parties meet the agreement's terms, so treat it as a policy that can move rather than a permanent rate. New connections pay one-time availability fees that purchase system capacity. As published by the town, a new single-family or duplex home is assessed a minimum of $14,095, made up of $4,683 water and $9,412 sewer, and a townhouse or multifamily unit $12,750 per unit. Those fees run with the Public Facilities Permit and are due after plans are approved and before a zoning permit issues. Figures as of August 2026.

Leesburg Executive Airport and the Two Noise Overlays

The airport, FAA identifier JYO, is owned and operated by the Town of Leesburg, sits south of town, and has a 5,500-foot grooved asphalt runway. The town describes it as the second-busiest general aviation airport in Virginia and a designated Dulles reliever. The most recent published operations count is 81,873 aircraft operations in 2022, an average of about 224 a day; ask the airport for a current figure rather than relying on that one. It operates within the Washington, DC Special Flight Rules Area. JYO hosted the FAA's first remote air traffic control tower in the United States, with testing beginning in 2015, and the FAA ended that service in June 2023. Since then a mobile tower has operated on site, rented by the town, with the FAA covering controller staffing. A permanent tower design was unveiled on February 11, 2026 for an 86-foot tower near the existing FAA building. As of August 2026 design completion was anticipated in spring 2027, construction in late 2027 or early 2028, and project completion targeted for spring 2029, with most costs expected to come from FAA and Virginia Department of Aviation grant programs. Two different ordinances map the noise, and their requirements are not identical. Both the town's airport overlay and Loudoun County's Airport Impact Overlay use three bands: Ldn 65 and above, Ldn 60 to 65, and a one-mile buffer beyond the Ldn 60 contour where disclosure alone applies. Both still delineate Leesburg's contours from a Leesburg Municipal Airport Environmental Assessment Report dated October 1985, which long predates current traffic. In the Ldn 60 to 65 band, new residential construction must be acoustically treated so interior living-space noise does not exceed Ldn 45 dB(A). The town requires that certification from an acoustical engineer licensed in Virginia; the county requires it from a licensed professional engineer or architect. The county also requires dedication of an avigation easement before certain residential plats and zoning permits. Its easement provision is written around protecting Washington Dulles International Airport, so confirm with county zoning whether an easement is required for a parcel mapped to the Leesburg contours, and to whom it runs. In Ldn 65 and above, new dwellings are generally not permitted, subject to narrow lot-of-record exceptions that differ between the two ordinances. Read the ordinance that governs the parcel, not the other one.

Route 7, Route 15, the Bypass and the Greenway Toll

Route 7 and Route 15 both serve Leesburg and share the Leesburg Bypass around the town. Several projects are in motion and are worth checking against a specific address. Loudoun County is widening Route 15 from two lanes to four between Battlefield Parkway and Montresor Road. The design includes a signalized continuous green T intersection at North King Street, an upgraded intersection at Whites Ferry Road, a two-lane hybrid roundabout at Montresor Road, a realigned Limestone School Road, and shared-use paths. As of August 2026 the county schedule shows right-of-way acquisition from spring 2026 to winter 2027, utility relocation from fall 2026 into winter 2029, and construction from winter 2027 to winter 2030. VDOT's Route 7 STARS study covers roughly eight miles from the Route 15 Bypass and East Market Street interchange east to the Algonkian Parkway and Atlantic Boulevard interchange. One alternative under study widens Route 7 from six lanes to eight between River Creek Parkway/Crosstrail Boulevard and Loudoun County Parkway. The study was expected to finish in late 2026, and a STARS study sets no construction date — it produces improvements a locality can then seek funding for. The town's proposed Battlefield Parkway interchange at the Route 15 Bypass is a double-roundabout design with at-grade pedestrian crossings. Town Council endorsed the interchange access report on January 23, 2024 and VDOT approved it in April 2024. Construction funding has not been secured as of August 2026, and the timeline depends on future funding awards, so treat any completion date you are quoted as conditional. The Dulles Greenway is a privately owned 14-mile toll road to Dulles, operated by Toll Road Investors Partnership II. As of August 2026 tolls for most cars are $5.80 peak and $5.25 off-peak. A requested increase to $6.75 peak and $5.60 off-peak was pending before the State Corporation Commission in case PUR-2025-00191; the commission held hearings in June and July 2026 and took written comment through August 12, 2026. Loudoun County opposed the increase. Check the case docket for the outcome.

The W&OD Trail Through Leesburg, and the Power Corridor Above It

The Washington & Old Dominion Railroad Regional Park is a roughly 45-mile paved trail from Shirlington to Purcellville, managed by NOVA Parks, with about 32.5 miles of parallel crushed-stone and dirt bridle path. It runs through Leesburg on the former railroad roadbed. NOVA Parks lists two local trailheads: the Douglass Community Center lot off Sycolin Road, and the Loudoun County High School lot off Catoctin Circle, where parking is weekend-only during the school year. The detail most buyers miss is that the corridor is simultaneously an electric transmission easement. Virginia Electric and Power Company bought the right of way after the railroad ceased operations in 1968. Agreement was reached in 1977 for the regional park authority to purchase the corridor in stages, and the purchase was completed in 1982, with the utility retaining an easement to maintain and extend its lines along it. Transmission lines run above much of the trail. In early 2025 Dominion Energy terminated a 2005 memorandum of understanding that had limited cutting, and vegetation clearing along the corridor drew objections from NOVA Parks and local governments. Dominion and NOVA Parks signed a new memorandum on February 3, 2026 that formalizes coordination, favors pruning and low-growing native replanting, and requires 30 days' advance notice to NOVA Parks, neighboring jurisdiction officials and residents before nearby transmission projects and major maintenance. If a lot backs to the trail, treat the mature tree screen as subject to that easement rather than permanent, and confirm the current arrangement before paying for the view.

Data Centers, Loudoun's Tax Base, and the Parcels Near Leesburg

Loudoun County's own budget FAQ states that data centers occupy approximately 4 percent of the county's commercial parcels but yield 38 percent of general fund revenue. That is the mechanism behind a real property rate the county says it has reduced for homeowners every year for the past decade, and which stands at $0.805 per $100 for tax year 2026. The same FAQ warns that data center personal property tax growth is expected to plateau in the next five to ten years, which is a reason not to assume today's rate is permanent. The land-use rules tightened on March 18, 2025. The Board of Supervisors voted to make data centers a special exception rather than a by-right use in the districts where they had been permitted outright, so new proposals now go through Planning Commission and Board public hearings. A companion grandfathering resolution let applications submitted before February 12, 2025 proceed without that review, subject to conditions including that the project sits more than 500 feet from residential units and is diligently pursued without substantial modification. Some grandfathered projects are therefore still moving. On September 16, 2025 the Board approved a Phase 2 project plan on data center standards and locations; as of August 2026 that work was still underway. Leesburg has its own stake. The town's 2026 tax rate on data center computer equipment is $0.75 per $100, a separate lower rate it agreed under the Compass Creek settlement to hold for five years. That settlement annexed more than 400 acres into town, including a 323-acre Microsoft data center campus beside the airport, with the boundary change and town taxation taking effect January 1, 2025. For a specific house, read the zoning of nearby parcels and the pending applications, not the current skyline.

Floodplain: Tuscarora Creek, Minor Floodplain, and What FEMA's Map Leaves Out

Leesburg created its Floodplain Overlay District in 2017 to bring town regulations into conformance with the National Flood Insurance Program, and it is wider than FEMA's map. Under Section 7.11 of the town zoning ordinance, Major Floodplain matches FEMA's Special Flood Hazard Area, the mapped Zones A and AE. Minor Floodplain covers areas subject to flooding along streams draining between 100 and 640 acres. Minor Floodplain is regulated by the town, its boundaries are established through site-specific study, and it is not shown on a FEMA Flood Insurance Rate Map. Loudoun County applies the same split in its own floodplain overlay for county parcels. A parcel can therefore clear a FEMA lookup and still carry a local restriction on additions, grading or accessory structures. Tuscarora Creek runs through central Leesburg. The town's Tuscarora Creek flood mitigation and stream restoration project is complete, and it included realigning the channel to reduce erosion and planting a riparian buffer. As of August 2026 the town also lists further Tuscarora Creek stream restoration work as active capital projects, including segments at Crescent Parke and between the utilities maintenance building and the town shop. On July 14, 2026 the town launched a multi-year Stormwater Flooding and Resilience Plan, funded by a Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation grant, to update a stormwater master plan last updated in 1990. The town also has proposed changes to its floodplain ordinances in progress, so confirm the operative rules before you rely on a mapped boundary. The town does not determine flood insurance; lenders do.