Fairfax business leaders are balking at the county’s revised plans for Tysons Corner. Chamber of Commerce Chairman Stuart Mendelsohn says county planning staff has drastically reduced the lucrative zoning densities of the multibillion-dollar project without reducing the investment requirements on developers and property owners. In a letter to Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Sharon Bulova, Mendelsohn says the “business community fears that if the development conditions are not significantly adjusted,” the plan “will no longer be economically feasible.” County leaders are hoping to turn Tysons Corner into the region’s “second downtown” with a new Metro line and four stops. They want a mixture of condos, apartments, shopping, restaurants, stores and offices. But county planning officials have cut back on the scale of development, citing concerns over traffic. Bulova has brokered a meeting next week between the chamber and county planning staff, she said. “We do need to make sure that we’re building into the plan the flexibility that’s needed,” Bulova said. Mendelsohn says owners and developers, now being denied millions in extra construction and rent revenue by the lower-scale plan, are nonetheless being asked to pony up money for streets, environmentally friendly buildings and affordable housing. It won’t work, he says. “I think this is the most critical thing the county has decided in the last 20 years,” Mendelsohn, a former county supervisor, told The Examiner. “It’s an absolutely critical decision point for the planning board and the board of supervisors.”
