Five-and-a-half years ago, Fairfax County embarked upon a plan to transform Tysons Corner — its ugly but serviceable car-dependent suburban office park — into a self-contained urban oasis, the ultimate of the once-trendy “edge cities.”
According to the vision, thousands of smart, upscale residents would walk to their meaningful jobs from green luxury condos, patronizing chic boutiques and restaurants, while their fellow workers living elsewhere reduced their carbon footprints by riding the new Metrorail extension.
The best part was it wouldn’t cost Fairfax taxpayers a thing. Uncle Sam would pay half of Dulles Rail’s construction costs, the state another quarter, and Tysons landowners would pony up the remaining 25 percent.
Last month, the Fairfax County Planning Commission rubberstamped this vision in a 230-page document developed by a Tysons Task Force consisting of 34 hand-picked political operatives who amazingly needed more than a year to reach the same conclusions as Tysons landowners and their political enablers on the county’s Board of Supervisors.
Today, board members will hold a cursory public hearing on proposed revisions to the comprehensive plan before rubberstamping the commission’s recommendations, thus approving ultra-high-density growth around the four new Tysons Metro stations already under construction. But the “planners” forgot a few little details.
For instance, there’s still no plan to pay for the estimated $1.5 billion in road improvements needed to transform a place that was designed for cars, not pedestrians. Or to prevent total gridlock in the surrounding communities.
Who will pay for a circulator feeder bus everyone agrees is a must?
There has been no discussion as to why Tysons Corner should be given any more density when commercial and retail vacancy rates in Fairfax County are running between 15 and 20 percent, and at least one building in Tysons is completely empty.
There has been no public analysis of the Merrifield Mosaic District, the county’s first real attempt at transit-oriented development, and why it failed to stimulate much economic development despite being located at the geographical and population center of Fairfax County and within walking distance of the Dunn Loring Metro station.
There has been no explanation why the top Tysons Corner landowners — including Lerner Corp., West Group, Macerich (which owns Tysons Corner Center) and Science Applications International Corp. (Rep. Gerry Connolly’s old employer) — aren’t helping to pay for the enormous public improvements that will be required to handle a fourfold increase in density. They own property adjacent to the new Tysons Metro stations and therefore stand to gain the most from the new zoning rules.
It will cost billions of dollars to transform Tysons Corner, but the fact is that the county simply doesn’t have the money. Instead of asking the landowners to pick up the slack, county leaders are proposing a series of general countywide tax increases — on meals, real estate sales, vehicle registration, rental cars, hotel rooms and car repairs.
This means that average Fairfax County residents and businesses, whose property taxes have doubled during the past decade, will be taxed even more to pay for redevelopment in Tysons Corner –over and above the estimated $100 million a year they will be charged for the Silver Line’s operating costs. In the current economic climate, there’s no guarantee taxpayers will get a return on their forced investment.
This is not planning, it’s the kind of wishful thinking from which Fairfax supervisors have a fiduciary duty to protect their constituents.
Barbara F. Hollingsworth is The Examiner‘s local opinion editor.
