Fairfax County might be shaking its fist at the federal government for rushing to move some 22,000 military jobs to Fort Belvoir, but the county might also put its hand out for money to plan for the massive worker incursion.
The Board of Supervisors might apply for $1.3 million in Department of Defense grants to hire temporary land use and transportation planners and commission studies that would prepare for the job influx, which was ordered by 2011 under federal Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC).
The relocation is expected to overwhelm the already-taxed transportation systems of southern Fairfax County, and planners say hundreds of millions of dollars worth of road improvements will be necessary before the move. Local officials were angered by a recent announcement that the Army plans to locate 18,000 of the jobs on the 800-acre Engineer Proving Ground off Interstate 95.
“We know the people will be coming, and there will be an impact of that number of people coming to the county,” said Fairfax County spokeswoman Merni Fitzgerald. “We want to be able to prepare for it.”
The board will weigh applying for the funds on Monday. County staff envision implementing two studies: one that would look attransportation systems in Springfield, and another that would consider BRAC’s impact to land use and public facilities in several areas.
The funds would come from the Defense Department’s Office of Economic Adjustment, which recently awarded Arlington County $876,084 to ease a massive military job loss there, also a result of BRAC.
