A study into future development options along Loudoun’s busiest highway, Route 28, sparked a heated exchange among supervisors Oct. 6, as the study suggested more mixed-use communities with homes were needed in the corridor to entice companies to set up shop along the busy highway.
“I’m troubled that you shifted over so quickly to an advocacy for mixed use,” Supervisor Jim Burton (I-Blue Ridge) chided the authors of the study. “This study is of very little use to me.”
County leaders commissioned the 53-page study–-performed by Fairfax County-based Fulton Research earlier this year-–in part, to give them a guide into how Route 28 between Route 7 and Dulles International Airport should be developed over the next 30 years.
Among the study’s suggestions is that friendlier and more streamlined zoning policies be put in place in the corridor. The report also suggests mixed-use communities be allowed there, as commercial tenants favor offices within walking distance to homes and entertainment. Currently, much of the corridor is restricted to single office buildings surrounded by large parking lots.
And while the report was launched in the name of economic development, it was also spurred-on out of immediate necessity, as several major rezoning plans in the corridor are now coursing through the approval process. These proposals include bringing more shops, offices and homes to Dulles Town Center, and a proposed community called Kincora, both of which are on the north end of Route 28.
Supervisors were given the study at a meeting in September. However, given its length and breadth of information, they took the past several weeks to digest it. At Tuesday’s meeting, supervisors–several flummoxed by its call for more homes–vented their frustration.
Supervisor Andrea McGimsey (D-Potomac), a former worker for the anti-growth group the Piedmont Environmental Council, led the charge against the study, as she had the most problems with it.
For one, she said the study suggested the corridor be opened up to thousands of more homes. By her count, if the county followed through with all of its suggestions, more than 17,000 homes could be built along Route 28.
She also angrily questioned why the study said Route 28 has “tremendous transportation capacity,” when, as McGimsey pointed out, a state study said it did not. “It’s just not accurate from what I’ve seen from the governor’s office,” she said, visibly agitated, “...and they control transportation. That is a completely false statement … unless the governor’s office is wrong.”
McGimsey also questioned the study’s details on making Route 28 a sustainable corridor by building more trails, sidewalks and green buildings. She also asked if the authors took into account the “smell” emitted from the nearby Loudoun County water treatment plant.
At that point, Supervisor Lori Waters (R-Broad Run), who sits next to McGimsey at the dais, said something under her breath, which caused McGimsey to heatedly lash, “Supervisor Waters!”
“Ladies, please,” Chairman Scott York (I-at large) chimed in to cool tempers.
For her part, Waters praised the study. She said many of its suggestions would entice companies here and create jobs. “We have to take some sort of action to change the corridor,” she said. She also apologized to the study’s authors for the behavior “of some other board members,” who she said verbally “attacked the messengers” of the study for not liking what’s in it.
“We do need to remain respectful,” she said.
That elicited some sarcasm from York. “As you can tell, we are at unity on what we should do with respect to Route 28,” he said.
During the meeting, it was recommended the county commission another study into how many homes the Route 28 corridor can actually handle.
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I recommend that your readers watch the discussion online, available through the webcasts link on www.loudoun.gov to see the tenor of the discussion and what was actually said, focusing on the critical pieces of information that were missing from this market study (October 6 meeting, V. Committee of the Whole/Route 28 Market Study). I also recommend that they read the study, the questions that Supervisor Burton and I asked in writing, and the lack of answers we received, and ask their elected leaders what actual data lies behind the $27,000 worth of recommendations. To consider future development along Rt. 28 without accurate information on traffic projections is irresponsible. To suggest that we concentrate destination retail near AOL and Raytheon (stores like Walmart), between Waxpool and Sterling Blvd, near the coming 606 metro station, makes little sense. To brand a highway corridor "a sustainability corridor" based on the very little bicycle and pedestrian connectivity is green-washing. Mixed use development belongs in some areas of our community (around metro stops, in designated centers in the county's plan such as Dulles Town Center, etc.) To suggest wide swaths of Rt. 28 be opened up to much more residential, especially without considering the transportation constraints, flies in the face of what most of this Board of Supervisors ran on -- reasonable growth and keeping the focus on our existing communities. If standing up for my constituents (and living up to my campaign promises) is deemed to be a behavioral problem by this newspaper, so be it. I plan to continue to speak up on behalf of the many people that I represent in the Rt 28 corridor and ask for full and accurate information in these discussions.
Finally, it is accepted decorum on the Board of Supervisors to wait one's turn to speak up. Speaking out during another member's comments is disruptive and is usually disciplined by the chair of the Board.