Bob Bruhns June 18, 2013 at 10:51 am
It seems that developers always push the envelope in whatever they propose or do. Their claim is…Read More that they will not make enough money unless they somehow get approval to build bigger and/or more densely than town planners want. Again and again we see one, two or three more units shoehorned into projects. Sometimes we get proposals with enormous numbers of units, and then the developer "compromises" and cuts back to only a -few- more than planners wanted.
I guess somebody teaches these techniques in a developer school. "Envelope Pushing 101." It looks like a big game to me, and the motivation is clear: profit. Money for the developer.
It happens all the time. I remember the concerns in one residential development where one extra unit was being shoehorned into a plan that had originally involved five units. But now the developer wanted to insert one more unit. Council members stated their concerns. One didn't want any "pipe-stem" lots where the property was blocked in and accessed only by a long narrow driveway (hence the term 'pipe-stem'). The developer made the usual plea; he would not make enough money unless he wedged the sixth unit into the project. The plan did not involve any pipe-stem properties, and other concerns were not considered to be critical, so the change in plan was accepted: six units, where the Town had wanted five.
We see it happen in commercial construction. A developer wanted to build a building in the middle of town. But, the building was going to be bigger than some people expected. "A little too much building, on a little too little land" was how one Councilman put it. In the end it was approved.
The last project that I noticed was residential and the homes were very close together. There was some commotion and some councilfolk said "Well, this was promised, so the promise should be kept." I don't know where the promise came from, or why it might have been made, but the Town should not let itself be bent over backwards by the routine envelope-pushing pressure from developers. That push will never stop, because it comes directly from the profit motive.
We have a Comprehensive Plan, we have a Downtown Development Plan, we have a Metro Area Plan. Town planning is not, and should certainly not be, about making allowance after allowance and giving waiver after waiver to developers who will benefit handsomely, and then promptly leave. If we think we have a vision for the town, then why should we let people walk all over it?
Maybe there should be a new law; any developer who wants to make the "Oh, I won't make enough money" claim to justify yet another exception, should have to show financial hardship and make a justification in unredacted documents that are permanently available to the public online, before any waiver might even be considered. Any waiver, even those that are not requested for the reason of financial hardship, would also have its justification posted permanently online. Shouldn't the public know why the laws and rules that its elected leaders approved, needed to be bent?
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All Boards » Jennifer van der Kleut (Editor) June 18, 2013 at 11:07 pm
Hi Craig - can you send me an email? I'll help get this figured out. Thanks!…Read More jennifer.vanderkleut@patch.com
Jennifer van der Kleut (Editor) June 18, 2013 at 08:01 am
Awww, Dave! Anything specific? Believe me, no one's more rattled than me....but I think given time…Read More we'll all get used to it, as we do with anything. But if you're having trouble finding or figuring out how to use anything, please let me know!
Dave Webster June 18, 2013 at 02:51 pm
I preferred having the local voices scroll where you could see comments on the articles. I had…Read More some problem uploading my picture to my profile.
Bob Bruhns May 26, 2013 at 10:16 am
The problem is that we got tricked into overpriced and premature rail, when we should have started…Read More with Bus Rapid Transit. Had we done that, we could long ago have extended an efficient, dedicated-road bus system from Falls Church out further than Ashburn, and about now we might be converting that to rail from Falls Church to Tysons Corner. By avoiding the ridiculous price of the Silver Line Metrorail, we could also have extended a dedicated-road bus system out toward Centreville and Woodbridge by now as well.
Take a look at the pricetag for the Silver Line - $6 Billion for one single Metrorail line on the north side of Fairfax County and into Loudoun County. We are juggling the books to borrow the needed money for that, and County taxes and the Dulles Toll Road tolls will be repaying the gargantuan borrowing until at least 2048 (that's 35 years from now).
Existing roads, bridges and rail, need varying degrees of maintenance and expansion. We now have the NVTA and a transportation tax authorization (that we voted down in 2002, by the way), but don't expect our Metrorail line to be its central focus - our rail line is only one little line on the northern edge of our transportation district. NVTA will be looking at the transportation needs of ALL of Prince William, Loudoun, Fairfax and Arlington Counties, as well as the cities of Falls Church, Alexandria, Fairfax, Manassas, and Manassas Park. We need financially viable options - not overpriced, premature rail.
Mark Carolla May 27, 2013 at 02:12 pm
Hi Bob - "By avoiding the ridiculous price of the Silver Line Metrorail, we could also have…Read More extended a dedicated-road bus system out toward Centreville and Woodbridge." I won't address price because the finances of the Silver Line are another story...but actually, Bob, we already have or had Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) [See ---http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/9600/brt-creep-makes-bus-rapid-transit-inferior-to-rail/] I used it for years commuting to the Pentagon: Metro and Connector Express Buses. There are pseudo light rail like stations at Herndon/Monroe St and there are supposedly bus lanes on the Toll Road. You saw how well that worked in getting people to get out of their cars. With population growth it didn't and it resulted in more paving. The bus lanes became HOV. You are correct that the Silver Line is but one line - and it will need bus connections - frequent and extensive connections - not just during rush hour -along with big parking lots. BRT is an attempt to replicate rail on the cheap - penny wise and pound foolish. Granted I have my prejudices: when I was trained as an Army Transportation Officer we were taught and observed through the years that flanged wheels on steel rails is the most efficient and economical way of moving large numbers of people and materiel. We have been neglecting multi-modal: rail, light rail, and bus for so long in favor of highway interests that we are now in a mess with a reputation as the nation's gridlock capital.
Bob Bruhns May 27, 2013 at 03:36 pm
So, Mark - you are advocating premature rail instead of Bus Rapid Transit, not because BRT is a bad…Read More solution, but because our governments don't do Bus Rapid Transit correctly. The huge financing problems that result are therefore not the price of transportation, they are the price of bad government.
But it seems to me that if you can sell the concept of premature and massively expensive rail to our government leaders, you can sell the concept of properly-designed Bus Rapid Transit to them as well.
I don't think that throwing big money at transportation is the solution. Consider the million-dollar bus 'super-stops' in Arlington County. For the budgeted $948,000 per stop, those should have been really nice bus stops - but they were a ridiculous and total disaster. WMATA and Arlington got together and came up with that nonsense, and now they have been investigating themselves about that for more than a month - with no results whatsoever. Clearly they just want to bury the story, and make us forget all about it.
And consider the big transit center in Silver Spring, where the government and the contractors didn't take it seriously. Like WMATA and Arlington government, they saw transit construction as a big welfare delivery system just for them.
I think that we should address the real problem - bad government - instead of overpaying for premature rail.
Boy, 14, Dies in Accident with Electric Wire on Roof of Fox Mill ES
Teen electrocuted when he fell on live wire. Witness: 'We couldn't help him. We couldn't get him down.'
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