Letter to the Editor: Herndon Metro Plan Deficient on Housing

In addition to the major errors detailed in these pages regarding the Town of Herndon’s traffic planning for the future Metrorail station area, another major error is the woefully inadequate housing planning to accompany the massive, proposed commercial build-up. The results would include more traffic congestion inside and outside the Town and a worsening of Herndon’s already-serious housing shortage. The Town’s upcoming community meeting (Monday evening, January 23) is an opportunity for citizens concerned about good planning to make their views known. 

Herndon’s housing planning violates legal requirements and the basic recommendations of the authoritativeGeorge Mason University Center for Regional Analysis. In addition to increasing traffic, Herndon’s planning would increase long-distance commutes, suburban sprawl, excessive and unstable housing prices, and more poverty and homelessness in the area. Some current Town residents predictably would be pushed out through increased gentrification.  

Neither the current proposal nor Herndon’s Comprehensive Plan designates areas or implements measures calculated to produce sufficient housing that is affordable for Herndon households with incomes at or below the area median income (more than $104,000 annually). Also, neither document considers the housing needs of future Herndon workers generally or of the “planning district,” i.e., Northern Virginia as a whole. Virginia’s planning statute (Va. Code § 15.2-2223) mandates all those things.

And Herndon’s planning process does just about everything that GMU says not to do with regard to housing planning. The Town’s process exemplifies each of the basic planning problems that GMU criticizes in its recent, comprehensive report on housing the area’s future workforce:

1. Local jurisdictions are planning for an insufficient amount of housing to accommodate future workers.
2. More housing is needed closer to jobs, in existing and growing regional employment centers.
3. There is a need for more multi-family housing and smaller, more affordable owner and renter homes in the region.
4. A lack of a sufficient supply of housing contributes to worsening traffic and quality of life and threatens our region’s economic vitality. 

The Town of Herndon and the surrounding region already have a massive housing shortage, due largely to problematic planning and zoning. The current proposal calls for housing for only about 20 percent as many workers as it envisions adding in the station area (up to 13,425 workers). And there apparently is no assurance that any new or existing Herndon workers would be able to purchase or rent housing there.

Also, the area now being planned is only about 20 percent of the originally-designated Metrorail station area, and the remaining 80 percent or so would be off-limits for residential development! Balancing commercial development with sufficient residential development would result in no significant costs to the Town or County.

Inviting in the proposed massive, lucrative new commercial development, while failing to take reasonable (and even legally required) measures to ease the Town’s serious housing shortage and excessive housing prices, would seem greedy in the circumstances. The citizens of Herndon should ensure that its officials do not go down that road. 

Sincerely,

Thomas A. Loftus
President
Equitable Housing Institute
Vienna, VA