'Smart Growth' Is a Matter of Opinion in Fairfax County

[MountainLaurel]

I'm sticking this here because smart growth strategies are often framed in environmental terms (e.g., if you build around public transportation, people won't need to move 50 miles away to find housing)

To hear Fairfax County leaders tell it, nearly every bit of empty or underused land close to a Metro station is a golden opportunity to develop dense, new housing that can absorb residential growth without aggravating sprawl or traffic.

But as residents of Poplar Terrace will tell you, the county's vision comes with an asterisk: One person's definition of "close" isn't the same as another's. Their neighborhood, 70 aging brick ramblers on large lots roughly a 10-minute walk from the Vienna station, might seem ideally suited for apartments and townhouses. Yet when a builder offered to buy them out for that purpose, the county blocked it, saying the site is too far from the station.

The county's denial is particularly puzzling to residents because officials appear poised to approve the 2,250-home MetroWest development on the site of another aging subdivision just through the woods. Now, some Poplar Terrace residents have become so fed up with waiting for the county to change its stance that they are instead selling to buyers who will replace their homes with McMansions.

"It doesn't make sense," said Dennis Miller, 58, a retired gas company worker who has lived most of his life in the home his father built in 1962. "They talk about 'smart growth' and everything, and then they turn around and don't let you do it."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/04/AR2006030400975.html

[SujiwanKenobee]

1. Well, you ARE talking about Virginia. Maryland (under Glendenning) was

the touted "Smart Growth" state. Anything Maryland would do, Virginia is against by nature. They really have no experience with even thinking about real Smart Growth solutions. Northern Virginia is a real NIMBY place for such, in my experience. The neighborhood next to Poplar Terrace may have objected...Part of it has to do with fear of even more bad traffic routing through neighborhoods where people have put down a pretty penny to live. Most of these "where and who is impacted" decisions are made more by $ invested leaders in business hand in hand with gov't figures who are also in big business (econ development boards, for example).

[DBoon]

2. "Democrats will live in that housing"

Wasn't there some local official that opposed dense transit-oriented development just for that reason? They don't want more Democrats moving into their district?

[MountainLaurel]

3. That would be Tom Davis

Fucker.

[Odin2005]

4. The system is rigged to prop up Suburbia.

Big Oil and Big Auto bribed city governments to rip out trolley lines so they got more profits. People are indoctrinated to treat a suburban house with a big lawn and a 2-car garage as part of the "American Dream", a meme reinforced by the association of high-density housing with the inner city squalor of "the projects". That tune will change when Peak Oil causes a reverse White Flight as living in Suburbia to become more expensive than living high-density urban locations.

[depakid]

5. "Smart Growth" and "Northern Virginia"

are contradictions in terms.

What a freakin' mess that place is. How many county governments would there be to coordinate, each with their own little fiefdoms?

Talk about a case for statewide landuse planning ala Oregon's LCDC. Too bad Virginia's too Southern and backward to have thought about that 30 years ago. They might have spared themselves a world of grief.

Ain't gonna be pretty in those parts over the next decade or two.