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FOX 5 Investigates: Luxury Affordables: MyFoxDC.com
FOX 5 Investigates: Luxury Affordables
FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. - As Fairfax County commuters waited in the heat for their bus, many like Ryan Lauer, wished they had a pool waiting at home.
"That would be great!" Lauer says. "But we would have to pay. At my community right now, we don't have a pool."
What Ryan and thousands of other county taxpayers don’t realize is they are already paying for these pools. But as the gates imply, don’t expect to be allowed in for a quick dip.
“That’s not very cool,” Lauer says. “I don’t have access to that.”
FOX 5 has discovered Fairfax County taxpayers are footing the bill for luxury amenities like pools, billiards tables and indoor basketball courts as part of its affordable housing program run by the Fairfax County Redevelopment and Housing Authority.
“These are amenities that the people, the taxpayers that are subsidizing this housing don’t have,” says Fairfax County Supervisor Pat Herrity. “So, you've got people that are subsidizing other folks to have these luxury amenities and that's just not right."
Developers who want to build high-density condos and townhomes in Fairfax County are required to sell some of their units at reduced prices to the county, who in turn, rents these units for as little as $300 a month to low-income families, the elderly and the disabled.
“I agree with affordable housing,” says Tina Wright, another county resident waiting for a bus. “But you don't need a clubhouse and a homeowners association and fresh flowers every month. That is ridiculous and I pay taxes, so to me, that is crazy."
Herrity is also upset with some of RHA’s decisions. He says RHA bought townhomes with brick driveways and brick sidewalks in a million dollar neighborhood in McLean, which means taxpayers are also paying the homeowners association fees that go with living in a neighborhood like this.
"Our taxpayers are paying for it,” Herrity says. “It is up to us to make sure we are prudently using taxpayer dollars and I think in this case, we are not prudently using taxpayer dollars."
Records obtained by FOX 5 show the RHA is paying homeowner association fees on more than 500 condos and townhomes, including one development with two outdoor pools, a clubroom, an athletic center and a billiards room. Another comes with an exercise room, indoor basketball court, party room and sports pub.
Based on the documents, amenities like these end up costing the county an estimated $1.3 million in homeowner association fees every year.
"Obviously it doesn't sound good,” Lauer says. “It sounds like just another area where they are not really paying attention to where the money is going."
"I would rather see them not spend the money on the extras and actually use the money on more of the bare essentials to help more people," says Jamie Adams, another Fairfax County taxpayer.
Ron Christian just retired as Chairman of RHA.
"We have a really good housing policy in this county. I am proud of it. I am proud to be a leader of it,” he says.
Christian says RHA follows a strict policy on which units to buy.
"That policy has to do with diversity, making sure we don't put all affordable housing of any kind in one location all the time,” says Christian.
He says the federal government recently gave RHA the very best rating possible for financial management and suggests the county might actually be saving money by paying homeowner association fees.
"They pay for certain things that if we didn't pay a homeowners fee, we would have to send staff from RHA to do. Snow removal, garbage pickup in some cases,” says Christian.
But Herrity remains skeptical.
"These people living in these million dollar homes with these amenities have no real incentive to improve themselves because as soon as they get a raise, they are going to have to move out of these nice units and they're going to end up in units not nearly as nice as the ones they're in."
Read more: http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/news/special_report/fox-5-investigates-luxury-affordables-062711#ixzz1QYpkqO59
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By Fredrick Kunkle March 15, 2011
Luxury, like beauty, may be in the eye of the beholder. But it’s also at the heart of a continuing fuss over Fairfax County’s recently approved plan to build subsidized housing near its government complex.
The Northern Virginia Affordable Housing Alliance has taken a slap at Board of Supervisors member Pat S. Herrity (R-Springfield) for what the group says is a distorted portrayal of the county’s plan to build 270 dwellings, known as the Residences at Government Center, for people who struggle to find homes in one of the region’s wealthiest jurisdictions. The project, undertaken by Jefferson at Fairfax Corner LLC on land ceded by the county, was approved by the county Board of Supervisors last week.
“While we acknowledge Supervisor Pat Herrity’s difference of opinion regarding the role of local government in housing, we continue to be troubled by his inaccurate and careless portrayal of the facts regarding housing programs in Fairfax County. The Residences at the Government Center, a mixed-income community of 270 units serving a range of households from 50 to 100% of area median income, is the latest housing initiative under attack by Mr. Herrity,” the group’s “Action Alert” says. The advisory went out to about 1,000 members of a listserv Tuesday.
But Herrity stood his ground over his criticism of the project, saying that the county should not be in the business of subsidizing a “luxury” apartment complex when privately operated units in the area are vacant.
“I consider pools, spas, rec rooms, weight rooms and rooms with Wii systems to be luxury,” Herrity said in an interview Tuesday.
The alliance’s open letter does not specify what the inaccuracies are. But in an interview Tuesday, the group’s executive director, Michelle Krocker, said the alliance objects to Herrity’s continued portrayal of the apartments as “luxury” units. Krocker accused Herrity, who discussed the apartments in his most recent newsletter, of implying that everyone who lives there will be making $100,000 a year.
The 55-foot-tall building will include dwellings for households making 50 percent, 70 percent, 80 percent, 90 percent and 100 percent of the area median income. The median household income for a family of three in Fairfax County is $102,499, according to the Census Bureau. About 20 percent of the units will serve households making 50 percent of AMI; about 27 percent will live in the dwellings set aside for people making 100 percent of AMI.
Board of Supervisors chairman Sharon S. Bulova (D) echoed the group’s criticism of Herrity. Bulova said the public-private partnership with Jefferson would allow the county to create a mix of housing types that teachers, firefighters, police officers and other middle-class workers could afford. By leasing land from the county and using federal low-income housing tax credits, the private-public arrangement allows Fairfax County to address an important meet at no cost to the tax payer, Bulova said. She noted that this was one of the critical needs highlighted in a report from the Fairfax County Economic Advisory Commission that the board approved the same day it endorsed the Residences at the Government Center.
Herrity, in his March 9 newsletter, said that the county should not be in the business of subsidizing an apartment complex that has “significant onsite amenities” such as “party rooms.” The county staff’s report says the builders will provide two indoor courtyards, a swimming pool with a spa, a clubhouse room, a fitness room, trail connections and a tot lot. Herrity said the private builder’s own Web site — since changed — used the word “luxury” in its sales pitch.
“Luxury does not belong in county-subsidized affordable housing,” Herrity wrote in the newsletter. He said taxpayers are subsidizing the project through the county’s giveaway of land valued from $10 million to $15 million and through federal tax credits that cost about $61 billion from 2008-17.
“Why should a guy who’s making $100,000 with a family of four — why should he be subsidizing somebody else in a luxury product when he’s paying full boat?” Herrity said in an interview Tuesday. “The majority of the people in Fairfax County do not think we should be subsidizing a luxury project to compete with the private sector.”
Herrity also was critical of the project’s change of focus, saying it initially had been billed as a way to house county employees but that now there is no guarantee that any county workers will live there.
The Board of Supervisors approved the development at its meeting March 8 by a vote of 7 to 3. Herrity joined fellow Republicans Michael R. Frey (Sully) and John C. Cook (Braddock) in opposing the project.
This post has been updated since it was first published.