Disappointing Board of Supervisors meeting this week. Supervisor Herrity captured much of my thoughts. This post is based heavily on his writings.

At Tuesday's BoS meeting, the Board voted to impose a new tax on the residents and businesses of Tysons Corner. The motion passed 8-2, with Smyth (Providence) and Herrity (Springfield) objecting.

The funds generated by this tax are intended to be used to partially fund the $2 Billion in transportation costs associated with the new development in Tysons, unless the Board later redirects them. The rate, which has not yet been decided, is likely to be an increase of up to 10% on the real estate tax bills of the homeowners and businesses within the tax district.

Two reasons why this new tax is the wrong approach. The first is a fairness issue for longtime landowners and residents. The second is that we have a clear and viable alternative to raising taxes on the businesses and residents of Tysons, that being the restructuring of our proffer dollars to include a greater focus on transportation.

Here's the problem. The job of the elected leaders of the County is to make the decisions that set priorities county-wide, and they failed to do this here. Instead, that job was delegated to special interest groups and they in turn split the proffer contributions among those special interests instead of focusing them into areas of critical need.

Clearly developers are paying a portion of their proffers for transportation, but it is nowhere near what it could be. Instead of partnering with developers to finance the necessary improvements, the Board of Supervisors is looking to raise taxes on residents and businesses. Instead of transportation infrastructure, developers are being required to pay for experimental green building designs, excessive storm water management programs, subsidized workforce housing for incomes up to $130,000 a year, and TDM programs (promises not to drive) that we already know do not work.

This policy is a vast shift away from the way Fairfax County has traditionally funded transportation associated with new development. In the 1980's and 1990's the County used proffer dollars to responsibly finance the necessary transportation improvements associated with development. In fact much of our transportation network, including the road network in Tysons, was funded by developers.

Buying these nice-to-have items while taxing our residents and businesses for our have-to-haves such as transportation is wrong. What our approach to Tysons is lacking is a clear focusing of a majority of proffer dollars into our critical priorities. Instead, we have spread the proffer contributions among various special interests rather than focusing them into areas of critical need. It would do us good to take a page from our successful history and fund these critical transportation needs through proffer contributions and not on the backs of our taxpayers.

This is not to say that we should not support the overall Tysons plan. The redevelopment into a new downtown is good, as long as we do not overbuild it, which is the a significant reason for height restrictions. The growth of our commercial tax base in Tysons will certainly benefit the rest of the county.

But we have better alternatives than this new tax.

Already reported and commented on:

http://mclean.patch.com/articles/fairfax-board-approves-tysons-tax-district

Yes, the Board is favoring (again) loud special interests over screaming residents, but that's not going to change. It's how they get reelected.

So is there a map outlining what encompasses this district. My mom owns a condo in the Tysons area...

Yes, it's a 26 page pdf file.

http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/tysons/service_district_mapbook.pdf

osnap Wrote:
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> So is there a map outlining what encompasses this
> district. My mom owns a condo in the Tysons
> area...

Bhatch