Kings Park West bids adieu to eyesore
Abandoned community pool to be demolished, become park
by Kali Schumitz, Staff Writer
http://www.fairfaxtimes.com/article/20120323/NEWS/703239688/1117/kings-park-west-bids-adieu-to-eyesore&template=fairfaxTimes

Kings Park West residents are thrilled that a longtime eyesore in their community soon will be gone.

Mary Haley, whose deck overlooks the tennis courts at the former Kings West Pool, said it was great living next to the community pool when she bought her house in 1980.

“The pool was wonderful when we moved in because it was a gathering place,” Haley said.

Declining membership led to the closing of the swim club in 2005, and the community has been struggling since then to figure out what to do with the property. It was too expensive for the civic association to raise enough funds to buy the property and demolish the pool, clubhouse, basketball and tennis courts, so the property has sat neglected since it closed.

Now, Fairfax County officials have achieved what Supervisor John Cook (R-Braddock) called a “win-win-win” situation. The county will use funds set aside for stormwater control projects to remove the remnants of the swim club and restore the nine-acre property to a natural state.

“It’s a win for everyone here in the community, it’s a win for our stormwater program ... and it’s a win for parks,” Cook said.

The swim club property sits in a resource protection area near a stream and, under present-day environmental regulations, probably would not have been allowed to be developed as it was.

Demolition is planned for this summer. The Fairfax County Park Authority will then plant native saplings, shrubs and wildflowers throughout the property. The only developed area of the park will be an extension of an existing asphalt trail, that will allow residents to pass through the park.

Emmy Cade said she initially thought it would have been nice to have a playground or dog park at the new community park, but she said she understands the environmental concerns.

“I’m just looking forward to having something better than what is there now,” she said.

Some residents said they have some concerns about safety along the new trail, as well as access to an existing cut-through path during the construction phase. Park Authority officials said they would take that into consideration as they move forward with the project.

Others highlighted current problems with litter and trash dumping at the site.

Park Authority Board member Anthony Vellucci (Braddock) said illegal dumping is a problem throughout the park system and encouraged residents to look into the Adopt a Park program to help monitor and clean up trash.

What is/was the location of the pool in KPW?

NOVA Wrote:
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> What is/was the location of the pool in KPW?

Yes, its in the old part of the Kings Park West. It's been there a long time and it was closed down in 2005. In addition to the pool there's a clubhouse, basketball courts, and tennis courts too that are falling apart due to disrepair.

Kings Park Eyesore Wrote:
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> NOVA Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > What is/was the location of the pool in KPW?
>
> Yes, its in the old part of the Kings Park West.
> It's been there a long time and it was closed down
> in 2005. In addition to the pool there's a
> clubhouse, basketball courts, and tennis courts
> too that are falling apart due to disrepair.

It is actually in the new part...the only pools in the old part are Lakeview and Commonwealth. Tapestry was part of the new section, built in the late 70's...about 15 years after the original part. Commonwealth used to dead end just after Wheatstone (kids used to walk thru the woods there to get to Robinson), Gainsborough dead ended just past Cascade and there was no Roberts Road south of Braddock.

So, Mr. Cook believes this deal is a "win-win" situation. Maybe for him. This property was originally slated to be acquired by a developer. Then the County Planning Commission nixed the deal by making a highly questionable determination that the redevelopment plan violated County "density" rules. So, Mr. Cook hatched a plan to have the County acquire the property under the pretext that it would provide "environmental benefits" that, in retrospect, are at best incidental. In fact, the main beneficiary of this deal was Cook who hatched this plan in order to buy votes in the traditionally Democrat-voting area around the former swim club. And the plan worked. Cook narrowly won reelection with the extra votes he bought using taxpayer funds.

Now here's the kicker. According to Mr. Vellucci, the cost of rennovating the swim club property will be between $150k and $250k. In other words, he doesn't know. Furthermore, the extent of the work necessary to convert the swim club property suggests that the figure will go much higher. And this doesn't include the cost of maintaining the property forever. So, it appears that the "win-win" situation Mr. Cook refers means a win for him, a win for the local residents whose votes he bought and a loss for the rest of us taxpayers.

The County did not need another small chunk of isolated parkland to maintain. The benefits of this acquisition are illusory and Cook knows it. If the County Board had done its job, it would have overruled the Planning Commission and allowed this property be placed in the hands of the private sector where it would have generated property taxes. Instead, Cook got away with a shady political deal to use our tax dollars to bankroll his reelection.

Tom_Mason Wrote:
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> So, Mr. Cook believes this deal is a "win-win"
> situation. Maybe for him. This property was
> originally slated to be acquired by a developer.
> Then the County Planning Commission nixed the deal
> by making a highly questionable determination that
> the redevelopment plan violated County "density"
> rules. So, Mr. Cook hatched a plan to have the
> County acquire the property under the pretext that
> it would provide "environmental benefits" that, in
> retrospect, are at best incidental. In fact, the
> main beneficiary of this deal was Cook who hatched
> this plan in order to buy votes in the
> traditionally Democrat-voting area around the
> former swim club. And the plan worked. Cook
> narrowly won reelection with the extra votes he
> bought using taxpayer funds.
>
> Now here's the kicker. According to Mr. Vellucci,
> the cost of rennovating the swim club property
> will be between $150k and $250k. In other words,
> he doesn't know. Furthermore, the extent of the
> work necessary to convert the swim club property
> suggests that the figure will go much higher. And
> this doesn't include the cost of maintaining the
> property forever. So, it appears that the
> "win-win" situation Mr. Cook refers means a win
> for him, a win for the local residents whose votes
> he bought and a loss for the rest of us
> taxpayers.
>
> The County did not need another small chunk of
> isolated parkland to maintain. The benefits of
> this acquisition are illusory and Cook knows it.
> If the County Board had done its job, it would
> have overruled the Planning Commission and allowed
> this property be placed in the hands of the
> private sector where it would have generated
> property taxes. Instead, Cook got away with a
> shady political deal to use our tax dollars to
> bankroll his reelection.

Correct.

did melissa Belote swim there?

its not the one on roberts road is it?

Tom_Mason Wrote:
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> So, Mr. Cook believes this deal is a "win-win"
> situation. Maybe for him. This property was
> originally slated to be acquired by a developer.
> Then the County Planning Commission nixed the deal
> by making a highly questionable determination that
> the redevelopment plan violated County "density"
> rules.

WRONG. Not highly questionable. A soning change would have been required. Building more townhouses there would certainly be profitable for the developer, but like so many other community pools built in the 60s and 70s it was put there because because the land was unbuildable and park-like land was needed when they built all those houses. Check out how many community pools are adjacent to stream valley parks.


So, Mr. Cook hatched a plan to have the
> County acquire the property under the pretext that
> it would provide "environmental benefits" that, in
> retrospect, are at best incidental. In fact, the
> main beneficiary of this deal was Cook who hatched
> this plan in order to buy votes in the
> traditionally Democrat-voting area around the
> former swim club. And the plan worked. Cook
> narrowly won reelection with the extra votes he
> bought using taxpayer funds.

I get it. You would rather have Janet Olezyk as your Supervisor. Go ask her what she would have done.

John Cook solved a community problem. Congratulations are in order, not criticism. Oh, and this is not an election year for him.

The one on Roberst Road is thriving and belongs to a different community. The one they are speaking of is on Tapestry and has long been abandoned.

The February 2009 minutes of the KP Homeowner's Assoc. clearly state that they were in negotiations with the County over the density issue. Those negotiations concerned the substantial portion of the property that was buildable. Although the HOA was ok with the density of the planned development, the County shot them down. As you can tell from the article, there's now some disappointment that the park will not even feature a playground. So, what the public is getting out of this is a trail, some landscaping and perpetual maintenance costs.

Judging by the current dilapidate state of the property, I believe that Mr. Vellucci's estimate that it will cost between $150 - $250k to demo and landscape what will essentially become a dead space is low. I have seen no evidence to suggest that anyone seriously considered this issue before railroading this deal through.

Forget about Janet Olezyk. Everyone knows she's another Fairfax tax and spend addict. Mr. Cook was supposed to be the candidate of fiscal responsibilty in the last election. If he were a real Republican, this property would have been sold. Instead, in typical Democrat fashion, it's now an albatross hanging around the taxpayer's neck. Besides buying votes with public funds, he's now also on the verge of proposing that the County turn its annual budget surpluses into his own veiled version of a countywide transportation tax. Some Republican.

Tom.............only YOU want more houses and traffic here in Fairfax

o_0

Tom -

Don't know if you attended the meeting on the 21st of March at Laurel Ridge Elementary School where representatives from the Park Authority and from the Department of Public Works and Environmental Services provided an overview of the entire project and answered questions from neighboring residents who attended.

If you did not, DPWES and FCPA representatives noted except for a small sliver of in the northeast corner of the property, almost the entire pool property is within a Resource Protection Area under the Chesapeake Bay Act - which means that nothing can be built there except for trails.

The Act does grandfather in existing structures, which means that if the pool wanted to rebuild, they could have put exactly what was there, there - but nothing else ... now townhouses, no day care facility, nothing.

This is a win-win on several fronts. DPWES is able to provide for stormwater management in an area that needs it and secures MS-4 credits. FCPA picks up almost nine acres of land at no cost as a part of its goal to set aside 10% of the county's land area for future generations. The pool board is free of the property. Did you know that this pool was the source of legislation in Richmond to close a loop hole that made volunteers of failed non-profits legally liable (meaning they could lose their homes if sued) for the property. The neighborhood is relieved of the eyesore, and the illegal activities that went on there after dark - illegal dumping by GMU students and underage drinking by high school students. And finally, the residents of Fairfax County will have more trees after the reforestation of the property.

Please attend the public meeting next time for a similar event. They are meant to provide as much factual information to the public so that we can all make intelligent and informed decisions.

Best Regards-
Tony Vellucci

Tony, Thanks for some factual information. The dilapidated pool area has long been a source of many problems in the neighborhood. It's easy for people to sit on the sidelines and complain about the resolution but I sure didn't see anyone stepping up to rehabilitate the area with their own money and run a viable pool business. With all the construction and traffic congestion in the area we can use the breathing room. WS

Tony, I made it to the meeting. What struck me most about it was how readily the local residents accepted the the questionable conclusion that virtually all nine or so acres of the property fell within the RPA. The purchase of this property was a foregone conclusion. So, the ruling that the bulk of the property was not suitable for redevelopment is factual only in that no one really had any incentive to challenge it.

As Supervisor Cook noted in his newsletter of last month, this is the second time the taxpayers have been tapped to bail out a swim club in Braddock. I remember reading an article in which the president of the first swim club bragged that he arranged the whole deal with Bullova in about one day. Supervisors Bullova and Cook obviously saw a political advantage in expending taxpayer money to relieve the boards of the swim clubs of their respective financial obligations. Candidly, I doubt if this kind of middle class welfare is what most taxpayers expect their taxes to go for. That's clear from the legislation you refer to.

The purported environmental benefits arising from this deal haven't been presented in any particular detail that I can find, so I'm not exactly convinced that they are as great as advertised. Also, no one has yet definitively stated the actual cost to the County of demolishing and landscaping the property. I believe you placed the cost at somewhere between $150,000 - $250,000. That's not exactly a model of precision and suggests that cost might also have been a secondary consideration in this bailout. Finally, while you attribute the lack of substantive development on the property to environmental factors, it's coincidental that the absence of so much as a playground could be perceived as another cost cutting measure.

So, thank you for your response. I'll see you at the next meeting.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 03/31/2012 11:31PM by Tom_Mason.

Since you were at the public meeting, why did YOU not challenge the RPA, which has been on the maps for decades???

What is your alternative proposal on what to do with the abandoned pool???

And if you define "political advantage" as responding to the needs of the community, then I'm all for political advantage, regardless of political party!!!

Once the County bought the property the RPA issue was moot. (I can't believe you asked that question.)

This question should properly be put to the HOA. They're the sole beneficiaries of this travesty. My alternative would have been to make the Board of the Swim Club meet their financial obligation to settle the debts of the Swim Club. This is a private organization in which the County had no ownership interest. It is a nonessential enterprise that went south on their watch. Accordingly, like any other private venture, they're liable for the consequences. If they needed help then they should have gone to the HOA for it.

The political advantage I referred to is based on providing the equivalent of welfare for the middle class. There's no dignity in sponging off the taxpayers. Especially for a bunch of alleged affluent citizens. I hope they enjoy their free lunch.

WS Wrote:
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> Tony, Thanks for some factual information. The
> dilapidated pool area has long been a source of
> many problems in the neighborhood. It's easy for
> people to sit on the sidelines and complain about
> the resolution but I sure didn't see anyone
> stepping up to rehabilitate the area with their
> own money and run a viable pool business. With all
> the construction and traffic congestion in the
> area we can use the breathing room.

oh, that is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO +1!!!!!!

My daughter once picked up a nasty sinus infection from swimming in someone’s green pool. I wouldn’t have allowed it had I seen the pool prior to the birthday party.

Same basic premise about why I don’t plan to go river swimming any time soon. According to our friends at PopFi a brain eating amoeba caused three deaths,

“She would sit up in bed and just look at me, and I would ask her what was wrong,” said P.J. Nash-Ryder, whose 16-year-old daughter was recently infected by Naegleri fowleri. ”She would say, ‘I don’t know.’ And I’d tell her to lay back down. Her eyes were rolling … and she wouldn’t shut them all the way.”

As it turns out, the amoeba was attacking her brain, according to Jonathan Yoder, a waterborne disease and outbreak surveillance coordinator at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. ”It causes a great deal of trauma and a great deal of damage. It’s a tragic infection. It’s right at the frontal lobe. It affects behavior and the core of who they are — their emotions, their ability to reason — it’s very difficult.”
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Don't you mean you didn't see the KPW HOA step up to rehab this property with its money? I fail to see why a group of affluent homeowners refused to step up and pay a couple of hunded bucks each to clean up this eyesore. After all, they're the only real beneficiaries of this bailout. After it's cleaned up, this property will become nothing an empty greenspace acting as a buffer for KPW. That should be a real boon to property values. Although Mr. Vellucci seems to think that this deal advances the County's policy of preserving green space, there's really no reason to go there. Since this deal was brokered, the County has been bending over backwards to justify it. However, you can't put enough lipstick on this pig to hide the fact that it's a bailout. If the County absolutely couldn't resist being involved, the way to do it would have been by levying a special assessment on the HOA. It's one thing to help someone out of a perceived jam, regardless of how unworthy they may be. It's quite another to pay them for doing it.

Greenspace = yay
More townhomes and thus, TRAFFIC in Kings Park West = nay

County dont have to justify crap, yo. Dude, what are you like a developer or something?
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It's useless to argue with a stupid, angry, old man, but here goes anyway.

KPW HOA did not own the property. It was owned by Kings West Swim Club, a voluntary membership organization that went defunct when the pool closed. KWSC was created in 1976 by the developer and the county to provide a recreational facility before the current proffer system was in place. It was carved out of land that could not be used for residential housing along the creek. At the time, community pools were growing in popularity and there were far fewer county-run recreational centers and athletic fields.

KWSC was not unique. There were ten or so community pools created in the Braddock District during that period of growth. Several of them have deed clauses that state the property will revert to the county when no longer used as a swim club. What did make KWSC unique is that the pool was not large enough to host official swim meets, which held membership down as families had other nearby options.

In 1998-1999, many of these pools began to experience financial distress. New safety regulations and major maintenance needs had to be addressed, costing tens of thousands of dollars. Membership fees to cover costs were skyrocketing. With two parents working, volunteer time was decreasing. Original bondholders who paid a fee to start up these clubs found that their bonds, which were supposed to be sellable to new members, had become worthless. A coalition of volunteers led by Rutherford pool gathered many times to figure out ways to increase revenue and keep costs to a minimum. Some pools were successful; others were not. Sharon Bulova was Braddock Supervisor at the time and attended several of the meetings to listen to the concerns and appeals for help. In the end, she and her staff decided that this was a supply and demand issue: there were more pools than needed and some would have to shut down. KWSC was neither the first nor will be the last to do so.

Kudos are deserved for the KWSC board of directors who stayed involved to solve the issues once the pool closed, giving their own money and time. They reached out to the HOA and civic associations, developers, schools, and even youth clubs to try to find a solution. Ideas for building housing, a community center, a day care, athletic facilities, and combinations of these were proposed. In the end, John Cook, Tony Vellucci, FCPA, and others came together came together and figured out a solution that is beneficial to all.

Tom, you can continue to throw stones at this project, but it will happen, at minimal taxpayer cost. You might consider sitting in on your own community's pool board meetings and helping them out. It's a bit more time consuming than poo-pooing on what others are doing, but can be very rewarding in helping to build community spirit.

How many section 8 townhouses can fit on 9 acres? How about another halfway house or shelter?

Question-Is that $150-250K on top of the cost of acquiring the land from the pool association, or does the County acquire the land at no cost and simply has to "develop" it?

Just Shut Up Already Wrote:
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> Tom, you can continue to throw stones at this
> project, but it will happen, at minimal taxpayer
> cost. You might consider sitting in on your own
> community's pool board meetings and helping them
> out. It's a bit more time consuming than
> poo-pooing on what others are doing, but can be
> very rewarding in helping to build community
> spirit.

Can we throw stones at Tom?
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Bill.N. Wrote:
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> Question-Is that $150-250K on top of the cost of
> acquiring the land from the pool association, or
> does the County acquire the land at no cost and
> simply has to "develop" it?

The property is transferred at no cost. If possible (not definite yet) FCPA intends to use their own workforce and equipment to tear out the pool and pool house, and fill in the holes using free dirt from nearby construction. I don't know where the $150K estimate came from.

I think the county did a wise decision by not selling the land to the developers. We don't need any more housing in KPW or around Braddock. It would be another student housing for GMU, which is already making that part of the neighbourhood so crowded. This will add to the value of the KPW and also less traffic.

This is just no brainer and the people who are arguing against it must have some financial motive to serve.

@Ed - I notice Tom Mason stfu since we started calling him out on his developer "status"

They should have turned the pool into a pay to fish pond and used the club house as a bait shop !

Because illegals, messicans, indians, and asians don't swim or play basketball.