Lisa Adler thinks Fairfax County needs to wake up.
"We are no longer a sleepy bedroom community," she told the Board of Supervisors Monday evening during a public hearing on a proposed new proffer system.
Because of massive growth, she said, the county needs to reexamine how it handles building applications by developers.
"Now that we have so few large parcels of land left, now that our schools and road are in such dire straits, now we look at this," said Adler, the mother of three children who attend Hayfield Secondary School.
Adler was one of about 35 speakers at the hearing, most of whom urged the board to approve the new system.
The proposal later passed 8-2 with Supervisors Stuart Mendelsohn (R) and Elaine McConnell (R) opposing it. After months of study and discussion, the Planning Commission unanimously voted in July to recommend that the board approve the policy. The policy will go in effect in January and will be reviewed in 18 months.
PROFFERS ARE, ESSENTIALLY, a trade-off. A residential developer will offer contributions to the county, known as proffers, and, in return, will get the go-ahead from the county to build at higher densities than is ordinarily allowed in the neighborhood. If developers keep their new homes within the density laid out by the county in its Comprehensive Plan, then the county cannot ask for proffers.
In the past, the county has gotten developers to set aside land for parks, libraries or schools, build turn-lanes, provide traffic signals or, sometimes, give cash for public facilities.
The new policy is more explicit in saying that developers who build new homes in a community share the responsibility to ensure that the new homes will not have an adverse impact on traffic, schools and other public facilities or the environment. But the county retains its power to negotiate with the developers over the extent of the contributions.
The new plan is also more explicit in its willingness to accept cash as a way of lessening the impact of development. That cash would either be directed towards local schools, or in some cases, towards a general education fund in the county.
The policy includes a tentative and controversial formula establishing the level of that cash contribution which determines that for each school aged-child, the developer could contribute about $7,500. In some cases, however, schools could receive less than that, or even nothing at all, depending on the needs of the community.
SCHOOL ADVOCATES have been vocal supporters of the new policy. The formula approach will generate much-needed dollars for the school system, they say, even though it will not single-handedly solve all budget problems.
Some have said that the formula could raise between $3 and $12 million a year although county staff, planning commissioners and supervisors caution that it is impossible to estimate how much money will be raised. At the very least, schools will now be represented during land use discussions, which has not always been the case.
But some school supporters said the new policy does not go far enough in addressing the schools’ needs.
“I think this was a case of the Board of Supervisors and the Planning Commission and the School Board all winking at one another, saying ‘we’re going to look like we’re doing something,’ but it’s not much,” said Robert Griendling of the group RENEW, which is trying to increase funding to older schools in Fairfax County. “There’s all this flexibility so that they can trade away the needs of the children for anything else anybody with deep pockets and a loud enough voice wants.”
Supporting this new policy while also supporting November’s sales tax referendum on transportation has put many school advocates in a tight spot. While they have agreed to join ranks with developers in supporting the sales tax, they are at odds with them over the proffer system. When asked whether the new proffer system was passed as a reward to school supporters for endorsing the sales tax, Providence District Supervisor Gerald Connolly (D) said: “I hope not.”
But he added: “It was on people’s minds. People were aware of that.”
DURING THE DISCUSSION, several board members expressed concern that the formula in the policy represented a cash proffer system, where developers simply have to give a set amount of money to county facilities in order to build with no discussion.
“We do not have per se a cash proffer system in front of us,” Connolly said repeatedly during the hearing. A cash proffer system, he added, would not let county staff and planning commissioners negotiate with developers.
But Dranesville District Supervisor Stuart Mendelsohn disagreed. The formula shows that the new policy is really a cash proffer system, he said, no matter how tentative the formula is.
“If it walks like a duck, if it talks like a duck, it’s a duck,” Mendelsohn said. “This is going to drive up the cost of affordable housing,” he added. “I think this is a terrible direction we’re going tonight.”
Developers who testified also mentioned the effect the new policy would have on home prices. After giving money to public facilities, developers will have to increase the price of new homes in order to turn a profit, said Steven Alloy, president of the Fairfax chapter of the Northern Virginia Building Industry Association. Alloy said that cash proffers were no more than a “new home tax” which would adversely affect people moving into new homes in Fairfax County. The public has picked developers as a “scapegoat” for the funding crisis for schools, he added.
“Only in America could the act of providing shelter become a bad thing,” he said.
THE DECISION may also have an impact at the General Assembly. By finding an alternate way to get some money for schools, the county may be taking the pressure off legislators, said Supervisor Elaine McConnell (R-Springfield).
“I’m afraid what we’re doing here is taking this off the backs of our legislators in Richmond to build our new schools,” she said. “They’ll say, ‘Look, you don’t need that money anymore.’”
Del. Bob Hull (D-38) said that passing the new policy will probably prompt some legislators to put forth more restrictive school funding legislation.
“Whether it gets out of committee is another story,” he added.