A Burke community association is launching a preemptive strike against Fairfax County Public Schools’ Classrooms for Kids initiative.
Members of the Lake Braddock Community Association were at the polls on Tuesday, Nov. 2, at Lake Braddock Secondary School, handing out fliers with the question "Is Lake Braddock Park for Sale?" as a heading. The association is taking action in the hopes that its community park doesn’t get sold by the Fairfax County Public School system.
"There should be no sale of land that would negatively impact the community, particularly in the Burke-Springfield area," said Hubert Sparks, a resident of the community.
Lake Braddock Park, a 13.3-acre, multi-use park located off Wallingford Drive in Burke, was one of the 16 sites identified by Fairfax County Public Schools that could potentially be sold to obtain additional funds for the school system’s Capital Improvement Project. This project, dubbed "Classrooms for Kids (CFK)," was announced last month and resulted in the approval by the School Board of the sale of 30 acres of land off Huntsman Boulevard in the Springfield District to a developer for $12 million.
It was that decision, said Burke resident Brian Huempfner, that made his neighbors nervous about the future of their park.
"Looking at the geographic disbursement of the sites, seeing that there were three or four over in McLean, I thought they had the resources to fight to save their sites. I wasn’t sure the Burke community had the same level of clout," said Huempfner.
School Board representative Tessie Wilson (Braddock) said, however, that there are no sales of any additional sites on the horizon, as part of the CFK program.
"We have made no decision about any individual site. No sale is imminent. It’s going to be a long process," said Wilson, who attended the Lake Braddock Community Association’s board meeting on Wednesday, along with Supervisor Sharon Bulova (D-Braddock).
Bulova said that her office has been digging into the details of the property since it appeared on the list of potential sites to be sold. According to Bulova, the entire Lake Braddock community is zoned PD-H3, or Planned Development Housing. The community's FDP, or Final Development Plan, dictates that the community maintain a certain amount of open space in proportion to its residences. When it was built in the early 1970s, the community adopted this plan.
In 1979, however, an amendment was made to the FDP, converting a small area that had been set aside for commercial development into residential development.
Bulova said her zoning staff has already determined that at least half of the Lake Braddock Park site is designated open space, and can't be used for anything else.
The conversion in 1979, said Bulova, may mean that the entire Lake Braddock Park site is untouchable for anything other than open space
"It looks to us like at least 50 percent of that site is required to remain as open space," said Bulova. "We're thinking that what it looks like staff will find is that [the other] 50 percent needs to remain open space too.
"We're cautiously optimistic that's the case."
Wilson said that while the Huntsman property, called the "Pohick" site, was part of the CFK program, the reverter clause on the land’s deed made it a special case, which explained the speed at which the Board approved the process.
"That really wasn’t part of the Classrooms for Kids project, because of the reverter clause," she said. "We’re going to take the Classrooms for Kids initiative very slow."
Currently, the school system holds the deed to the park land, with the intention of possibly using it as a future site for an elementary school in the Lake Braddock pyramid, but in 1990, it signed an interim-use agreement with the Fairfax County Park Authority (FCPA), which uses the space as recreation fields for community sports teams and teams from Lake Braddock Secondary School.
"They are used religiously, every Saturday and Sunday, weekday afternoons," said Huempfner. "What is the impact [going to] be on all these youth and sports organizations? Where are they going to go? There’s not another 13-acre piece of land for miles from here."
According to FCPA spokeswoman Judy Pedersen, the park authority is pleased with the community association's proactive approach to preserving its neighborhood park.
"We're always glad when citizens are concerned about their parks. We are in touch with the Board of Education about this matter, trying to stay abreast of any developments," said Pedersen. "Right now, all we can do is wait and see."
Wilson said that no action will be taken by the School Board regarding CFK for at least six months, and that the Board plans to carefully examine each site when the time comes.
"We’re going to look at sites where we know the likelihood of needing that site for a particular school is virtually nonexistent," she said.