The answer to the first question asked at the community meeting Thursday night proved to be the most important for a large portion of the audience.
South County Hawks baseball coach Mike Grasso wanted to know if his teams would be allowed to keep their baseball field if the former Lorton prison site were included on the National Registry of Historic Places. When Supervisor Gerald "Gerry" Hyland (D-Mount Vernon) told him "no change at all" would occur with the recognition, Grasso, accompanied by at least 50 players and family members, thanked Hyland with a round of applause.
"I can't imagine we won't be able to find a way to make it a little better for you," said Hyland, when Grasso asked about some improvements his teams would like to make to Field 3, which contains brick bleachers and overhangs they are interested in repairing.
"There are lots of fences around that field for obvious reasons," said Hyland. "Many of them can and should and will be taken down. If you want to make those changes, I'd suggest you talk to the Park Authority."
The Sept. 22 meeting was the first of many planned by Hyland to involve the Lorton community in the process of having the D.C. Workhouse and Reformatory Historic District included in the National Registry of Historic Places. Hyland reminded the more than 150 residents in attendance that this would be an "open, public process" and that their input would help determine the final outcome.
"The most important aspect of this evening is for you to be able to ask questions and get an answer," said Hyland, at the beginning of the meeting, which took place in the auditorium of the South County Secondary School. A fitting locale, since the facility was built on a portion of the former prison site after a public-private partnership traded some of the historically-significant land to a developer for its construction.
"This is not a meeting that was required by anyone or any agency or regulation," said Hyland. "It is a meeting I asked for to allow you to have the information at an early stage, and to find out what's being proposed for this site and why." He added that the future of the site has been the "subject of much controversy in the community."
The controversy stems from what should happen to the site, which still contains many of the amenities of the prison that operated from 1910 until its closure in mid-1990s. The 3,000 acre site was purchased from the federal government by Fairfax County for $4.2 million in 2002.
AT THE BEGINNING of the meeting, Hyland said the county was considering sending out requests for proposals (RFPs) to examine the options for any development on the site. "We need to send out RFPs asking for the private sector to redevelop the site in a way that makes sense and see what that entails," he said. "We're not going to rush through this process. We're going to be deliberate."
Many of the residents at the meeting considered that the historical significance of the prison buildings could restrict potential use of the land, should the buildings remain standing.
"You have a laudable goal in trying to encapsulate all pertinent dates of the history of this site," said Laurel Ward, a Crosspointe resident. "But keeping the buildings won't meet all the interests of our children who are overcrowded in this school today."
"You just put your finger on the conflict," said Hyland. Many residents have expressed an interest in creating the same kind of public-private partnership that allowed for the construction of the new secondary school to build a middle school on the former prison site.
"We understand the need for a middle school, but we need to convince the [Fairfax County] School Board that we need it built sooner rather than later," said Hyland. "I don't need to be convinced of that. We just need to find a way to fund it."
If the site is included in the Registry of Historic Places, it would not impact what could be constructed on the site, Hyland said, repeating a sentiment expressed by representatives from the Fairfax County History Commission and a historic preservation planner. Inclusion on the registry may allow contractors on the site and projects built there to receive grants and funding that would not be available without the designation.
"The Lorton Prison was a failure, why should we preserve it?" asked Liz Bradsher. "I have asked about tax credits in the past that can be used for development on this site and was told that it would require the developer to have deep pockets to get them. I was told that train left the station."
Bradsher is former member of the citizens' task force that studied options for the site's preservation.
"If that train left the station, I wasn't the conductor or the engineer or the driver taking it away from the community," said Hyland, to applause and laughter from the residents. "What will happen here has not been decided yet."
As a member of the Fairfax County Planning Commission who has worked for "more than 20 years to get the prison closed and saved," Laurie Frost Wilson reminded the residents that Laurel Hill may have turned into "another Reston" had it not been for the historical designation the site earned in 2000 after a proposal was written in 1995 to expand Route 123 through the area.
"The first Comprehensive Plan Amendment for this area called for some thousands of housing units to be built once the prison closed," said Frost Wilson. "The idea that we had to have some number of housing was pushed on us by the county staff. Their idea was 4,000 housing units on this site."
Residents had taken their concerns to U.S. Tom Davis (R-11) "because we didn't want to see the whole area taken over by housing."
The goal was to maximize open space in the rural, undeveloped area and to keep some of the prison buildings in place for their historic significance. "A federal bill was passed which requires us to use the majority of the open space for recreational services," said Frost Wilson. "We agreed to a land swap which provided the land for the high school and specified that if we used land for other uses, the county government would be required to pay full market price for the land."
It was because of this second amendment that the school was built, said Frost Wilson. "Thanks to Liz Bradsher, we got the school sites included and the planning for the high school was sped up," she said. "That was a unique set of circumstances that also gave us the high school and a golf course built in exchange for a senior living campus."
Fairfax Station resident Caroline Blanco agreed with Frost Wilson, adding that "inclusion on the National Historic Registry won't change anything except open the site up for tax credits and grants. To trade cell blocks for classrooms is not an option. It is not feasible to reuse the penitentiary for classrooms," she said.
Even if the building is torn down, "we can't use the land for a middle school because it must be left open or turned into park land," Blanco said. "That's what the law says."
The money needed to preserve the buildings would come from tax dollars or the sale of land to a private developer, said Robert Robertory, a Lorton resident. "If we can't find the money for the middle school, Gerry [Hyland] and his cohorts will have to look to the county budget to find the money, which will take away from schools and public safety funds. It is essential to find a private developer" and try to re-create the partnership that led to the construction of the new school, he said.