Chairman Hawkins, members of the Senate Finance Transportation
Subcommittee, I am Gerry Connolly, Chairman of the Fairfax
County Board of Supervisors. I want to thank you for the opportunity
to speak to you regarding Managing Growth and Transportation
Challenges.
It is clear that growth and transportation are
interrelated. As you know, in Virginia we operate within a
context in which local governments are responsible for land
use decisions while the Commonwealth is responsible for the
transportation network.
As we look at the relationship between land
use and transportation, we must ask ourselves a fundamental
question - "Are job growth and economic development in
Fairfax County a good thing for Fairfax County and Virginia?"
The answer has to be "Yes." While Fairfax County
represents only 13.5% of the state's population, we generate
a quarter of all income tax collected in Virginia. Fairfax
County also generates over 16% of the state's sales tax revenue
and 25% of its recordation tax revenue. These figures make
clear that job growth and economic prosperity in Fairfax County
benefit all citizens of the Commonwealth.
Between 1990 and 2000, 146,000 jobs were added
in Fairfax County, a 36% increase. In 2004 we added roughly
25,000 jobs, ending the year with an unemployment rate of
1.6%, almost half of Virginia's 2004 rate of 3% and far below
the national average of 5.2%.
One of the results of job growth and economic
prosperity is that people want to move to this area. In the
last decade, Fairfax County has added over 150,000 residents
and has surpassed the one million mark. By the year 2030,
the Washington DC metropolitan region is projected to add
two million residents and over 1.6 million jobs, many if not
most in Northern Virginia. Fairfax County, and Virginia as
a whole, is an exceedingly attractive place for people looking
for work.
This projected influx of new residents will
put a tremendous demand on our housing supply. It is our duty
as public servants to meet this need, and to provide the infrastructure
to support it. We need to shape this growth through proper
planning and zoning and not simply let the market alone dictate
where the growth occurs. Unfettered growth is growth that
is spread out, increasing the demand on infrastructure, especially,
but not exclusively, on the transportation system. Workers
are then farther away from their jobs requiring longer commutes
and adding stress to the already overburdened transportation
system. This also makes transportation modal options such
as public transit more difficult and costly to implement.
However, if we concentrate growth in areas where
it makes sense - for example, around transit stations - we
spread the demand across our transportation network and provide
citizens more choices. With the right mix of housing, retail
and office, we also create 24/7 communities that are vibrant
and lively.
In Fairfax County we have provided a framework
through our Comprehensive Plan to encourage this type growth,
concentrating growth around transit nodes. Tysons Corner alone
is already the second largest center for business and commerce
in the Washington region, behind only Washington itself. This
is why rail to and through Tysons out the Dulles corridor
is so important to the region and the Commonwealth - it will
only become more so as this projected job growth occurs.
Fairfax County's Comprehensive Plan has evolved
over the years, due in large part to the Commonwealth's repeated
failure to fund its own obligations. Fifty years ago, Fairfax
County was a sleepy farming community on the fringes of the
metropolitan area. As Fairfax evolved into a bedroom community,
it became clear that the demand for services would place significant
strain on homeowners, as the only viable revenue for these
services was residential real estate property taxes. To address
this issue, we had to rethink our land use planning to foster
a more viable business environment, providing a more equitable
balance between residential and commercial development, allowing
us to decrease the residential tax burden. By all accounts
we were successful - once a bedroom community, now fully 53%
of Fairfax County residents also work here.
The Comprehensive Plan, implemented through
rezoning and the proffer system, and the County's Capital
Improvement Program are the most effective tools that we currently
are empowered to use to shape future development. As you are
aware, the Code of Virginia requires local governments to
plan for future long-term population changes. With the increased
employment that has come to the Washington metro area already
and is expected in the future, it is not a question of whether
we will grow but rather how we will manage the growth that
is inevitable. We in Fairfax plan for this growth through
a highly inclusive, comprehensive, complex and deliberative
process that extensively involves our citizenry in the plan
formulation process.
Fairfax County is currently conducting a comprehensive
review of the County's Transportation Plan as part of the
Comprehensive Plan update. A key aspect of this review is
to take the regional transportation model that the Washington
Metropolitan Council of Governments uses and refine it to
make it much more useful at the local level. This sophisticated
computer model evaluates future land uses and future transportation
facilities, with a horizon year of 2030. As part of our Transportation
Plan Update, several different scenarios of land uses and
transportation improvements within the County are being evaluated
to determine the effects of such changes on the performance
of the overall transportation system.
Throughout the Transportation Plan Update process,
the public has been and continues to be involved. This involvement
includes public meetings, public workshops, a dynamic web
site, public suggestions, and discussions with a variety of
community groups. Initial public suggestions were sought for
several months during the first half of 2005 and are currently
being evaluated. This project has followed a team approach
with close collaboration among land use and transportation
professionals.
We have been planning and seeking to implement
an analytical, managed growth pattern in Fairfax for many
years. While it has not been without its challenges, we have
been very successful in implementing our land use and public
facilities plan. Where we need assistance is attaining recognition
from the state that funding of an adequate transportation
system will require significant additional investment. The
County recently received an award from the National Association
of County Officials (NACO) for the Chesapeake Bay element
to our Comprehensive Plan and has received other awards for
the quality of our plans and processes.
The quality of our land use planning and public
facilities planning is among the best. We need to keep pace
with transportation investments with the growth that has occurred
and will undoubtedly continue to occur in the future. Frankly
it is time to stop blaming land use planning as the cause
of our transportation failure and admit that the investment
in our transportation infrastructure needs to keep pace with
growth and development of fast growing localities in the Commonwealth.
Planning is not the problem - it's following through on those
plans.
To that end, though we respect that transportation
is a state responsibility in Virginia, Fairfax County has
found itself having to take the self-help approach more often
than we would have liked. Fairfax County voters have approved
$740 million in County general Obligation bonds for transportation
since 1981. This includes the largest transportation bond
referendum in County history last November, totaling $165
million - which, I would note, was overwhelmingly approved
by 78 percent of voters. With bond proceeds, we have been
able to build the Fairfax County Parkway, Transit Centers,
Virginia Railway Express Stations, Park and Ride lots, and
over a hundred highway projects.
On an annual basis, Fairfax County spends approximately
$95 million of local general funds on transportation, including
funding for Metrorail, Metrobus, the Virginia Railway Express,
and our local bus system, the FAIRFAX CONNECTOR, as well as
a number of intersection and highway improvements.
Fairfax County has also been a leader in partnering
with other stakeholders to find innovative approaches to funding
our mutual transportation needs. In 1987 Fairfax partnered
with Loudoun County and the Commonwealth Transportation Board
to jointly fund improvements to State Route 28 that turned
a two-lane country road into of one of the most economically
vibrant commercial corridors in the Commonwealth. The County's
share of that project continues to be funded today with over
$7 million per year in voluntary taxes requested by the landowners
of that district. The County is also providing over $550 million
in capital towards the construction of a new rail line to
Dulles Airport from local resources.
Over two-thirds of the cost of the Fairfax County
Parkway, a major highway that is also included in the Federal
National Highway System, has been funded through $230 million
in county bond funds. Most people in the County and the region
would agree that this is one of the most important highways
built in the last 20 years.
In February 2004, the Fairfax County Board of
Supervisors unanimously adopted the Board's Four-Year Transportation
Program. This $215 million package of transportation projects
and initiatives is designed to "jump start" delayed
and stalled highway and transit projects in the VDOT Six-Year
Program. The Board's Program also includes strategies to improve
signalization and intersection traffic flow, incident management,
pedestrian safety and access, expedited project delivery and
telework. The key to easing the pain of congestion is offering
choices - choices that are convenient, affordable and safe.
HOT lanes, extension of Metrorail, carpool lanes, telework,
and more highway capacity provide viable option for commuters.
The Board fully understands that the Four-Year Plan is not
the answer but rather one locality's attempt to continue the
effort to keep up with transportation needs.
All of these efforts must be balanced against
other needs that contribute towards to the economic strength
of the Commonwealth and the desirability of Virginia as a
high quality place to live. The County is totally responsible
for building its own schools to provide top quality education,
with plans to spend over $1.3 billion in the next ten years
on school construction and renovation to serve the largest
school district in the state. Public safety needs for fire
and police protection also require significant investment
of our own capital in direct competition with the resources
that are available to assist the state in providing for transportation
needs.
Just as the Commonwealth relies upon strict
debt limits to maintain its excellent credit rating and preserve
its ability to meet future needs, the County also maintains
strict control of long term debt so that we do not put our
triple-A bond rating in jeopardy. I would note that our triple-A
bond rating has saved Fairfax County over $300M over the past
twenty years. Over the next ten years the County expects to
seek authorization for $2 billion in new capital spending,
with fully two thirds of that figure allocated to school construction.
This leaves an average of $70 million per year to provide
for such vital and necessary facilities such as state courts,
police stations to serve an increasing population, fire and
rescue stations to reduce response times on crowded roads,
and numerous other projects such as parks, libraries and health
care facilities that ensure the high quality of life in our
County and the Commonwealth that will continue to attract
businesses and residents.
Since the 1990 Session, the General Assembly
has continued on a path of enacting legislation that erodes
local land use authority. At least 20 bills have been enacted
during that time frame that either eliminate previous local
land use authority or impose state-mandated one-size-fits-all
restrictions on a local government's exercise of its authority.
Recent examples include the elimination of a locality's right
to require the approval of a conditional use permit or special
exception in order to develop a residential cluster subdivision
at existing densities (2002 Session) and the cash proffer
forfeiture legislation from this past Session (HB 2888). Under
the cash proffer forfeiture legislation, certain cash proffer
payments received by a local government as a condition of
the approval of a rezoning application, and in mitigation
of the impacts of that new development, must be forfeited
to the Commonwealth Transportation Board if certain work has
not begun within an arbitrary time frame specified in the
legislation. Under this new law, even cash proffer payments
for school construction are at risk for being forfeited to
the CTB.
During the same time period that the General Assembly has
been enacting laws that erode or restrict a locality's ability
to manage various impacts of growth, every request by local
governments for new authority to adopt ordinances regarding
adequate public facilities, transferred development rights,
and impact fees for school capital needs and other public
facilities has fallen on deaf ears, never even being reported
out of committee. Even Fairfax County's modest proposal to
allow the County to require new development to preserve a
certain percentage of existing trees has repeatedly failed
to be allowed a vote of the full chamber.
I suggest to this Committee that local governments need a
"Legislative Time Out" on what appears to have become
an annual consideration and adoption of bills that further
erode and hamper the remaining authority that local governments
have to manage the impacts of growth in their respective communities.
From a proactive standpoint, in order to better coordinate
land use and transportation efforts, the General Assembly
should give serious consideration on the floors of the Senate
and the House of Delegates to legislation that would authorize
localities to adopt ordinances regulating adequate public
facilites, the transfer of development rights, and the expanded
use of impact fees. Serious consideration should also be given
to making it easier for local governments to rezone those
properties that have what I will call "stale zonings"
--- where development of those properties never proceeded
over time -- in order to bring the zoning into conformance
with the locality's current comprehensive land use plan.
We need is to stop working around the edges
on things that distract us from the real work ahead of us
- that is finding long term solution for the transportation
funding crisis we face right now. The Virginia Department
of Transportation states that we will not have enough state
funds to match federal allocation by 2014 and that we may
have to turn back federal dollars. This date may actually
be nearer if the federal reauthorization act passes which
will provide us with more federal money. The state cannot
continue to rely on federal and local governments to fund
the transportation program. It is time for the state to own
up to the problem and come up with a solution that continues
the economic prosperity that we enjoy.
In summary, for the overall public good of our
constituents, local governments and the Commonwealth must
be partners, not adversaries, in fostering managed growth
with the transportation and other public infrastructure necessary
to support and sustain that growth. Our goal is the same -
to ensure the Virginia continues to be such a desirable place
in which to live, work, play, and learn, while enhancing its
economic vibrancy. I, along with my colleagues from around
the state, stand ready and look forward to forging such a
partnership to meet this goal. Thank you for the opportunity
to share these thoughts with you today.
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