Tysons Tax District Hearing Scheduled for Tuesday
Fairfax County Board of Supervisors will hear resident input on a plan expected to raise $253 million over 40 years.
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors will host a public hearing Tuesday on a Tysons transportation service tax district expected to raise $253 million for road improvements and infrastructure in the next 40 years.
Tysons Corner needs approximately $3 billion in transportation improvements over the next 40 years in order to sustain its development of the county’s new walkable urban downtown, according to a detailed proposal from the Fairfax County Planning Commission.
The recommended improvements include a grid of streets, pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, transit lines, and large-scale, Tysons-wide roadwork.
The tax district has been proposed to help fund the larger improvements – $250 million will come from property owners and another $250 million more will come from developers in the area.
Additionally, $700 million would come from transportation funds over the next 40 years.
In total, the public and private sectors will give approximately $1.2 billion. Planning Commissioners reasoned the public and developers should share the burden, as these projects are meant to benefit the area as a whole.
The district would likely have a tax hike of 7 to 9 cents per $100 of assessed value. The Board endorsed the plan 7-2 after a two-and-a-half-hour public comment period in mid-October, where public support of the plan was split.
The Board has approved two big Tysons redevelopment projects in recent months – the massive overhaul of Capital One’s corporate headquarters, and the new 20-acre Arbor Row development.
The public hearing on the tax district is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Click here if you wish to sign up and speak at the hearing.
Elsewhere on the agenda:
A vote on the creation of an advisory board for the tax district, as well as on the establishment of funds for “Tysons-Wide” and the “Tysons Grid of Streets,” according to the draft agenda.
Supervisors will appoint their nominees for a commission designed to examine election efficiency in the county. Chairman Sharon Bulova proposed the committee’s formation at the Board’s Nov. 20 meeting, explaining that long lines and wait times at polling places around the county on Election Day needed to be addressed. Bulova’s motion passed unanimously.
Kathy
11:09 am on Monday, December 3, 2012
Unlike the transportation tax district used to fund the extension of the Silver Line, this "service" tax district does not require a vote of those being taxed. Something for Restonians to think about as the county decides how to fund the grid of streets and other transportation costs to support the redevelopment of the Dulles corridor that will be coming with the Silver Line stations.
Kathy Kaplan
Reston
RKO
2:32 pm on Wednesday, December 5, 2012
This is all speculative development. Today SAIC announced the layoff of 700 people. Odds are more and more govt. contractors will be cutting over the next few years. Regardless of whether you're Democrat or Republican, cutting in the govt. must take place. The pseudo growth presented by developers was simply fictitious and idiotic. Anyone with an ounce of common sense could have seen this coming as far as 6 years ago.
.....so how about the developers paying for some of the problems they're creating? I believe it's called an "impact tax" and it's a great idea because it makes developers think twice before building something. Right now they can rip off investors by putting up an empty building, have the county and taxpayers fund the road improvements, all to have the thing sitting there empty or marginally occupied for what? A decade or two?
It's time developers start paying their fair share instead of ripping everyone else off, creating problems for everyone else, and then leaving town with a bag full of other people's money.