Fairfax Planners Propose Tax District to Help Pay Tysons Corner Transportation Costs

The Fairfax County Planning Commission has proposed creating a special tax district in Tysons Corner to help pay for $1.2 billion in transportation improvements needed to transform the area into a city of 100,000 people in the next 40 years.

The Planning Commission holds a public hearing tonight on its proposal to ask the Board of Supervisors to create a tax district that would include  developers and existing residents.

"Half of the funding ($253,000,000 in 2012 dollars) should be generated by a Tysons-wide tax district, whose boundary would be the same as the Tysons Corner Urban Center," the proposal states. "The Tysons-wide Road Improvements will be contained within this boundary and will serve to benefit the entire community within Tysons."

The proposal also says: "The Tysons Corner Urban Center would by law also include residential property owners. These residential property owners are currently exempt from the Dulles Phase I Rail District taxation*, but would be subject to this service district. As of January 1, 2012, residential property owners make up approximately 10 percent of the total assessed value of properties in Tysons."

The Fairfax County Board rezoned Tysons Corner in 2010 to transform the melange of parking lots, car dealerships and office building into a new city that would be the economic generator of new dollars for Fairfax and Northern Virginia.

The plan calls for a new city of high-rise offices, hotels, apartments and condominiums, restaurants and shops  around the four new Silver Line subway stations now under construction along Route 123 and Route 7. The subway acts as the spine of the new city.

"The boundaries of the proposed Tysons service district are those traditionally used to define the 2,100 acres that are Tysons Corner: Dulles Toll Road to the north, Magarity Road to the south-east, Gallows and Old Courthouse Road to the southwest,"  said Michael Caplin, executive director of the Tysons Partnership, which represents primarily Tysons' developers.

The tax district proposal comes from "the committee that worked through the issues of the comprehensive plan," said Providence Supervisor Linda Smyth. "They have a very good record of trying to work through the issues. . . this is just a step in the process," she said.

The vast majority Tysons Corner is located in the Providence District.

The transportation plan for Tysons Corner includes everything from widening Route 7 from Route 123 south to the Beltway, building Jones Branch Road over the Beltway so that it connects to Dolley Madison Boulevard to new streets,  sidewalks, bike and walking paths.

That transportation "infrastructure" will cost an estimated $1.2 billion over about 30  years.

The developers will pay also the total costs all of the new streets. They will build those streets as they build their new developments around the metro stations.

 Cost: $561 million.

The idea of the new city of Tysons is to get people out of their cars and onto public transportation. To do that the county will ask the state and federal government to pay for expanded bus service to  get riders from the subway stations to their offices or homes and to get residents and workers around the new city.

Tonight's public hearing: 7 p.m. in the Board Auditorium in the Government Center (12000 Government Center Parkway, Fairfax, VA
22035).

Committee mark-up of the proposal: June 26th on 7 p.m. in Rooms 9/10 in the Government Center (12000 Government Center
Parkway, Fairfax).

*The Tysons Corner business community created a tax district earlier to help pay for the new Silver Line from Falls Church through McLean and Tysons Corner to Reston.