Politics & Government

Two Long-Running McLean Zoning Dramas Return

Cell Tower on Kirby Road, Elm Street Townhouses

Two of McLean's long-running and controversial planning and zoning dramas returned to the Planning and Zoning Committee of the McLean Citizens Association Tuesday night.

Drama One -- Round Three of the cell tower drama between AT&T and citizens who live in neighborhoods near Kirby Road and Westmoreland Street.

Drama Two -- A clash of visions about downtown McLean between a developer who wants to build 49 townhouses on Elm Street and citizen planners.

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The Cell Tower.

For the third time in about five years AT&T is trying to build a cell phone tower to better serve communities near the intersection of  Kirby Road and Westmoreland Street. The current proposal calls for building a 100-foot tall bell tower in the front yard of a church at the intersection. The bell tower design would disguise the cell tower.

Find out what's happening in McLeanwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

For AT&T, which has suffered two earlier defeats in this community,  cell phone calls are declining while data use increases. Increasingly folks use their cellphones to receive data over the internet at home. Thus the increasing demand for  cell phone towers in residential neighborhoods.

For the surrounding citizen organizations in the neighboring communities of El Nido and L'Ambiance, who defeated the two earlier plans, this is about protecting their property values and keeping an unsightly 100 foot pole out of their neighborhoods.

 “AT&T would not be spending this money if we didn’t have a need,”  AT&T representative Ginger Beaudoin said Tuesday night.

“We don’t want no 100 feet tower in front of my house," said Nurgul Baskaya who said she lives on Westmoreland Street directly across from where the bell/cell tower would be located in the front yard of the New Life Church.

 ‘We are concerned about the land values there,” said Bill Denk, president of the El Nido Civic Association and treasurer of the McLean Citizens Association. “The height obviously is a concern," he said.

AT&T representatives  have not yet formally filed for a special exception to allow them to build the bell/cell tower. They came to the Planning and Zoning Committee “to address the community concerns before we get to the (Fairfax County)  zoning board process,” Tracy Anderson, an attorney representing AT&T's interests, said Tuesday night.

Those citizens concerns haven't changed since last year when  AT&T proposed building a 115-foot cell tower at Longfellow Middle School which is located on Westmoreland Street just south of Kirby Road. Fairfax County school officials entered an agreement with Milestone, a company that builds cell phone towers on school property and then splits the profits with the schools, to build at Longfellow.

Furious citizen opposition finally caused school officials to drop the plan. Now AT&T has signed a contract with New Life church to build the tower there. Stay tuned.

Elm Street Townhouses

Nearly a year ago,  developer EYA proposed  building 49 townhouses on land that is now a parking lot behind an existing office building near the intersection of Elm Street and Fleetwood Road in downtown McLean. JBG owns the land.

For the past year this project has bounced back and forth between the McLean Planning Committee, which makes recommendations on projects in downtown McLean, and the MCA's Planning and Zoning Committee.

This is basically a clash of visions of downtown McLean. The vision of JBG and EYA who are presented by zoning attorney and former Dranesville Supervisor Stu Mendelsohn, is townhouses, a garage on Elm Street with the first floor of restaurants and retail space, a tot lot, and improved stormwater management.

McLean’s citizen-planners envision apartments, higher density and no garage.

EYA and JBG have filed to rezone the land to allow for their plan so county planners will weigh in.

Interestingly Mendelsohn created the McLean Planning Committee (the downtown group) when he was the Dranesville Supervisor. Their purpose: to make recommendations to the Dranesville Supervisor on developments in downtown.

Both the MCA Planning and Zoning Committee and the McLean Planning Committee are advisory bodies.

The Fairfax County Planning Commission will hear both cases and make recommendations to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors which will make the final decision.


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