PWC Supervisors Set To Endorse Long-Term Status As A Bedroom Community
This is frustrating to no end. The Derecho blog reports that the Prince William County BOCS is set to endorse the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority’s Transaction 2040 Regional Transportation Plan. As is pointed out in that post, tucked away in the plan is the forecast that PWC will continue to have more workers than jobs. Due to this prediction, most transportation projects that would impact the county are not deemed to be cost-effective other than along the lines of “Implement Express Priority Bus service along I-66 from Gainesville to Washington, D.C.”
Even adding parking spaces to VRE lots and expanding VRE station platforms along the Manassas line are viewed as being low on the cost-benefit analysis scale. (Overall, this document is great if you live inside the Beltway and want more bike paths and trails.) It does, however, find that on the east end of the county it is cost-effective to widen River Heritage Blvd. from 2 to 4 lanes between River Ridge and Harbor Station Parkway with a sidewalk and trail. Of course, that could be because it was already built that way as this satellite photo shows…
Meanwhile, this plan says it is not cost-effective to widen Harbor Station Parkway to four lanes from two between River Heritage and Cherry Hill. Guess what? IT ALREADY IS BUILT FOR FOUR LANES.
The bottom line is this. There are two competing visions for our county. One would have it continue on its current path of being more or less a bedroom community where most people travel outside the county to work at high paying jobs (the only reason why the county is ranked in the top 10 wealthiest counties since such salaries are few and far between in the county.) The other vision, the one that I subscribe to, places an emphasis on commercial development so we can bring good paying jobs into our county thereby reducing the number of people who must commute to locations inside the Beltway.
Our Board of Supervisors are set to cast a vote on this tomorrow and given that the NVTA Chairman is one of their own, I have no doubt that this will pass. This isn’t rocket science, folks. There is a reason why Loudoun continues to get all the high tech companies (yes, the forecast similarly predicts they will have more workers than jobs, too, but look at the quality of their jobs vs. those available in PWC which are primarily in the hospitality and retail industries) and why Stafford is snagging most of the defense contractors for Quantico. PWC can be downright hostile to business.
For instance, in April of 2011 at a BOCS meeting, commercial developer Mike Garcia spoke during citizens’ time about the challenges companies face in doing business in the county. According to Mr. Garcia, PWC charges $500 just to obtain a permit in order to move a fire sprinkler head in an office building. That’s per sprinkler head and that does not cover the cost of actually moving it. Moving sprinkler heads is done in order to accommodate the build-out requirements that companies have for office spaces. If another jurisdiction just a few miles down the road doesn’t present such obstacles, where do you think businesses are more likely to locate?
Two visions. One county. Which one do you choose?
19 Responses to “PWC Supervisors Set To Endorse Long-Term Status As A Bedroom Community”
People whine about traffic but they don’t elect supervisors with a business vision; and Loudoun is no better. We just have a data center and internet access advantage today; that is until the Tim Kaine’s and EPA get their way drive up electricity costs. I guess it’s just easier to zone higher densities because they generate more property tax revenue, which makes the problem traffic problem worse.
Riley, That is an excellent analysis and DFK’s remarks summarize the status quo. Since the vote is today and a voice or two (or ten) is not likely to change anything, do you have a recommendation for action after today?
Clean out anyone who supports this if they stand for reelection in 3 years.
It all comes down to what priorities and policies the BOCS sets. It is clear that this board is unwilling and/or unable to make commercial development their main priority and continue to rely upon residential development along with retail/service industry jobs for the county’s tax base. That is unsustainable. Fortunately, endorsing this document will not have any immediate impacts that can’t be undone.
Thanks again for your response.
I think part of the problem between citizens and BOCS is many residents don’t have time or attention for the way the county operates. Most people only know what they read and many are not even reading about local issues.
When a citizen does dare to get involved and attempts to act on information or share knowledge, that citizen is minimized by any means possible to thwart that attempt…but citizen apathy is the big killer. You CAN fight City Hall, but you need a majority of vocal citizens to do so.
Thanks for writing up the details, I just didn’t have the time to do a proper written analysis.
No, thank YOU for bringing this to our attention in the first place.
I can’t take the credit, a little “birdie” passed it on to me.
Very depressing post, but I am glad to see VV posting about local issues again.
So much to cover, so little time.
Riley: I am a formerly apathetic citizen trying to make sense of this.
You and The Derecho are saying that, instead of becoming a completely residential (aka bedroom) community, that Prince William County should instead be focusing on getting big businesses to set up shop here so PWC citizens won’t have to drive so far for high paying jobs?
But won’t building more houses (such as the controversial Stonehaven project) give more property taxes to PWC who can then build more schools? Why are businesses so much better than houses?
Building residential units brings in more taxes than open fields, but public services for them cost far more than for cows in open fields. On average, a residential unit must be assessed at around $500 thousand to pay enough in taxes to support the public services it consumes. That takes into account real estate, property, sales, and all other taxes derived from the residential units. The average assesses value in Prince William County is in the $300k range.
Businesses pay more in taxes than do residences and do not generate students for the school system, or other needs for public services that residences do. They are not necessarily big businesses. Small businesses are usually tax revenue positive also.
A healthy, balanced economy (unlike that of Prince William County) attracts commercial development whose surplus tax payments subsidize the deficits virtually all of the residences generate. Otherwise, tax rates must go up and/or the quality of services go down.
Because businesses pay property taxes, too, but they don’t bring in more residents that would require additional schools and other services for people who actually live in the county. As a result, the tax revenue generated goes further than that from residences.
Riley and Howard: Thank you for your reply.
Given that a private residence needs to be valued very highly in order to offset the public services consumed, I wonder why any community or developer would want to build low income housing? The low income folks would not provide a lot of tax revenue and would use public services at a much higher rate than high income folks would.
Thank you for your interest in these issue and for your thought provoking posts.
Thanks again, Riley and Howard and thanks to Janelle for being willing to learn.
Howard explained a key issue that most people either ignore or gloss over and that is that residential housing COSTS the county money. Builders donate land from their new developments for schools, (often much of it is simply not “buildable”…steep slopes for example) then, we taxpayers have to build the school, pay for the teachers, the buses, the roads, the fire, police, social services, etc.
Property taxes cannot cover all those expenses. Some blog yesterday referenced a Ponzi scheme…if the continual building of new houses is necessary to generate new money to pay for old debt, what is that called?
Building houses does generate jobs, but the jobs are only temporary unless we can continue to build into infinity, and the same applies to roads. Yes, we need more roads, but we need then because our population doubled in ten years.
I am definitely not a “no-growth” advocate, but I am a smart growth advocate. We are gobbling land like starved children and the very green spaces that drew many citizens here in the first place are disappearing. Soon, there will be no room to build business without razing existing residences. Maybe that was the plan all along?
There is a meeting about Stonehaven tomorrow night 10/09/2012.
http://sheriffofnottinghampwc.blogspot.com/2012/10/choosing-sides-stone-haven-is-waterloo.html
Thanks for letting us know!
[...] development to high density housing? Why not just officially hang out a sign saying “Welcome to Northern Virginia’s Bedroom Community“? [...]
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