In the Commonwealth of Virginia, all land use control rests with local governments. Managing land use patterns is the subject of the planning process. In most localities, the planning process is under the jurisdiction of a planning commission appointed by the elected officials. Typically, local governments have a professional planning staff. The process involves considerable effort by all these players resulting in local, comprehensive plans. The local governments have a number of resources available to implement these plans.
Recently, a number of new players have become involved in the process. In Loudoun County, the courts overturned the master plan design to limit growth. The most significant impacts to establishing sustainable patterns of human settlement with appropriate balance of jobs, housing, and services in the region will be caused by the recent BRAC decisions (Base Realignment and Closure Commission).
BRAC decisions will do more to reshape the characteristics of Virginia than all the efforts of the professional planners combined. Eliminating the offices in Crystal City may force all of the employees of these offices to relocate elsewhere. Crystal City, for all its faults, has the best mass transit access of any employment area in the region. Relocated employees will lose this option, probably forcing them into a single occupancy vehicle transporter.
The decision to relocate many jobs to Fort Belvoir will develop a transportation requirement to one of the more inaccessible parts of the region. Many relocated employees are likely to live in Prince William County. From all points west, access from Prince William County is restricted to only two access points across the Occoquan River. Coming from the north, the I-95 corridor is already a traffic nightmare.
A BRAC proposal is seeking to prevent an accident from impacting the residential properties around the Oceana Naval Air Station. The operation that would be relocated to Cecilfield in Jacksonville, Florida, has caught the attention of Senator Warner, and rightfully so. The information provided by Jacksonville to BRAC was inaccurate; in fact, there is a considerably large residential community surrounding that base. The implications of relocating the Navy’s master jet fighter base out of the Newport News area are far-reaching.
The Newport Navy base is home base to several aircraft carriers. The aircraft which these serve are Oceana-based. If the jet base is relocated, it may diminish the importance of maintaining the carriers in Newport News. It may impact on the justification to home base the carriers at Norfolk. The Norfolk base is a very large Naval facility which in turn generates the need for many facilities such as hospitals and a variety of other facilities supporting the large compliment of service personnel and civilians needed to operate the base and staff the carriers.
Similarly, the area around Cecilfield is only partially supported by the near-by naval facilities at Jacksonville Naval Air station. If the master jet base is relocated to Jacksonville, many new improvements will be needed in this area. The impact of these BRAC decisions will be far-reaching on the shape of human settlement in Virginia and Florida. When I have worked with DOD, I have been told many times that their mission is to blow things up and kill people. Patterns of human settlement are far more sensitive than bombers and killers we are used to dealing with. Who is robbing this train?
In Fairfax County, those who did have access to employment via mass transit may need to relocate. Because land is still very costly here, they may have to look further west to the lower-cost land elsewhere. If new housing choices are made in the northerly suburbs, a commuter to the Belvoir area will have to cross the Dulles Toll Road, which has only seven crossing points, three of which are in Reston. One of the two in Reston is scheduled to be the location of the mass transit station.
When local governments make decisions on land use, they have resources to make things happen. BRAC itself does not. It is a Department of Defense-focused entity. DOD trains people to kill people and blow things up. It is unlikely that they have access to the type of wisdom manifesting itself in E. M. Risse’s book, “Shape of the Future,” or the professional journals and essays by planners with experience and insight.
In Jacksonville, there is a regional government in place that may allow this area make the necessary accommodation for the jet base. When BRAC makes a decision, its members do not have their own resources to fix what they break. The impact of all of this in Northern Virginia will clearly be regional. Transportation alone crosses many local boundaries. The housing needs will be felt by the entire region. Is this the time and motivation to establish a regional government?
©Patrick F. Kane
1600 Wainwright Drive
Reston, VA 20190
8/18/2008
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