Environmental sustainability was a hot topic last week at the final meeting of the county's 'Evolution of Fairfax' series.
The future prosperity of Fairfax County lies in environmental consciousness, alternative energy and “transitional thinking,” said architect Doug Carter last week during the final installment in the Evolution of Fairfax lecture series.
“Collectively, we are messing up our planet,” said Doug Carter, an architect who has lived and worked in the area for 40 years. “I happen to think that global warming is real and a very imminent danger to all of us. We need to change the way we do things, and we need to generate new alternative energy sources.”
Carter was one of three speakers who capped off a series of panel discussions that covered Fairfax County’s past, present and future. Fairfax County Board Chairman Sharon Bulova curated the event, and Supervisors John Cook and Cathy Hudgins joined the discussion with residents.
Rick Smyre, president of Communities for the Future and the evening’s keynote speaker, posed a question to the packed room at Fairfax’s Mason Inn and Conference Center: “Will you improve ideas that have been here for a long time, or will you work together towards a future whose principals and ideas are just beginning to appear?”
Carter said the “transitional thinking” he mentioned had been demonstrated in the county’s past, when it approved the construction of Reston’s Terraset Elementary School in the 1970s. The school’s unique design – it’s built into a hill and covered in earth to conserve energy – could be seen as an example of county officials preparing for the future, he said.
Unique, revolutionary architecture was one of the evening’s major talking points.
“There is no wasted space in nature, and there shouldn’t be in our buildings either,” said Roger Frechette, president of PositivEnergy Practice (PEP), a Chicago engineering firm focused on sustainable, green buildings. “Buildings in the future will have to be much more compact and use no extra space whatsoever.”
PEP engineers have been involved in the design of such massive, state-of-the-art towers as the Burj Khalifa in Dubai and the Pearl River Tower in China. These buildings provide “one-stop living,” Frechette said, and decreasing a need for single-occupancy vehicles and the population’s carbon footprint.
“This is a vertical city,” Frechette said of Burj Khalifa. The Pearl River Tower, about 1,000 feet tall, is designed to harness energy from the high-speed winds that hit the building.
Mixed-use developments like these will be key going forward, the speakers said. Carter indicated the development in Tysons was the beginnings of a cityscape, but red tape from zoning laws could hold it back from its full potential.
When asked what features of their county they wanted to retain in the years ahead, residents unanimously agreed that quality education systems and a diversified economy were keys to success.
“Public transportation needs to be affordable and reliable, or people will continue to use their cars,” said one resident.
The full presentation will be featured on the county’s Channel 16 on Wednesday, July 11.
Read more about Reston-area sustainability on Sustainable Reston's website.
The BSD Guy
2:07 pm on Saturday, July 7, 2012
This is a perfect example of EVERYTHING that's wrong with Fairfax County and the Virginia Democratic Party - COMPLETE CONTROL BY THE COUNTY'S VERY, VERY SPECIIAL INTEREST - THE DEVELOPERS!
You would think that if a group of normal people were getting together to "ponder the future" they would be inviting a myriad of business leaders and citizens groups to try and figure out things like what types of businesses will be here in the future, what happens if the government needs to reduce workforce and cut contracting, what fields will show growth in the future, what are economic trends....you know actual QUESTIONS ABOUT THE FUTURE.
Instead what do we get? Yet another opportunity for the stupid developers to come up with more schemes to shove more over development down everyone's throat...only this time they decided to polish that turd and put a bow on it by claiming they're "pondering the future."
The most telling statement is this one:
"Mixed-use developments like these will be key going forward, the speakers said. Carter indicated the development in Tysons was the beginnings of a cityscape, but red tape from zoning laws could hold it back from its full potential."
TRANSLATION: Deregulate us - let us run truly amuk!
It never ends.
Tom Wyland
8:15 pm on Saturday, July 7, 2012
The "Evolution of Fairfax" series was open to the public as far as I know. Was this some magical Democratic real-estate developer party held in secret?
The Analyst
2:38 pm on Sunday, July 8, 2012
Open to the public and about as well advertised as an ingrown toe nail.
Anyone that believes we live in a representational democracy is living with their heads in the sand. It's all about special interests. This entire event was put together and sponsored by sources that have their fingerprints all over the overdevelopment movement.
The Virginia Democratic party is not one bit better than the Republican party nationwide. The Republican national party seemed to start centralizing around a tiny percentage of special interests roughly 10 years ago. The duty of the Republican party is to "sell" the agenda of their special interests by attempting to attract people willing to tolerate the abuse the special interests will inflict on the rest of America (outsourcing, reckless financial institutions, no energy policy) in exchange for the Republicans "fighting" for them - an example is the abortion issue.
I guess the Virginia Democratic party thought this was such a great idea that they, too, would turn their backs on the people and cater exclusively to a special interest (developers.) Where else on the planet can you find taxpayer money being used to label people with incomes of $75K to $150K as "under financial hardship" in order for the county to use that taxpayer money to subsidize the developer because their units aren't selling.
Bad ideas are bad ideas - and focusing on developers is a really, really, bad idea.
The BSD Guy
2:43 pm on Monday, July 9, 2012
QUOTE:
"Where else on the planet can you find taxpayer money being used to label people with incomes of $75K to $150K as "under financial hardship" in order for the county to use that taxpayer money to subsidize the developer because their units aren't selling."
Apparently Cathy Hudgins and company believe in taxing the low and middle income to support the impoverished....such as billionaire elite Wall Street based commercial real estate interests.
County politicians are either so incredibly corrupt that they'll really find a way to steal for their precious special interests any way they can, or they're so incredibly stupid that they'll believe literally ANY story that the special interests are feeding them. CORRUPT OR STUPID, that's our choice. High praise indeed for todays so-called "leaders."
The Convict
5:57 pm on Monday, July 9, 2012
The simple fact of the matter is, guys, that the developers want to influence county decisions about their developments. That means that they are going to dump huge amounts of money into the campaign of the person that they think is (1) most likely to win and (2) who will best represent their interests. I don't think they really care which party the person is from, as long as they can win and are willing to listen to their demands ...er ....issues.
In this case, it would stand to reason that the developers would try to make nice-nice with Dem candidates because, by and far, Fairfax County is a Dem county. It would be imprudent for the developers to back a Repub especially if they don't stand much of a chance of winning. That would only antagonize the winner of the election, who might be less willing to listen to them.