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Community Corner

Air Rights Concept May Create Land Value and Planning Inequities


In reading the article about the proposition by  that MWAA should be selling/leasing air rights over the Phase II Metro stops , I have a number of questions :
1 ) Will Fairfax and Loudoun evaluate the uses and density in the Toll Road ROW at the same time they are evaluating Master Plans at each of the Phase II stations that is not within the ROW ?  Traffic ? Design Standards ? Height ? Proffers and Public Facilities ? School impacts ?
If so, how does Fairfax or Loudoun control Land Use, Zoning, Infrastructure , and other impacts on land owned by MWAA ?
2 ) Who determines the sales price or lease rate , and shouldn't the market dictate land value rather than a Government agency who may create a non competitive real estate market when differentiated from private land owners who paid market rates for their land ; went through a formal master plan and rezoning process, and signed up for 100's of millions of dollars in proffers , road improvements and public facilities.
3 ) With over 600 acres of land at the airport that could be developed , and the sale of air rights over future metro platforms, the single largest land owner and developer in the Silver line corridor could be WAMATA , and could theoretically undermine land values of the private sector landowners.
I would caution all the members of the Fairfax and Loudoun County Board of Supervisors , that creating a MWAA ,  competitor for density, height , and jobs as " air rights " over Phase I and II Silver line stations , paid for with a tax district component by the Phase I and II private landowners.
Those land owners who have or will go through a complicated, lengthy, and expensive rezoning process appears to be patently unjust at best, and short-sighted at worse .
 I can only trust the wisdom and fairness of our County officials to protect their own turf , and not let an interloper with no set zoning standards
undermine the Tysons Master Plan , the new Phase II planning effort, nor an inequity of land values in the market place .
I am posting this opinion as an individual who has spent most of my 41 years in real estate development on land holdings with in the Tysons area and ask that no decisions be made on the concept of selling or leasing of " air rights " at Silver Line Stations  without public hearings and the wise and thoughtful deliberations that the Fairfax and Loudoun Boards of Supervisors are recognized for in decisions of this magnitude .
Tom Fleury


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