Why All the Condos...and Banks???

Follow the Money......

......It Leads to the Answer

The Huge Growth in School Population

City and School data show that by 2012, Falls Church is projected to have about 2500 more residents and up to 209 new students from the condominium and rental units ALONE.  This is a sufficent number, based on the school capacity data, shown elsewhere on this site, to cause these so-called mixed use projects to utilize nearly all the current capacity at our schools.  Additional growth from single family units has not yet been finally tallied...a very sobering thought.

 LOOK WHO'S GETTING A SLICE OF THE PIE....

.....and you be the judge on election day if we are headed in the right direction....and if the all the "residentialization" on commercial property that they are pushing for is in their special interest or the community as a whole?

The Falls Church Chamber of Commerce:  What more is to be said than this organizagtion is doing everything it can to produce more customers by packing the city with condominiums and rentals.

The Falls Church News Press: Linked with the Chamber, the Publisher even indicated at one time he would run for Council in part to keep the so-called mixed use condo projects on the Council's approval agena.  Of course, the advertising that he is receiving from the condominium and rental companies evidences a financial calculus on his part. 

The Falls Church Housing Corporation:  The promise of $4.2 Million for a new low income housing facility for mostly non-city residents and its never ending effort to create and manage the"diversification" of our community.

The Garders, Hockenberry et al:  The opportunity to remain in control and ply their special interests which seem to be to reproduce a residential version of Ballston--without the Ballston Common stores.  In short, a commercial development strategy producing more banks and dry cleaners--and a whole lot of empty store fronts.  And of course, the Mayor's continued incumbancy will permit her husband even more opportunities to produce the muck for which he is becoming infamous.

The So-Called Economic Development Authority:  Whose Chairman unwisely and foolishly broadcasts to every developer in earshot what we anticipate our tax return per acre should be for each project.  Nothing like having the answer to the test before taking it.  No other agency--other than the Council--will be more responsible than the EDA for creating activity dead-zones by embracing one condo project after another as well as building huge school population increases threatening our community's most prized asset.

In short, the best way to create a new development strategy is with new goals and guidelines.  That can be accomplished by:

VOTING "YES" ON THE REFERENDUM MAY 6th

Hot Opposition by the Interest Groups Is Because they Have More Condominium Projects in the Pipeline and that Is Why You Are  Seeing The "NO" Signs on Developers' Properties.  No Surprise There!

Packing the Schools...Increasing Class Size...Perhaps They Thought No One Would Notice... 

Schoeller's School Letter: Using Erroneous Data Critical to Our Children's Education to Defeat the Referendum?

Former PTSA President Sharon Schoeller's Letter to the Editor Contradicts City School Capacity Studies.

Why Didn't She Disclose that Her Husband as Head, of the EDA, Is One of the Leading Architects of the Urbanization/ School Room Packing of Falls Church?

Whatever her motives, Sharon Schoeller's letter on school capacity is simply wrong according to the City's own studies.  You can see the data for yourself on the "School Capacity Study" web site page.  What the studies show is that by school year 2012-2013 only the middle school will still have capacity.  For those of you parents who have or will have K-1 school age children, capacity at Mt. Daniel will be reached in 2010-2011 according to the study.

What If There Were No Condo Projects?

Here's what's really interesting: the study also shows that if none of the so-called mixed use condominium and rental units had not been approved by the Council, some 200 fewer students would be anticipated and the anticipation is that the schools would be under capacity at 2015.

So, Now What's Next--A $60 Million Bill?

Depending on whose number you believe valid, we will need $30 Million to $60 Million for  new school facilities.  The Chairman of the School Board surfaced the larger number at the CBC annual meeting and $30 Million was put into the Capital Improvement Budget.  Any more than $30 Million would have breeched the City's financial policies.

The Referendum is a key way to stop the woeful public policy of the Council and provide a "time-out" to begin to develop a serious and effective method of achieving long term financial policy goals and objectives.

Strong Scent of Special Interest

Chamber of Commerce Aims to Defeat the Referendum for Its Benefit

• Chamber Seeks Profit Center Not City Center

• Organization Consistent Supporter of Condominium/Rental Growth Driving Up School and City Population Impacts

• Seeks Highrise "Built-In Customer" Base Increase by Defeating Referendum

• Many Chamber Members Are Not Even City Residents

That the Chamber of Commerce is playing a key role in the development decisions of our city is disquieting. Chambers of Commerce are among the most self interested of all the special interest groups whether locally or nationally.  Even as we write this, the Virginia State Chamber is still trying to head off union organization efforts in Richmond, as well as reduce health care services to employees and minimize efforts to increase the minimum wage. 

Business men and women are surely entitled to fund and pursue agendas that support their goals and objectives.

But why the local Chamber has such a pre-eminent development lobbying position in Falls Church is all too clear.  It is not only advancing its self interest but is also serving the political aims of the Council.  In short, the Chamber, with the Council's approbation, lobbies for projects that will add to the population of the schools, crowd the city further and increase the service demands by the 15 to 20 percent increase in population that will be the result of the condominiums and rental build-outs.  The Chamber gets more customers and the Council gets a quick pop in tax revenue to avoid a big tax increase.  The citizens are left with huge future service and school costs and a city with no center. Politics--and economics---they do make strage bedfellows.

It's Not Only the Far-Right Mixing Politics and Religion

Intercepted faxes and memoranda from the Falls Church Housing Corporation on the eve of the Council approval of the City Center project show that the Corporation was actively lobbying for the City Center project and against the REFERENDUM in order to be the recipient of up to $4.2 million in assistance for a low income housing project.  Very few people in Falls Church would object to creating affordable housing, but MAYOR GARDNER encouraging and using a 501 (c) (3) non profit charity to lobby for the project with non-city residents shows a callous disregard for the opinions of local citizens and possibly IRS regulations pertaining to organizations such as the FCHC.  The City Council Chambers were inundated with residents from other jurisdictions pressuring the Council to approve the project and now we know why. Please see the memo contents for yourselves and for your own judgment on the manuevering by the MAYOR in the section "Mixing Politics and Religion.".