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Health & Fitness

Fairfax County's Improper Land Grab

Fairfax County's Deal With Developer to Take Homeowner's Property May Violate Virginia Constitution's New Property Rights Amendment

Myra Ashley has lived on Raglan Road in the Tysons Corner area all her life.  Now she is being told she must move to make way for a massive redevelopment project called Spring Hill Station.  That doesn’t bother her but not getting a fair price for her property does.  A deal that the developer, the Georgelas Group, made with the Fairfax County government is hindering her from selling her property to the highest bidder.

In order to gain zoning approval from Fairfax County for the Spring Hill Station development, the Georgelas Group agreed to a “proffer” to purchase 2.8 acres around the existing Raglan Road Park to make room for a sports field that the new Spring Hill Station residents can use.  The catch is that if the Georgelas Group is not successful in negotiating with Ms. Ashley (and her cousin Dave Wallace who owns adjoining property), the proffer states the county can use eminent domain proceedings to take the land.  If that happens, the Georgelas Group must reimburse Fairfax County for its condemnation payments.  (See proffer attached.)    

With the threat of a county eminent domain proceeding in the background, the developer has little incentive to offer anything in excess of the assessed value ($460,000) and, in fact, that is exactly the offer that she received at first from the Georgelas Group according to a June 6, 2013 Fairfax Times article.

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http://www.fairfaxtimes.com/article/20130606/NEWS/130609606/original-tys...

When she received a higher offer from a third party, $660,000, Fairfax County government officials interceded and verbally offered to have the Georgelas Group match the offer.  So she put off the sale.  When the written offer from the Georgelas Group came in it contained a number of deductions that Ms. Ashley hadn’t counted on so she was back to square one.

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Several questions arise concerning the actions of the Fairfax County government here. 

First, why on earth are Fairfax County government officials negotiating on behalf of a developer that could do so itself?   Either the county should use its eminent domain rights or not.  Fairfax County should not be in the position of being an officious intermeddler.

Second, did the Fairfax County government ever consider that the enforcement of this proffer might violate the Property Rights Amendment to the Virginia State Constitution which the voters just passed in the November 2012 election and which became effective this year.  (I have attached the actual ballot language.)  For our purposes, the pertinent language is “a taking … of private property is not for public use if the primary use is for private gain, private benefit, private enterprise, increasing jobs, increasing tax revenue, or economic development.”  (emphasis added).  If Fairfax County had come in and taken Ms. Ashley’s property for a park, that would not present a problem.  But this proffer is in the middle of a voluminous special exception application relating to the entire Sprint Hill Station development.  The issue of taking the park land cannot be separated from the development as a whole.  Hence, in my opinion, any attempt by Fairfax County to take Ms. Ashley’s land pursuant to the proffer violates the Virginia State Constitution.

The easy way out here for Fairfax County is to just make a statement that it will not use eminent domain proceedings against Ms. Ashley’s property.  The language in the proffer on eminent domain use by the county does not obligate the county to take the property.  It is merely an option for the county. 

With Fairfax County out of the way, Ms. Ashley could negotiate without the price of her property being artificially limited to the assessed value, a value which is most certainly less than what she could get in a free and fair transaction. If the Georgelas Group does not buy the property, there would surely be other interested parties.   

Last, but not least, McLean’s original African American families were forced out one by one as the real estate values rose so high that many families could not afford the escalating real estate taxes.  If you drive down Lewinsville Road in McLean you will pass by the Pleasant Grove Church which is a remnant of that once thriving community.  It is unkind beyond measure to treat Ms. Ashley in this manner as her family has lived on the property since 1941.  Is it too much to ask that she be allowed to profit a little from the increase in value of her property?

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