Residents Express Frustration Over Signage, Overcrowding in Schools in Mason District

This is part two of a recap of the Mason District Council town hall meeting on Jan. 15. Read part one here.

Overcrowding and multiple occupancy dwellings aren't the only code violations upsetting Mason District residents.

During a town hall meeting Tuesday night, the Mason District Council of Community Associations (MDC) revealed more results of their community survey. In the survey, residents expressed feeling frustrated at the overall appearance of the community due to a combination of issues including signage and lack of property maintenance. One survey responder said the amount of signs in Korean in Annandale “create an impression that non-Koreans are not welcome” in certain businesses while another worried about their property value decreasing due to poor property management of neighboring businesses.

In response, Fairfax County Department of Code Compliance representative Susan Epstein said that while signage is a big problem in Mason District and throughout the county, signs that are not in English don’t violate the county code. Mason District Supervisor Penny Gross explained that Fairfax County can control the placement of signs, but not the content of signs.

“If you want to change the code, you need to change the First Amendment to the Constitution. The content of the sign is considered speech,” said Gross, who echoed her comments she made during a meeting in 2011 about issues affecting Annandale.

While Gross said she has worked with business owners to encourage them to use English on the signs, little else can be done unless the sign violates the county code.

“We want all businesses to succeed and to do that, we have to serve the broadest amount of people,” said Gross.

Property Maintenance in Mason District

One audience member described the appearance of downtown Annandale as "terrible" and asked the panel of representatives what more could be done to make the area more attractive.

“The challenge for us with the maintenance and the cleanliness is that the property maintenance code doesn’t exactly address you needed to sweep your parking lot every week… which is why we [encourage] a voluntary approach and hope business owners take some pride in their business [to make them look attractive],” said Gross.

While the Virginia Department of Transportation handles the landscaping for property that is in the Right-of-Way, some residents said it's not enough to keep the community looking nice. Gross said property maintenance has to be a  "partnership with the community," not just government working to keep the community clean. More involvement from the community through clean-ups and participation with organizations such as CleanFairfax are steps in the right direction, Gross said.

Speeding is an ongoing issue and was indicated as a major concern for residents on the survey. Mason District Police Station Commander Capt. Gun Lee said Mason District has a full-time police officer who’s in charge of developing ways officers can help enforce speed limits in neighborhoods. According to Lee, Mason District officers wrote around 15,000 summonses in 2011, a slight decrease from 2010. Lee said his biggest concerns as commander are pedestrian safety and traffic crashes.

Some residents in attendance agreed with Lee that pedestrian safety should be a priority. Nick Burns, a Sleepy Hollow Woods neighborhood resident, said the 35 mph speed limit on Sleepy Hollow Road seems excessive.

“Our kids are in danger, our elderly are in danger... We should reduce the speed limit there,” said Burns.

A resident on Wayne Drive said he was concerned about the safety of children attending the new Mason Crest Elementary School due to cars speeding along the 25 mph road parallel to the school. Lee promised the resident he would assign officers to Wayne Drive to help dissuade speeders in the neighborhood, which garnered applause from the audience.

“Whether or not we stop four cars or 40, if citizens can see four or five officers at one time, that really makes a huge difference,” said Lee.

Overcrowding in Mason District Schools

Due to time constraints, the subject of schools was only touched upon briefly by Evans, who spoke mostly about the overcrowding issues at Bailey’s Elementary School and Glen Forest Elementary School. Currently, Bailey’s is at 130 percent capacity with the number of students currently at the school equaling the size of a small high school.

“We have to do something about it,” said Evans. “A lot of the overcrowding in Fairfax County is in Mason District and it’s putting a strain on our facilities.”

Evans said her priorities for the year were to increase capacity and get renovations underway at schools such as Falls Church High School, which is in need of repairs. The overcrowding combined with deteriorating conditions “affects the education of our kids”, said Evans.

Other issues that were briefly addressed during the town hall included litter in Mason District (see video above) and the proposed cell tower in the Parklawn community. One Parklawn resident in the audience complained that AT&T has not been as forthcoming with information as they promised to do. Gross said she’d ensure another community meeting was held before the company goes in front of the Planning Commission next month.