Author: chogan@directresearch.com

Post #538: Maple Avenue streetlights

Image Source:  Linked from the Dominion Power outdoor lighting website.

This is a brief followup to Post #503.

At the time I wrote that post, roughly one streetlight in seven along Maple was burnt out.  My contention was that … well, nobody cared.  Nobody noticed, and nobody really had to care about it.  Just looked a little sloppy is all.

As I was driving down Maple last night, something seemed different.  I’ll have to double-check this, but I believe that a) all the burnt-out bulbs have now been replaced and b) some of the poles themselves seem to be undergoing repairs.  I’m pretty sure I saw at least one with wires sticking out where the “acorn” light globe should have been.

Edit:  Drove down there by the light of day this afternoon and, sure enough,  there are headless light poles scattered along much of the length of Maple.  So some sort of maintenance operation appears to be underway.

I’m not sure whether to thank the Town, or VEPCO, no Virginia Power, no Dominion Resources, nope maybe it’s Dominion Power?  I have the vague feeling that all the streetlights belong to Dominion?

You can get part of the story on streetlights and streetlight outages on this Town of Vienna web page.  Briefly, we pay a streetlight maintenance fee to Fairfax County, which in turn pays that fee to Dominion, which owns and services the streetlights.

That’s why streetlight outages are be reported to Dominion, not to the Town.

Unfortunately, the links to Fairfax and Dominion websites on that TOV web page are broken.  The County’s explanation of streetlights is given on this page of the Fairfax County website.  The Fairfax County instructions for reporting a streetlight outage are given on this page, which in turn links to an interactive map.  (FWIW, the interactive map totally and completely failed to work for me.)

Post #537: A thank you to DPW

I live on one of the many “save the swales” streets in Vienna.   It has sloped grass-filled ditches (swales) instead of sidewalks.  I believe this was a fairly common cost-saving move back in the 1950s, which is why you find this layout in some of the older neighborhoods in Vienna.

This is not only picturesque as all get-out (compared to concrete sidewalks), but is also modestly more environmentally friendly than standard curb and gutters.  The swales and culverts slow down the rainwater runoff.

This also makes it a pain to walk anywhere.  Basically, you have to walk in the road, particularly on the spots where there is literally no ground or no level ground to walk on.  And if that’s not bad enough, one portion of the pavement has been in terrible shape for years.

The oddball thing about it was that, as road surfaces go, it wasn’t in bad shape to drive over.  There were no deep potholes, just a whole bunch of small shallow holes.  Just enough to twist an ankle on.

But as a sidewalk, it really stank.  And if weren’t for the fact that we have to use the road surface as our sidewalk, the condition of the pavement would hardly be worth mentioning.  But, as it stands, I’ve taken a couple of falls in the past few months by stepping into those potholes while walking at night.

Which brings me to the point of this post.   A few days ago the Town of Vienna Department of Public Works filled and smoothed over the key section of broken asphalt.  I finally walked past that this morning on my way to Madison High School.  This little bit of pothole filling is a vast improvement for pedestrians trying to get from my neighborhood to Maple Avenue.

I certainly complained about it enough when it was in poor shape.  I figured it was only fair to say “thanks” now that it has been fixed.

 

Post #536: Last night’s “Community Conversation”, 1: A brief review, and one useful fact about requesting Town services

Source:  Town of Vienna Website.

Last night (3/2/2020) the Town held a “community conversation“.  Admirably, they already have the video posted at this link.

Nominally, the “conversation” was about the two topics chosen by the Town.  These were a proposal to expand the single-family-home lot coverage limit beyond the current (and long-standing) 25%.  And, separately, what priority should be given to (what appears to me to be a subset) of projects recommended in the Town’s multimodal transportation study.

Offhand, I’d say that the room was full and that the number of speakers was in the low dozens.

Continue reading Post #536: Last night’s “Community Conversation”, 1: A brief review, and one useful fact about requesting Town services

Post #535: Answer: Milk, white bread, and kitty litter

Source:  Amazon.com.

Question:  What three items does every grocery story in NoVA run out of when snow is predicted?

That’s sure how it was throughout my childhood.  Like clockwork, at the first prediction of snow, everybody would decide to stock up on those staples.  And so stripped the stores down to the bare shelves.

As of last night, I’d say that panic buying remains the key emergency preparedness strategy here in Northern Virginia.  And possibly throughout America.

I say that because there was not a dusk mask to be had for love nor money at the Merrifield Home Depot last night.  And I mean, not one.  Everything from the cheapest nuisance dust mask (useless) to full-face respirators (overkill) was gone.  Bare shelves.

I didn’t go so far as to check the others in the area, but it’s a pretty good bet that they’re in the same state.

Is there anything more annoying than going to panic-buy something, only to find that your neighbors beat you to it?  The selfish bastards.* Continue reading Post #535: Answer: Milk, white bread, and kitty litter

Post #534: Sell the Robinson property; use the money to build sidewalks

The title of this post is somewhat more than just a cheap attention-getting trick.  But you’ll have to skip to the end to get to that.  Possibly, this post will explain why I found the discussion of sidewalks at the last Town Council meeting so irritating.

In logical order, then: Continue reading Post #534: Sell the Robinson property; use the money to build sidewalks

#533: How will the Patrick Henry Garage fit into the Maple Avenue cityscape?

This is just a quick calculation to see where the proposed three-floor Patrick Henry Garage would fit on the on the graph above.  And the answer is, until 444 Maple West gets built, the Town’s garage will be the second-largest building on Maple. (Or, given the uncertainties in the measurement, tied with the second-largest building.)

The only building that will be larger — by total enclosed volume — is the Giant Food shopping center.  And while that shopping center is one-story and sits almost 400′ off the road, the garage will be 25′ off the road.

So I’m not exaggerating when I say that we’re in the process of making a parking garage the centerpiece of the new Vienna downtown.  In the context of the current Vienna, A 220′ long three-story garage, sitting 25′ off Maple, is going to be noticeable.  Continue reading #533: How will the Patrick Henry Garage fit into the Maple Avenue cityscape?

#532: Last night’s 2/24/2020 Town Council meeting – CORRECTED

Correction:  I looked at the wrong block(s) of Plum Street.  The one block in question does not, in fact, have a sidewalk now.

The Town has already posted its video recording of last night’s meeting.  You should access that by clicking the relevant “media” link on this page of the Town’s Granicus website.

To cut to the chase:  There was not a peep about the (now) $10M parking garage — see just-prior post.  Or about the $1M increase in cost for a proposed Church Street garage, for that matter.  Not a peep about the revised Capital Plan for $35M in borrowings this year.  Again, see just-prior post.  Those two items took maybe ten minutes in total.  But there was more than an hour discussion of sidewalks, leading to a decision to authorize three stretches of sidewalk (on Plum, Cabin, and Holmes) using funds from the Robinson estate.

Those sidewalks were chosen by … the Trustee of the Maude Robinson estate.  At least a couple of Town Council members understood how irrational that decision process was (Majdi, Noble), though I did not see any progress in arriving at something more rational.  One, by contrast (Colbert), applauded the process as democracy in action, or something. Continue reading #532: Last night’s 2/24/2020 Town Council meeting – CORRECTED

#531: The $9M Patrick Henry parking garage?

When did this become a $9M project?  Beats me.  Last I recall, the only number mentioned was something like $4.7M.  Pretty sure that lower number was what was in the discussion of the capital budget.

I guess I haven’t been paying attention, because that’s the first I’ve seen of that $9M number.  But there it is, in black and white, in the documentation for that portion of tonight’s Town Council meeting, which you may access on this Town of Vienna web page.

Wait, doesn’t $9M for 188 spaces work out to be near $50K per parking place?  Didn’t (at least some) Town Council members balk at paying far less than that, for a parking garage on Mill Street?  Again, I must not have been paying close attention, because that’s sure how I recall it.  Isn’t that vastly more per space than the Town is going to pay at a proposed Church Street garage?  What the heck?

How many parking places does the Town need at this location?  You’d figure, you’d get a clear idea of that first, then proceed, right?  Nope.  Not clear that anybody has any estimate of that, but … but the Town will eventually do some sort of study, at some point, to guess at that.  It’s on the calendar for some time a couple of years from now.

How much time does the Town have to think this over?  One month.  According to Town staff, the agreement has to be signed no later than next month’s Town Council meeting.

Does this have anything to do with a modified Capital Improvement Plan (CIP), for the Town Council to re-approve at this meeting?  See materials on this Town of Vienna website page. Maybe, I haven’t quite had the time to look at it, except to see that, when the Town couldn’t fit the $35M borrowing into its current economic model, it … changed the economic model so that the $35M in proposed 2020 borrowing now fits.

Is the 2020 bond issue still, by far, the largest amount the Town has ever borrowed?  Yep.

Do we still burn through all the reserves in the bond fund, down to the agreed-upon $2M minimum safe level?  Yep, somehow, with the new economic assumptions, the reserves fall to exactly $2M with $35M in borrowings, which is exactly the minimum acceptable level.  (This is from materials for Tonight’s Town Council meeting).

Does that new projection include additional 2022 and later borrowings to cover the increased cost of the parking garage?  Not clear, because not shown.  Last time around, the figured the cost of the garage in as about $4.7M, but free to the Town (paid for by some other entity).  So it’s not clear that an additional $9M in liabilities has been worked into the future borrowing scenario.  Here’s how the Town’s projected borrowings stood as of the last (what I though was the final approved) version of the CIP.  (This is calculated from the prior CIP, not the new CIP to be approved at tonight’s Town Council meeting.)

Today, gold hit $1673 per troy ounce (per Kitco).  Does anybody remember or care what happened to meals tax revenues for 2009, during the last recession?  Nope.  Likely I’m the only person in Town who cares about that.  But just FYI, here’s the historical on that one:

Does it bother anyone but me that the Town is projecting no trouble paying for all this, based on nothing but ultra-strong revenue growth for immediate, mid-term, and far future?  Apparently not.

How long does the Town Council get to think about this new proposed CIP?  Per the presentation, no time at all — they have to approve it tonight.

#530: Our assets become our liabilities #5: Large tracts of land remaining in Vienna

In Post #526, I pointed out the absurdity of using eight acres of prime land in Vienna — in the middle of a residential neighborhood — for the Town’s leaf mulching activities.  Previously, I had written about the likely fate of the Parkwood school (Post #397), and had written up a few other local tracts of land in and around Vienna (in this post).

That got me to thinking:  Just how many significant tracts of land are left in the Town of Vienna?   Let me define that as pieces of land that are:

  • Not in the Maple Avenue or other retail /commercial zones
  • Three or more acres in extent (enough to make a small park, say), and
  • Privately held, with one owner.
  • Excluding Westwood Country Club and Navy Federal Credit Union (and associated buildings).

The point of this is to ask how many opportunities that Town might have to add to its inventory of parks.  Basically, if the Town is bound and determined to add thousands of new residents along Maple, what sort of opportunities might come up for the Town to buy some significant chunks of land for additional parks, to serve those additional residents?

With that rationale, I am ignoring the two largest tracts of privately-owned land in Vienna:  Westwood Country Club (157 acres) and the Navy Federal Credit Unit/FBI/Other industrial area (about 66 acres).  These are a) too large for the Town plausibly to purchase, and b) unlikely to be up for sale at any price the Town could possibly afford.

Another way to say it is, how rare is it for the Town to have the opportunity to buy a significant piece of land?  How nearly unique is an asset such as the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which sits at the end of my street.  How many chances to purchase land can the Town pass on before there are no more opportunities left?

To try to answer this, I did the simplest thing:  I looked at some maps, looking for large pieces of undivided land.  I scanned both Google Maps and the Fairfax County property tax maps. So I may have missed one or two, but I’m reasonably confident of the following answer:

The short answer is:  few.  There are only a handful of large pieces of land left in Vienna, and most of those are unlikely to go up for sale now or in near future decades.  So if one of these does come up for sale, it should be treated like the once-in-a-generation event that it is.

Here’s what I come up with, as my inventory.  Unsurprisingly, it consists almost entirely of tax-exempt land, both churches and non-profit corporations such as swim clubs.

I count fewer than a dozen such tracts.  Of these:

  • Seven are churches or church-related properties.
  • Two are swim clubs.
  • Two are schools.

It sure looks like the Town of Vienna remains committed to growth.  The Town government is in the process of redoing all the zoning, with funding from Fairfax County based on how much additional tax revenue the resulting additional development will create.  The Town now recently hired its first Economic Development manager.  And so on.  If there’s nothing we can do to dissuade the Town government from moving in that direction, maybe we can at least ask them to have some sort of plan to preserve some open space by having plans, in hand, for purchasing one or more of these, if they come up for sale.

Post #529: Sunrise lawsuit proceeds

As the note says, 3/13/2020 10 AM is the scheduled date for the next hearing in the Sunrise $30M lawsuit against the Town of Vienna.  This, courtesy of Shelley Ebert, who keeps tabs on this from time to time.

If you don’t know the back story, you can read Post #514, Post #353, Post #342.

At the end-of-January Town Council meeting, Town Council finally broke their taboo about mentioning this lawsuit.  At that meeting, Sunrise went so far as to say that they were not seeking to build at two separate locations in Vienna.  So they’re not pursuing an assisted living facility at Maple and Center, in addition to the one at Maple and Wade Hampton (380 Maple West).

But they are keeping that lawsuit alive.  Which seems a bit odd, given that they have (what I believe to be) final approval from Town Council, as of the end-of-January Town Council meeting?  They’ll still have to face the Board of Architectural Review one most time, for final approval of materials to be used on the outside of the building, some months down the road.

But in terms of Town entities who really and truly could have said “no” to Sunrise, I think they cleared their last hurdle last month.  And yet, the lawsuit lives on.

For my part, I can say that the reaction I have seen to this lawsuit, in social media and in person, has been almost uniformly negative.  It’s one thing for some residents to dislike what the Town Council has been up to.  It’s another thing entirely to have a national corporation sue the Town for $30M.

For my part, I thought that the original justification for the lawsuit was valid.  But at this point, I can only guess that Sunrise isn’t expecting to see a lot of business from Town of Vienna residents (see Post #328).  And that’s good, because the longer this suit lingers, the larger the fraction of the Town’s population that’s going to hold a grudge against them for it.

If they really don’t intend to press this, assuming they build in Vienna, at some point the the negative attention from this lawsuit should outweigh whatever gains they expect to get from continuing to hold it over the heads of Vienna Town Council.  At which point, the lawsuit would quietly disappear.  I’d have thought they’d have reached that point when Town Council gave their final approval.  But apparently not.  At least, based on their continuation of the lawsuit, they think that hasn’t happened yet.