TESTIMONY BEFORE THE NEW gUM SPRING CIVIC ASSOCIATION

Jube Shiver, Jr., General Partner, SpringGarden Apartments LLLP

Richmond Highway Corridor Improvements

VDOT Project No.: 0001-029-205

May 9, 2017

My name is Jube Shiver, Jr. I am the general partner of a Virginia partnership that owns Spring Garden Apartments, the first federally subsidized housing complex for low-income residents in Northern Virginia. Some members of the 208 families that live at SpringGardenare here as well as some of my staff. I would like for them to stand so that they can be recognized.

First, let me say I recognize the difficult balancing act VDOT faces in trying to ease traffic congestion, while also insuring public safety, and addressing the concerns of affected property owners and the community at large. I am not here to block progress; I am as much in favor of easing traffic congestion as anyone.

I am not as intimately familiar with the proposed design of the road widening as those of you before me. Butalthough I am not an engineer or safety expert, I would like to highlight a couple of design decisions that potentially could have a huge negative impact on my property and the people who live there.

The addition of a bicycle path and sidewalk adjacent to Route 1appears to come as close as 60feet to some Spring Garden Apartment entrances facing the highway. As a result, the road widening would eliminate as many as 43 parking spaces we currently have fronting the highway.[1] It would also eliminate the rudimentary highway vehicle noise and trash abatement offered by the existing 400 feet of shrubbery, railing and retaining wall we have in front of our property.

I am not aware of any existing apartment building on Route 1 where front residential entrances are as close to the highway as Spring Garden Apartments’ would be except for The Beacon at Groveton, which has no highway-side balconies or patios—like Spring Garden Apartments does—and where residential units are one full story above highway grade.

In addition to the increased noise, trash and safety risks that would arise from having a roadway/bike path so close to the apartment front entrances, residents who now use the handicapped parking spaces in the front row of buildings would have to walk significantly longer distances to park and office visitors and staff would have only a handful of parking spaces along side buildings 7943 and 7941.

FairfaxCounty, currently requires 1.6 parking spaces to support each apartment unit.[2] So the elimination of an additional 43 spaces would bring our total number of spaces down to 242 or a 1.2 ratio of parking spaces to apartment units.

Relocating these parking spaces on our property would cause significant disruption and economic hardship. Needless to say, affordable housing is a precious commodity in FairfaxCounty—which is the nation’s second richest county in terms of median income.[3]

In addition, relocating the parking spaces would drastically reduce the amount of available green space on the property—an outcome that, several studies have concluded, can increase crime,particularly in low-income, urban areas.[4]As an aside, many residents at Spring Garden Apartments as well as visitors have told me personally that they enjoy the green space and landscaping at SpringGardens and that it encourages them to take pride in theircommunity. And the green space is not just for show either: it supports an outdoor playground for the children that live on-site.

My second area of concern is vehicle access to Spring Garden Apartments.

Six years ago, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, in a Special Exception case involving our neighbor Costco[5], directed Costco to “escrowsufficient funds with FairfaxCounty for the completion of a feasibilitystudy by FCDOT and/or VDOT for the extension of Ladson Lane into theSpring Garden Apartments complex.” If that study has been completed, I am not aware it has been shared with the community.

However, it appears that the safety concerns raised six years ago at that Costco hearing may still exist. While it appears that an attempt has been made to improve the ingress of south bound Route 1vehicle traffic into the apartment complex using the intersection at Ladson Lane, incoming south bound emergency vehicles like fire trucks as well as school buses, would still have to execute a U-turn to enter the two other existing entrances.

In addition, even at the new SpringGardenentrance across from Ladson Lane, it is not clear to me that school buses and fire trucks would be able to successfully execute an additional 90 degree turn on to the private roadway that surrounds the complex once they left the highway. And that task is further complicated by the fact that there is also a five to six foot drop from the current highway grade to the parking roadway.

Since the western side of Route 1 is significantly higher than the eastern side where Spring Garden Apartments is located, it will be difficult to distribute the grade in a way that won’t increase storm runoff on the eastern side. There is already significant water runoff onto SpringGarden’s site and that will likely increased with a 10 foot or wider strip of hard sidewalk and bicycle lane surface area directing more rain water onto the apartment complex.

Given these concerns, I would ask that VDOT explore whether one or more of the following ideas can be incorporated into the current plan:

  • Can the median strip between SpringGarden and Costco be narrowed, as it is south of the Ladson Lane intersection, so that the bicycle lane and sidewall would not cannibalize so much of the frontage of Spring Garden Apartment.
  • Can the bicycle and sidewalk be rerouted or incorporated into Spring Garden’s existing parking area, at the parking lot’s current grade, with some sort of physical barrier between the bike path and highway to reduce noise and highway trash from migrating onto the property.
  • Can the bicycle and sidewalk be elevated, or cantilevered, off the highway above the existing Spring Garden Apartment roadway.
  • Can the north/south bicycle lanes be combined on one side of the road to save space as they are on the federal Mt. Vernon Parkway?
  • Can the southern Spring Garden entrance be re-configured so that Ladson Lane lines up with it, rather than create a new intersection in the center of the property where there is more congestion, a steeper drop from highway grade and potential for accidents as well as interference from pedestrian traffic going in and out of the officein building 7943 Richmond Highway on business?

Look, I am a former journalist. And I have covered enough of these kinds of meetings to know how they usually go: Those of us on the eastern side of Route 1 are an easy target. There is less development on our side and many vacant and underdeveloped lots where Eminent Domain would be relatively easy and less expensive to assert …A half century ago, my father, Nelson Greene and others dragged a funeral casket out into the middle of Route 1 and stopped highway traffic because the state of Virginia refused to put a stop light on Route 1 to allow Spring Garden residents cross Route 1 safely. Now there is a stoplight. Their actions improved the quality of life for 100s of people and they saved lives. Surely,today, there are lots of smart folks at VDOT who can figure out how to improve the Route 1 corridor without displacing and/or diminishing the quality of life for low income families that have very few affordable housing options in FairfaxCounty.

Thank you for listening.

May 9, 2017

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[1] Richmond Highway (Route 1) Corridor Improvements, State Project Number 0001-029-205, P101, R201, C501, Fairfax County, Virginia in document “PIM_Exhibit_4_of_4.pdf “ Exhibit 4 of 4: Buckman Road and Mt. Vernon Highway vicinity, traditional intersection and superstreet options.

[2]Summary of KeyFairfaxCounty Zoning Ordinance Parking Requirements, 2005, pg. 1

[3] Census Bureau, “Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates”, December 14, 2016,

[4] See, e.g., Frances E. Kuo and William C. Sullivan, “Environment and Crime in the Inner City: Does Vegetation Reduce Crime,” Environment and Behavior, Vol 33, May 2001 343-367; Austin Troy, Ashley Nunery and J. Morgan Grove, “The relationship between residential yard management and neighborhood crime: An analysis from Baltimore City and County”, Landscape and Urban Planning, November 2015; Michelle Kondo, Bernadette Hohl, SeungHoon Han and Charles Branas, “Effects of greening and community reuse of vacant lots on crime” Urban Studies Journal, 2016, Vol. 53

[5] Costco Wholesale Corporation Application for a Retail Establishment, Case SE 2010-LE-025, Before the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors 2011.