Fell Today, Gone Tomorrow — Tall Trees Epilogue
August 17, 2010
By FALLS CHURCH TIMES STAFF
On Monday the tall trees across from the Public Library finally came down — 13 months after a development company posted signs announcing “Imagine Your New Home HERE!” But the great majority of comments following our July 2009 story were about what readers could not imagine — the loss of the park-like atmosphere across from Mary Riley Styles Library.
The top photo was taken yesterday morning, and the bottom photo is from July 2009.
By Falls Church Times Staff
August 17, 2010
Wonder if this means they are getting ready to build?
Does anyone know the age of those trees? What kind of trees are they?
Looks as if some remain (unless the picture was taken midway through…) – which I hope is the case. Especially for the builder to consider itself green certified.
Unfortunately the builder has marketed themselves as a “green builder” but in reviewing their past projects and website, the extent of their green building is installing energy efficient windows and appliances.
The loss of these trees is unbelievable especially for the city who prides itself on being a Tree City USA – the NADF certification for trees that save the tree canopy. It also was short sighted of the city to sell the land to a developer and lose the trees since maintaining the tree canopy is a factor in obtaining government funding.
The city had another option of turning the lot into a parking lot ( sang to the tune of “tree museum” ) but chose the option of gaining some revenue rather than looking at the bigger picture of tree canopy, green space and saving the downtown area from further over development.
This goes back to the overall lack of vision for the city. The last time there was any kind of vision was in the 70s when the city council banned together to get rid of the massage parlors. Since then there has been lots of talk about “pedestrian friendly” “family community” “business friendly and viable” yet not on consistent non-consultant paid for plan on how to balance an environmentally friendly and business sustainable community.
After years of living in the city, and serving on everything from the CACT, Open Space, and Tree Commissions, I still can’t understand why a long range viable option that balances all interests cannot be put into place when so many other communities around the country can do it and are doing it well.
That photo was taken mid-way through. As of 20 minutes ago there were only 3-4 trees left, and since they don’t appear to be protected my guess is they will come down as well.
@Kathleen – my understanding is that this was a private lot, not City-owned. So, the City could have spent $1M (a rough guess) to buy the lot, but given the current budget situation, I doubt that was a realistic option. It’s too bad — if we had done more as a City over the past decade to attract real commercial development, we might have had enough budget available to purchase this lot and keep it “wild.”
I live on N. Virginia, and my kids and I played in that lot often when walking by. I will miss those trees. That said, it’s private property and that’s the way it goes. Hopefully the new home owners will plant new trees for the next generation (my guess is that they’ll be required to do so by the City — probably on the order of a dozen trees on each of the 2 lots).
or, if the CITY residents had known the lot was for sale, we could have arranged for a $1,000,000, 30 year loan, for about $5,000 a month….that’s $.50 cents a month for each of the 10,00 or so residents in the CITY…or even less if some parking spaces could have been placed on the lot around the trees, with a voluntary fee of $.50 cents or a dollar, placed in a box, while using the library.
Regarding Kathleen Nixon’s remarks–that brings up a question I’ve mulled over for a while. Many people talk about “preserving the village atmosphere” in Falls Church, but what kind of village do people have in mind? There’s Shirlington Village, truly a wonderful little urban village, and then there’s Vienna, a township, but has more (I think) of the country/suburban village feel. Then there’s Occoquan, which is REALLY tiny, but really cute.
I’ve been scratching my head over this every time another high-density residential project is promoted, or “gateway” project, as has been recently. I guess my vision of a Falls Church as a village stems from having lived here for (gulp!) 50 years and remembering when the areas around the city were far less densely populated, there was no Tyson’s Corner, no Ballston, etc. I was very sad to see the stone buildings at the intersection of Lee Highway and Route 7 come down for the buildings that replaced them. I think we lost a lot of distinctive character then.
Brown’s Hardware exemplifies “village” to me, then. So does Stifel & Capra, further down Route 7. Even the Sunrise Retirement Community does, and that’s way newer.
But I keep seeing ideas that seem to be aiming to build Falls Church into more of a Shirlington, but with less charm. (I’m truly sorry, I just don’t think Pearson Square is very attractive!)
Those of you who are proponents of preserving Falls Church as a village atmosphere, what kind of village do you have in mind?
It would be great if the houses have a generous setback and are arranged so that
the drives were circular so there was ease of access and egress and provide
a large green buffer with trees to re-forest somewhat. Several years ago about
15 now we had to remove an very large 3 foot caliper white oak from our side yard on Cherry at the entrance as it was beginning to drop limbs in storms and was a danger to street traffic and pedestrians. Losing big trees is a terrible feeling, so I left one of the “cazillion” acorns it dropped to grow and now it is about 20′ tall 12′ wide and a 7-8″ caliper trunk. Trees are great renewable resources but they need the proper sighting with well thought out planning PRIOR to the building of the home. After several decades as a professional contractor I can say almost always the landscaping is tan afterthought! Maybe the developer could be encouraged to
provide a buffer of trees to help recreate a portion of the beautiful trees that were l
removed. Maybe the Village Society’s Neighborhood Tree Program could
help reforest this spot?
Brian’s right, the City did not own that land and didn’t sell it to developers to build these houses.
Gerald’s idea is interesting and certainly something the City can do (although it wouldn’t be so much a $0.50/person cost but just a part of the real estate taxes – the City’s primary source of funds). I’m not sure what $1M adds to the tax rate but considering the current budget problems I suspect it would have been a hard thing to pull off. I wonder if the purchase price was $1M – the City’s online assessment tool isn’t showing any data for those lots so I’m not sure what’s going on.
I like Barb’s idea about circular driveways – but I think that would take two curb cuts per house, further reducing the on street parking right there (which wouldn’t be good).
I think Susanna brings up a really good point. I think people have different visions for what they’d like to see Falls Church remain or become. I personally think that some of the visions are not practical (i.e. trying to keep the City like it was 50 years ago) and other visions aren’t appealing (i.e. becoming the next Ballston). But I think there’s a way for the City to evolve and develop that would be sustainable (from a tax rate and property value perspective), allow for amenities and services that we value, and also maintain a community feel that many of us enjoy. Sounds like utopia! Seriously though, I think part of the problem is that it’s hard to envision how things will look and feel after more development is done. A seven story office building sounds dense, scary, ugly, imposing, etc. – but I think we could add some density like that in a way that people could appreciate. Of course, Falls Church will be very different than it was 40-50 years ago but it’s already different and more change is inevitable.
People say “why didn’t anyone stop this lot turning into a (weirdly located and likely ugly) house? Because our city government isn’t looking to acquire land right now and that was a really small tract.
Other than the city govt there’s no one (I know of) buying land in a civic-minded way in this town. Personally, I’d love to see a non-profit form and actively fund raise to create community gardens and pocket parks by acquiring what would otherwise be tear down houses and (ok, yes, tearing them down) to create more public green spaces. That takes a LOT of money, though. Figure if such a nonprofit existed and could raise 100k a year it might only manage to create a park every 5 -10 years depending on size and amenities.
Maybe such a group could use its donations as seed money to coax the city to spend more, but it’s hard to say.
This city seems to have lost so many mature trees over the last several months. Our tree canopy was well below 25% even before this summer. The usual target for communities that are trying to balance living space and positive effects on the environment is 40%. Until more people express concern about this, the trend is likely to continue.
It is my understanding that two houses will go up at this location. I understand that the builder is proceding without a buyer for either home. I also understand that it is in compliance with the zoning for these lots, even if it doesn’t seem to make sense having two single family homes there – after all, all of the other lots on that side of Park Ave. are transitioning to higher density uses. The only way to prevent this would have been to rezone the property years ago, or for the City to have purchased the property.
My understanding is that the previous owner had a contentious relationship with the City and did not want to sell to us, and when the family actually did decide to sell it, the City did not move fast enough and were beat out by the builder. There were lots of discussions on FCT a few months ago with ideas of what the City could do with the property to protect at least some of the trees, but ultimately I don’t think we had the money to buy the land in the first place.
The bottom line lesson here from a City government standpoint is to have certain properties “on the radar” for future purchase, and to be ready and quick to buy them when they become available. In my mind, this would include land in critical commercial areas that could be consolidated in the future (like the area around N. Maple and Broad) and land near schools (as we have done with properties near TJES). Only then can the City leverage its land-owning power to facilitate new commercial development and badly needed school expansion.
Andy,
They were mostly Black Walnuts. Very prized by woodworkers. If you seen a board from a black walnut, it is dark like it has been stained although nothing has been applied to it. Many folks don’t like these trees in their yard because the fruit is big (although my parents have a couple and people have sat under them for years with nobody getting hit — yet!) and the leaves and nut husks, when they drop on the ground, release a substance into the soil called juglone that is toxic to some young plants (what a great survival mechanism!). I planted one in my backyard within a year of moving to falls church.
It is my understanding that the past owner offered this land to the city a few years ago and the “city” said no (don’t know if he even wanted to sell it or give it away). I met the past owner a few times when he was working cleaning up after storms – very nice person.
I know that the city tried to buy the land some 4-5 years ago and Gordon is correct in saying that the original owner wouldn’t sell to the city. The new owner did offer it to the city but no funds were available. If the city had bought it, it probably would have been used for library parking—also, not a popular idea—not open space. We do have a small open space fund that was set up by the city with developer proffers added to it as a result of the open space task force. Monies were used to add property to other parks and for the Hamlett- Rees site extending from W. Broad to TJ. Another small parcel will soon be purchased adding to that site for the daylighting of the Coe Branch of Tripps Run for stormwater control. Open space is a very important in the over all vision for our city. The City Council does have a well-thought out vision written in 2006 for our Little City found on the web.
The City did consider buying it at the time the Bean Company bought it, but we could not come to a consensus to buy it because there is no direct economic development potential and it is hard to refute the argument that the City is not in the land speculation business. (However, exceptions have been made, notably across Broad for the Podolnick and the post office parking lot parcels), but these involved a specific plan to redevelop the City Center area.
There is an open space plan and this property was flagged for acquisition, but did not make the priority cut in the 2006 Open Space Report.
I would have hated to buy it just to destroy the trees and pave it, and I still believe for parking we should be buying the square next to the OHOP and building a parking structure to serve the library, City Hall and Businesses.
It is worth pointing out that our Comp Plan calls for high density mixed use on the parcels in question, in consolidation with other property in the block.
So down go the trees, up go the houses, and we get no revenue generating development and more expense. As much as I disagree with George Southern, this is starting to look like death from a thousand cuts, literally and figuratively.
Dan,
I liked the trees, too, but is it really more expense to build houses? Aren’t the houses likely to be homes to families, who will be shopping at the local businesses and paying their fair share of taxes?
Over here in North Arlington we’ve lost a number of tall, mature trees to replacement housing, storms and old age/disease. (We’re personally looking at the taking down of a 3rd towering tree, a grand red oak,) So new trees need to be planted. Arlington County recognizes the need for renewing the tree canopy and makes trees available for planting through the county’s civic associations. What are the opportunities and sites for new trees in “The Little City”? How can the planting of new trees be effectively fostered at minimum cost? (Hint: Fruit trees could be very appealing: like all trees, they can reduce solar heating and provide leaves for compost while also producing fresh fruit for the table (we’re enjoying fresh, organically grown peas now) — and the squirrels, whose process of selecting and eating is interesting to watch (a bountiful crop makes it easy to share some pears with them. .
I received my Okami cherry from a VPIS program a few years ago……
I will miss that little shady lot when I go to the library. I hope the construction workers will at least refrain from parking in the library spaces.
Rich, I assume what Dan is referring to is the fact that families with school children are likely to live in the new houses and kids are expensive for the City. Any family with kids in the schools is unlikely to be paying as much in taxes (real estate, sales, etc.) as they’re costing the City to educate their kids (I assume this is true anywhere in the country).
However, commercial properties generate taxes for the City but require less services so they have a net positive financial impact.
VPIS’ Neighborhood Tree Program is still running strong. VPIS works in partnership with the City to plant street trees in the public right-of-way. We also have a separate VPIS-only program to plant trees in yards. We plant in the fall and in the spring. Our next event is October 23rd. If you would like to apply for a tree go to our website: http://www.vpis.org/event.php?id=5
You can see VPIS at the Farmer’s Market (May-November) selling beverages to raise funds for the tree planting events. Come by, visit, and buy a drink and we can answer your questions about our tree program.
Also, I have mentioned before that the Tree Commission is in desperate need of volunteers. We really need to review our tree ordinances and see if they can be improved. If interested go here for an application: http://www.fallschurchva.gov/Content/Government/BoardsCommissions.aspx?cnlid=175
Finally, in terms of vision for the city please review our Comp Plan. Basically, the Comp Plan calls for developing Falls Church as an Urban Village by protecting/preserving our neighborhoods and history while integrating increased density along our commercial corridors. The Comp Plan was publicly vetted and adopted five years ago.
The process to update the Comp Plan begins this fall. The Planning Commission will be looking for citizen input. Many of the actions in the Plan have been completed, many are on-going, and many have not been acted on, so reviewing the status of the actions will be a first step.
Link to Comp Plan: http://www.fallschurchva.gov/Content/Government/Departments/DevelopmentServices/CompPlan.aspx?cnlid=2117
I would add one thought about my Okami. It is planted on the right-of-way and was supposed to be of short stature. It’s not, the tops are all around the utility lines. I have to be on the alert for the Vepco trimmers or it will have a gigantic “V” in the middle of it. When it blooms it’s breathtaking. The Kwazan next to it comes into bloom towards the end of the Okami so I get a cherry two-fer in the Spring. This year it was sooo welcome after that winter. The VPIS program is great.
Andy R — A new family with school children will themselves increase the cost of the FCCSs very little. A couple of children can be added to almost every class with little increase in the cost of school operations.
If collectively the number of “new” children from expensive homes is such that an additional classroom and teacher are required, the allocation of the increase in real estate taxes from these families will go far toward covering if not exceeding the additional costs of schooling for their children, especially when revenue is projected for the “life duration of these families living in “The Little City” (for a number of these years, they will not have children in FCC public schools.) And remember also: a significant percentage of the children, perhaps 25%, will go to private schools but their families will still pay real estate taxes in full
If the FCCSs, in planning the construction of facilities, recognized that school enrollment rises as young families move in and then falls as the children become adults while the parents stay in place until they are much older, and so provided for the expected peak in enrollment, the FCCCs should have adequate classroom (and other) space for a meaningful increase in enrollment. The primary increase in costs of an increase in children would then be for teachers. If one assumes that the total cost of a new teacher and other increases in incidental expenses is $80,000/year, each of 24 children in a grade school class represents an increased cost of $3,333. Not a figure to stimulate fear and anxiety.
if additional facilities are required, renting portable classrooms or building new classrooms will be a substantial expensive (and willalso increase operating costs, especially heating and cooling), but remember that construction is paid for through bonds that are retired over decades, thereby distributing the construction costs..
What I believe parents and citizens generally should be really concerned about is whether schools are using the extent research to meaningful increase learning/achievement, and are doing so in a cost-efficient manner. High ratings for a school are no reason to be complacent and not strive to do better for the students, especially with the increasing international competition for jobs.
One example, there is a strong body of research that shows that a later start for the school day for adolescents results in meaningful increases in attentiveness, grade and achievement. The late start reflects the biology of adolescents going to sleep later and needing more hours of sleep) I have yet to hear of any compelling reason to not use this research and adjust the school hours accordingly for adolescents.
A second example: There is a strong body of data that shows a meaningful loss in achievement during the summer. Whether through summer classes or learning activities elsewhere, e.g., at home, this should be addressed so that gains during the regular school year are maintained if not increased during the summer,
A third example: Look at the achievement gains for various groups, e.g., children from low-income families. Where achievement is less than expected from IQ, use the extant research to increase learning/achievement. Two key aspects would be increasing “on task” learning time and increasing time in school (longer school days, Saturday class time, summer classes). Of course: Better to prevent academic underachievement. What works for this is extensive (20 hrs/wk) in home verbal interaction with children of disadvantaged families from age 8 mos. to 3 years. Results: Average IQs of 100 and educational achievement at grade level in the 4th grade (see Betty Hard and Todd Risely, Meaningful Differences). The FCCSs are not financially able to undertake this kind of preventive intervention, but anything that the city, community and families can do to increase the verbal interactions with the little ones can pay off big time in realizing potential IQs and educational achievement and thereby obtaining more positive possibilities for the children, which will benefit them, us and our communities and nation.
Jim, I think your assertion that single family homes do not add cost to the City is incorrect. The school board has specifically cited residential infill as the primary cause for increases in our school population and thus the increase in tax burden of something like $19000 per student. A $1M home brings in $12400/year in tax revenue. One child = a loss for the City. Even if the cost per student is only $16000, its still a loss. The City also has to provide services to each of these families, more of a loss.
You can cloud the picture by saying that 25% will go to private school (but is that reality in FC City with great public schools?), and talking about the “life of the family” but what we are really talking about is here and now not a 30 year projection. There are few empty nest families that would purchase a 4000 square foot home with 4-5 bedrooms and a finished basement just for themselves. So, it is safe to assume that new families with children will move into these homes.
The way we take care of our children’s education is by using taxes from the entire community (businesses and families without children). But the City cannot afford to continue to add single family houses and school kids without some compensatory commercial development. Hence, Dan Maller’s death by a thousand cuts.
Jim and Gordon both make good points about the school situation. In some ways it all depends on how you look at the problem if you want to talk about how much each student costs or how much each additional student costs. Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter (to me, anyway) how you assign the numbers – the fact is that one of the largest costs to the City is the schools and on some level that cost is associated with the number of students. That number has been rising lately, apparently primarily as a result of residential infill but also from the newish mixed-use development.
I don’t think the problem is insurmountable. The schools have already done some planning for how to add capacity to the system (I don’t think trailers are going to cut it). Jim’s right that the costs for school construction get spread out over time. Gordon’s right that we need to beef up our commercial tax base to help spread out the tax burden.
I’d love to look at 5-15 years from now and imagine how the school system might look and how the costs might be covered. We have something like 150 students per grade right now – maybe in 10 years that number is closer to 200. How would our schools have to physically change to accomodate that? How much commercial tax base would we have to add to help pay for it? What would it all look like?
I chair the library board. We’ve worked with the City–which has been helpful–to establish procedural guidelines for the construction crews to follow which will ameliorate as many potential impacts on library users as possible.
Construction crews are not to park in library-specified parking spaces and construction machinery, etc., will sit on the properties. These steps should go a long way over the next few months in helping manage the construction impact.
Our chief dismay, however, is the fact that these two new houses will each have driveways, and the curb cuts for these (one on Park Avenue and one on North Virginia Avenue) will consume existing parking spaces.
This may be what we all notice the most in future months and years–not what is on the properties. Time will tell.
Several years ago the library installed a curb-side drive-by book return bin, located behind the library. We thought this might help patrons by providing additional means of returning materials without actually having to find a parking space to do so. The bin holds 800 books–and has to be emptied three times per day! Obviously our gambit was successful. But parking (by which I mean its lack) remains our customers’ largest concern… and with clear reason.
This whole anti-family view of development is assuming that all families move in the moment they have kids and move out when the last one leaves.
There’s a whole “luxury city” urban model out there based on getting childless people to move into an area to pay for services. It’s a dead-end.
Better to continue building a place where people want to lay down long-term roots. This is a route where FC has an advantage over the nowhere-villes and the overly-urban downtowns. You might want to check out this article for more on this idea:
http://www.american.com/archive/2009/may-2009/the-luxury-city-vs-the-middle-class
Gordon, regarding private schools, I’m an FC resident but hope to send the kids to parochial school. FC schools are good at what they do, but I want my kids to get what FC schools don’ t do: religious values.
Andy, on the subject of long range planning, it’s really really hard. My husband grew up here and was in highschool at the nadir of the school population when half of GMH was shut up. At that time (20-25 years ago), the City did not believe that the inner suburbs were likely to get an influx of young families and they sold at least one school. The developers *begged* for GMH to be sold to them. Can you imagine the trouble we’d be in if we’d accepted the proffer? They were going to build us a new small high school.
Anyhow, the lesson I personally take away is that our population — whether it grows or shrinks in total — is certainly going to wax and wane in the number of children it contains. Housing built with one function in mind will almost certainly be used in ways we don’t anticipate. Housing aimed at families becomes housing for seniors as the kids move away and the parents stay. Housing aimed at singles becomes housing for young families as singles like where they live and find ways to make small spaces work. Single family dwellings get more and more expensive and of course that changes the child head-count too. This is a working ecological system we’re talking about.
What we currently don’t have (IMHO) is enough overall elasticity to accommodate all the condo and apartment housing we’ve already built for the long view. In the next 10 years, I suspect we’re ok. But a wild change in usage — which does happen — would be an insurmountable problem.
Karen, you make a good point about the ups and downs of school population. I suspect that we’re not likely to see any big dips in the future considering how the region has evolved in the past 20-25 years but hopefully someone in the school system is keep an eye on trends and doing projections based on what we’ve seen recently and what we think we might see in the future.
Rich, I’d like to clarify my position – I’m not at all anti-family (having a family of my own) and you’re absolutely right that plenty of people live in the City without school kids. I think the stat I’ve seen is that something like only 20% of the households have kids in the schools. My main goal is to try to be realistic about how the school population might grow and then try to encourage development and planning in a way that can support that growth.
I would love to see the comments if it was your lot and you wanted to build a house. Have any of you taken a look at the city in the fall when those precious trees shed their leaves. Live and let live is my motto.
You know what the real irony is here?
When the homes on the lot are finished and put up for sale, one of the bullet points in the marketing materials will be:
• Situated across from lovely old growth wooded Cherry Hill Park!
It is truly sad to see the loss of those trees — which, when I first noticed it
(and can share photos, if desired (if told how…)), there was a LONE TREE
near the entrance to the medical building adjacent to the tree-razed lot.
What there any good reason to chop those trees on the periphery?
They would provide much-needed shade in the summer, as well as
an enhanced, natural divide between their commercial and residential
neighbors (who anyway have a fence, as seen). And, as remarked above,
what a mockery of “green” — chop the natural shade but install special,
costly windows.
Yes, many walnuts (I wonder if there was some buyer expressly for the
fine wood?), and tulip trees.
“You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.
They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot.” — Joni Mitchell
On such a small lot, even just TWO houses, given the nature of McMansion
houses these days, it’s hard to imagine other than a new ugliness arising there.
)-:
> there was a lone tree …
No longer: ALL are gone.
Here’s hoping that those walnuts go to a good cause.
)-:
I was waiting for the library to open yesterday…looking at the lot. I bet the folks who own townhouses that back up on the lot miss the canopy and shade.
Final photo, showing zero trees in this rare remaining green space:
http://treesgone.blogspot.com
I’m usually about letting folks do as they please, within reason, with their property. However, I find what I read in the builder’s website comical given the leveling of the land:
…”3. Site Planning
Consciencious site planning is very important to GreenBuilt Homes. Site planning has many trickle-down effects that can be very taxing on our environment. The following section helps to describe the technologies and better building practices used to minimize these environmental impacts.
Tree Preservation
Tree Preservation saves existing mature trees on a home site. This integrates a new home into an established neighborhood more effectively. Also, trees help remove greenhouse gases from the air and provide shading, which can reduce summer temperatures in an urban environment. “…
vlfrance, I wonder if the City’s current approach to trees is actually part of the problem. I might have this wrong, but my understanding is that once you submit for a building permit the City can have some control over how you deal with trees on your lot. At other times (when you’re not submitting for a building permit) you can generally do what you want with your trees as long as they’re not a protected species or on the property’s edge. I might have this wrong – but if that’s the case there seems to be a big incentive for builders to remove most/all of the trees before getting into the planning process.
I’m not sure what a better approach would be. On a lot like this one I think it would be expensive and tricky to build around many trees and while the builder is more green than some builders I’m sure he’s more worried about his bottom line – and since he seems to be building these houses on spec (in that he’ll sell them after he’s built them) he’s trying to keep his costs as low as possible.
Seeing all those once beautiful trees now just a huge pile of felled timber is just so disturbing. I can’t even look at that barren lot now.
I feel like Mary Lynn does. Taking down those irreplaceable trees does not compare to the scale of destruction of trees and wildlife habitat that took place for construction of, say, Pearson Square, but that relatively small lot, because of it’s location and familiarity, somehow seemed sacrosanct, making the visual pain all the more intense. It’s the environmental equivalent of obscenity— legal but disgusting.
I’d be surprised if anyone who was familiar with those trees isn’t shocked by how things look now. It is too bad they couldn’t figure out a way to save at least a couple of the trees.
As for Pearson Square, wasn’t the majority of that site a paved parking lot prior to redevelopment? I had been there a couple of times (duckpin bowling) and there were certainly trees surrounding the lot – but I can’t remember if there was any significant amount of woods or non-parking lot area.
Lou, the environmental impact of Pearson was a wash. The old configuration was a gigantic parking lot. The new is a large building which at least is required to manage its water runoff. The real impact of Pearson was on the Winter Hill neighbors who had their foundations crack as a result of the excavation. I agree with your analogy comparing the green home tree removal to obscenity. It is a big middle finger to the rest of Falls Church. And it is another example of the failure of our city to manage zoning – the city should have known that single family homes could be built there and rezoned it to a more desirable use. Short sighted to say the least.
If anyone is interested to know what the houses will look like being built on this lot:
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/Park-Ave-Falls-Church-VA-22046/2132893172_zpid/
I have a beautiful home in the lovely, friendly and progressive City of Falls Church. It was built before I moved in, Now that I have enjoyed my home, how dare someone else come in and build a home that suits their liking. I’ve done it, but you cannot!
Maybe the fact that its across the street from a library, across the street from a park, and walking distance to City Hall and our farmers market are the EXACT reasons why someone chose to build there. And by looking at the link posted above, the house looks similar to mine, and many others as I walk through my neighborhood. How dare they try to get what we all have!!!
By the way, welcome to Falls Church City, home of enlightened citizens who value community and inclusion!