I welcome an opportunity to express my opposition to a threat to our immediate area environment that just should not be allowed to happen.
Fairfax County officials are examining a proposal to allow owners of a property on Route 1 to build townhouses on this property, thereby obliterating an essential floodplain specified in the county’s Comprehensive Plan — which now recommends that this should be open space — surely not the unsightly mess that is there now, which the owners have allowed to occur to date, and surely not the award to those very people of a major misplaced development, which would, without the floodplain they would destroy, ultimately allow shifting of inevitable flooding to other area neighborhoods downstream in storms and rain sure to occur in the future.
I have lived on Huntington Avenue just off Route 1 for over 40 years and treasure the parkland we have in Huntley Meadows Park. Our county plans already recognize the desperate need for more green spaces and parkland in the area in an improved Route 1. This proposed thoughtless, unanticipated and dangerous intrusion of townhouse buildings slammed next to a county park would, besides allowing dangerous flooding, destroy the possibility of building a link to other parks in the area in the Dogue Creek conservation corridor which would enhance the quality of life for Route 1 folks.
We look for the greener and well-planned future our county officials are already anticipating for Route 1 — not floods and mindless concrete and brick sprawl.
Dorothy McManus
Alexandria