Cambridge Station and Mosby Woods residents who came out in force at the Fairfax City Council meeting, Tuesday, June 12, left disappointed after the City Council approved a 4-acre athletic park on the stretch of green space bordering their neighborhood.
Again, the City Council listened to more than three hours worth of public input, both for and against the Stafford ball field proposal, and approved the application unanimously. The approval means the city would construct a large, rectangular soccer field on the Stafford West property, equipped with onsite parking, play areas and trails. The Stafford West property, located behind the KFC and Outback Steakhouse near the intersection of Stafford Drive and Fairfax Boulevard, is about 14 acres in size. The Stafford East property, located just behind a corporate building on the east side of Stafford Drive, is another 9 acres. Combined, about 19 acres of green space would still be left in its natural state, said Mayor Robert Lederer.
"If math serves me right, that means 80 percent of the land [will be left untouched]," said Councilmember Patrice Winter, who also voted to add lights to the proposal. That motion failed.
BUT 19 ACRES isn’t enough space, according to some neighboring residents’ testimony. The residents complained that environmental, storm-water drainage, traffic and noise concerns are too high for the one-field proposal. Negative environmental impact was a common theme among those in opposition, but city staff disagreed about the impacts based on studies it conducted with various consultants.
"We need trees and open green space every bit as much as kids need sports," said Elisa Lueck, a neighboring resident who agreed the one-field proposal was an acceptable compromise.
About an equal number of supporters for the project also came out to speak to City Council. Several live in the adjacent neighborhoods. One woman said that children should come before the environment, and another said children are getting hurt because of the poor field conditions in the city due to overuse. James Gillespie, a 14-year city resident and a volunteer soccer coach, said sports are a way for children to get in shape. He said each season he notices at least two or three children who have lost weight by the end of the season. Another woman cited the Columbine and Virginia Tech shootings, stating that the perpetrators in those shootings were social outcasts, and sports provide a way to engage children.
Becky Heid, president of the Fairfax Police Youth Club — the organization in most need of the extra field — said the shortage is becoming too critical to overlook. FPYC is growing each year, and it’s adding another outdoor field sport, field hockey, to the eight outdoor field sports currently operating, she said. The children are already forced to practice on muddy fields, sometimes three teams at a time on one field, she said.
People from both sides of the argument strategically used children to deliver some of the message too, with some young FPYC athletes speaking for the project, and other young residents citing environmental concerns and a need for a nature classroom for the schools.
THE GROUP OF OPPOSING residents who spoke out at the last several public meetings on the subject were the reason the City did compromise on the project, said Councilmember Jeff Greenfield.
"If we weren’t sensitive to your concerns, we wouldn’t have gone with this concept," he said.
Greenfield said the rest of the city is envious of Mosby Woods and Cambridge Station because they do live on the border with such a large patch of open space, a rare commodity in the city. Someday, Greenfield said he hopes the residents will walk by the field at think to themselves, "this isn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be."
City resident Gary Perryman said residents from the same neighborhoods were singing a different tune when they successfully tried to block a condominium development proposal on an adjacent piece of green space. Perryman, the president of the Westmore Citizens Association, said nobody seemed to care about the environment during that proposal, and was surprised how important it became to them in the nine months since that application failed.
"It would appear to the rest of the city that these two communities want their own private space," he said.
ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS were brought up during that hearing, known as the Rocky Gorge proposal, but the residents generally focused on the density of the development and the negative traffic impacts they said it would have caused.
For the opponents of this project, it was all about the preservation of wildlife habitat, wetlands, trees and open space. They maintained they were not a group of "NIMBY’s (not-in-my-backyard protesters)," with ulterior motives, but a group of folks who wanted to see the city protect and preserve a rare plot of open land.
"We still feel we were misled years ago when we voted to acquire green lands for open space," said Jackie Fairbarns, president of the Cambridge Station Association. "We feel there is something seriously out of balance with the Stafford proposal … how much longer can we be classified as a Tree City USA [by the National Arbor Day Foundation]?"
Mark Headly, a wetlands consultant from Gainesville, Va., said the area is not consistent with a jurisdictional wetland area, and that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would come out and likely agree.
"We do not believe that the current conditions of the site [the areas previously delineated as wetlands] met the three wetland parameters," said Headly. "These areas have hydrophytic vegetation, but do not have hydric soils or wetland hydrology … it is our opinion, the only waters of the U.S. on the site is the North Fork of Accotink Creek."
After the three-hour public hearing, most of which was significantly toned down from the outbursts at previous meetings by several Mosby Woods and Cambridge Station residents, councilmembers had something to say. They all agreed the issue has been one of the toughest they’ve faced, and that the back-and-forth has brought about what they believe to be a nice compromise.
"We’ve all tried to balance this act, and tried to be good to all of you, and I think we’ve done that," said Councilmember Gail Lyon.
"We’ve played out a very difficult and contentious argument," said Councilmember Gary Rasmussen. "But in the end, we’ve come down to what most people consider a pretty good position."