Bacon's Rebellion

If you’re Arlington County, you create a new vision for the boxy buildings and subterranean passageways in Crystal City that will be emptied by the federal Base Realignment and Closure Commission. In place of the sterile monoculture that now characterizes the office complex near the Pentagon, members of an advisory task force see a more lively street-level scene with a greater mix of shops, restaurants and offices. Writes WaPo reporter Annie Gowen:

[Board of Supervisors Chairman Chris] Zimmerman and others speaking yesterday said that the vounty sees the empty space as an opportunity to “reimagine” and “brand” Crystal City as an attractive destination. Though close to Reagan National Airport and dense with hotels, the area has long been seen as a gloomy 1960s era enclave of offices connected by underground passages. But parts of Crystal City have lately seen a rebirth, thanks to an influx of trendy cafes and a new streetscape. …

Charles E. Smith Commercial Realty, which owns 7.4 million of the 11 million square feet of office space in the neighborhood, has spent $40 million on improvements to enliven the streets and attract new businesses. It turned Crystal Drive into a two-way main street and has recruited new shops and chic restaurants such as Jaleo and McCormick & Schmick’s.

Reading between the lines of Gowen’s story, however, there seems to be one big missing piece: Housing. Creating a livelier commercial district is a worthy goal. But creating a balanced community with a mix of housing, offices, shopping and other amenities — allowing people to live close to where they work and play — is an even more worthy goal. As Ed Risse has pointed out, the relocation of 17,000 jobs creates a rare opportunity to create a genuine balanced communities in Northern Virginia.

The problem, I surmise — it’s not discussed in the story — is that Arlington is concerned about protecting its tax base, which means replacing the vacated offices with new offices, not housing. It’s hard to fault Arlington for pursuing its short-term self interest. But everyone needs to recognize that Arlington’s decision not to pursue a balanced community means that housing will end up somewhere else, presumably in outlying counties. And employees working in the buffed up Crystal City will wind up commuting long distances and clogging Northern Virginia thoroughfares. And the cry for new transportation revenues will grow ever more deafening.

The House of Delegates has posed as an outpost of fiscal conservatism on the basis of its (rightful) opposition to raising taxes at a time the state budget is running a chronic budget surplus. But there’s no disguising the fact that the General Fund budget in fiscal 2007-2008 will be about 11 percent bigger than the budget in 2005-2006.

As the Jaded JD points out in his blog, the delegates have not exactly been paragons of spending restraint. JD enumerates a long laundry list of earmarks and spending amendments proposed by House tax hawks. Writes the Jaded One:

If you add together all the budget amendments proposed by the House conferees (excluding fund transfers), you might expect to see a net reduction in the budget, based on House Republican rhetoric. Alas, no. Total increase from the House budget conferees? $1.926B (that’s billion) over the biennium.

Scary, huh? These are the guys we’re counting on to restrain state spending. I shudder to think what spending would look like if the Senate had its way.

Fourteen Days Left in the Fiscal Year… and Counting…

General Assembly conferees are reporting slow progress in negotiations to craft the next biennial budget, slated to begin July 1, but they haven’t finished the job yet. Tensions between the Senate and the House of Delegates are still running high. To quote the Washington Post account by Michael Shear and Rosalind Helderman:

Reading a missive from the House on Thursday morning, Chichester at one point exclaimed: “God, they’re dumb as rocks!”

After reading a letter from senators aloud, Robert Vaughn, the staff director for the House Appropriations Committee, threw up his hands in frustration. “They’re like an EKG,” he said, referring to the way the needle on a heart monitor bounces all over the place. “They’re going to give somebody a heart attack.”

The impact of high gasoline prices on Virginia transportation policy is prompting more than blog posts at Bacon’s Rebellion — see “Energy Independence and Sustainability,” “Straight Talk about Gasoline Prices and Transportation Policy,” “A World with One Billion Cars” and “Virginia’s Vulnerability to Oil Shocks.” There is evidence that legislators are reappraising their thinking about transportation policy.

Exhibit A: Sen. Martin E. Williams, R-Newport News, chairman of the state Senate’s Transportation Committee.

As reported by Peter Galuszka in the latest Road to Ruin article, “Gas Shock,” Williams is a self-described conservative Republican who for years supported free enterprise, property rights and the extension of development and roads into the countryside. As gasoline prices have risen, however, he has come to realize that Virginia’s transportation policy cannot continue as it has. Consequently, he has been willing to support measures linking land use and transportation that he never would have before.

“I never thought I would agree with a growth management strategy that hurts property rights but I am already there,” he says. “We just can’t accommodate growth in outer areas like we used to.”

I’m delighted to see that Williams is open to change, and I probably shouldn’t quibble. But I just have to set the record straight on one issue. I, too, support free markets and property rights, but I never equated those with the policies responsible for the pattern of scattered, disconnected, low-density development commonly referred to as “sprawl,” much less our sprawl-inducing transportation policy. To the contrary, few sectors of the U.S. economy are as heavily regulated (zoning codes, subdivision ordinances, comprehensive plans) and subsidized (road construction, the pricing of utilities and public services, mortgage financing) as real estate.

For me, “property rights” means that government should not have the right to take someone’s property, or diminish the value of someone’s property, without compensation. “However, property rights” does not entitle land speculators to make a profit, nor does it require local government to extend roads, utilities and public services to any old place that a developer decides to build a subdivision.

As Sen. Williams thinks through the implications of higher gasoline prices for transportation policy, I hope he also reconsiders what the terms “free markets” and “property rights” mean in the context of the heavily regulated, heavily subsidized real estate sector.

“A combination of no state budget, more expensive construction materials and declining revenues from gas taxes is adding up to less money for secondary road construction and public transit in Virginia,” writes Kelly Hannon with the Free Lance-Star. “If nothing changes, just $800 million of the $6.9 billion slated for road projects would go to local governments for secondary roads. That’s a statewide decrease of $200 million from last year’s plan.”

State officials are making a big deal out of the impact of high gasoline prices on the consumption of gasoline. Fewer gallons of gasoline sold translates into lower gasoline taxes.

What state officials aren’t emphasizing, and reporters aren’t reporting, is that fewer gallons of gasoline sold also reflects the fact that Virginians are driving less. If they’re driving less, presumably the need for massive road and rail improvements isn’t quite as urgent.

Admittedly, rising energy costs creates a double whammy for the transportation budget. It also drives up the cost of construction materials, which would cut into state construction plans even if gasoline sales weren’t falling. But at some point, someone needs to begin rethinking fundamental assumptions: How long can Virginia afford to maintain a transportation policy predicated on the assumption of cheap energy? Along those lines, see our post above.

Judicial Watch, a government watchdog group, has formally requested that Virginia’s Secretary of Transportation, Pierce Homer, make future meetings of the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Review Panel open to the public and the press. Times-Community.com has the story here.

Says the story written by Kali Schumitz: “The panel began closed-door meetings last week to formulate a recommendation for the state to pursue either a tunnel or aerial tracks for running Metro through Tysons Corner as part of the project to extend rail to Washington Dulles International Airport.”

Spokesmen for the American Society of Civil Engineers, which formed the panel at Homer’s request, argued the meetings should stay closed. Said Patrick Natale, ASCE president: “We need to move quickly and have frank discussions.”

It’s in the Kaine administration’s interest, however, to keep the meetings open.

The Rail-to-Dulles project has an estimated cost of $4 billion, assuming no overruns. As I’ve argued in previous posts, the funding mechanism proposed by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority — 50 percent coming from a toll on the Dulles Toll Road — would put into motion a massive transfer of wealth from mostly middle-class commuters to wealthy owners of property near the Metro stations. A recommendation to run either a tunnel or aerial tracks would have a tremendous impact on the property values in Tysons Corner.

Any deliberations held behind closed doors, protected from public scrutiny, will only feed the impression, justified or not, that the interests of the general public are not being considered. Surely, the Kaine administration does not wish to be depicted as the willing tool of a handful of rich, influential landowners. Opening up the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Review Panel will help dispel such notions.

Finally, someone has written about the not so hidden but not well known gotcha buried in the estate tax repeal that President Bush wants to make permanent in 2010. Writing in the Washington Post today, Allen Sloan, the Post’s Business Columnist and Newsweek’s Wall Street editor, points out the negative impact of the change from stepped up basis to carry over basis for what he calls the estates of the “small rich.”

Most folks don’t understand that the much ballyhooed estate tax repeal carries a nasty surprise. Under current law, when someone dies, the estate pays a tax if it’s over a certain size, but the tax basis of inherited property for the heirs is the market value at the date of death (stepped-up basis). Under the law after full estate tax repeal, the estate won’t pay a tax if it’s small enough but the tax basis of inherited property for the heirs will be the same as the tax basis for the person from whom they inherited (carry-over basis).

Here’s Sloan’s example that illustrates the adverse impact of this change coupled with current and future exemptions:

Under current law, when you die your heirs get stepped-up tax basis. That means the assets you bequeath are valued for income-tax purposes at what they were worth the day you died — not what you originally paid for them. Say you paid $50,000 for stock that’s worth $500,000 when you die. Your heirs can sell it for $500,000 and owe no tax on the $450,000 gain. As long as your total estate doesn’t exceed the exemption limits, there’s no estate tax, either.

Now watch. Under the 2009 rules, estates of up to $3.5 million ($7 million for a married couple) would be exempt from federal estate tax. The tax rate on assets above that level would be 45 percent. Inheritors would be able to step up the basis of $3.5 million (or $7 million) of inherited assets to their value the day they inherit them. Fast-forward to 2010, when the estate tax is repealed. Yes, the estate tax would be gone. But heirs would be able to step up only $1.3 million in assets to their value on the day of death. (Don’t ask why; that’s just how it is.)

Assets beyond $1.3 million would be valued for tax purposes at carry-over basis — their cost (for income-tax purposes) for the person who died. So any estate with $1.3 million to $3.5 million in assets ($2.6 million to $7 million for a married couple) is worse off under full repeal in 2010 than it would be in 2009. Inheritors in the $1.3 million-to-$3.5 million range would face higher taxes if they sold inherited assets than they would under the 2009 rules. At the very least, they would have complicated paperwork to deal with. They’d be much better off inheriting in 2009 than in 2010. But if you’re dealing with an estate of $3.5 billion rather than $3.5 million, you’d be far better off inheriting in 2010.

How many folks will get the fuzzy end of this lollipop delivered to you by lobbyists paid largely by the mega-estate folks? Sloan says that a Joint Tax Committee study estimates that only 7500 people will have estates over $3.5 million in 2009, but 63,900 will have estates between $1.3 and $3.5 million.

Now, if we do nothing and we revert to the law before temporary estate tax repeal, the estate tax exemption will go back to $1 million in 2011 which will hurt a lot of small businesses and family farms. None of us should want that to happen.

But, as Sloan says, that doesn’t mean that we should make permanent the 2010 rules that will subject 63,900 estates to higher taxes while helping out only the 7500 people with mega-estates.

His recommendation?

It seems to me that adopting the 2009 rules, indexing the exemption for inflation and allowing stepped-up basis would get us back to the original intent of the estate tax. Taxing 7,500 estates a year doesn’t seem unfair. And it would generate significant revenue.

Makes sense to me.

In my most recent column, “Parking Madness,” I skewer the practice so prevalant in Virginia of surrounding every mall, shopping center, office park, church, government facility and even recreational amenity with vast, expansive parking lots. Suburbia has paved way too much of its surface area with impermeable, run off-creating asphalt, and it has destroyed any memorable sense of “place” by treating its buildings as islands in seas of gray pavement. Gone are the urban streetscapes, which utilize parking spaces to help define pedestrian-friendly places where people enjoy spending time.

There was one issue in that column, however, that I dealt with only in passing. In an auto-centric society, there aren’t enough curbside parking spaces to accommodate everyone with a car. Where do you put the extra parking spaces? How do you avoid ruining pedestrian-friendly streetscapes?

If you’re in a neighborhood defined by city blocks, put the parking behind the buildings. That’s the solution adopted by Richmond’s “Libbie and Grove” shopping area mentioned in the column, but a solution only imperfectly adopted. The parking lot behind the shops and Westhampton movie theater preserves the streetscape along Grove Ave., but abuts Libbie Ave. for a lengthy stretch, creating an eyesore for the shops on the other side of the street there.

The best execution of this idea that I’ve seen can be found in downtown Staunton, where the parking lot is consigned to the center of the block and intrudes only minimally on the streetscape. The photos at the top and bottom of this post, which I took last fall during a weekend visit to the Blackfriar’s theater, show the interior of a block in the heart of downtown. Placing parking in the middle of the block preserves the integrity of the streetscapes, creating the charming pedestrian ambience for which Staunton is reknowned. The interior parking lot serves a bed-and-breakfast hotel, the Dining Room (one of the greatest restaurants I’ve ever dined in… anywhere), stores, boutiques and professional offices. A similar parking-in-the-center-of-the-block configuration can be found at the Woodrow Wilson birthplace museum.

This configuration is possible, of course, only in urban areas organized in grid-street patterns. If anyone has seen it adapted successfully to the surburban pod pattern of development, I would love to hear about it.

Ever since the Department of Defense began privatizing its housing stock in 1996, members of the military dont all find themselves living in uniform, Army base-styled housing any more. The New York Times recently profiled a new military housing development, The Villages at Fort Belvoir, in Fairfax County. The first of the villages, Herriford Village with 171 houses and townhouses designed in a local Georgian Colonial style, was occupied last year:

It has a Main Street with shops and a clock tower, playgrounds, and village greens with open-air pavilions and centralized mailboxes where residents can socialize informally. There is not a tin hut or cinderblock house in sight.

A priority was designing a place that would foster a sense of community among the residents, deemed crucial for family morale when soldiers deploy overseas during wartime.

New Urbanists, who insist that the details of traditional design — porches and alleys and sidewalks — can help spin the supportive web of society, see a perfect client. “Military neighborhoods become ghost towns with heavy deployment,” said Joseph Scanga, a principal at Calthorpe Associates, which is working with the Army and the Navy. “They struggle more than average to build and maintain community.”

According to author William L. Hamilton, it is not clear yet whether The Villages at Fort Belvoir succeed in that mission. But it’s a social experiment worth watching.

(Hat tip to Larry Gross for forwarding this article.)

The Washington Times (‘Firm sues county over order to copy gay films’ Sat. June 10, 2006) reports an Arlington businessman is suing country officials who ‘ordered’ him to reproduce homosexual-themed videos.

Mr. Tim Bono has a core values web page for his business that states – “No content should embarass our empolyeses or tarnish our reputation. No pornography. No sexually explicit material. No content promoting violence or hate that runs counter to our Christian and ethical values. We will not debate the merits of your material if it crosses our line.” (www.bonofilm.com)

On April 13, 2006 the Arlington Human Rights Commission upheld a complaint and ordered Mr. Bono to duplicate the films at the Miss Vincent’s (the accuser) expense or pay for another company to provide the service. Miss Vincent said Mr. Bono’s father had previously copied the same videos without objection.

The Liberty Counsel pro-bono attorney said the county doesn’t have the authority to investigate claims about sexual orientation based on the Dillon Rule. The Commonwealth doesn’t recognize discrimination based on sexual orientation, so the County can’t either.

This will be interesting. Mr. Bono didn’t discriminate against Miss Vincent because he didn’t know her sexual orientation. How could he know? He didn’t discriminate even if he knew and cared about her sexual behavior preferences, because homosexuals are not a ‘protected class of persons’ in the Virginia code. Or maybe the Virginia legal language just addresses individual rights not being discriminated against on the basis of race, color, creed, national origin or gender. I don’t know the specifics.

I look forward to the Thought Police losing in court. Mr. Bono’s professional standards for his private business are straightforward. He shouldn’t be required to violate his ethical principles. Miss Vincent can have her films reproduced elsewhere in this free Country and Commonwealth. Mr. Bono should have a chat with his father about their standards.

What is the legal authority of Commissions in the Commonwealth to decide due process, find guilt and make punishments? Any word from our loyal lawyers?

The June 12, 2006, edition of Bacon’s Rebellion has been published. You can read the issue here. Here are today’s columns:

Parking Madness
Virginians spend multi-millions paving parking spaces. Most of the investment in asphalt sits idle. Worse, sprawling parking lots destroy any sense of community or place.
by James A. Bacon

Hunting Dogs and Disclosure Documents
The knowledge economy could give Jeff Foxworthy a lot of new material.
by Doug Koelemay

The Politics of Seeming to Care
American politicians pander to the populace, telling them what they want to hear, not what they need to hear. In this year’s transportation debt, Virginia’s lawmakers are no exception.
by Patrick McSweeney

Let’s Have a Televised Debate
We can’t trust the media to fairly characterize the transportation debate. The best alternative may be a three-way debate between the major contenders.
by Patrick McSweeney

Creativity Behind the Scenes
Despite budget disagreements that grab the headlines, Virginia lawmakers are coming to quiet agreement on several ways to make government work more productively.
by Michael W. Thompson

“June Will Come Soon”
June is a time to celebrate life, youth and rites of passage — and a time to count our blessings as free men.
by James Atticus Bowden

Nice & Curious Questions
Grave Matters: Cemeteries in Virginia
by Edwin S. Clay III and Patricia Bangs

Blogology
Teen Spirit: Kenton Ngo
by Conaway Haskins

The Bad News:

On Friday we received word from Susan Kane that the highly regarded and independent thinking urban planner Patrick Kane suffered a fall resulting in significant injuries a few days ago.

Patrick has been fighting back from a serious stroke for several years. He has been working to bring his considerable insight on human settlement pattern issues into play, especially with respect to his beloved Lake Anne Village Core / Plaza in Reston.

We wish Patrick speedy and full recovery.

The Good News:

Patrick will be amused to see today’s The Washington Post front page of METRO story “With an Eye Toward Development: As Land Use Professionals Offer Guidance, Expertise and Admiration, Designing High Schoolers Compose Plans for Fictional Blighted Area. The professional planners that worked with Robinson Highschool were from the METRO West team. (See METRO WEST, 22 YEARS TOO LATE” post on 28 March 2006 on this Blog.) The story talks about upsetting neighbors and meeting “the cities demands for affordable housing.”

Patrick pioneered working with elementary, middle school and high school students on settlement pattern issues for decades in addition to teaching graduate planning courses. One of his popular programs was “Boom Town” about planing and replanning a Planned New Community like Reston.

Patrick worked with students from pre school through high school. As I recall he believed that fourth graders are best to understand settlement pattern issue. This is before they are swamped by adult advertising and preconceived notions / conventional wisdom.

My father’s favorite cartoon (along with “The Katsanjamer Kids”) was “Born 20 Years Too Soon / Born 20 Years Too Late.” With the rate of useful change slowing over the last few decades, perhaps it should now be “Born 40 Years Too Soon.”

EMR

It looks like General Assembly budget negotiators made some progress yesterday on the budget. Hugh Lessig with the Daily Press reports that the Senate and House of Delegates conferees agreed upon a capital spending list of roughly $1 billion, mostly for new buildings and renovations. Lawmakers expressed optimisim that they would complete their budget work in several days.

Negotiators are still maneuvering, however, in anticipation of a follow-up session of the General Assembly to address transportation financing. As Lessig explains:

The Senate has set aside $339 million in a contingency fund to be spent on transportation – but only if the General Assembly were to adopt a separate statewide transportation plan that has an adequate and reliable source of cash.

House members have said that $339 million isn’t nearly enough. The Senate has refused to budge, saying the real debate on transportation will take place after lawmakers pass a budget. The tentative plan is to continue to stay in session and debate long-term financing solutions for highways and other transit needs.

I deduce from Lessig’s account, and the parallel articles in the Virginian-Pilot and Free Lance-Star, that this issue — how much General Fund money to funnel into transportation projects –is still on the table, although I find the accounts murky. If I understand the reports correctly, significant differences between the Senate and House still remain.

The outcome of the budget compromise will shape the battlefield, so to speak, for the special transportation session. If the final General Fund budget leans towards the Senate’s plan, the House will enter the transportation session hundreds of millions of dollars short of what it had wanted to put into transportation projects. That stark fact will pressure delegates into raising additional taxes to make up the difference…. which, of course, is the Senate’s intention.

It would be helpful if the Capitol Press Corps reporters would clear up this point. In any case, the logic of the situation will become immediately apparent as soon as the 2007-2008 budget is passed and discussion resumes on transportation.

The city of Charlottesville is wrestling with a basic question that will shape the city’s future for decades to come: How tall is too tall?

Developer Keith Woodard has submitted a proposal to build a nine-story building at First and Main, on the Downtown Mall. According to Dave McNair wtih The Hook, the tower would provide room for two or three stores on the ground level, office space, 70 to 80 living spaces in the upper floors and a parking deck that would move cars to street level by means of an automobile elevator rather than space-consuming ramps.

The proposal has many virtues: It would bring people downtown, creating 24/7 patronage for local establishments. It would accomodate 70 to 80 households that would have to find housing elsewhere, presumably in growth-shy Albemarle County. The building would utilize existing roads and utilities. And, presumably, residents living in proximity to downtown’s shops and offices would generate fewer, shorter automobile trips than they would if they lived in conventional subdivisions.

On the other hand, there is the problem of scale. The complex would dwarf the buildings around it. Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall works effectively as an organic whole. The intrusion of a massive building could ruin the chemistry that makes it so special.

There are strong pros and strong cons to the project. Any decision by local planners is bound to be controversial. But Charlottesville’s transition from big town to small city is continuing apace. The First & Main project is not an aberration. Comparably sized buildings are in the development pipeline.

(Image credit: A2RCI Architect Greg Brezinski, as reproduced in The Hook.)

Adopting a new aesthetic for public places, the city of Charlottesville has created “no mow” zones near creeks and streams in five city parks. In April, the city also organized volunteers to plant 250 trees in the no-mow zones. The new policy, city officials acknowledge, will result in a shaggier, more unkempt look along the streams. But it also will help keep the waters clean.

As reported by “The Hook“:

“It’s a relatively cost-effective way to deal with storm water run-off,” notes the city’s environmental administrator Crystal Riddervold, who explains that vegetation filters pollutants that otherwise might run into streams.

The practice may spread. City code requires residents to keep residential grass shorter than 18 inches. But there’s an exemption. You can petition the city to declare your yard a riparian zone. No one has pursued that option… yet. The way I figure it, all it will take is one lazy husband tired of mowing the lawn to petition the city successfully, and the idea will spread like wildfire.