While political maneuvers swirling around transportation taxes garner the newspaper headlines, some members of the General Assembly are quietly working to address critical issues that shape the transportation debate: the financing of roads, schools and other public improvements through proffers and impact fees.
In a letter addressed to key industry and conservation groups, House Speaker William J. Howell, R-Stafford, has outlined some of the key issues. Writes Howell:
It is fair to say that members of [the House of Delegates] understand and are sympathetic with industry concerns about housing affordability and the affects of the current cash proffer system. Members also recognize, however, that local governments may have few alternatives to replace the cash proffer payments they are now receiving, and that any change in the existing proffer system must therefore provide an effective avenue to meet infrastructure requirements. Further, the ongoing strain on existing infrastructure and land conservation efforts caused by increased sprawl bring additional challenges to the table which, in my opinion, must be a part of any solution.
Howell notes that the House Rules Committee voted to widen the scope of a two-year study on proffer reform to encompass the larger set of issues. He continues:
To be truly successful, I believe the outcome of the discussions should recognize what the General Assembly was trying to accomplish when it passed the forward-looking land-use portions of the Comprehensive Transportation Funding and Reform Act of 2007 (House Bill 3202), which I patroned last year. Specifically, we charted a new way forward toward more efficient and compact growth management, which preserves open space outside of designated urban development areas. Virginia state law and public policy now embraces the fact that neither the state nor local governments can afford to continue development practices of the past that sometimes resulted in unbridled sprawl.
Howell is clearly on the right track, although he hasn’t quiiiiite stretched his thinking as far as it needs to go. Not only should proffers and impact fees be considered in the large context of land use and governance structure, so should transportation funding. But he appears to be light-miles ahead of Virginia’s other political heavy weights.
Sadly, Gov. Kaine, who once campaigned on making the transportation-land use connection, appears to have abandoned the cause. Sen. Majority Leader Richard Saslaw, D-Fairfax, has no discernible interest in the issue. Howell may be Virginia’s only hope.
