Fairfax County to become a city? (Virginia Beach, Chesapeake: buying a home, neighborhood, buying)

[cdmurphy]

This is a rather timely article - considering the discussion in the Sterling Park thread about cities vs. unincorporated county and HOAs.

Fairfax Executive Suggests Dropping 'County'

[Nancy in Nokomis]

Interesting. If they call it Fairfax City - wont it be confused with the existing Fairfax City or am I missing something?

[Alicia Bradley]

They would want it to subsume the existing Fairfax City, apparently (which would become - what? - a neighborhood?). What a mess - like trying to fix something by breaking it more. Mr. Griffin and Ms. Bulova, this is not how cities are built. How absolutely, positively terrifying - especially since Fairfax City is where I've tentatively settled on buying a home next year.

[Denton56]

If they do that, it gives them more power to tax and control. Of course they want to make it a city.

[fdeitz]

Indeed, what would happen to towns within the new "Fairfax City" such as Herndon and Vienna? What's next, Arlington County becomes a city too?

[Caladium]

Originally Posted by Denton56

If they do that, it gives them more power to tax and control. Of course they want to make it a city.

Maybe it's a sneaky way to lower traffic by driving half of the residents out of the county. There would be a mass exodus to Loudoun and Prince William.

[Stephen 81]

I guess I'm the odd man out in this discussion, but I'm not opposed to Fairfax incorporating.

Obviously, Fairfax County generates enough wealth that it should be able to mow medians and improve roads. But it can't, because Richmond sucks all the money out of it and gives it to Danville and Bristol (which probably need it). Then Richmond balks at funding new road and mass transit construction, because half of the General Assembly refuses to drive north of the Rappahannock. I really do think that incorporating would improve the quality of life in Fairfax. Counties in Virginia are pretty limited in what they can and cannot do, and incorporating would give Fairfax more control over takes place within county limits.

Would taxes go up? Probably. But Richmond has been demonstrating for a couple decades now that it isn't willing to solve Northern Virginia's transportation problem. So we should do it ourselves. If some of the wealthiest counties in the country can't solve their fairly limited set of problems, what does that say about poorer jurisdictions?

Plus, the new city wouldn't be nearly as preposterous as the existing cities of Chesapeake and Virginia Beach. The population density would be much higher, and we won't have a giant swamp taking up 1/3 of the "city".

[Alicia Bradley]

Curiously, the Fairfax Co. Supervisors' story seems to vacillate back and forth from "Someone needs to get up here from the Virginia Department of Transportation and mow our medians!" (i.e., the commonwealth literally will not let them do so) to "The state is not giving us enough money to mow them!" (i.e., ok, ok, the county could technically mow the medians, they'd just need more money). So, which is it? Fairfax City, interestingly, has both well-maintained medians and lower property taxes than the county. If I had more time, I'd dearly love to research this median situation thoroughly, which would include going on a "median tour" of other counties (and independent cities!) in Virginia, as well as investigating how county-level jurisdictions outside of VA deal with this situation. I think there's more to this story than the Fairfax County supervisors want us to know.

[MattVA]

The only reason for this "sudden" wish to incorporate is to increase taxes. Faifax City is an independent city, it would not be affected.

[Alicia Bradley]

Originally Posted by MattVA

The only reason for this "sudden" wish to incorporate is to increase taxes. Faifax City is an independent city, it would not be affected.

Wouldn't the name situation get a little confusing, though? I guess they could do something like "Big Fairfax City" and "Little Fairfax City." (Only kidding, of course - just discussing this topic makes my skin crawl.)