Too Many Houses, Too Little Open Land

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors wants to make sure that there are no vacant pieces of land anywhere in the county.  Filling the land with buildings of some sort began on the western side of the county and worked its way across the county to the Potomac River to the east and the Occoquan River to the south.

At a Mason Neck Citizens Association meeting some time ago, in a discussion of homes crowded together, one gentleman said that things had reached the point that the only thing was to “in-fill” the few pieces of land still unoccupied. We are definitely “in-filled”! My subdivision alone had 21 homes with septic fields and city water. Of the 250 lots in the original subdivision plans, only the homes built before the “in-fill” could percolate used water into the soil. Fairfax County evidently changed the rules so that we have 15 new homes with very ugly septic tanks close to the street, their black tank covers very visible to all. The homeowners have their own septic tank cleaners to care for them.

The local schools are crowded. Public transportation is disjointed and routes are subject to the Metro Board, juggling routes seemingly by whim. I believe they are not thinking about the people who cannot use public transportation as it is. We, who might use public transportation are now thoroughly in the habit of driving. Because the bus is three miles away and there is no place to park to get the bus – the bus might as well not exist.

Traffic, particularly going to and from work, is enough to grind your teeth to destruction. For those of us not needing to go to work, we have from about 10AM to about 2:30PM to run our errands. 

How did we get to the point that people are crowded together in subdivisions, jammed into lots allowing maybe six feet between the houses or tiny townhouses? Where crime is common and turn around is so quick that new home owners discover that their mortgage is too onerous to pay each month?