Letter: Airport Authority Gets Into Business, The Connection, March 26, 2013

The following are the opening paragraphs of a letter to the editor by David Webster, a Herndon attorney, on MWAA's effort to commercially develop its Dulles Airport property--some of it around a Loudoun Silver Line station--for non-aviation purposes.

To the Editor:

Since its creation in 1986, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (“MWAA”) has been forbidden by federal law from building for-profit commercial developments on the 3,000 acres of property at Dulles Airport that it leases from the U.S. Government. It has been limited to using the Dulles property for airport purposes, e.g. runways and hangers. That all changed on Feb. 14, 2012. On that day, President Obama signed into law the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 (“2012 FAA Act”). Hidden in the middle of this 150 page omnibus act dealing with all manner of subjects was a one sentence revision to the 1986 federal act that created MWAA. Henceforth, MWAA would be allowed to commercially develop Dulles Airport.

Here is why we as Fairfax County taxpayers should be concerned about MWAA’s venture into private commercial development and what we can do about it.

MWAA is tax-exempt under both Virginia and federal law and thus can unfairly compete with private landowners. MWAA does not pay state or federal income taxes, county business license taxes, or county real estate taxes. Any businesses that locate on the Dulles Airport property won’t be part of a special Phase II tax district and won’t pay a dime toward defraying the cost of building the Metro Silver Line. As if that isn’t enough, MWAA is not subject to county zoning laws and has no incentive to offer “proffers” which are voluntary agreements by a landowner to go above and beyond what zoning laws require, e.g. planting additional trees in a development. What private landowner can hope to compete with this type of unfair advantage? . . .

Click here to read the rest of this letter.

For those who do not know, MWAA's total contribution to the cost of  building of the Silver Line is actually less than it will cost to build the line and the station at Dulles airport.  On the other hand, Dulles Toll Road users will be paying for more than half of the total line's $6 billion cost.  Yet MWAA is adamantly opposed to sharing any of the proceeds from its non-aviation commercial development in reducing the costs to DTR users or its other "partners"--Loudoun and Fairfax Counties.