Dear Chairman Bulova,
I
was pleasantly surprised in reading the report of the County
Board-appointed Fairfax County Building Repositioning Working Group, "Office Building Repositioning and Repurposing: Fairfax County Building Repositioning WorkgroupReport," the brief section (p. 9) with the subject title. It specifically states,
A significant trend occurring nationally and affecting the office market in Fairfax County is that the average amount of leased space per employee is shrinking. This is attributed to more efficient office design, increased ease of teleworking, and hoteling, all of which result in many types of work being done in locations other than the traditional office environment. Average footprints are anticipated to shrink from 225 usable square feet (USF) per person in 2010 to 150 USF per person by 2017, a reduction of 40 percent.
This
is exactly the message I conveyed to you several times more than three
years ago in questioning why Fairfax County planners continue to use 300
gross square feet (GSF) for office space planning purposes. (These
letters and related articles are available on the Reston 20/20 blog.)
By our calculation, Usable Square Feet (USF) used in this report is
approximately two-thirds of the value of GSF. In this case, the
County's implicit planning assumption is that there is about 200
USF/office worker--slightly lower than the 2010 average laid out above,
but 25% higher than the expected USF/worker next year.
To
be consistent with that expected average next year, the Fairfax County
GSF/office worker planning assumption would have to drop to no more than
225 GSF/office worker. This is, in fact, the planning metric used by
Arlington County, which dropped its space per office worker planning
assumption from 250 GSF/worker to 225 GSF/worker a couple of years ago.
With office space per worker continuing to shrink, you might even want
to use a planning assumption of 200 GSF/office worker.
The
County's continuing failure to address this reality has critical
implications for planning the associated infrastructure, none possibly
more important than transportation planning. Right now, the FCDOT is
hard at work in its Reston street planning effort (RNAG) and using the
300 GSF/office worker as one of its guidelines for calculating future
traffic on Reston's station area streets and beyond. This includes
calculating office-driven traffic for the 29.7 million GSF of office
space planned in these areas.
- At 300 GSF/office worker, that's 99,000 potential office employees.
- At 225 GSF/ office worker, that increases to 132,000 potential office employees, a one-third increase.
- At 200 GSF/office worker, that increases to 148,500 potential office employees, a 50% increase.
The
one-third (33,000) increase in the number of prospective office
employees at 225 GSF/employee will have a tremendous impact on traffic,
transit, and other transportation means in Reston's station areas that
is not now being considered. So while FCDOT is planning to reduce
Reston station area traffic standards from LOS "D" to an urban standard
of LOS "E," the fact of the matter is implementation of the current plan
will result in a massively gridlocked LOS "F." Indeed, just as there
will be one-third more potential employees, the potential costs of
meeting any reasonable traffic standard are also likely to increase by
at least one-third--actually substantially more as marginal costs tend
to rise.
No
doubt similar consequences will be felt in Tysons and other urbanizing
areas of the County, aggravated by the recent passage of the FAR 5.0
ZOA. Quite simply, the County can't afford to meet the infrastructure
requirements the continuing use of this inaccurate planning assumption
will create.
The
Board, the Planning Commission, and Fairfax County's Department of
Planning and Zoning need to step up to the adoption of realistic
planning assumptions, probably also on dwelling unit size (increased to
1,200 GSF from 1,000 GSF in the Tysons and Reston planning efforts).
Otherwise, the County will experience gridlock nearly county-wide,
inadequate school facilities, crammed public parks, etc.
While
you (and certainly not I) will not be around to see this massive
planning failure occur, it will happen in the absence of sound
planning. I strongly urge you to take action now to assure that this
doesn't occur for the sake of those--including our families--who will be
living here long after we depart.
In the meantime, I wish you the best of the holidays with family and friends and a happy, prosperous, and productive New Year.
Sincerely,
Terry Maynard, Co-Chair
Reston 20/20 Committee
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