MetroWest Builders Undeterred By Davis

Vienna Plan Poised To Face Loss of Land

The developers seeking to build a cluster of mid-rises at the Vienna Metro station say they can push ahead with the controversial project even if Rep. Thomas M. Davis III carries through on an attempt to block it.

The Pulte Homes developers have been planning to erect 13 residential and office buildings on a 56-acre parcel near the station. They say most of their proposal can withstand the pledge by Davis (R-Va.) to persuade Metro to withhold a small but critical parcel of land.

Davis's intervention "dented the car and made it ugly -- but didn't total it," Stan Settle, a Pulte Homes vice president, said last week. "Some people think this thing is going to get killed. [But] we're moving forward."

The long-running MetroWest project battle, which took another turn two weeks ago when Davis announced he would try to hold it up, has become one of the region's most heated debates over what is known as "smart growth," which calls for concentrating homes and offices near transit stops.

Davis's role has lent the debate a high-profile partisan angle, with the congressman squaring off against the Democrat-controlled Fairfax Board of Supervisors, which approved the project.

The MetroWest plan, one of the largest of its kind in the region, won accolades from a coalition of business and environmental groups. And in December, after months of debate, the concept received the unanimous approval of the county board.

Advocates of "smart growth" argue that it makes sense to concentrate development near transit stops because that encourages train ridership and accommodates the demand for housing without consuming as much land as conventional suburban development.

Some residents, however, disagree. And at a community meeting April 19, Davis told a group of opponents that he would amend a Metro funding bill to block the sale or lease of the 3.2-acre parcel that the agency owns next to the station. Metro had been negotiating to sell the property to Pulte Homes in exchange for about $6 million and $9 million worth of improvements to the station.

Davis is chairman of the House committee that handles Metro funding. As a result, the Metro agency appears likely to yield to any request he might make to withhold the property.

"I don't see us picking a fight with a man who can help us down the road," said T. Dana Kauffman, chairman of the Metro board and a Fairfax supervisor.

The land in question is a small part of the 56-acre Pulte plan, but because it sits closest to the station, it is considered crucial to connecting potential workers and residents at MetroWest to the transit system.

Davis has said that by blocking the land sale, he hopes to bring the developers back to the negotiating table to alter their plan.