Base Plan Undercuts Sprawl Battle

U.S. Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.) said he believes that has to get done now.

"It's gridlock now," he said. "The Army has got to help us get a Metro station. I don't see any way to avoid it."

Roads are clogged in southern Fairfax partly because Fort Belvoir officials closed Woodlawn Road, a key artery at the base, after Sept. 11 for security reasons. A $5 million study to build an alternative road is years away from completion.

Fort Belvoir stands to gain more than 18,000 civilian and military employees under the Pentagon's plan, spokesman Richard Arndt said. With about 24,000 workers now, it is Fairfax County's largest employer.

A carefully crafted development plan in southern Fairfax has been in the works for more than a decade. A prison was shuttered to make way for parks and housing. Residential prices boomed. An $81 million high school is scheduled to open in the fall, and a middle school is being built. An additional $55 million was allocated for road improvements.

But none of those plans accounted for an unexpected boom in population. Now planners will have to scramble, county officials said.

"We will have a classroom crisis like you have not seen in any other part of Fairfax County if most of those new workers settle there," Fairfax Supervisor Gerald W. Hyland (D-Mount Vernon) said.

The real estate market would not be spared, either. Although officials said it is too early to predict how housing prices would be affected, the increase in vacant urban office space in Arlington and Alexandria would have repercussions across the region, economists said.

Arlington alone would have 3.9 million square feet of leased office space emptied in the Pentagon's six-year realignment plan. Connolly said he is worried that those commercial losses in the inner counties would depress the market for office space all over, forcing jurisdictions to rely more on residential property taxes to balance their budgets.

Fort Belvoir officials said they, too, were surprised by the number of people who would be relocated there. The base is in the middle of a $450 million project to build about 2,000 units of housing for its military personnel. That doesn't include a new $500 million, 165-bed hospital, which was announced last week as part of the realignment plan.

The Pentagon's plan now goes before the Base Realignment and Closure Commission, which will make its recommendation Sept. 8 to President Bush. Bush will have until Sept. 23 to accept or reject the recommendations in their entirety.

If the recommendations are accepted, Congress will have 45 legislative days to reject them. Otherwise, they become binding on the Defense Department.

"It will change people's perceptions about where they can live and where they should live relative to their jobs," said Christopher J. Miller, executive director of the Piedmont Environmental Council. "It will penalize those families living in areas served by transit. They either will have to buy a car or use their car more or move to other places."