GMU Misled Board, York Says
Campus Needed Yes on Dulles South

By Amy Gardner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 12, 2006

George Mason University officials said they still hope to find a suitable site in Loudoun County now that plans for an Arcola campus are dead. But several supervisors said it would be difficult to trust the university after the shifting statements that preceded last week's vote on development in Dulles South.

"I believe very much that they had an opportunity, despite what might have been said in the past, to come clean when they met with us," said board Chairman Scott K. York (I). "When [GMU Chief of Staff J. Thomas] Hennessey [Jr.] met with us, he didn't."

Plans for the new campus represented the latest incarnation of GMU's evolution from the Fairfax County branch of the University of Virginia to a full-service regional university. The campus was to be built on 123 acres owned by Vienna developer Greenvest. Hennessey told supervisors late last month that the university's plans would proceed regardless of the outcome of the board's vote on whether to allow Greenvest and other developers to build thousands of homes in the Dulles South area.

That turned out not to be true, and several board members, led by York and Supervisor James G. Burton (I-Blue Ridge), are not happy about it. They think GMU became inappropriately involved in the fate of Greenvest's development plans. And they believe that both Greenvest and GMU tried to use the specter of a Loudoun campus to win support for those plans.

"I'm having problems with George Mason's credibility right now," Burton said. "I have no idea what it is we would be getting ourselves into."

Added York: "How do you put faith into developing an agreement when they misled you the first time?"

Hennessey said he never intended to mislead county leaders about the university's plans. Still, it's clear from public statements that his and Greenvest's characterizations changed.

For months, GMU and Greenvest had said that the developer's gift of land to the university would proceed free and clear of the board's land-use decision. Hennessey's comments at the board's Oct. 30 work session simply confirmed an impression firmly established in supervisors' minds. Board Vice Chairman Bruce E. Tulloch (R-Potomac) even said he thought the land had already changed hands.

At that meeting, Burton asked Hennessey: "Do you plan to take possession regardless of the [board's action]?"

Hennessey replied: "Yes, sir." He went on to say that the homes and retail development planned by Greenvest near the campus were crucial to the endeavor's success. But he made no statement suggesting that the university's plans would go away if Greenvest's did.

"It's a simple issue," Hennessey said. "If [the development] is there, it will speed up the development of the campus. If it's not there, it will be a long, hard slog."

The characterization changed when Burton and York pressed Hennessey and Greenvest officials to document their arrangement in writing. In a joint letter this month to the board, Greenvest and GMU explained that the developer would convey the land at no cost only if Greenvest's development were approved. Otherwise, they said, Greenvest would give the university six months to buy the land.

When pressed to explain the change, Hennessey said that "we just couldn't" proceed without some commitment to develop the area around the campus. He added: "The point that I tried to make with [the supervisors] was that, while we might accept it as a gift if it in fact was given, we couldn't have a full campus without all the other requirements that we need."

York and Burton say they aren't angry at Greenvest for being unwilling to donate the land now that the board has killed the plan to open up Dulles South, a 9,200-acre expanse west of Dulles International Airport, to high-density development. That's a typical business arrangement, they said. What upsets them is that the developer didn't make its position clear at the outset. In their view, Greenvest tried to use the George Mason gift to leverage support for the development proposal.

Greenvest officials did not return phone calls seeking comment last week.

Greenvest was one of several developers poised to build large, planned communities in Dulles South had the board approved the Comprehensive Plan Amendments to allow higher-density housing in the area. Greenvest had proposed four such communities; one of them, Arcola, would have been within walking distance of the GMU campus. It would have featured a "town center," with a mix of homes, including apartments and townhouses for students and faculty members, as well as space for neighborhood retail uses such as restaurants, a dry cleaner and a bank.

York's other objection to GMU's plans was the university's expectation that the county would contribute to the development of the campus. Given Loudoun's struggles to keep up with the service demands of a growing population, taking on debt for university buildings is not an option, York said.

But Hennessey said that is the model that GMU has used, with great success, at its campuses in Fairfax, Prince William and Arlington counties. The Prince William Board of County Supervisors agreed to assume the debt for both a sports and fitness center and a performing-arts hall, both of which are shared by the university and the community.

"It's the way we build campuses," Hennessey told York at the meeting last month.

Hennessey said that GMU still planned to build a campus in Loudoun but that it would take much longer now that the location is uncertain. GMU operates a satellite classroom facility in Sterling, but the hope is for a full-service campus to serve the western reaches of the Washington region.