Fairfax has done its part on parks
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In his recent article criticizing the Park Authority’s urban park standards, Robert Jackson suggests that Fairfax County should follow New York City’s lead in establishing new parkland. Mr. Jackson trumpets New York’s acquisition of 300 acres of new parkland over the last 10 years. In contrast, Fairfax County has acquired over 7,000 acres over this period of time. With these acquisitions, the Fairfax County Park Authority owns 24,000 acres of parkland, nearly 10% of the County’s landmass, which is very rare for urban places in the United States. In addition, for a half century the County has supported the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority, which owns 10,000 acres of parkland. Taking into account all public parkland in the County, nearly 20% of Fairfax County is publicly owned parkland. Mr. Jackson incorrectly states that this figure is 10%. Mr. Jackson’s policy recommendations would seem to be nonsensical. He recommends a parks policy that would require 1600 of Tysons Corner’s 1700 acres to be parkland. Anyone who has been there recently knows that this is an impossible objective, given the development that already exists. Instead of advocating for an impossible goal with no implementation mechanism, I would suggest that Mr. Jackson examine the Park Authority and Tysons Task Force’s recommendations for more than doubling park acreage in Tysons. With an aggressive yet achievable goal and an implementation strategy, we can more than double park land in Tysons.
Gerald E. Connolly
Chairman, Fairfax County Board of Supervisors
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