The Connection Newspaper was present at an MCA debate over the approval of Capital One‘s new headquarters tower, which will be the region’s tallest at 470’ (something we noted here about 2 months before all the other media outlets). While the MCA did ultimately approve the new building, it did so only reluctantly after much harangue about the overshadowing nature of such a “monster building”. The only reason the MCA approved the design was because it would be designated as a gateway building, implying that they will continue to “enforce” a 400′ height maximum on all new projects.
But why?
What possible argument could someone living miles away from a building have for restricting height?
They can’t say it is because of shadow.
They can’t say it is because of sunglare.
They can’t even say it is because of traffic, because all new developments are directly tied to transportation funding via a per square foot contribution. In fact, this Capital One reworked proposal will accelerate the construction of a much needed bridge link between North Tysons and East Tysons which will remove significant traffic from Route 123.
We mapped each community association which is affiliated with the McLean Citizens Association to see just where they are with respect to Tysons. While the MCA continues to state that they include residents who live in Tysons, it sure doesn’t seem so from the members of their committees and board, all of which are located outside of the Tyson Urban District formed by the Comprehensive Plan. So why would they object to removing the arbitrary 400′ limit to buildings in Tysons? Many of these folks say they are Republican (McLean being one of the most conservative parts of Fairfax) and yet they are championing a concept that would restrain the free market far more than any national level regulation.
We thought it might be worth while to see what the impact on McLean would be from some parts of town. Immediately one can see that the life of those members in McLean won’t be affected one iota by anything architecturally that ever occurs in the vicinity around the Metro Stations. We could build the Empire State Building next door, and they would barely ever see it from their houses, that is how far away and how screened by forest they already are.
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Hardly monstrous and definitely none of their business. In the case of McLean Hamlet (the closest actual neighborhood to the project) we found out that the 470′ building wouldn’t even be visible from this vantage point.
The only party who should be concerned with regard to the height should be the Gates of McLean (which is in Tysons itself). To that point, Capital One should definitely be sucking up to their neighbors with some offers on how to make the community better, trails, sound mitigation, etc. That shouldn’t have anything to do with the MCA as a whole however, who has almost no representation from the Gates of McLean.
Is there any proof that people of Tysons are as agitated by height limits as those who would impose their views on us from outside? It’s not like I am wandering around McLean telling people that their McMansion homes are an eyesore to me, out of my own personal taste, and that anything over 3000 sf should be banned due to its induction of additional Hummers on the road. Point being, McLean Citizens Association should really stick to taking care of their own citizens, in their own town.
Certainly the county should stop letting them be the ultimate decision makers for a region that they hardly even represent. I’d call the MCA a group of NIMBYs but that would imply the things happening in Tysons are in their backyard. We need to create a new term for a group who is afraid of building heights that are often miles away from their neighborhoods and completely invisible. I suggest #NITBY