Washington Times - EDITORIAL: The traffic-camera scam: "Arlington, Falls Church, Fairfax and Virginia Beach are preparing to stimulate public spending with new red-light camera programs. This is part of a push to fill government budget shortfalls by ramping up tickets for moving violations."
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Aren't these CID-heavy communities?
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Yes. Arlington County has transformed itself from a nice, quite suburb into a high density concrete jungle, complete with high-rise condos, built on top of retail complexes and within walking distance of the local mall. Cars are highly discouraged and so parking is not easy to find. In short, the American Dream has long been turned into everything city dwellers worked hard to escape - an urban nightmare.
It is funny because proponents of this new fangled New Urbanism/Smart Growth/Pedestrian Friendly fiasco are quick to point out that Americans are unhealthy because they rely too much on cars but if you actually walk around any of these places and really take a look at them you won't find anywhere for young children to play. Some of these Kommunes may have a tot lot but once a child has outgrown baby swings and slides, there is no place for them to go out and kick a ball with their friends. They are the most inhospitable looking places where the sun doesn't shine even on a bright day.
Fairfax County, home to a little over a million people has had a CID mandate in place since the early - mid 80's. It won't be long before all the older communities without HOAs are torn down and replaced with these crowded, cramped monstrosities. They are already "redeveloping" parts of the county, talking about "walkable Kommunes" and narrowing roads. The unofficial guesstimate is that over 90% of all housing in Fairfax is HOA controlled housing.
There are so many ways to force an owner to give up his or her property. Eminent Domain is one of them. One of the particularly nasty tactics used in Fairfax County is through rezoning. This area had a lot of land grants given to the early settlers and the land has been passed on down through the generations but had always stayed in the same family. Well, Fairfax figured out that if they rezoned the land and then taxed the owner based on the new zoning they could financially make it impossible to hang on to one's inheritance.
Let us say John Doe inherited 100 acres in Fairfax County from his father. He had 5 children who each inherited 20 acres from him and John Doe Jr wanted to be able to pass on his 20 acres to his children and grandchildren. When it is rezoned it now becomes R 5, meaning you can build 5 units per acre on the property. Fairfax then bills John Doe Jr. for ALL 100 units. The rationale, as it was explained to me by one of the lovely government employees, is that it really isn't fair for John Doe to have all that land and deprive the rest of the county residents of the money it could generate so they make it "fair" by collecting the taxes for all 100 units as if they had been subdivided and built. Of course John Doe can't afford that so he is forced to sell his inheritance and his children's inheritance. Of course the 100 units get built and the 100 new owners are forced into an HOA where in addition to paying their "fair" share of taxes, they also dump more money into an HOA.
Even THAT isn't enough. The police are too busy to come when a minor crime has been committed because they are usually hiding in the bushes with their radon guns issuing speeding tickets. It is called "revenue duty". Now the county is going to start fining people for running red lights. But first they have to adjust the timing on the yellow light to make sure everyone gets caught.
I really think the Gross National Product of the US is bad behavior - with a little help from people a position to do the fining.
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