Democrat Linda Sperling (left) and Republican and incumbent Pat Herrity (right).

In the Springfield district in southwestern Fairfax County, Democrat Linda Sperling hopes to beat the Board of Supervisors’ only incumbent Republican, Pat Herrity. The two squared off at a forum hosted by the Springfield District Council Monday night, where they showed clear differences on road expansion versus transit and on denser, multi-family housing.

Sperling has previously responded to candidate surveys from both GGWash and Fairfax Alliance for Better Bicycling, Herrity did not respond to either.

Springfield District has the lowest population density in Fairfax County with the among the lowest expected population growth over the next 25 years. The district includes the town of Clifton, most of Burke and West Springfield, and the Fair Lakes and Fair Oaks shopping areas.

I attended this debate as a concerned resident of the district and as an advocate to make Springfield (and the rest of the county) more walkable, bikeable, equitable, safe, and enjoyable.

Transportation

Both candidates say they want to improve transportation and reduce congestion. Both also said they oppose tolls in Fairfax County. However, they were very different on transportation in other ways.

Herrity emphasized his efforts on the board to expand roadways and increase vehicle capacity. He gave a nod to multimodal development, including future bicycling paths and express bus connections, but proudly touted his work to widen the Fairfax County Parkway, Route 28, and Route 29.

Following the debate, I asked Herrity about the express bus connections he mentioned, and he said he’d like to see dedicated lanes between areas of Springfield and major commuting destinations. He did not mention a specific pilot location but believes that the approach by the Richmond Highway bus rapid transit was the wrong approach because all buses were local along the route.

Sperling, on the other hand, frequently mentioned transit, walking, and biking as her priorities while also bowing to the car-centric reality of Fairfax County. She noted that WMATA and Fairfax Connector need expanded schedules with more frequent service to enable parents to take the bus to work and still get home in time for their children.

She also emphasized the need for better cross-county buses to get residents where they need to go within the county. She believes that we need to make it easy to get places using mass transit or our traffic will continue to get worse.

While the question at the debate specifically asked about transit, Sperling also addressed trails in the FABB candidate survey, writing, “We need to ensure that we have continuous trails that can get residents from major residential areas to major commercial centers in the county as well as protected bike lanes.”

The other transportation-related question covered the Popes Head Road interchange with Fairfax County Parkway, which is the deadliest intersection in the county. Herrity blamed some state-level representatives for the delay in making changes to the intersection, while Sperling wanted to see the desires of local residents heard. She wants the interchange to be fixed without additional delay from designing a connection to Shirley Gate Road.

Affordable housing

The candidates were asked about development in the Occoquan watershed and how they plan to expand affordable housing.

Herity spoke of his grown boomerang children’s difficulty finding an affordable place to live and then pivoted to the need for creative solutions such as HomeShare, allowing seniors to lease space in their homes for others who can’t afford their own place. This program appears focused narrowly on seniors opening their homes to “millennials,” but Herrity did not talk about any desire to expand true multi-family housing in the county.

Rather, he said he is “proud to fight” to protect suburban neighborhoods and opposes increasing density outside of already urbanized neighborhoods. Additionally, his website takes credit for “Stopping the [Residential Studio Units] RSU proposal which would have changed the character of our communities by allowing single family homes to be made into duplexes and condos.”

Sperling, meanwhile, said that affordable housing is vital to drawing businesses to Fairfax County. She wants teachers, firefighters, police officers, and nurses to be able to afford to live within the county they serve. She also stressed the need to upzone areas near metro and incentivize developers to build more affordable housing.

Both Herrity and Sperling said they oppose development within the Occoquan watershed. The Watershed Protection Overlay District designation, established in 1982, restricts development to one residential dwelling unit per five acres in an effort to protect streams draining to the reservoir. In addition to the laudable goal of protecting the watershed, this restriction keeps homes in Clifton (a large portion of Springfield district) about $130,000 higher than the median home price in all of Fairfax County, according to Zillow.

Business and economic environment

In response to a separate question about the property tax burden which has increased about 25% in the last few years, Sperling said she’d like to expand property tax relief for seniors but noted that the county’s tax base enabled the wide variety of services and amenities available to residents and businesses. Herrity, on the other hand, said he’d like to shift the tax base to businesses, especially through his Sports Tourism Task Force

Asked how the candidates intend to improve the business environment in Fairfax County, Sperling suggested helping local businesses grow through education and Innovation hubs. She also said she’d like to ensure that small mom-and-pop businesses can continue to thrive in the county. Herrity focused on keeping our school system top notch and reducing taxes.

Guns and immigrants

Unsurprisingly, two of the more contentious moments in the debate involved immigrants and guns.

On immigrants, Herrity talked about his efforts to reduce gangs in Fairfax County, and then cited his support among the Korean and Indian communities within the district. He said he supports ensuring that immigrants feel welcome in the county.

Sperling lambasted Herrity on his record and rhetoric regarding immigrants, beginning with the fact that he started his answer at the forum by connecting immigrants with gangs. She did not put forth any specific policies, but insisted that she would work to make Fairfax more welcoming for all immigrants.

Although Fairfax County has limited ability to affect gun laws directly, the candidates were asked whether they would support future gun legislation from the Virginia General Assembly. Sperling said Herrity gets a high rating from pro-gun groups and voted against gun control measures within the county. She said she supports completely eliminating guns from all government buildings within Fairfax County and would support increased regulation from Richmond.

Herrity said he would focus on using existing laws to remove illegal guns, including a program to reduce criminal sentences for defendants who tell police the the source of their illegal guns.

As the race progresses, we’ll keep you updated!