An interesting fact about O'Connell

During community meetings back in September, Kevin Fay, the head of O'Connell's Board of Governors, told residents of the Williamsburg and East Falls Church Civic Associations that a majority of O'Connell students were from Arlington County.

That surprised many of us in the audience because we had seen a large portion of the students' cars with Fairfax stickers. His point was that the beneficiaries of the lighting-stadium expansion plan were largely Arlington residents.

Turns out he was not just wrong -- he was way off. Arlington students don't account for "a majority" of O'Connell's current students -- they account for less than 12 percent.

Petitions with 375 signatures presented to County Board

Residents of the Williamsburg and Arlington East Falls Church neighborhoods presented the County Board with petitions carrying the signatures of 375 Arlington residents who are opposed to Bishop O'Connell's request to install lights and expand its football and baseball facilities.

The petitions were presented to Board members Mary Hynes and Barbara Favola at the board's New Year's Day meeting. The residents are still collecting additional signatures and will present them in the near future.

Julie Bruns, Ruth Shearer and Ellen Jones with the petitions outside the county offices.

NewsChannel 8/TBD segment on O'Connell controversy

NewsChannel 8, now known as TBD, aired a segment on the O'Connell controversy Wednesday night.

Realtors expect decline in home values

One question mark about O'Connell's proposal has been its impact on our home values. We've all generally assumed it wouldn't increase the values, but we didn't have any data. So we turned to the group that would know best: Arlington real estate agents.

We recently conducted a survey of Arlington real estate agents (46 responded to our survey) and asked them if the O'Connell proposal for lights and stadium expansion would increase, decrease or have no effect on our home values.

The results surprised us. Not only did an overwhelming majority of agents (80 percent) say the values would decline for the first row of homes that are adjacent to the private school, but a strong majority (65 percent) said the values will decline for all homes in the first block.

And a substantial number of agents believe the impact will be even broader. Thirty-five percent said homes within three blocks will decline.

The agents expect significant declines in home prices. On average, they expect that prices for the first row homes will decline by 11 percent, which works out to about $72,000 for a typical home.

Homes in the first block will decline by 9 percent, or slightly more than $60,000.

A copy of the full study is attached below.

Petition drive shows strong opposition to O'Connell plan

A petition drive shows strong opposition to Bishop O’Connell’s proposal from residents of the Williamsburg and Arlington East Falls Church neighborhoods.

A preliminary count indicates volunteers have collected well over 250 signatures on petitions that oppose the lights and stadium expansion. Volunteers have been going door-to-door in the past two weeks and have found a large percentage of residents opposed to the proposal, including many who live outside the immediate streets around O’Connell.

If you haven’t signed the petition and would like to, please contact Ruth Shearer at shearerr3@msn.com.

Board delays vote on O'Connell proposal

The Arlington County Board has delayed its consideration of O’Connell’s proposal for lights and a stadium expansion until January.

At its meeting Saturday, the board included the O’Connell proposal with other items it was deferring to later meetings. The issue is likely to be considered at the Jan. 22 meeting.

Board members did not discuss the issue, although Member Barbara Favola signed a “declaration of personal interest” in the issue because her employer Marymount University "may indirectly benefit" from the use permit. Favola said that Virginia law permits her to vote because she is a member of a group, the members of which are affected by the proposal, and that she can participate in the proposal fairly, objectively, and in the public interest.

Study shows O'Connell plan will cause severe parking shortage on neighborhood streets

As part of its plan to install lights and create a larger sports complex to host NCAA events with Marymount University, Bishop O’Connell High School plans to enlarge its stadium and shrink its parking lot. But surprisingly, Arlington County has not required the school to conduct a study on the impact in the neighborhood -- particularly on parking.

So residents of the neighborhood have recently conducted a study that calculates the parking impact. The study finds that the expanded stadium will bring hundreds of cars to nighttime events, overwhelming the school’s limited parking lots and forcing more than 400 cars to seek parking on our streets.

With O’Connell expanding the stadium, the study finds that 850 cars will come to the school for a typical nighttime football game. But O’Connell’s lots -- which will lose about 50 spaces because of the expansion -- will only hold 447 cars. So the remaining 403 cars will seek parking on neighborhood streets.

The study shows that even if people attending O’Connell events take every available parking space on the streets near the school, there will still be such a shortage that they will have to park in the outer ring of streets far from the school.

The parking shortage could have a serious domino effect. As O'Connell events clog neighborhood streets, many residents will be unable to find a place to park near their home. That could make them likely to seek further parking restrictions (the current zone protections end at 5 p.m.). But that in turn could cause attendees for the O’Connell events to park on streets farther and farther away.

We are sending a copy of the study to the County Board today. 
A copy of it is after the link.