By the next public meeting on December 15, the Old Georgetown Pike and Potomac River Association was in talks with Walter J. Hickel, Udall’s newly appointed successor at the Interior Department, to seek funds through the Land and Water Conservation Fund to preserve the Burling tract for the public. Hickel, continuing a long tradition of federal officials commenting on development matters in Greater Washington, urged county leaders to reject Miller & Smith’s proposal. In his words, a large-scale residential development near the Potomac “‘would entail destruction of the natural area and, by eroding the steep slopes, add dramatically to the pollution of our national river.’” Hickel recommended preserving the site for the community and hinted that his agency might help buy the property.29 The interests of the citizens committee and Hickel at this point were strongly influenced by the recent national attention to ecological concerns such as erosion and pollution. Over time, however, their discourse shifted to highlight the Burling tract as a landscape whose wilderness and open space amenities should be preserved to counterbalance the loss of nature to suburbanization.
Before moving forward with its plans, Miller & Smith was required as a condition of Burling’s will to consent to a conservation agreement with the property’s heirs. In January 1970, the developer submitted a proposal to the Fairfax and Northern Virginia park authorities for preserving several dozen acres of land. The local park authority declined to sign on, presumably because it could not afford the maintenance costs given its shoestring budget. The regional park authority, however, approved the conservation agreement in late February. It stipulated that twenty-five acres would be reserved for the westward extension of the George Washington Memorial Parkway, which was intended to preserve a low profile landscape along the shoreline. In addition, it transferred to the park authority a twenty-six-acre strip of land along Scott’s Run and the Potomac for a park. Last, it placed permanent conservation easements on the entire tract including limiting it to single-family housing, restricting development of the crests of the slopes, and preserving most of the land ceded to the park authority as open space. In exchange, the park authority agreed not to take or support the taking of the property by any government agency through eminent domain.30
The regional park authority accepted the conservation agreement for several reasons. It wanted the land to be preserved and had taken the lead over the past few years to create larger parks throughout Northern Virginia and in Fairfax in particular, using matching funds from the Land and Water Conservation Fund to acquire land in a county where development pressures inflated its value.31 The agency’s five-year capital improvement program also did not include enough money to buy a significant part of the tract outright. In addition, the agency felt that the agreement was the best deal it could get without going into condemnation proceedings to take the property through eminent domain, which would be quite expensive.32 Once the park authority accepted the agreement, the developer had to submit it, along with its plans for the entire Burling tract, to the county planning commission and the board of supervisors, the county’s top elected leadership. This subjected the plans to multiple stages of public review, giving residents the opportunity to influence the decision-making process.
The Burling case generated considerable attention in Fairfax and Greater Washington as an opportunity to redress the environmental impact of suburbanization. A writer for the Washington Post captured the heady mix of environmental concerns and political interests in a February 1970 article. “There are questions of siltation and erosion of land, removal of fully-grown trees to make way for new homes, placement of homes on steep slopes, establishment of parks in a burgeoning metropolitan area and the Federal government’s role in preserving what remains of undeveloped America.”33
Right before the planning commission met to consider the developer’s site plans and the conservation agreement, Interior Secretary Hickel offered to contribute up to 50 percent of the costs for purchasing the Burling tract and conserving it as a park. His offer, valued at up to $1.2 million, was nearly 40 percent of the Land and Water Conservation Fund’s contingency reserves.34 While the ecological impact of development had previously motivated Hickel, his interests now were more rooted in open space preservation. A spokesman later noted: “The Burling tract is not just a piece of land; it is also an opportunity. It’s so close to a dense population area that in future years—even now—we’ll want open space.”35 Hickel’s deepening interest in the case was a major federal commitment to land conservation at a time of rising environmental consciousness that blended environmental objectives.36 Also, the fact that the property was nearby made it easier for him to be involved and to potentially use the Burling case as a primer for publicizing the value of the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
On February 9, the county planning commission approved the conservation agreement and development proposal, which sent the project to the board of supervisors for final approval. However, the commission urged concerned parties to continue seeking funding to buy the property for use as a park.37 By the time the supervisors held their first public hearing in mid-March, civic concern about the Burling tract had expanded beyond the neighborhood level.
Marian Agnew, who became one of the most prominent “sewer ladies” working to clean up the Potomac during the 1970s, got her start in environmental activism with the Burling case. Agnew, the wife of an air force pilot, was looking for a place to walk her two dogs one day when she realized how little park space, not to mention wooded areas, was left in Fairfax. While working as a substitute teacher at Langley High School, she advised a group of students, including her son, on a school project to plan a system of bike trails for McLean. Agnew and the students soon learned about the Burling case and decided to get involved based on their interests in outdoor recreation. Over the next several months, she and the students were at the center of a grassroots movement that called not simply for reducing the density of development at the Burling tract but for protecting the entire site as a park and nature preserve. In an interview after the case was over, Agnew explained the approach she came to adopt in her environmental activism: “I realized that confrontation is often the only way to get action.”38
The board of supervisors hearing on March 11 was the first of several high-profile events in a burgeoning campaign to protect the Burling tract from suburban development. The hearing began with testimony from Miller & Smith representative John “Til” Hazel, a staunch growth advocate who was fast becoming the most prominent land use and zoning lawyer for developers in Northern Virginia. Hazel acknowledged civic interest in mitigating the impact of building on the hilly terrain and harming its flora and fauna. To that end he stressed the developer’s unusually robust conservation measures: clustering housing to keep half the land as open space; creating a hiking trail; building ponds to collect soil runoff during construction; and grading small sections of land at a time to control erosion.39
Nearly everyone else at the hearing had strong reservations about the project. A representative from the Interior Department reiterated its commitment to help buy the Burling tract for conversion into a park.40 Of the two-dozen residents in attendance, only three supported the developer’s proposal. The rest, which included several high school students associated with Agnew, argued that developing the site would erode its steep slopes and asked the board of supervisors to find a way to preserve the property.41 The appearance of the students marked the beginning of the sustained involvement of young people in debates about the Burling tract. Their concern came from the loss of recreational open space associated with suburbanization and was enhanced by the rise of environmental education in the United States.42
Despite growing civic opposition, the board of supervisors unanimously accepted the developer’s plans. Harriet S. Bradley, who represented the district where the Burling tract was located, believed that the project aligned with long-term plans for single-family housing in the area. While having a reputation for being critical of developers, she suggested that in this case, local officials had “‘a unique opportunity to work with a developer who is sufficiently concerned with the [environmental] problems of development.’” Finally, she noted that McLean already had a large park—the Turkey Run Recreational Area—that was adjacent to the Potomac.43