(Updated at 2:45 p.m.) Fairfax County is continuing to partner with Giant to offer COVID-19 vaccinations at eight pharmacies, county health officials say.

Giant Food announced earlier this week that vaccines will be available at all 152 in-store pharmacies in D.C., Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware. Previously, the supermarket company was offering vaccines at about half of its in-store pharmacies.

The announcement, however, does not change the ongoing partnership between the county and Giant first established in February, in which Giant uses a portion of its vaccine supply to inoculate individuals on the county’s waitlist, county health officials confirm to Reston Now.

The eight Giant pharmacies working in partnership with the county are using the Pfizer vaccine and include locations in Annandale, Alexandria, Herndon, and Springfield, according to county health officials.

The Fairfax County Health Department’s vaccine dashboard shows that 26,395 people remain on the waitlist, meaning they are eligible, registered, and waiting for an invitation to schedule an appointment. As of noon today, the county is currently making appointments for those who registered on March 25.

Giant’s vaccine supply comes from the federal vaccination program, while the county receives allocations from the Virginia Department of Health.

There are also more than dozen other Giant locations in Fairfax County that are offering the vaccine but not in partnership with the county, which can be obtained going through the store’s appointment scheduler.

A Giant spokesperson tells Reston Now that each in-store pharmacy in the county currently has, on average, 15 to 20 appointments daily. They are using the Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer vaccines.

Overall, local health departments and retail pharmacies like Giant have administered the most doses by far in Virginia. Pharmacies have administered nearly 880,000 doses, and local health departments have administered about 1.17 million doses.

While Giant notes on its website that those 65 and over will be “prioritized,” all individuals in Phase 1a and Phase 1b are eligible, including first responders, grocery workers, and public transit workers (including rideshare drivers).

Officials needed to maintain continuity of government, clergy, and janitorial staff were also added to Fairfax County’s eligibility list earlier this week.

The county announced yesterday (Thursday) that they will move into Phase 1c next week and plan to expand eligibility to all adults by April 18, per Gov. Ralph Northam’s timeline.

The county health department and its partners have administered 390,740 vaccine doses so far — an increase of 27,000 doses from yesterday and enough for approximately 34% of the county’s population, though the total includes first and second doses.

According to the VDH, 333,353 Fairfax County residents have received at least one vaccine dose, and 170,365 residents have been fully vaccinated.

Photo via Google Maps

Forget the Tidal Basin. Fairfax County has a few prime cherry blossom-viewing sites of its own.

This includes Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Vienna, Reston’s Van Gogh Bridge, and along the Washington & Old Dominion Trail.

The blooming, pink-tinged flowers have long served as a symbolic announcement of spring’s arrival in the D.C. area, but the sight might be especially welcome this year after a winter that proved challenging for reasons only partly related to the weather.

“It [always] gets quite busy here this time of the year,” Meadowlark park specialist Jeff Hill said. “But this year, there’s a slight edge of frenziness to it.”

Run by the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority (NOVA Parks), Meadowlark is home to at least 60 to 80 cherry trees, a number of which are the same species as the ones at the Tidal Basin (Yoshino). The oldest ones were planted back in the late 1980s, while other cherry trees were planted more recently over the past several years.

Hill says that, particularly in the last four or five years, the trees have grown “exponentially in popularity.”

They are scattered throughout the 95-acre property, but mostly concentrated near the Visitor’s Center and down by the lakes.

According to Hill, the ones closer to the Visitor’s Center are already in bloom and are nearing their peak. The trees by the lakes just started to open earlier this week, so those blossoms should be nearing peak bloom as well by this weekend.

However, the recent cold weather could majorly impact them.

“Anything that’s in full bloom right now, will probably be affected the hardest,” Hill said. “Not only is it cold, they’ve been calling for pretty significant winds.”

However, he says that, since they haven’t fully opened up yet, the trees by the lakes “maybe able to skirt by” and remain on schedule to bloom come this weekend.

In terms of care, the staff at Meadowlark rarely interfere with the cherry trees aside from periodic pruning, monitoring for insects and fungi, and mulching.

“We try to leave things to be as natural as possible,” Hill says.

With the gardens expected to be very busy this weekend, Hill recommends visiting during the week if possible. Capacity limits are in effect, but since the grounds are so large, crowds should be minimized if people spread out.

“With the Tidal Basin so busy and popular, people are just looking for an alternative site,” Hill said. “[Meadowlark] is a great place because you have the water, you have the cherry trees…everything you need for a cherry blossom-style festival.”

As for the cherry trees near Van Gogh Bridge at Lake Anne in Reston, one is owned by the Waterview Cluster and the others by the Washington Plaza Cluster Organization.

Those trees date back to at least the early 1980s, according to the Reston Association, which does not own the trees, but occasionally prunes them to keep pathways clear.

The Van Gogh bridge was built in 1965 to link the Waterview and Washington Plaza clusters. It was designed by William Roehl, who also designed the nearby Swing.

Fairfax County is committing to expanding COVID-19 vaccine eligibility to all adults by April 18, as long as there is sufficient supply, county officials tell Tysons Reporter.

This comes on the heels of Virginia Governor Ralph Northam’s announcement earlier today (April 1) that all individuals in the Commonwealth over the age of 16 should be eligible for the vaccine starting Sunday, April 18.

“I know that our residents are looking forward to getting vaccinated and to be able to again spend time with their loved ones,” Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay said in a statement to Tysons Reporter. “Fairfax County is ready and prepared to move forward to meet the Governor’s and President Biden’s deadlines. I’m excited that we can continue to open eligibility and vaccinate even more people.”

The April 18 goal is ahead of the May 1 deadline set by President Joe Biden in mid-March for making all American adults eligible for the vaccine.

Governor Northam’s press release notes that this is because the state is making solid progress on delivering the vaccine to currently eligible populations.

“Nearly every Virginian in the highest risk groups who has pre-registered for a vaccination appointment has received one, and those still on the pre-registration list will receive appointment invitations within the next two weeks,” the governor’s office said.

The release also says that nearly 4 million doses of the vaccine have been administered in the Commonwealth. More than one in three adults have gotten at least one dose, and one in five are fully vaccinated.

21 out of 35 Virginia’s health districts have also moved to Phase 1c, which encompasses additional essential workers like food servers and construction workers.

After opening eligibility for all people in Phase 1b earlier this week, Fairfax County officials now say that the plan is to move to Phase 1c sometime next week to meet Northam’s target date as well as Biden’s expectation that 90% of adults in the U.S. will be eligible to get vaccinated by April 19.

“To meet these goals, Fairfax County plans to open registration for Phase 1c early next week and transition to Phase 2 by the governor’s deadline,” the Fairfax County Health Department said in a newly published blog post.

The health department previously predicted that the county would enter Phase 1c in mid-April.

According to the county dashboard, 363,601 people have been vaccinated by the county health department or one of its partners — a nearly 10% jump from two weeks ago.

That’s approximately 32% of the county’s population, which is slightly lower than the overall percentage of Virginia residents who have been vaccinated based on the governor’s release.

As for when those eligible to register will get appointments and actual shots, that remains to be seen. The health department is currently making appointments for people who registered on March 24 and has gotten its waitlist down to less than 30,000 people.

Earlier in March, Virginia’s Vaccine Coordinator Dr. Danny Avula said that everyone who wants the vaccine should be able to get their first dose by May 31.

However, Fairfax County could not commit to that goal at the time. A health department spokesperson Reston Now on Tuesday that the pace of vaccine administration will depend on “many factors,” including the number of doses that the county gets from the Virginia Department of Health.

Photo via Fairfax County Health Department/Twitter

Every Fairfax County resident should be eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine appointment by May 1, but the timeline for when all those people will actually get the vaccine is less certain, according to a county official.

“We fully expect to meet the President’s deadline to open eligibility to every Fairfax County resident by May 1,” Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay wrote in a statement to Reston Now, Tysons Reporter’s affiliate site.

McKay credits the county’s growing supply of vaccine for giving it a chance to meet that ambitious target, which Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam says can be achieved statewide.

“Since the beginning, we have had the capacity to vaccinate tens of thousands of people a day. However, our vaccine supply didn’t match that,” he said. “Now that supply is ramping up, we will double down on our priority of getting shots in arms as quickly as possible.”

The Fairfax County Health Department announced yesterday (March 17) that it is now letting additional groups register for vaccine appointments. The department stated that it plans to move into phase 1c by mid-April before expanding eligibility to the general population in phase 2 on May 1.

Phase 1c includes other essential workers like those in energy, water and waste removal, housing and construction, and food service.

Virginia’s vaccination coordinator, Dr. Danny Avula, provided an even more optimistic timeline in an interview a week ago, saying that everyone who wants the vaccine should be able to get their first dose by May 31.

“We really think we will easily meet that May 1 marker and potentially even outpace it by a couple of weeks,” he said. “We’ll move into that open eligibility before the end of April and everybody who wants a vaccine should be able to be vaccinated by the end of May, at least with the first dose.”

McKay hesitated to commit to May 31 as an achievable deadline for everyone in Fairfax County to get at least one vaccine dose.

“We have no way to project that far out,” McKay told Reston Now. “But we’re certainly pushing for more doses, making tremendous progress, and working to meet to President’s charge to make everyone eligible by May 1.”

This week, the county is getting 43,000 vaccine doses from the state, an increase from last week’s 31,500 doses.

The pace of vaccinations is quickening in the county as private providers and retail pharmacies join the list of vaccine providers. A mass vaccination clinic run by Inova Health Systems is also expected to open by the end of the month.

Additionally, the county anticipates receiving doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine by the end of the month, furthering increasing supply.

In total, the county has received 290,853 doses from the Commonwealth and has administered at least one dose to 270,213 people, approximately 23.5% of the county’s population.

More than 100 private health care providers in Fairfax County are currently going through the steps to be able to provide COVID-19 vaccines to the public soon, county officials tell Reston Now and Tysons Reporter.

This includes private practices, clinics, and urgent care centers.

The county announced late last week that “a small number of private health care providers” would begin offering vaccinations to their patients in the coming weeks.

“The process to become approved to administer COVID-19 vaccine requires several steps,” a county health department spokesperson said. “That starts with filing an intent form with [the Virginia Department of Health], completing a CDC COVID-19 Vaccine Provider Agreement and completing the Fairfax County Health Department’s compliance check.”

Of those 100-plus private health care providers, approximately 35 are in the process of completing the Fairfax County Health Department’s compliance check. The timeline for completion differs for each provider, the spokesperson notes.

A “handful” of private providers have completed all of the steps and can now offer the COVID-19 vaccine to their patients. Health department officials declined to provide an exact number or the names of the providers.

Providers won’t be able to choose a specific COVID-19 vaccine to offer to their patients, since vaccine availability is dependent on what the county receives from the Commonwealth.

“We know many residents in our community will be excited to hear that their own health care providers may soon offer vaccine,” Fairfax County Health Director Dr. Gloria Addo-Ayensu wrote in the health department’s blog post. “However, we do encourage residents to be patient while more practices meet the state requirements. Once a provider is able to offer vaccine, they will notify their patients directly.”

The county is also asking residents who have registered with the county health department to remove themselves from the waitlist if they do receive the vaccine from a private provider instead.

In recent weeks, Fairfax County has begun to diversify where residents are able to get their COVID-19 vaccine.

This includes retail pharmacies, including CVS, Walgreens, Safeway, and Harris Teeter. Giant is directly partnering with the county to vaccinate off the health department’s waitlist. However, appointments still remain scarce at the retail pharmacies.

In general, vaccinations in the county are moving at a faster pace than last month.

But the county is still struggling to catch up to demand after being the only jurisdiction to opt out of Virginia’s appointment system. As of 3 p.m. today, 104,000 people were on the waitlist of the 326,000 people who had registered.

So far, the county has administered close to 267,000 doses, about half of them delivered by the health department. 207,499 county residents have gotten at least one dose, and 117,678 people have been fully vaccinated, according to the VDH dashboard.

Appointments are currently being scheduled for those who signed up on January 28 or earlier.

Photo by Karen Bolt/Fairfax County Public Schools

(Updated at 11:05 a.m. on 3/12/2021) Fairfax County has received 3,800 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine so far, but the county health department opted to send that initial allotment to local Inova hospitals, the Virginia Department of Health says.

The county’s allotment comes from the Commonwealth’s current supply of 69,000 doses that it received from the federal government last week.

Fairfax County Health Department spokesperson Jeremy Lasich confirmed to Reston Now, Tysons Reporter’s affiliate site, that the county sent its J&J vaccine doses to Inova, because the county currently only has the capacity to give out a certain amount of doses. As supply picks up, the county will rely more on partners like Inova.

The hospital system is planning to use this supply for a vaccination clinic for residents 75 and over, Lasich says.

Nearly 110,00 Fairfax County residents remain on the waitlist for a vaccine appointment, though the pace of vaccinations has been picking up, according to the county’s dashboard, which indicates that residents who registered on Jan. 22 are now able to make appointments.

The county did say they expect to receive a fresh supply of J&J vaccine doses by the end of March. It’s unknown at this time exactly how many doses, Lasich says.

Additionally, a number of pharmacies in Fairfax County received the J&J vaccine through the federal partnership program, the Virginia Department of Health confirmed to Reston Now.

The health department for nearby Arlington County opted to allocate 1,500 doses of the J&J vaccine for a mass vaccination event this past weekend.

D.C. got doses of the J&J vaccine that were used at high-capacity vaccination sites last week. The city is also asking residents which of the three available vaccines they’d prefer when they pre-register. A city official said on Twitter that it’s for data collection to understand demand.

However, Fairfax County is not asking this question or providing a vaccine option because it is “primarily using Pfizer for first-dose appointments right now.”

Lasich says this is a change from earlier in the year, when the county health department was primarily using Moderna. Exactly which vaccine is used depends on the amount of doses received, he notes.

There’s evidence that some prefer the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which requires only one-shot, rather than the two shots needed for both Pfizer’s and Moderna. This could potentially simplify and quicken the pace of vaccination.

In addition to lowering the commitment from patients, the J&J vaccine is easier to store, and it appears that recipients have been less prone to severe side effects.

One potential drawback to the J&J vaccine is that trials have shown that it is less effective than the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines at preventing illness, though it still has an 85% efficacy against severe forms of COVID-19 and 100% efficacy against hospitalization and death from COVID-19.

Even though that means it still offers strong protection, health officials are putting a lot of effort in convincing people that the J&J vaccine is not the “inferior” vaccine.

VDH says it expects the J&J vaccine to make up close to 20% of the state’s supply in April, increasing to about 30% in May.

In Fairfax County, conversations are ongoing about giving registrants the option to choose which vaccine they will receive, but it will all depend on supply availability.

“The best vaccine is the one available to you at the appointment,” says Lasich.

In Fairfax County, though, that isn’t yet the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

This article has been updated to further clarify that Fairfax County did receive an initial allotment of J&J doses but allocated them to Inova, which is a partner of the county.

Photo via Fairfax County Health Department

Thanks to federal and state partnerships, some local retail locations of CVS, Walgreens, Safeway, and Harris Teeter are offering no-cost vaccine appointments separate from Fairfax County.

However, with demand far exceeding supply, appointments remain extremely hard to come by, even as the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine begins to roll out.

Virginia is currently in Phase 1b, meaning those 65 or over and those with 16 to 64 with underlying medical conditions are eligible to receive the vaccine.

The Virginia Health Department tells Reston Now, Tysons Reporter’s affiliate site, that more than 80,000 doses are being given to retail pharmacies statewide for distribution, an increase from last month.

The 69,000 J&J vaccine doses announced last week started coming in yesterday (Mar. 4), VDH confirms, and clinics across the state are expecting to start using it today (Friday).

VDH also says that they’ve directed retail pharmacies to “prioritize” those 65 and over to “make significant progress in vaccinating that vulnerable population.” All of this provides hope that more vaccines and more appointments will soon become available for those that are eligible.

Early last month, CVS began offering vaccine appointments at local stores. Currently, it is providing the vaccine through 41 pharmacies in Virginia with appointments booked through their website, but that includes only one location in Fairfax County.

CVS spokesperson Amy Thibault says there are roughly 41,580 appointments per week available at the 41 locations statewide, meaning each store has about 1,000 appointments per week. Most of them are using the Moderna vaccine.

However, as of today, all appointments have been booked at the one Fairfax location.

“In most (if not all) states, the number of individuals who are eligible to receive the vaccine under the state’s rules far outnumber the state’s available doses,” Thibault said.

Currently, more than 100,000 people are on the Fairfax County Health Department’s waitlist. As of Mar. 4, close to 150,000 people in Fairfax County have gotten at least one vaccine dose, and 87,401 people have been fully vaccinated, according to the VDH data dashboard.

Thibault confirmed that CVS is receiving a “one-time allocation” of 212,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine this week that will be sent to stores in 17 states. Scheduling for that began yesterday (Mar. 4) on the CVS website, with vaccinations starting today (March 5).

She says CVS has the capacity to administer 20 to 25 million doses a month nationwide, assuming there’s an adequate amount of not only the vaccine, but also other supplies.

Other retail pharmacies offering vaccines in Fairfax County face similar challenges.

Safeway and its parent company Albertsons are offering appointments to those 65 and over. According to their online scheduler, the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine is now being offered.

Locations in the county include one on Elden Street in Herndon, South Lakes Drive in Reston, Georgetown Pike in Great Falls, and West Ox Road in Fairfax.

So far, no appointments are currently available at least through March 13 at any locations.

“Store supply is based on allocations from state and local health departments. New appointments are added to the online scheduler as more vaccine become available,” Albertsons spokesperson Andrew Whelan told Reston Now. “Demand is high and appointments are often claimed very quickly. As dose allocations increase, so too will the opportunity to secure an appointment.”

Walgreens joined the federal partnership on Feb. 24 and has started administering vaccines in Virginia. But, right now, there are no appointments available within 25 miles of Tysons, Reston, or Fairfax.

Harris Teeter’s website says limited quantities of vaccine would be available at select locations in Virginia starting on Mar. 1, but a company spokesperson told Reston Now that this hasn’t happened yet.

“Harris Teeter is expected to receive limited quantities of the vaccines soon at nine pharmacies in and around Northern Virginia…Appointments will be released as vaccine allocations arrive,” the spokesperson wrote.

Giant has taken another approach. Instead of creating its own appointment system, the grocery chain is using the vaccine supply allocated to them by the federal government to help the Fairfax County Health Department vaccinate their waitlist.

“People invited from the queue will be able to select from several Giant locations within the Fairfax Health District,” the health department said on its blog. “Locations and details will be included in the appointment scheduler email.”

Photo via Fairfax County Health Department

A major project to widen nearly seven miles of Route 7 between Reston Avenue and Jarrett Valley Drive remains on track for completion by July 31, 2024.

It is also expected to be completed within its $314 million budget, Virginia Department of Transportation spokesperson Jennifer McCord confirms.

The improvements include widening the heavily-trafficked road — also known as Leesburg Pike — from four to six lanes between Reston and Tysons, adding shared-use paths for pedestrians and bikers, and making major design changes to intersections.

It’s all being done within the guidelines of the Fairfax County Comprehensive Plan.

Discussions about the project began nearly a decade ago, and the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors approved it in 2017. Workers broke ground on construction in June 2019. It’s expected to take just over five years to complete.

Over the last two months, construction has continued at different sections of the road.

While much of the construction activity currently underway is focused in the Reston and Great Falls sections of the project, crews in the Tysons segment between Faulkner Drive and Jarrett Valley Drive have been working to relocate a water main between Beulah Road and Towlston Road.

Eastbound traffic on Route 7 between Lewinsville Road and Jarrett Valley Drive in McLean has been shifted north to accommodate construction.

Landscaping work and third-party utility relocations are underway throughout the roadway.

Periodic traffic changes and lane closures are expected to occur throughout the corridor as construction continues.

While COVID-19 has limited crews’ ability to work side-by-side, the decreased traffic volume — particularly in the earlier part of the pandemic — has allowed VDOT to extend work hours.

Photo courtesy VDOT

(Updated at 12:10 p.m.) The Fairfax County Health Department has completed sending out vaccine appointment invitations to 42,000 eligible residents who signed up on Jan. 18 and is now hopeful it will be able set up appointments at a faster clip.

“Now that we have got thru [Jan. 18 registrations], we anticipate that we will move more quickly through the other dates,” Fairfax County Health Department spokesperson Tina Dale told Reston Now, Tysons Reporter’s affiliate site. “In addition, we are working with more vaccination partners, so this, too, will assist us in moving through our registration list faster.”

If residents registered on Jan. 18 or before and have not received an invite, Dale says they should check their spam folder. If there’s no email with the subject line “Schedule Appointment,” residents should call the COVID-19 vaccine hotline at 703-324-7404, and a call taker should be able to assist.

The county’s dashboard now says they are currently making appointments for those who registered on Jan. 19.

Jan. 18 was the first day that the county allowed residents who qualified for Phase 1b to register for COVID-19 vaccine appointments. Phase 1b includes residents 65 years old and over and those 16 to 64 with underlying medical conditions.

When vaccine appointments opened to those in Phase 1b that day, more than 42,000 eligible signed up and registered — far exceeding any other day.

In fact, the county’s vaccine dashboard shows that the 42,000 registrations on Jan. 18 alone matched the number of registrations over the next four days combined.

The county acknowledged when the dashboard launched in mid-February that sending invitations for scheduling a vaccine appointment to everyone who signed up on Jan. 18 would take “several weeks.”

As of noon today, more than 95,000 residents remain on the waitlist, which means they are awaiting an invitation to schedule an appointment.

The county says it doesn’t have an estimated timeline for when those remaining people will receive an invitation to sign up for a vaccine appointment or when the county will open appointments sign up those in Phase 1c for appointments.

However, the Virginia Department of Health expects the vaccine supply to increase over the next two months, Dale says, and the Commonwealth has said they expect to get through all of those who are eligible and want the vaccine in Phase 1b by mid to late April.

Essentially, demand still far outweighs supply — a continued issue since the vaccine first started being distributed in December.

Overall, about 176,700 residents have been vaccinated in Fairfax County, which represents just over 15% of the county’s total population.

That rate is comparable to Virginia and the country as a whole, which have, respectively, vaccinated about 16% and 15% of the population, according to The Washington Post.

Additionally, on Friday (Feb. 26), the county acknowledged that there were issues with about 2,800 registrations “not being correctly captured in the system due to technical errors.”

Dale says that these registrations have been corrected and were a result of a combination of issues, including both “user error and system error.”

Since then, the county has added new features to the registration to reduce the possibility of user error, like providing two fields for email addresses and limiting the number of characters for phone number and zip code.

The county is also asking people to review the spelling of their names and email addresses and to ensure their date of birth is accurate to make sure there are no errors.

Photo via Fairfax County Health Department

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors is aiming to formally update its Workforce Dwelling Unit (WDU) policy to provide more affordable rents for local workers as rents continue to increase across the region.

The proposal, which will come before the board for a public hearing and a vote today (Tuesday), offers greater flexibility to developers and has a particular focus on the Tysons Urban Center.

Under the proposed policy, developers in Tysons would have two options for meeting their workforce dwelling unit requirements:

• Make 13% of the units WDUs, with a breakdown of 2% at 60% of the Area Median Income (AMI), 3% at 70% AMI, and 8% at 80% AMI
• Or make 10% of the units WDUs at 60% AMI

Adopted in 2010, Fairfax County’s current Tysons WDU policy gives developers a 20% density bonus if they commit to making 20% of their rental units affordable at various income levels for at least 50 years.

Fairfax County Housing and Development Director Tom Fleetwood says expectations for WDU commitments in Tysons are higher than in the rest of the county “because of the density available in the Tysons Urban Center.”

The Board of Supervisors initiated a review of the county’s workforce dwelling unit policy last July after a task force convened in March 2019 found that the policy was, in effect, allowing market-rate units to be considered WDUs by including units at 100 and 120% of the AMI, which is currently $126,000 for a family of four in the D.C. area.

The task force recommended amending the policy so that it can more effectively serve its purpose, which is to provide more affordable housing in the county’s urban and mixed-use centers, like Tysons.

“We conducted a housing strategic plan process over the last two or three years, which identified, sort of these lower incomes as being in the greatest need,” Fleetwood said. “While at the same time, the higher income tiers that were served under the original version of the WDU program really were closer to the prevailing market rents here in Fairfax County.”

About 1,600 WDUs have been introduced in Fairfax County under the current policy, according to Fleetwood.

Based on a county staff report released in Janaury, the proposed amendment lowers the household income levels included in the rental WDU program from a maximum of 120% AMI to 80%. It also now includes households at 70% and 60% of AMI in the program.

It also updates the policy to allow developers outside of Tysons to get a 12% density bonus by offering 8% of their rental units as WDUs, a drop from the current 12% threshold. 4% of the units should be at 80% AMI, 2% at 70% AMI, and 2% at 60% AMI.

The Fairfax County Planning Commission unanimously recommended that the proposed policy changes be approved when it met on Feb. 3.

The amended policy that the Board of Supervisors is voting on today also includes revisions to update data, rework outdated terminology, and remove references to programs that no longer exist.