The City of Falls Church is looking to reduce its residential parking and ramp up its multi-modal transportation options.
The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments’ Transportation Planning Board (TPB) approved $680,000 in assistance for 13 projects, including one to support a residential parking standards update underway in Falls Church.
Details on the update are scarce, but according to the TPB:
This project will update multi-family residential parking requirements for new development in the area. An outcome of this project will include revisions to the city’s Traffic Impact Analyses tables, which are used to estimate potential traffic impacts of proposed land uses and assign parking requirements. The project will also support a potential revision to the city’s zoning ordinance. The updated standards would be intended for use in all future multi-family residential projects and useful to other jurisdictions in the region.
The look at residential parking follows a commercial parking requirements update approved in 2016.
The residential parking standards update would be one part of a broader effort to promote non-car transportation through the city. The FY2019 budget included $25,000 to restore a commuter incentive program.
Photo via Facebook.
A Maryland man picked up drug and weapon charges at a CVS Pharmacy in McLean, according to the Fairfax County Police Department.
Police say the man was arrested for obtaining drugs by fraud, along with other charges, after calling in a fraudulent prescription.
According to the police report, the incident occurred at the McLean CVS (1452 Chain Bridge Road) on Sunday (May 19) morning:
A pharmacist received a fraudulent prescription and notified our officers. The man arrived to pick up his medicine and was arrested. A loaded handgun with an extended magazine was found concealed in his backpack. [The man] was charged with obtaining drugs by fraud, carrying a concealed weapon, carrying a loaded firearm in certain specified localities and possession of marijuana with the intent to distribute.
Photo via Google Maps
The Weekly Planner is a roundup of interesting events coming up over the next week in the Tysons area.
We’ve scoured the web for events of note in Tysons, Vienna, Merrifield, McLean and Falls Church. Know of any we’ve missed? Tell us!
Monday (May 20)
- Sound Check Bingo — 7 p.m. at Caboose Commons (2918 Eskridge Road) — Caboose Commons at the Mosaic District is premiering a music trivia bingo night. The event mixes bingo and trivia contests where contestants hear 30-45 seconds of a song and must determine the title then find that song on bingo cards. Genres range from 80’s to Motown and country.
Tuesday (May 21)
- Capital One Blood Drive — 10 a.m.-2:30 p.m. at Capital One Westpark (7900 Westpark Drive) — Inova Blood Donor Services will be on hand to receive blood donations. Photo ID is required, and visitors are asked to allow one hour for donation.
- Meet the Brewer: Tucher Brewery — 5-8 p.m. at Tysons Biergarten (8346 Leesburg Pike) — Michael Lassauer, the brewmaster of Tucher Brewery, will be at the Biergarten to talk and have a drink with customers. The event will also include free Tucher T-shirts and bottle openers.
Wednesday (May 22)
- Dine for a Cause — 11 a.m.-10 p.m. at Moby Dick House of Kabob (2676 Avenir Place) — Several local charity organizations are partnering together to host a fundraiser for refugees in Northern Virginia at Moby Dick. If the diner mentions the fundraiser, 20 percent of the meal proceeds will be donated to Lutheran Social Services of the National Capital Area to support refugees.
- First Mothers Out Front Fairfax Meeting — 7-8:30 p.m. at Green Hedges School (415 Windover Avenue NW) — Mothers Out Front, an organization fighting climate change, is hosting its first meeting to talk about a campaign to convert Fairfax County to an electrical school bus system.
Thursday (May 23)
- Soft Opening at City Works Eatery and Pour House — 6-9 p.m. at City Works Eatery and Pour House (1640 Capital One Drive North) — City Works at the Capital One headquarters is hosting a soft opening this week with a fundraiser for the Capital Area Food Bank. Seating is limited with reservations at $50 per seat.
- Creativity Showcase — 6:30-8:30 p.m. at Fusion Academy Tysons (1934 Old Gallows Road) — Fusion Academy is hosting an exhibition of student creativity with a gallery-style showing of creations and projects with complimentary hors d’oeuvres.
Friday (May 24)
- Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chair Debate — 7:30-10 a.m. at Valo Park (7950 Jones Branch Drive) — The Democratic Business Council of Northern Virginia is hosting a debate between Democratic Board of Supervisors Chair candidates and Commonwealth’s Attorney candidates. The event is hosted by NBC4’s Julie Carey and is $15 per person.
Saturday (May 25)
- ViVa! Vienna! — 10 a.m.-10 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday and 10 a.m.-6 p.m. on Monday on Church Street — Amusement rides, live music, vendors, carnival food and more will be available all weekend at the family-friendly Vienna festival.
- To the Moon and Back — 4-5 p.m. at Total Wine (1451 Chain Bridge Road) — To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, Schlafly Beer is debuting a new beer: Luna Lager. Tickets to the event are $15.
Sunday (May 26)
- Memorial Day Weekend Concert — 4-6 p.m. at Saint Luke Catholic Church (7001 Georgetown Pike) — The Fairfax Choral Society Symphonic Chorus will be performing a series of songs to honor veterans, including several patriotic American classics. Tickets for the event are $25 — or $5 for students or $40 for reserved seating. Kids 13 and under are free.
Photo via Facebook
A bond referendum coming up in November could help fund capacity additions for James Madison High School in Vienna.
The Fairfax County School Board approved the request for the Board of Supervisors to put a $360 million bond referendum on the November 2019 ballot. Much of the items in the referendum focus on mitigating chronic capacity problems.
Madison is one of 11 high schools in Fairfax that is over 100 percent capacity.
Two other high schools — Justice and West Potomac — are also set to receive additions through the referendum, while Falls Church High School is scheduled for upcoming renovations.
According to the FY 2020-2024 Capital Improvement Program (CIP):
Capacity enhancement additions are needed at West Potomac High School, Justice High School, and Madison High School to accommodate forecasted capacity needs. The relocation of three modular additions is also proposed to provide additional capacity relief to schools in need.
While the budget does not list specifics on the James Madison High School, the CIP says capacity enhancements could include interior modifications, modular additions and temporary classrooms.
Photo via Google Maps
Hot off the launch of a new Vienna location, Fairfax-based Virginia Tire and Auto recently announced a new location in Tysons.
The car repair shop is set to open in the former Merchant’s Tire and Auto Centers at 2055 Chain Bridge Road, across the street from Tysons’ Toilet Bowl building.
Noelle Malley, a spokesperson for the chain, said the Tysons location is expected to open in fall 2019 and will provide 20 new jobs.
The franchise first opened in 1976 and expanded outside of Northern Virginia for the first time with a new Richmond location.
Virginia Tire and Auto also announced that a new location in Herndon will open this fall.
Photo via Google Maps
After 32,000 student trips, the free Metrobus pilot program at Justice High School in Falls Church could be expanding to Marshall High School in Tysons.
Students across the county can use the Fairfax Connector and City of Fairfax CUE bus for free, and students account for 1.4 million trips on those buses in less than 4 years, but the passes have not been usable on the Metro system.
Over the last eight months, 35 percent of students at Justice High School have gotten a Metrobus-enabled student bus pass. Students at the school account for 3,500-4,000 trips per month.
Nearly half of the ridership among Justice High School students was on Metrobus Route 28A, which runs along Route 7 from King Street in Alexandria to Tysons.
Of students surveyed as part of the pilot, 70 percent had never ridden a Metrobus to or from school and 52 percent said they would not ride unless it was free. The majority of students said they also wanted to see more routes, extended hours and Metrorail service added.
The top three uses for the pass were traveling home or to activity centers — Tysons specifically — or to an after-school job.
At a Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Transportation Committee meeting on Tuesday (May 14), faculty and students from Justice High School told the committee about their experiences with the program as the committee considered an expansion of the pilot.
A similar pilot program is planned for either Marshall High School, Falls Church High School or Annandale High School in the 2020-2021 school year.
“Students take the bus to the mall and the movies, but they also go to work with it,” Justice High School Principal Maria Eck said. “I met with a student on a totally different topic, but he told me he got a better job because of the bus pass. Now he can find a job he can get transportation to, and he’s going up to Tysons to help his family.”
Staff recommended renewing the agreement with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority to continue the pilot at Justice High School next year.
“When I first heard about it, I couldn’t believe it,” Carlos Pineda-Lopez, a student at Justice High School, said. “Now, I’m not paying $40 a week for Metro. It’s been amazing. For a family that makes $30,000 with both parents combined, that adds up. Sometimes I couldn’t go to practice or work and that would hurt my family. This bus pass increased my mobility and range of jobs. Now, I can go anywhere in Virginia. That’s how the pass has helped me. It’s helped as a next step towards adulthood.”
Neighbors opposed to a controversial for-profit therapy program got a win from a Fairfax County zoning official’s letter.
A piece of the Newport Academy’s plans to open a facility treating teenagers with mental health or addiction problems in a McLean neighborhood hinged on that facility being a by-right use — a use that won’t require approval by the Board of Supervisors. But local officials are now saying that isn’t the case.
Fairfax County Zoning Administrator Leslie Johnson said in a letter to local residents that the facility is a congregate living facility, which is not permitted as a by-right use at the location.
According to Johnson’s letter, in August 2018 the Newport Academy sent a letter to the Department of Planning and Zoning stating its intent to open two homes — one at 1624 Davidson Road and one at 1318 Kurtz Road — and asked if it could purchase a neighboring house and operate it as a licensed home.
In response, the zoning staff agreed that the buildings would be considered group residential facilities, which are limited to eight residents. The response did not directly answer whether a neighboring home could be used as a licensed home, and the Newport Academy did not contact Fairfax County after it purchased the properties at 1620 and 1622 Davidson Road.
But Johnson said the Newport Academy’s assertion that the homes were separate operations — crucial for qualifying for the eight resident limit — were contradicted by other applications listing the operations as a single program with residents above the limit for the group residential facility classification.
The appearance of the Newport Academy program being a single facility didn’t stop there. Johnson’s letter to the community notes that in April, county staff learned that a 6-foot fence had been built around the facility, “creating the appearance of a completely enclosed facility.”
Johnson’s letter said the supposedly separate facilities were listed as having shared staff, like a security guard and night staff, in both public meetings and other permit applications.”
(Updated 10 a.m.) There’s no shortage of luxury housing coming into Tysons, but what about affordable housing?
According to Brian Worthy, a spokesman for Fairfax County, the limited number of affordable units in Tysons are near max occupancy. But with new mid- and high-rise developments required to devote a portion of the new units to affordable housing, Worthy said there are more units on the way:
As of May 15, 2019, there are approximately 536 rental Affordable and Workforce Dwelling Units (ADUs and WDUs) that have been constructed in Tysons. The average occupancy rate is 94 percent.
Currently, there are approximately 3,919 rental ADUs and WDUs that have been committed by developers through Board of Supervisors approved rezoning actions. We don’t currently track the total number of these units that have been proposed as part of unapproved developments in Tysons, but to date, the major, approved rezonings have all committed to provide affordable or workforce dwelling units.
Worthy noted that ADUs serve households with incomes of 50-70 percent of Area Median Income (AMI). Fairfax County documents show that range as $38,600-$54,050 for single-family households, increasing proportionally to the size of the household.
Tysons’ WDUs serve incomes ranging from 60-120 percent of AMI, reflecting the higher cost of living in Tysons as compared to the rest of Fairfax. The WDU program is designed to help working households find housing close to employment centers and transportation options.
Creating housing affordable to locals at all ranges of the income spectrum has been a countywide problem. According to the FY 2020 Fairfax County budget, a total of 3,016 affordable units — privately-owned homes that are not bound by rent restrictions — have been preserved in Fairfax County between 2004 and 2018, but the county fell 82 units short of its affordable housing goals for last year.
The county projects a growth of 62,184 households over the next 15 years, of which 18,622 are expected to earn 80 percent of AMI and below.
Chart via Fairfax County Government
The showroom’s closet full of prop Gucci and Saks Fifth Avenue bags says just about everything you need to know about The Monarch — Tyson’s new mega-rich condominium building under construction.
Yesterday (Wednesday), developer Renaissance held a project launch celebration inside their ninth-floor office in the Ritz-Carlton (1650 Tysons Blvd) overlooking the site.
The office also doubles as a fully furnished model residence. Renaissance staff guided prospective residents through lavish bedrooms and kitchens, noting amenities like a direct-access elevator that opens right into the living room and white-glove lobby attendants who can carry groceries for residents.
The building offers a kind of opulence unfathomable to anyone making less than $100,000 a year. Units in The Monarch range from $600,000 to just over $3 million.
Kami Kraft, the vice president of The Mayhood Company, which is marketing the project, said the types of employment in Tysons and the proximity to Tysons Galleria were indicative to a need in the area for new luxury condominiums.
The building is currently under construction and is scheduled to open in late 2020.
The project is part of the Arbor Row development, a 19-acre stretch of mixed-use buildings along Westpark Drive. The first building of the project, the residential Nouvelle, was completed in 2015 and the next phase, the senior living facility The Mather, is going to the Fairfax County Planning Commission tonight.
The curved One Tysons East project has hit a roadblock that could stall the project.
Akridge — the project’s developer — has put a temporary hold on the entitlement process for the office building while it works out right-of-way negotiations with the Virginia Department of Transportation over the Route 123 frontage, according to the Washington Business Journal.
Leadership at Akridge said the process should only take a couple of months, but in the meantime, the Business Journal says the project is classified by Fairfax County as “indefinitely deferred.”
The last major change for the project was in April when the building went through a series of design changes, including an effort to mitigate the likelihood of bird impacts with the building.
The project is part of a series of new buildings planned for Tysons East — a neighborhood around the McLean Metro station seeing rapid growth spurred in part by the opening of the new Capital One headquarters.
Image via Akridge
