Construction on a new facility for the Vienna Police Department appears on track to start this December, Vienna Police Chief Jim Morris told the Town of Vienna Planning Commission on Wednesday (Oct. 14).

With the bidding process for a contractor to construct the new station at 215 Center Street S. now complete, the Vienna Town Council will select a winning bidder during its regular meeting on Oct. 26.

Given that timeline, Morris says he anticipates that police department staff will start transitioning out of the existing station and into a temporary facility in the former Faith Baptist Church at 301 Center Street S. within the next 60 days.

“Between now and December, we’re going to slowly be migrating over into the facility,” Morris said, citing information technology needs as the primary challenge for preparing the temporary space.

The Town of Vienna purchased the three-acre Faith Baptist Church property for $5.5 million on Sept. 18 with the goal of converting it into a public facility. Initially, the building will serve as temporary office space for the police department, but the town has not yet settled on a long-term plan for the site.

As part of the 2232 Review process required for proposed public facilities, the Vienna Planning Commission voted on Wednesday to affirm that the proposed use of 301 Center Street S. is in accordance with the town’s comprehensive plan, which the town council amended on Oct. 5 to designate the property for governmental use instead of institutional use.

The planning commission also recommended that the Board of Zoning Appeals approve a conditional use permit for the site so that the police department can utilize it as a temporary facility.

The zoning appeals board’s next meeting is scheduled for Oct. 21.

According to Michael D’Orazio, Vienna’s deputy director of planning and zoning, the police department is planning to primarily use the former church property as office space with a maximum of 15 employees working there at any given time.

The facility will be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week to police staff, with members of the public permitted on Mondays through Fridays by appointment. About 35 parking spaces in the existing church lot will be sectioned off for the police department, both for police vehicles and the staff’s personal vehicles.

Morris says the building at 301 Center Street has definite advantages over the Beulah Road property that Vienna had originally envisioned serving as a temporary facility while the new police station is under construction.

In addition to having more space, the Faith Baptist Church building has two floors so that the police department can set up administrative offices and other rooms accessible to the public on the ground level, while reserving the second floor for functions just for police officers and staff, such as changing rooms, a rest area, and space for roll call, meals, and report writing.

The church also has a gymnasium that can hold fitness equipment for police officers.

“We were very relieved when this space became available,” Morris said.

Image via Town of Vienna

Fairfax County is putting together a survey to direct funding for the Consolidated Community Funding Pool — which goes to help local nonprofits and organizations. The County is looking for public input on where the biggest needs are.

The goal of the fund is supplement the county’s ability to fill human services needs.

“To determine how these funds should be allocated, Fairfax County, with significant community input, establishes categories that are reflective of the needs residents feel are most important in their communities,” the County said in a press release. “In preparation for the next funding cycle, the county seeking your insight on our current category areas”

The categories are:

• Financial Stability
• Food and Nutrition
• Health
• Housing
• Literacy/Educational Development/Attainment
• Positive Behaviors and Healthy Relationships
• Support/Community/Social Networks

A survey for prioritizing needs is available online, and responses are welcome until Friday, Oct. 30. All responses will be kept anonymous.

As the Tysons plan reaches its 10-year anniversary, Supervisors John Foust and Dalia Palchik spoke candidly to the McLean Citizens Association last night (Wednesday) about some of the challenges facing the Tysons plan today.

While many of the issues were Tysons-specific, they are also challenges the entire region faces as Northern Virginia becomes more urbanized:

• Walkability
• Schools
• Affordable Housing

For some of these, the recent pandemic has both brought the issues into focus and helped present new opportunities.

“One of my favorite topics is walkability,” Palchik said. “[We’re] looking now at how we make Tysons more walkable.”

Palchik pointed to a recent success in temporarily closing a section of Tysons Blvd to allow for more cycling and walking. Palchik pointed to it as a step in the right direction, but said it also took a lot of work to make it happen.

“It took a month to get Fairfax and the Department of Transportation to agree on a location,” Palchik said. “I hope to see more flexibility to create a sense of place.”

Palchik pointed to the planned pedestrian and bike bridge going over the beltway as another upcoming walkability success. Tysons is also slated for more investments to connect the blooming city’s street grid.

“Sometimes, new streets can feel in conflict with existing conditions, but [we’re] trying to make it more walkable,” Palchik said. “Change can be hard, but we’re looking at the upsides and really listening.”

Palchik and Foust both repeatedly praised the foundation of the Tysons plan, but said there are things that need tweaking.

“One issue that continues to bother me is the fact that we don’t have a plan for delivering school facilities in Tysons yet,” Foust said. “We have gotten a proffer of land for an elementary school. That’s an issue that’s going to head up, going forward.”

Palchik said the county needs to be more flexible on how schools are built, for example, building smaller schools with less grade levels than traditional elementary, middle, and high school models.

“We’ve been working on proffers, because the county can’t buy land,” Palchik said. “We’re looking at being more flexible, knowing this area is urbanizing. Can we get five acres? Can portions of development be dedicated to classrooms?”

Foust said another issue that’s really been prevalent during the pandemic is the lack of affordable housing in the area.

“Our challenge is delivering housing for 80% below and 60% below [Area Median Income],” Foust said. “We’re working on that challenge to increase the amount of housing that is truly affordable.”

COVID-19, Foust said, has hopefully helped to highlight the role essential workers play.

“COVID, if nothing else, has opened up our eyes to who is truly our essential workers, and they’re not the people making the income that can put you in a luxury apartment in Tysons,” Foust said. “They’re the kind of people working in the department stores and grocery stores, the service providers, and they deserve to live in the community where they work.”

Staff photo by Jay Westcott

Fairfax County Public Schools could expand in-person learning to more students starting next week based on current health data, FCPS Superintendent Scott Brabrand says in a presentation that he will deliver to the county school board at its work session tonight (Thursday).

Virginia Department of Health data indicates that Northern Virginia has started seeing a slight uptick in reported COVID-19 cases in October, with 314 cases reported on Oct. 15 for a seven-day moving average of 248 cases. However, the burden and extent of community transmission in the region is still considered low as of the week that ended on Oct. 10.

Coupled with efforts to implement mitigation strategies recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and prepare staff for instructional and operational changes, Fairfax County’s current health metrics support FCPS continuing to phase in in-person learning, Brabrand’s presentation says.

After introducing in-person instruction for select specialized career preparation classes on Oct. 5, FCPS is planning to expand in-person learning to some of its early childhood special education services, including its preschool autism class, on Oct. 19.

Under Brabrand’s tentative timeline, FCPS will continue phasing cohorts of students – mostly younger students and students with special education needs – into in-person classes throughout the rest of the year before introducing hybrid learning for all students in early 2021.

For hybrid learning, students can choose to remain completely online or to receive two days of in-person instruction and two days of virtual instruction. This phase will start on Jan. 4 for grades three to six and on Feb. 1 for grades seven through 12.

“We believe in-person instruction is best to meet our students’ academic, social, and emotional needs,” Brabrand’s presentation says. “We want to phase students back to in-person instruction as safely, efficiently, and as early as possible. All phase-in decisions will be made with student and staff safety as the highest priority.” Read More

The Virginia Department of Transportation is now soliciting public input on its draft proposals for potential safety and operational improvements on Route 50 until Oct. 30.

The Route 50 Strategically Targeted Affordable Roadway Solutions (STARS) study centers on the three miles of Arlington Boulevard between Jaguar Trail and Wilson Boulevard (Route 613) in the Falls Church area of Fairfax County.

Released in an online presentation on Oct. 13, the proposed improvements include:

• Pedestrian enhancements at Jaguar, Allen Street, Graham Road, Woodlawn Avenue, Annandale Road, the area between Marshall Street and East Tripps Run Road, and the Thomas Jefferson Library area
• Turn lane improvements at Allen, Graham, and South Street
• Access management improvements throughout the corridor, including a widened median in the Thomas Jefferson Library area, and extended medians at Allen, Graham, Annandale, and the area between Marshall and East Tripps Run

VDOT says its proposed improvements are primarily designed to reduce pedestrian crashes and improve safety without making significant changes to the roadway. Possible costs range from $2.5 million to $12 million depending on whether they would require any construction.

VDOT launched the Route 50 STARS study back in June 2019 and held a public information meeting on Oct. 21, 2019. An online survey conducted last October drew 962 participants, who identified traffic congestion, pedestrian safety, and travel time reliability as their top three issues with Route 50.

According to VDOT, Route 50 sees over 50,000 vehicles a day on average, and drivers often experience delays during peak hours, especially at the Graham Road and Annandale Road intersections. It also features 10 pedestrian crosswalks and 12 bus stops, while accommodating 60 Metro buses per day during the work week.

The annual crash rate on Route 50 is 32% to 43% higher than the average rate for the other primary highways in Northern Virginia.

“While they were not a large percentage of the reported crashes, pedestrian crashes accounted for many of the fatal crashes and severe-injury crashes in the corridor,” VDOT said in its video presentation.

VDOT had planned to present its initial draft recommendations this past spring, but limitations on large in-person meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic led the department to delay the presentation and deliver it virtually instead.

Community members can provide input on the recommendations by taking an online survey or sending comments to VDOT by email at [email protected]. They can also be mailed to VDOT traffic engineer Bobby Mangalath at 4975 Alliance Drive, Fairfax, VA 22030.

A report with the study’s final recommendations is expected to be released this coming winter.

VDOT emphasizes that the purpose of the study, which has a cost of $280,000, is to give Fairfax County options to consider when making funding requests and developing its comprehensive plan, but no decisions will be made on which projects, if any, will be implemented.

Staff photo by Catherine Moran, image via VDOT

Editor’s Note — Tysons Reporter is running Q&As with the candidates running for the open Falls Church City Council seat. The stories have been condensed and edited for clarity.

Simone Pass Tucker is one of three candidates — along with Joshua Shokoor and Debora Schantz-Hiscott — running for the Falls Church City Council’s open seat in the upcoming Nov. 3 election. A 2016 graduate of George Mason High School, Tucker runs the candle shop Lavender Mensch Candles out of their home. If elected, they would become the first openly non-binary person to take office in Virginia history.

Tysons Reporter: Why did you decide to run for the Falls Church City Council?

Tucker: I have lived in Falls Church my whole life. I grew up being pretty involved in the local community and in politics. In 2008 and 2012, my parents took me door-to-door campaigning for Barack Obama, and I’ve dedicated my adult life to leadership, volunteering, and civic engagement. At North Carolina State University, and then William & Mary once I transferred, I became involved in progressive activism focused on things like reproductive justice, racial equity, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and climate change.

So, I have a history in activism and advocacy work. I came back to Falls Church City with a mission after college to make a Falls Church that is more eco-friendly, more compassionate, more equitable, more just, and more livable for everyone who lives here. I am a non-binary Jewish person, and so, I know what it is like to feel unrepresented by government, and I don’t want anyone else to have to feel that way, so I’m running to be a voice for our marginalized communities, to make sure that everyone’s voice is heard, and really, to bring a fresh perspective to our city council.

Tysons Reporter: For progressive issues like racial justice and environmental justice, why do you think those issues are important for the city to think about?

Tucker: In terms of racial equity, stated support of groups like Black Lives Matter is a great start. You know, Falls Church has a pretty racist past as a city, so we need to pledge to do better through concrete action and policy. In 1887, most of the black neighborhoods in Falls Church City were gerrymandered out, and we passed a local segregation ordinance in 1915 that wasn’t repealed until 1999, and we’re still largely divided actually along that same red line on Route 29.

To address these issues, as a member of city council, I’ll fight to establish dedicated city housing for people who work in Falls Church; purchase, preserve, and prolong the affordable housing units set to expire; fund housing vouchers; end restrictive, racist single-family homes zoning laws; establish public housing; [and] require the usage of body cameras for all police officers. As of right now, actually, we don’t even require our dash cameras to be operated at all times. I’ll bring unrepresented voices to the table by asking them directly what they need from local government. We don’t have a ton of citizen outreach like that at the moment, but it is extremely important to make sure everyone’s involved.

In terms of environmentalism, climate change is going to be costing billions of dollars and even more lives, so it’s really important nationally and internationally, but also at the local level, that we take action now before it’s too late. So, I am lucky enough to be endorsed by a few Virginia Sunrise Movement hubs — Sunrise McLean and Sunrise Williamsburg — and I am a passionate believer in the Green New Deal. The Green New Deal does have a national scope, but there are tons of ways to focus on enacting it at a local level. We focus on our carbon footprint, and we need to implement green energy in all of our government buildings and work towards requiring this in all incoming developments.

I also believe that…adding more green space, more permeable land is really important for Falls Church specifically, because we have a rapidly expanding floodplain, and our stormwater runoff issues are just steadily growing worse. I also think it’s important that we have proportional stormwater management fees and need to rethink how we’re approaching stormwater management. We don’t want to be having pipes that are just redirecting that stormwater. We want to make sure that we’re absorbing it so that it isn’t just causing a problem somewhere else. We don’t want to reroute the problem, we want to solve it. Read More

There’s been some progress on plans to start an autonomous shuttle service between the Dunn Loring-Merrifield Metro station and the Mosaic District, but a large percentage of Americans still have concerns about autonomous vehicles.

The shuttle, operated in a partnership between Fairfax County and Dominion Energy, would be the first driverless public transportation in the region and the first state-funded autonomous transportation project in Virginia. The shuttle would be free to ride.

“The shuttle travel between the Dunn Loring Metrorail station and Mosaic in Merrifield,” Fairfax County said on the project website. “Signage has been installed along the testing route. At the conclusion of testing, the route should remain the same.”

The shuttle started testing in July and word on the grapevine is a new announcement about the shuttle is incoming within the next week.

While autonomous vehicles are generally safe, the few incidents of crashes have been high profile cases.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in what some local advocates and law enforcement officials are calling a pandemic within a pandemic for domestic violence victims.

The Fairfax County Police Department reported a slight uptick in calls related to domestic abuse. Following statewide orders to remain at home when possible, the average number of monthly calls jumped from 158 in February to 191 in April.

Between then and July, that number remained near the upper 190s, with a high of 200 calls in July and 200 calls in September, according to FCPD data released to Reston Now, Tysons Reporter’s sister site.

More victims are coming forward with serious injuries than before than pandemic, particularly strangulation attempts and the types of weapons used.

Efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19 have also presented new challenges for police officers who cannot have face-to-face contact with victims.

“It has been stressed from the very beginning of the pandemic to be aware of domestic issues that arise from long hours confined in a home,” FCPD Sgt. Hudson Bull said.

“Officers adapted to the new safeguards but still respond to calls in progress utilizing personal protective equipment and social distancing to ensure victims of crime are safe,” Bull said.

The Fairfax County Department of Family Services reported a 28 percent increase in the number of monthly calls to the county’s Domestic and Sexual Violence Hotline. Since then, the numbers have stabilized, according to Angela Yeboah, a project coordinator for the department’s domestic violence action center.

“Emotional and psychological abuse also has been used as a tactic to keep victims in the home and fearful that if they leave, they will have limited housing and economic options due to the pandemic,” Yeboah said.

But advocates at Shelter House, Inc., a Reston-based nonprofit organization that offers services to homeless families and victims of domestic violence, have seen a different story.

The nonprofit, which operates the Patrick Henry Family Shelter in Falls Church along with the Artemis House in Herndon and the Katherine K. Hanley Family Shelter in Fairfax, reports a significant decrease in the number of calls since the pandemic began — a silence that concerned many service providers.

“We believe that this initial decrease was a direct result of stay-at-home orders and victims not being able to find safety from their abusive partner in order to reach out for help,” said Terrace Molina, the organization’s marketing and communications manager.

Now, Shelter House, Inc. is seeing case counts return to their previous levels. But the type of abuse is more severe as more victims enter the shelter. More serious injuries were also reported, Molina said.

She says victims need our support “now more than ever.”

High rates of unemployment and added pressures of children attending school virtually have produced more stressors for victims.

“For victims who are in our emergency shelter or other programs, maintaining employment has been a challenge, particularly while also tending to the needs of children who are attending school virtually,” she said

Advocates hope to bring more awareness about the issue in light of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, which happens in October.

Shelter House operates the county’s only 24/7 emergency hotline for victims of domestic violence, stalking and human trafficking. Individuals in need of help can call 703-435-4940. A domestic violence detective and a victim services specialist are also assigned to each Fairfax County police district station. Anyone in immediate danger should call 911.

Photo via Shelter House/Facebook

Update at 4 p.m. — Leesburg Pike appears to be clear to traffic again

Earlier: A car crash at the intersection of Leesburg Pike and Pimmit Drive has resulted in two injuries, though police said neither appear to be life-threatening.

The crash occurred around 3 p.m. One person was taken to the hospital. The road appeared partially closed as emergency personnel responded to the scene, though police said it was unlikely to remain blocked for long.

The busy intersection is near the Idylwood Plaza shopping center.

Image via VDOT, map via Google Maps

Tysons development Circle Towers is rebranding to Trillium Apartments (9401 Lee Highway) as it finishes up a series of extensive renovations.

“The Applicant is in the midst of renovations to Trillium Apartments, including a rebranding from the complex’s former name, Circle Towers,” the property owner said in a report.

The property owner is currently seeking a permit from Fairfax County to reflect that change, though social media accounts for the complex have referred to it as “Trillium Apartments” since at least January.

The website indicates that the apartment complex is available for tours.

The website says units at the facility range from $1,399 for a one bedroom-one bathroom unit to $2,468 for a three bedroom-2.5-bathroom unit, and features amenities like a fitness center and study spaces.

Image via Trillium Apartments