Following a week’s deferral to straighten out some details, the Fairfax County Planning Commission on March 15 unanimously recommended that the Board of Supervisors approve a rezoning application and final development plan for a massive mixed-use redevelopment around the West Falls Church Metrorail station.
FCGP-Metro Development LLC seeks to build 85 townhouses, 810 multi-family dwelling units, 110,000 square feet of office space and 10,000 square feet of retail area on the 24-acre site, which is owned by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA).
The site now has two surface-parking lots, a five-story parking garage, a bus loop and a kiss-and-ride lot. The developer would keep the parking garage for use by Metrorail riders and retain the existing stormwater-management pond.
The applicant intends to build infrastructure first, then construct townhouses and a multi-family building with up to 320 units, plus infrastructure and park spaces to serve those structures. The third development phase would construct a building with up to 280 multi-family dwellings and two centrally located parks, while Phase 4 would construct another multi-family structure and an office building.
Planning Commission member John Ulfelder (Dranesville District) moved to recommend the application. He acknowledged concerns expressed by the public – including the McLean Citizens Association – regarding the applicant’s request for a significant parking reduction, but said that is a separate application that will be handled by the Department of Planning and Development’s Land Development Services group. That body will make a recommendation directly to the Board of Supervisors.
The applicant’s proffers for its rezoning application require it to provide parking in accordance with the zoning ordinance, he said.
“If for any reason the board rejects their request for a parking reduction, they are still going to go forward with levels of parking that are consistent with the current zoning ordinance,” Ulfelder said.
The county’s ongoing “Parking Reimagined” initiative, scheduled for public hearings before the Planning Commission in mid-April and Board of Supervisors in June, might reduce the amount of parking the applicant would need to provide, Ulfelder said.
A proposal under Parking Reimagined would reduce the amount of parking required at multi-family properties from 1.65 spaces per unit to 1.3.
“Based on their proffer, whatever is in effect at the time is what they will have to follow, and they understand that,” he said.
Some of application’s proposed parking rates are somewhat higher than ones in the Parking Reimagined study, said Planning Commission member Mary Cortina (Braddock District).
The applicant’s proffers guarantee that two nearby condominium developments, The Village and The Pavilion, will have perpetual access to WMATA’s stormwater pond.
The site was developed as a park-and-ride facility with plenty of structured parking “and not much else,” Ulfelder said. More than half of the site consists of impervious surface and about one-third has tree cover, he said.
The West Falls Church station’s ridership plummeted after the first phase of Metrorail’s Silver line opened in 2014 and its ridership is now the Metro system’s smallest, Ulfelder said.
WMATA in 2017 filed a site-specific plan amendment with hopes of redeveloping land around the station as a mixed-use area with residential, office and retail space. The Board of Supervisors in 2018 authorized a study of the transit agency’s proposal and included, at Virginia Tech’s request, the university’s adjacent property in the study.
Between January 2019 and April 2021, a community task force met with Fairfax County staff to develop a proposed comprehensive-plan amendment for those sites. The task force voted in favor of the proposed amendment, and the Board of Supervisors adopted it in July 2021.
In response to concerns about pedestrian-and-bicycle safety and access in the area, supervisors subsequently instructed county staff to develop a plan to bolster active transportation within and surrounding the Metro station.
That study, begun in December 2021 and led by the Fairfax County Department of Transportation, identified and prioritized 25 projects that would address those access and safety concerns, Ulfelder said.
The applicant included some of those projects, including major improvements to the Haycock Road bridge, in its development application. The county government is reviewing some of the other projects as it seeks funding sources for them.
The applicant has had to resubmit its application several times as a result of changes made while the proposal was wending its way through the county’s development process, he said.
“In my opinion, the application we are faced with this evening is better, stronger and more fitting due to the significant input from the community and others who have commented on it,” Ulfelder said.
Taken together, the projects “will be a positive boon, not just for the West Falls Church Metro station, but for the surrounding area as well,” Ulfelder predicted.
Critics of the application said it would increase traffic, reduce safety for pedestrians and motorists, and harm quality of life in surrounding neighborhoods. The changes would be major and inconvenience some people along the way, Ulfelder acknowledged.
“We’re going to have to break a few eggs on the way to get there, but I think in the long run it’s going to be great for the neighborhoods, for the people who’d be living there and for the county,” he said.
If supervisors approved the project, the developer likely would break ground in late 2024 or early 2025, applicant’s attorney Andrew Painter told the Planning Commission on Feb. 8. The development probably would take eight to 10 years to complete, he said.
