FALLS CHURCH, VA — After residents turned out for Monday’s walking tour on proposed zoning updates to transition zones in Falls Church, city officials continued their discussions ahead of considering approval. But one member criticized the discussion for happening without being a scheduled agenda item.
Transition zones, often called T-zones, are areas between commercial districts and single-family home areas and represent less than 3 percent of land within the City of Falls Church. According to the city, T-zone updates would increase townhouse and multifamily housing options, provide more neighborhood-serving retail, and encourage reinvestments in properties from larger builders while considering stormwater impacts and transitioning to single-family neighborhoods.
There are two T-zones: T-1 zone on North Washington Street on Park Avenue includes current uses like Columbia Baptist Church, Christ-Crossman Methodist Church, Sunrise of Falls Church, single-family houses with commercial use and residential townhouses, and T-2 zone on North Washington Street and Park Avenue near Maple Avenue includes the Kaiser Permanente facility and a small office building as current uses.
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Monday’s walking tour examined current properties in the T-zones and proposed zoning updates being considered. A City Council meeting followed the walking tour, leading City Council to ask additional questions they thought of during the tour and through discussions with residents. City Council is expected to have a first reading of the T-zones proposal on Aug. 7 and refer it to the Planning Commission for recommendation.
After the walking tour, City Council members mentioned public questions about technical aspects of proposed zoning changes, while others have more broadly questioned the focus on building more townhouses.
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A Desire for Townhouses and Affordable Housing
Councilmember Phil Duncan mentioned Tysons Ridge, a townhouse community outside the city closer to Tysons, as an example of the demand for townhouses.
“You can see that the market wants to build that product, and I will just as soon see folks living in City of Falls Church and those sorts of situations, rather than see them jumping across the border,” said Duncan at Monday’s meeting.
Multiple members — Councilmember Mary Beth Connelly, Duncan, Caroline Lian and Vice Mayor Letty Hardi expressed support for making a 45-foot height by-right without special use permit approval to incentivize affordable housing. The 45-foot height was suggested with a 10-foot stepback, which refers to a design pushing a higher level of a building back toward the center to accommodate lower level sunlight.
“I think [45 feet] would allow for the three-story townhouses with the roof deck and penthouse and then the stacked townhome idea, which I think would achieve lower price point and smaller units that we started talking about last week,” said Hardi.
Current T-zone regulations allow by-right building heights up to 45 feet for commercial uses and up to 35 feet for house and townhouse residential uses. City staff’s T-zone proposal calls for making the lesser of 40 feet or three stories by-right development and 50 feet or four stories developments requiring special use permit approval.
Criticism For Unscheduled T-Zone Discussion
While Monday’s discussion wasn’t an action item, one member was critical of it not being scheduled for the public to know about. Councilmember Dave Snyder questioned why City Council was discussing “the most divisive issue this community has seen for the last 10 years without telling people we’re going to be discussing it.” The discussion wasn’t on Monday’s agenda but was mentioned during the City Council comments portion of the meeting.
On the proposal, Snyder added, “since I’ve already discussed this in public session, I plan to ask city staff to draft amendments that will reflect where I think the community really is.”
Connelly responded that the discussion was “super transparent,” as members’ questions resulted from conversations with residents just before the meeting. City Council last held a work session on T-zones on July 10.
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“In my mind, I really would just like to have these answers because this is what the people asked me while I was walking and I had asked at the last week, so I hope that there really isn’t an understanding that there’s any attempt to circumvent the process,” said Connelly.
Hardi added, “For people, I think listening and who joined us, hopefully based on the questions and direction I think you’re hearing from us up here, that we hear from you in the next two weeks before first reading because we do want this to be a very open and transparent process.”
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