Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Land Use Policy Committee, Tuesday, May 12, 2026

Date: Tuesday, May 12, 2026
Place: Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 1h 23m (video)
Official meeting video (Fairfax County): https://video.fairfaxcounty.gov/player/clip/4146
Official Board of Supervisors page (Fairfax County): https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/boardofsupervisors/

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-27. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:03] their seats, please. I'd appreciate it. I had a story about me doing that to my Sunday school

[00:00:15] teacher, didn't you? Yes. Oh, my God. I just came up in a family discussion yesterday. Okay. It's still good morning. We've had a great discussion in the first work session. I'm going to call the

[00:00:52] Land Use Policy Committee meeting to order. We have our minutes from the last meeting. If I don't hear any corrections, those will stand as accepted. Okay. I am going to keep us moving and turn it over to uh jen miller to get us kicked off on the housing task force action plan overview all right excellent uh jen miller deputy count executive for community development and for those of you who were in the prior meeting of course the board um that kind of laid the foundation for the need for fairfax county to focus on economic competitiveness out of that august board matter

[00:01:27] arose a housing element that then of course was developed into the september 9th board matter on housing initiatives to increase production and sustain our economic advantage. Housing is a key element to economic competitiveness. We've heard this from our business community, and the board knows this well.

[00:01:43] So one of the key elements in enabling our economic competitiveness is to address housing. We stood up a housing task force, and Ben Aiken has been the lead project manager for the housing task force. So I will turn it over to him, as well as the other subgroup leads that we have at the table who have briefed their various elements.

[00:02:01] Just as the last meeting was a lot of information, there's a lot of information here. We did make public on the website that Tony will talk about later, the Housing Task Force Action Plan. That's really more of an internal county document because it includes a lot of, like, the Economic Opportunities Task Force.

[00:02:19] It includes the elements of what is the initiative, what are our objectives, what are the key performance indicators, what is our action timeline, and then we have a very complicated Gantt chart that measures the timeline for that. So that will be our internal document. This is intended to be an overview of those key elements that we'll address today that are supplemented by the Housing Task Force report.

[00:02:39] So with that, over to you, Ben. Thank you, Jen. Do I have my presentation? Let's wait for that. Thank you. As Jen said, my name is Ben Akin. I'm the Deputy Director for the Department of Code Compliance. And for the past eight months, I've been serving as the Project Lead for the Housing Task Force, or what you may hear me refer to as HTF during the presentation.

[00:02:59] I'm joined by our Task Force Agency Leads, thank you, who will be providing details on a selection of key initiatives later in the presentation. The work of the task force reflects the efforts of over 50 senior staff, dozens of participants from the private development community, and input from planning commissioners and members of the Board of Supervisors.

[00:03:15] Eight months ago, when I was asked to lead this task force, I think some people wondered why the Deputy Director for Code Compliance was what I was doing managing a housing production initiative. Perhaps that was a fair question. But to me, the connection between housing production and maintaining compliance in our existing buildings is very clear.

[00:03:33] Over the last eight months I've been involved with HTF, my agency has investigated more than 50 properties where owners were either creating multiple dwellings, where there should only be one, or allowing overoccupancy beyond one family limitations, and these are often unpermitted and unsafe situations that we come across. DCC cited at least another 250 properties with various maintenance violations over the same period, and I know we're catching only a fraction of those.

[00:03:55] Some might call that law-breaking for profit or just the expected results of deferred maintenance, but I don't see it that way. Fundamentally, what I see in many cases is people under pressure trying to solve housing problems the market isn't solving for them. What my investigators face every day are downstream consequences of a supply crisis, and that's exactly why I'm happy to have contributed to this effort.

[00:04:16] So what we're presenting is Fairfax County's answer to that crisis. 13 agencies with shared responsibility for implementing 33 initiatives and a clear-eyed acknowledgement that housing isn't just a social program, it's an economic imperative that underpins the vitality of our entire environment. Earlier today, just recently, just in the last meeting, you heard from the Economic Competitiveness Task Force.

[00:04:41] The two concurrent task forces work collaboratively with shared staff and aligned initiatives, as Jen mentioned. While I know this was covered in the previous committee presentation, I want to again highlight some of these points on why housing is important as a matter of economic development. First, housing is foundational economic infrastructure on par with transportation and utilities.

[00:04:59] Employers evaluate housing conditions when making location and expansion decisions, and a constrained housing supply limits overall economic growth potential. Businesses need workers with reliable means to show up to work, and without stable housing, productivity suffers. Housing is key to supporting business and workforce attraction and retention.

[00:05:18] You heard about this a lot during the last meeting. And so we know limited housing supply drives those wage pressures, increasing business operating costs, and negatively impacting their bottom line. We know regions with well-supplied, diverse housing options attract a broader range of industries and supply those businesses with critical human capital for their sustainable growth.

[00:05:37] Inclusive housing policies, meaning policies that support housing across the income spectrum, provide housing which expands access to those jobs, education, and opportunity for individuals at all income and life stages. High housing costs disproportionately impact lower- and middle-income households, and that housing stability improves their long-term economic outcomes.

[00:05:59] Housing markets also drive broad fiscal and economic impacts. Just consider how long commutes driven by housing costs reduce regional productivity. So by concentrating development, we achieve economies of scale, not only in expanding our tax base, but providing efficient delivery of services with those tax dollars throughout our region.

[00:06:17] Finally, the younger workforce that fuels our economy is being completely priced down of housing opportunity. We've experienced a consistent net loss of residents aged 30 to 44. And this isn't about younger folks just complaining that they don't have an easy button for housing, suffering through, as I know many of us have, the years living with our parents, having roommates, saving through those post-grad years until we can afford a place of our own. This is about that traditional ladder of attainment from shared or smaller housing to the fixer-upper to the forever home being completely stripped of its rungs. There are fewer and fewer options, leaving more families faced with either leaving or being stuck in housing that they can't afford

[00:06:54] to move on from. This is on top of while our older population, ages 65 and up, is growing as individuals live longer and are increasingly locked into their longtime residences. Historical patterns of healthy churn have been disrupted, limiting filtering effects and impacting an already constrained housing picture. The Housing Task Force held a project kickoff in the fall following the release of board matter on September 9th, and under the leadership of Deputy County Executive Jan Miller, we mobilized work in response to seven specific directive areas. Those were that we focus on development incentives and process, making sure that we're creating incentives

[00:07:32] to speed and simplify approvals for affordable and other residential projects, that we expand our focus on entry-level homeownership, that we work with faith community properties to encourage the addition of affordable housing on their faith-owned land, that we focus on our public-private partnerships and capacity, that we increase technical support from departments and streamline our public-private education facilities and infrastructure, our PPEA Act processes, so more public-private partners, public-private affordable housing proposals can be reviewed and built. That we focus on affordable housing finance, then we explore new funding tools and capital

[00:08:12] strategies there. And that we leverage the role of the private sector, that we work with our businesses and other employers to identify ways the private sector can directly support us. And finally, aligning our legislative priorities that we want to make sure that our Fairfax County agenda to advance housing policy is front and center with the General Assembly. The board matter clearly defined our problem, which is that we have a critical gap between supply and demand, that we need to address the supply to retain our economic health and competitiveness.

[00:08:44] Working as a task force, we formed a vision, which is that residents across all income levels and life stages will have housing options in Fairfax County. And finally, our core mandate for the task force was to develop a comprehensive multi-departmental roadmap that increases housing production, streamlines development processes, and seeks to expand housing opportunities across the housing continuum. The logos on this slide represent 13 agencies who have contributed to the work of the task force. Additionally and importantly we want to acknowledge and recognize our many external partners including non-profit organizations, housing developers, regional bodies, our colleagues

[00:09:21] at VDOT who have participated in meetings, provided feedback, and offered their subject matter expertise to support the development of our action plan. And while we've listed these partners I did want to note that this is to thank them and acknowledge their participation but we're not expressing an endorsement of any non-county organization as part of this plan. Can you tell I worked in a budget office before? Compliance. The timeline visualizes the work we've done over the last eight months. I want to emphasize to a large degree, and we talked about this in the last committee meeting, that a lot of this work was ongoing. And so we leverage that work already

[00:09:59] planned and daily work of our participating agencies. Our team, I have to say, is incredibly active in their respective communities' expertise from planning, housing, health, finance, legal, economic development, and permitting. They are key contributors not only locally, but to the regional and national discourse on this topic, and I've been incredibly impressed with the knowledge and connectedness of this group, and they've been highly inclusive, bringing a diversity of perspectives to the table. Their experience and networks allowed us to be efficient with our time, creating feedback loops to inform the action plan on our proposed initiatives, all while managing their other day-to-day responsibilities that paralleled the work of this task force.

[00:10:35] In terms of the points of our engagement, we did have seven formal sessions, predominantly with the development community stakeholders, but many more informal meetings among our seven subgroup members of the task force, as well as with our outside partners. We brought both specific elements already forward, like work toward the accessory living unit ALU zoning ordinance amendment, as well as providing overviews in several sessions with the Board of Supervisors committees, Planning Commission's housing committee, and in targeted briefings with many of you.

[00:11:04] While eight months is a considerable amount of time, again, we see this as an incremental effort of steps on a path that we have been on and will continue to walk together. This action plan we're delivering is not something that we just stick on the shelf. It's a living document, something that we will continue to iterate on and be responsive both to the market and ongoing direction provided by those of you around the table.

[00:11:26] The next few slides give a broad overview of the scope of the crisis and its impact on the county. It's a distilled summary of much of the data and other information that's contained in the Housing Community Development Housing Needs Assessment, which was released publicly on April 30th and was briefed previously at the Housing Committee in February. Like many jurisdictions in Virginia and across the country, Fairfax County is facing a housing crisis. Since 2013, the county added roughly twice as many jobs as homes, creating a structural imbalance that the market alone cannot correct. Conservatively, we estimate that we need at least 40,000 new homes

[00:12:00] in the next 10 years by 2035 to meet the current demand. The consequences of these challenges are already visible in the data. Since 2018, Northern Virginia has experienced a consistent net loss of those residents I've mentioned aged 30 to 44, which is exactly the workforce that fuels our economy, fills our schools, and builds our community. Those households leaving the region earn on average $22,000 more than those moving in. We're educating young adults through our publicly funded school system who can't afford to stay. We're asking essential workers, our nurses, teachers, first responders to commute from other jurisdictions that can house them, well, we can't. If left

[00:12:39] unaddressed, the crisis will lead to challenges for business attraction and retention, a shrinking tax base, and a community that loses its diversity and dynamism. This is an economic stability issue, a workforce issue, and a quality of life issue for every resident. Addressing and overcoming the housing challenge uplifts every one of our neighbors in Fairfax County. Unfortunately, the market isn't delivering homes that most people can afford to buy. The median income for a family of four in Fairfax County is $164,000. That family can afford to buy a $586,000 property, assuming a 30% cost of housing burden as part of overall living expenses. With today's median

[00:13:19] home price, though, at $770,000, homeownership is simply out of reach for the majority of our residents. And that $770,000 price includes all homes from condos, townhomes, and single-family detached. Only 765 homes, or just 13% of the total homes built between 2021 and 2025, were affordable to that family, making $164,000. Meanwhile, 34% of homes built during this period sold for over $1.1 million. And while homeownership has long been a stretch for many families,

[00:13:58] rental units are also unaffordable. Rents have climbed 40% since 2015, and nearly half of all renters are cost-bred and spending more than 30% of their income on housing. We know Fairfax County is only one component of a larger interdependent regional economy and housing market across the metropolitan Washington region. Within the county, levers available to us will not be enough to turn the tides quickly in favor of producing more housing. So from elected leaders, appointed authorities, community leaders, members of the public, and applicants subject to our permitting processes, we must all collectively act and cooperate to improve the rates of housing production.

[00:14:33] We've got to agree that creating more housing is a benefit we want and that doing so through smart, strategic options for density is the approach we're going to take now and into the future. So as mentioned, the housing market isn't confined to our county lines and we have to continue to find ways to address those challenges.

[00:14:50] I think I'm one slide behind. Yep, sorry. As of 2024, 39% of the people working in Fairfax County live in another jurisdiction. Only 61% of the people living in the county also live here. And so you may have heard another version of that data point on the live-work data previously.

[00:15:08] And it's recently amended. And I know Ms. Miller, as well as our countywide data and analytics director, Michelle Gregory, met with a data analyst from Weldon Cooper Center, who went over our figures again from the competing data sources. One is the public-use microdata sample, or PUMS, and the other is the longitudinal employer housing dynamics, or LOTUS data.

[00:15:26] Don't really ask me to go any deeper than that. I'm sorry. But I know that the latter, Lotus data, is more geographically precise, but it doesn't include a lot of the parts of the workforce that make up Fairfax County, which is the self-employed, many federal workers, military, and gig workers that make up sort of an outsized percentage of our residents and employees.

[00:15:46] So we looked at that data, and it changes the narrative from most workers in Fairfax County don't live here to that most, in fact, 61% live here and work here in the county, so that we're glad to see that slight majority of workers living in Fairfax County being able to live where they work. It doesn't mean that their housing is affordable or that necessarily with a county as big as Fairfax, they're able to live in the part of the county that would best improve their convenience and quality of life. As you know, the commute from Lorton to Reston is not what many would consider short. To the extent we do have available, affordable, and attainable

[00:16:23] housing, it's because that for many years Fairfax County has been a leader in producing affordable housing and maintaining a strong economic position through our principles of smart growth and long range planning. And yet we're lagging our peers and supply is simply not keeping pace with demand. This is somewhat of victims of our own success story. I know Chairman McKay, you spoke to this during the last meeting and I think you were spot on, but stagnation now is not an option if we want to sustain those economic advantages that we have and intend to keep. Finally, and as you know, we've had a very active session in the General Assembly, and various bills were approved in the legislative session to support production goals, including bills supporting tax exemption tools,

[00:17:01] regulatory flexibility for affordable housing, and more. We're not going into legislative impacts in depth today, or at least we don't intend to. I'm going to certainly ask questions, and Jennifer Van Eze is here, and we're happy to get into it if you'd like. But as we do continue the work of the task force, we'll be assessing those legislative implications more closely and working closely with the legislative team as they look ahead for their future planning.

[00:17:26] As expressed on the previous slides, the issues facing the county are congruent with our regional neighbors, the Commonwealth, and throughout the nation as a whole. It's clear that the housing crisis exceeds the capacity of any single locality or industry and requires coordinated action among all levels of government and the private sector. Unfortunately, there are a few quick or easy solutions, and accordingly, the Housing Task Force focused on the primary levers within the county's authority to increase housing, things on the rightmost section of this graphic, namely land use and zoning policies, entitlement and approval processes, and targeted incentives. The work of the task force identified multiple factors that are contributing to the crisis, many of which are

[00:18:03] outside of the county's control. These include rising construction costs driven by tariffs, labor shortages, material price increases, elevated borrowing costs associated with interest rates and financing, and a widening gap between wages and housing costs, particularly for low and middle income housings. And while we heard a lot in the Economic Initiatives Committee about workforce development programs, and we know that those are fantastic programs helping residents with upskilling and creating pathways for career growth, we also know that wages across industries have not kept pace with housing inflation and that the county's interventions can only go so far. We can influence but not fully control certain other factors like population and job growth, land

[00:18:42] availability, and community sentiment. This is why the message of partnership is so critical. County staff are committed to holding up their end of the bargain, but we need help. This means the entire development process ecosystem, from our applicants, our community stakeholders, to our decision makers, need to agree.

[00:18:59] When trade-offs are on the table, the priority needs to be risk-biased toward housing production. Through our work, our research, and feedback received from the staff subject matter experts and our external partners, we arrived at seven areas of focus that were going to be necessary to increase production of housing in the county.

[00:19:18] So in response, HTF developed 33 initiatives to address with the levers we have available based on the direct input from the developers and housing providers. These initiatives respond to the challenge by encouraging new housing development through county policies, creating ways to defray costs of affordable housing, improving coordination in our development review, simplifying requirements and improving transparency, expanding the suite of tools available for affordable housing, fostering a more collaborative all-parties culture and building, attracting, and retaining strong economic partnerships.

[00:19:53] This slide provides a visual of our overall roadmap, including the 33 initiatives along with estimated timelines. Today's presentation is just going to focus on 16 of those initiatives, which are selected based on their higher impact potential and relationship to the necessary board actions, which will be brought forward over the coming months.

[00:20:11] Every bar shown on the Gantt chart ties to specific action items, which are found in details for each initiative in the action plan. The entire action plan has been distributed to you, and as Jen mentioned, information being made available on the county's Housing Solutions website. Specific dates and timelines may be subject to change, but our intent is to bring this back for regular updates so everyone's aware of where we stand at any given time on implementation.

[00:20:33] We talked about accountability during the last session, and I think that that's front and center with our priority here. So a little bit on the feedback that we received through the process, including from a feedback survey we conducted. So on March 19th, we presented an overview of the proposed initiatives, including several that are now included in the report that you just heard about responding to the economic competitiveness board matter.

[00:20:56] And so this group included major developers, home builders, land use attorneys, construction contractors, and affordable housing operators. Following this event, we provided a survey to these participants. We also welcomed county staff to complete the survey. We collected responses from 58 individuals, including 20 county staff.

[00:21:14] So while the survey sample of 38 private sector and industry stakeholders may seem limited, this group represents key interests in the land use and development life cycle in Fairfax County. The folks we had involved in this process, I can promise you, are the most engaged, experienced, and familiar with the county land use, zoning, entitlement, and permitting processes.

[00:21:34] There were also several opportunities for these and other interests to participate in whiteboarding sessions between county staff, industry partners, to discuss challenges and potential improvements, and changes for the county to consider. Recommendations and action items from all of those engagements have been incorporated into the list of initiatives we're presenting as part of this action plan.

[00:21:51] As you can see, about two-thirds of the respondents expressed confidence that these initiatives will collectively produce positive, measurable results. Respondents were asked to rate every initiative on a scale of zero to five, and so the top five highest-rated initiatives included developing new FCRHA financing products, creating additional flexibility within the comprehensive plan, instituting property tax incentives, updating the comprehensive plan's housing element to incentivize affordable projects and instituting a special exception option for affordable housing, which would simplify the entitlement process. A detailed summary of results from the survey are included as an appendix to the action

[00:22:27] plan. All right, thank you for that, giving me some time to give that introduction. We've broken the rest of the presentation down into our seven areas of focus, and I will let each of our presenters introduce themselves after I give a little bit of information about each of those seven areas. So work under this focus area to encourage new housing development through county policies, excuse me, it seeks to adjust county policies to increase the number of homes being built, particularly at attainable prices for residents with moderate incomes. It includes creating alternatives to the site-specific plan amendment process for designated commercial areas,

[00:23:04] piloting smaller format housing concepts in our market, and removing barriers for homeowners to build accessory living units. Good morning, afternoon, wherever we are. I am Tracy Strunk. I'm the director of the Department of Planning and Development. And the first one that we have up here is our suburban village centers. And if you were paying attention to our policy plan that came through last year, we added into the policy plan a definition of an item called a suburban village center, which would be a mixed-use community focal point within a suburban neighborhood,

[00:23:40] So outside of, say, Tyson's or other high-development-focused areas, but generally located along arterial roadways. They're appropriate for redevelopment, mixed-uses, medium-intensity housing. The policy plan, we put in some associated policies associated with that, and the next step is going to be to amend our area plan and concept for future development to actually identify those areas so that plan amendments would not be needed to do development in those areas.

[00:24:13] Examples of places this might be would be the redevelopment, the relatively recent redevelopment of Grand Park Plaza, some proposals that were done at Pan Am to redevelop with housing. University Mall is another area that we've sort of thought about. So areas like that that we can go ahead and put in the plan, these are areas we want mixed use, we want mixed intensity housing, and then you would not need to do a plan amendment for that.

[00:24:35] The goal there, as I said, fewer site-specific plan amendments this will also we think really actually help with clarity for the neighborhoods for the people who the citizens and for the developers that those are areas that we are expecting to see that kind of housing so that will help with the with the certainty what could develop in the area I will say that to accommodate that work we are going to be looking at maybe not rolling out a whole new site-specific plan amendment process next time but as we do that we'll come and talk with you and we will definitely Talk about still being able to process what we may be used to call it an out-of-turn plan amendment

[00:25:11] But of course we we need to get this in so that we can move move faster better later We are the action plan that targets board adoption of this by the end of calendar 27. Thank you similarly Another kind of exciting thing and and Ben mentioned it is this compact housing village idea The goal of this is to really look at barriers for some of those smaller smaller starter homes and using that information to really inform a pilot project to do this.

[00:25:44] One of the goals of this is really to find out, is this a useful tool really for affordable or moderately priced housing? Is it a useful tool for just developing that smaller size housing for people? Do you need free land to make this work or is this something that could happen otherwise?

[00:26:03] And sort of a side goal on that is also to really demonstrate to the community that small, more dense housing with smaller units is actually something that can really fit into your community and do well. So that's another piece of this goal is to really prove that sort of to the neighborhood.

[00:26:21] We're also hoping, we think that there might be some builders and developers that might do this kind of format that are not currently working in Fairfax County. And so we think that by working on a pilot program, that can kind of help us flesh it out. Are there more people that we can bring into the development universe in the county?

[00:26:37] So thank you. This was also mentioned before, our Accessory Living Unit Zoning Ordinance. This initiative is currently underway, and it will update our zoning ordinance regulations for the Accessory Living Units, which are known in other places as Accessory Dwelling Units.

[00:26:54] We're really looking to address some of the issues we have seen over the past several years since we did loosen up our ALU ordinance already. And so we've done some memos about where we are on that.

[00:27:10] We have some real good ideas about what is a challenge for people who want to do these and how can we make that more streamlined. We're also looking at ways that we can get a little bit more flexible with our ordinance to actually really support more people who might want to provide this type of housing. for folks we did present this to the board land use policy committee here in december and you'll be seeing it again in um july actually we're going to be coming back and we're doing the community outreach right now you're probably starting to hear some comments on that we're going to look at some draft text this summer and as i said we'll be back on at the next meeting

[00:27:43] actually i believe of this of this committee to bring this back thank you thanks tracy our next focus area seeks to deploy county policies which are aimed at reducing the cost to develop and operate affordable housing projects.

[00:27:59] This includes evaluating the extent to which affordable housing is expected to meet equivalent profit conditions to market rate development, as well as ensuring the comprehensive plan is written with clear intent toward incentivizing these types of projects. Again, Tracy Strunk, Planning and Development. The comprehensive plan element, we talked about some things that we're going to be going into the policy plan.

[00:28:19] Also, the housing element of the policy plan is one of the things that is next up on the table. And really, the goal of updating the policy plan is similar to our previous policy plan, to streamline, to make sure that we're not duplicating language in the policy plan and in the area plans and site-specific plans, to make sure that all of the housing policies really do align with the Board's goals, the strategic plan and other adopted initiatives like this one, to support all housing production. This is not just about affordable housing. This is supporting all housing production. But as part of it, we will also be looking specifically at some of the

[00:28:55] affordable things and aligning reviews, maybe if HCD is doing an RFP to try and align that better with the future planning and zoning processes so that that whole process can go more smoothly. And it will also support some of the other initiatives that you'll hear talking today.

[00:29:12] It will support the special exception I'll talk about before the suburban villages I already talked about. Thank you. So as I just mentioned, the idea of a special exception for affordable projects um you know this this sort of came out of the conversation about faith and housing and churches that in particular that might have extra housing that they might want to do but they're zoned to a less intense zoning district they're not planned for housing so currently the process is they have to amend go through and amend the comprehensive plan do that whole process then go

[00:29:46] through a zoning process the idea of creating a special exception would be to be able to look at intensifying housing particularly affordable housing in some of those areas not not necessarily by right although we are going to have to look at how that goes with some of the recently passed state legislation but in areas to really say you might we can do this we can still involve community input looking at very site-specific considerations a lot of our areas have stormwater for example that really does need to be addressed and so we have if I think most

[00:30:23] people know we have a special exception for independent living which has which allows intensification over the base zoning this would be a similar idea not we don't know if that would necessarily be a multiplier per se or some other way but that is basically the idea to allow the intensification of housing on these sites without as strenuous strenuous process to go through all right Thank You Tracy our next focus area is focused on streamlining how county departments, state agencies, and applicants work together throughout the development

[00:30:59] process to reduce delays and confusion. This includes expanding dedicated project management support within LDS for affordable and economic initiative projects, establishing senior-led working groups with VDOT and FCDOT to resolve transportation conflict conflicts, and enabling faith communities to better understand and act on development opportunities on their land.

[00:31:19] Good morning, everyone. I'm Greg Steverson. I'm the director of Fairfax County Department of transportation. While FCDOT is an important part of many of all of these initiatives, because transportation, as we know, plays a huge role in land development, there's one piece that we're specifically tackling in FCDOT related to the interactions that the county and the development community has with VDOT as part of the land development process. A lot of this ties in heavily with VDOT's own mandate that they received that stems from Executive Order 3 that was done earlier this year. Our strategy here is to work closely with VDOT to tackle a lot of the things

[00:31:57] that came out of our own specific transportation whiteboarding session, things like minimizing conflicting comments, better reconciling comments through meetings versus doing just additional submittals, making sure there are clear processes for notifying applicants of approvals that VDOT has done of things like traffic studies, setting up communication processes for making it known when review schedules may be at risk.

[00:32:25] So we're working on a lot of those different things. But VDOT has a new liaison with Fairfax County. Deputy County Executive Miller and I have met with him already, as well as the leads of their entitlement side of the world and their permit review side of the world.

[00:32:42] And myself and my team will also be in the next couple weeks setting up meetings to sort of kick off this process that we have outlined here to talk with VDOT and their respective folks about the work that we're proposing to do. Brandy Mueller with Land Development Services.

[00:33:02] So we, LDS, are proposing to expand the existing project management support program by establishing a dedicated point of contact that would guide and focus on complex housing development projects to include affordable housing, but not limited to that, but from concept all the way through project completion.

[00:33:21] So again, this would significantly improve the overall time to market. The structured project management approach further streamlines that collaboration with the applicant across county departments. So you're talking about not only land development services, but you're talking about planning, you're talking about housing, you're talking about the fire marshal's office.

[00:33:41] So we believe that this will help through the life cycle of that project, and they will benefit from an established schedule with agreed upon milestones that are worked, again, across those agencies. and with the applicant, allow for early intervention, and a dedicated subject matter expert that will help span across those county agencies and navigate those conversations, and again, include our partners in housing, zoning, and the fire marshal's office. Thank you, Brandy. Our next focus area, you'll find the most individual initiatives under this area, and here we want to make it faster,

[00:34:18] clearer, and more predictable for applicants to navigate the development review and permitting processes this includes streamlining the affordable dwelling unit ordinance improving clarity and zoning comments and staff feedback publishing common errors in building and site submissions creating tiered building plan review pathways modernizing digital permitting tools and committing to 12-month site plan processing timelines it also includes a comprehensive review of the public facilities manual pfm and county codes to remove redundant or conflicting requirements Thank you again, Tracy Strunk, Planning and Development.

[00:34:51] This first initiative is about updating our affordable dwelling unit ordinance, which is a zoning ordinance amendment. You heard earlier that one of the reasons that we have the amount of affordable housing that we have in this area is we have had a longstanding and very successful inclusionary zoning expecting people to provide affordable housing as they do developments.

[00:35:11] But it has been a while since we've looked at it, and we know there's some tweaks we need to make to that. So the goal of this is first to really look at the ADU ordinance and refine that through reorganization. We're talking about removing the administrative requirements from the zoning ordinance so they can be more easily found and more easily updated when needed.

[00:35:31] Eliminating the ADU board, which I don't think actually even has anyone on it at the moment, in favor of administrative or board of supervisors' approvals that can, again, still make some modifications when needed. And second, to really align the Affordable Dwelling Unit Program with our Workforce Dwelling Unit Program, which is a policy, not a regulation, and serves a different market level.

[00:35:52] Right now, they actually have slightly different standards and different policies, and that makes for confusion for everyone, and some of them are better than others. So one of the goals is to really align those, make all of those programs work better. This is on our Zoning Ordinance Work Program. You will be seeing in July. One thing, as we have started looking at this, in addition to sort of this, you know, obviously process updated the ordinance, we have started looking at is it time to look at how we do our calculations, which types of units we require ADUs in, do we even potentially just have one program and not the policy and the ordinance.

[00:36:26] That's a slightly bigger picture to look at that. And so one of the things we'll be talking about is do we want to go there? And if we do, do we take that all as one, which is going to probably push this timeline out a little bit, or do we take this in phases and do sort of the process stuff first and then come back with the other?

[00:36:42] So that's just, you know, potentially some tweaks in some ordinances when you look at that. Our next item here is comprehensive plan flexibility and alignment. There's really two initiatives we're looking at kind of paired together under this. First is really clarifying our process for cases that need to go both through a comprehensive plan amendment and a zoning ordinance.

[00:37:03] We've done more of that over time, but there's always sort of this question about which of those processes is leading, which goes first, how exactly, how concurrent are we doing those? And different cases need different, you know, different processes. And so we are, our planning division and our zoning evaluation division are already having conversations about really defining what makes a case, and we'll be talking with the planning commission about this soon, you know, what makes a case to appropriate to go through a more concurrent process versus a less concurrent process.

[00:37:35] The idea here is really clarity, understandability, shortening the timeframe where possible, but not short-changing the timeframe, I would say. One of the big issues is going to be how we deal with transportation analyses, and we've started talking with our Department of Transportation about that. The second piece of this is building on the policy plan phase one. In policy plan, another thing that we did was already set up some policies for when you have, say, a small area, a transit station area that has a particular use mix or a particular development level expectation and that we've studied and that we know that that's sort of the right for the whole area.

[00:38:13] Right now, our policy plan in some places is very specific about this land bay gets this and this land bay gets that. And one of the things that we're looking at doing is being a little bit more flexible on that. So if we have the whole area, you know, do we need to, you know, it's going to happen over here more faster than it happens over there, but just being a little more flexible.

[00:38:30] So you're going to see that as part of this initiative as well. Clarity and understanding during zoning processes. This is obviously something that we work on sort of continuously and have always been working on. But following on with some of the work actually that LDS has been doing with really working on their site plan comments and really paring down comments, we are looking to make sure that our comments are understandable, addressable, really highlight major priorities while still giving the developer the flexibility.

[00:39:05] A lot of the zoning, as opposed to the site plan requirements, which are very, or hopefully at least more black and white, a lot of our zoning expectations are, as you know, not negatively impacting the surrounding community or not negatively impacting the transportation.

[00:39:21] That can mean different things to different people. And, you know, most of the work, there's a whole bunch of different issues that could be addressed, and you could address them in a lot of different ways. But we really want to make sure that people, that our development community and the citizens understand what is really expected of a development and have some opportunities to be flexible in how they address that.

[00:39:43] This is going to, you'll be seeing my partner agency directors will be seeing some communications from me in the near future because that's really going to take all of our reviewing agencies joining in with us on this. We might need to be looking at our PLUS system, and we've had that for a few years now and how there's some really good things about that with the digital plan review and how that puts all the comments in one place, but there's also potentially some ways that that could be worked on to provide a more clear or more streamlined comments.

[00:40:17] And I did want to say that as this, we already have been, and we kind of grouped it under here, reiterating the fact that we are available at any time anyone wants to come in in person, and our teams are actually working on, you know, a lot have been doing in-person site visits in that and really sort of building that interpersonal communication that I think is really important for moving through a complicated process easily.

[00:40:43] Sort of similar here, enhancing the zoning case interpretation process. We hear from people a lot, well, I'm not quite sure what it means when I need to get an interpretation. Some of that's because an interpretation can mean anything from what did they mean in 1972 when they used these particular words on this plan to, well, I just got this approved last week and discovered that I need to move my stormwater management because I have to change.

[00:41:08] So it is intentionally a process that has a lot of flexibility built into it, but we are working with our development partners to do some more metrics, get some more clarity out there, put it out there to try and sort of get everyone sort of understanding so they have that predictability coming through the process.

[00:41:29] I think that's mine. Yep. Brandy Mueller again here with Land Development Services. So, as Ben mentioned, there are a number of initiatives that are related to the housing matter that are focused on the development process. I'm going to speak to two today that we received feedback through those surveys from developers that we think have the highest impact in addressing this area.

[00:41:52] So, the first is LDS is reinforcing our commitment to limiting the site plan review comments to regulatory requirements. It is an initiative that is underway. We are not waiting to do this because we all agree that this is an important requirement and have put forward the work to set this forward.

[00:42:09] We are doing ongoing coaching with staff. We're also regularly holding collaborative meetings with our outside agency partners because, again, this responsibility is shared amongst more than one agency. And we have also published on our webpage our comment philosophy memorandum.

[00:42:25] So under the leadership of our director, Bill Hicks, each division has issued a comment philosophy, which states the division director and the department's commitment to how we provide comments during our review proceeds, that they're structured, that they're actionable, and that they're limited to regulatory or policy requirements.

[00:42:43] In addition, as we promote that consistent policy-based review, we are also regularly evaluating staff's application of that policy through, as I mentioned in the previous meeting, our third-party quality control report. We have performed that report for a year now, and as of the last 30 days, are now posting the quarterly report on our webpage for transparency and accountability.

[00:43:08] Furthermore, in the upcoming weeks, the report will include our outside agency partners reviews in that evaluation, and so that will inform future collaborative meetings. Next slide. We are also focusing on a 12-month site plan processing commitment and reaffirming this commitment to ensure that site plans can be consistently approved within a 12-month time timeframe, even as low as six-month timeframe, through this improved coordination with our partners in DPD, as well as VDOT and our industry partners and other review agencies.

[00:43:47] We performed a work group over the past year with our stakeholders and our industry partners to establish agreed-upon milestones because it is an interactive process, and both the county and the applicant have responsibilities in hitting that successful timeline.

[00:44:02] We are emphasizing, again, the clear regulatory expectations of our reviews, both with our internal partners and those outside agencies. We're holding quarterly meetings to evaluate how that continues to go. We are also working to establish consistent and flexible interpretations, whether that's amongst staff internally or through a formal interpretation request and partnering with DPD to accomplish that.

[00:44:29] Lastly, we're partnering with industry and continue to do a feedback loop through various stakeholder engagement meetings in hitting those agreed-upon turnaround times with them and establishing kind of that feedback loop on what may be getting in the way. Again, this commitment is shared amongst industry as well as LDS and our partner agencies, continuously evaluated through those meetings.

[00:44:50] We are also publishing the established roadmap. So in this exercise, we developed a roadmap that transparently outlines those milestones and how long we've all agreed that it should take that will be published in the next 30 days and help align those expectations and further provide industry with a template that they can actually use when preparing their project schedules and give us something to compare against when a site plan is actually submitted and any questions arise during that process back to ben thank you brandy the next focus area includes initiatives to broaden the financial and programmatic resources available to make affordable housing development and home ownership more viable

[00:45:29] it includes developing new fcrha financing products to fill gaps in affordable project funding exploring property tax incentives to reduce development costs creating new purchase assistant program for moderate income first-time homebuyers and affirming long-standing board budget guidance to align affordable housing development and investment funding with the county's 10,000 unit affordable housing goal hello i'm anne shafir from the department of housing and community development. I'm here to talk about the kind of the biggest new tool that we've developed, which is one that we're going to bring to you as a proposal, but it's a real estate property tax incentive. Currently, our main financial tool that we use, as you know, is

[00:46:09] subordinate debt, and the board has for years supported housing production and affordable housing production specifically through contributions to the AHDI fund, and our utilization of that has created thousands of units as we leverage those funds to get more and more private equity and debt. What our goal here is, is to better leverage those funds by diversifying our tools and putting additional tools into various projects in order to reduce our blueprint investment in each project and make the money go farther. At the General Assembly in 2026, a new law was passed, HB 854,

[00:46:43] which allows localities to create tax tools and tax exemptions for non-profits. We hope to use this legislation and leverage it to create some opportunities here in Fairfax County and use it for our projects that we work on, particularly affordable projects. A lot of localities use this tool already, including Montgomery County. So we're going to sort of use some of their guidance as well to see how we can structure a program that works best, but also avoid some of the pitfalls other jurisdictions have seen in implementation. Property taxes are a very large portion of operating costs. They can be up to a third of operating costs. So reducing these

[00:47:21] can really help a project, especially one that will require additional debt in order to actually make it work. We think that the reduction of subordinate debt can get up to $25,000 per unit, so that is less blueprint that we can put into projects by using tax tools and basically investing that tool early rather than later in the process. We believe that it is going to be very effective, in particular, in supporting new construction on county and EPSRHA-owned land, and this is important because those properties have never paid taxes, so it's not taking something off of the tax rolls. It's just having an additive tool so that they can offset the taxes once those

[00:48:01] projects get into operation. And similarly, we hope that this tool can be used to support the no net loss preservation goal as well. Sometimes those projects need some additional capital in order to make major renovations to allow properties to sustain for the long term. And we think that potentially a tool like this could obviate the need for subordinate debt completely.

[00:48:22] So we hope we will be able to bring this to you in the coming year, and we hope that the proposal will be accepted. Thank you. Okay. Only one initiative under this focus area, but it's an important one. We've talked a lot about the importance of shifting the culture and processes around land use and decision-making towards solution-oriented collaboration. It includes redesigning community engagement so that it strengthens rather than slows development outcomes. This focus area is embedded throughout all other initiatives with the intent that all work supports this overarching goal of enhanced collaboration and shared ownership

[00:48:56] of results. Tony Zalacoff, Chief Equity Officer. This initiative really is designed to strengthen, as Ben said, community engagement by establishing a consistent, unified approach with shared standards, principles, and practices that we can engage with residents. The goal is really to improve coordination and increase inclusive community engagement that more accurately reflects the full range of residents impacted by our decisions. We want engagement to be

[00:49:31] consistent, inclusive, and coordinated across the county without being rigid or one-size-fits-all approach. The initiative provides a common foundation that sets clear expectations and promotes intentional early engagement that's coordinated across departments and aligned with countywide standards. We propose standardizing training, creating shared tools, and common tracking and reporting so departments can learn from one another and reduce duplication of effort using both staff and community time more effectively and efficiently. Importantly, it's not meant to be prescriptive. Departments can adapt the framework to their operational

[00:50:11] realities, regulatory requirements, and service models, but the core aim is to ensure that decisions are grounded in real community experience and leads to stronger and more equitable outcomes. Thank you. Thank you, Tony. Our last focus area, we want to build the county's internal capacity and external relationships needed to proactively pursue housing and real estate opportunities. This includes advancing employer partnerships to develop workforce housing solutions that help businesses attract and retain employees in an increasingly cost-burdened housing market. Hi, Joanne Phoebe with the Department of Economic Initiatives. So as you've

[00:50:47] heard, employers often rank housing as a top barrier to hiring, retention, and often factors into their expansion planning. But sometimes employers don't know how to engage in this topic because it's not part of their core business. County pathways aren't always visible, and there's no clear model for how employers can participate. So this initiative gathers real intelligence on workforce housing needs across sectors and income bands to drive smarter county tools and policy.

[00:51:13] It creates clear pathways for employers to connect employees to existing homeownership and rental opportunities that the county offers, capturing referrals that aren't currently happening. It better defines employer roles, helping them understand what assistance programs are available.

[00:51:32] And through this work, we'll also be looking out for ways to build partnership models that are able to pilot and scale. So the county's existing business engagement efforts are a natural front door for this work. Our economic development teams can help spread the word, surface interested employers, find those partnership opportunities, and through that existing work we can make outreach happen faster.

[00:51:56] This work also pairs well with some of the workforce engagement opportunities that are currently under development through the Economic Competitiveness Task Force work, so coordination is happening. And then finally, there are several state grant and loan programs that also tie well with this work, and so we'll be looking out for the right types of projects to apply.

[00:52:14] Thanks. Thank you. So wrapping up here real quickly, next steps, we're going to reflect on the discussion that we're about to have with you all today. We'll work on coming back to you on a regular cadence through periodic progress reporting. We talked about messaging and transparency and holding ourselves publicly accountable. The Housing Solutions website is now live, and you can look forward to a briefing during the next committee meeting from OPA on the strategic communications plan. And then finally, we want to continue to grow the coalition of our internal and external partners, create opportunities for engagement, refining these initiatives,

[00:52:51] and ensure we keep the pedal down on this priority. These are just some anticipated waypoints for future board actions. You can see them on the screen. I'll save time by not reading them all, but you can see that we've laid out several that are of importance, a high impact, and that you'll be looking forward to seeing coming to you for decisions in the next fiscal year. That wraps up the presentation. Thanks. Thank you very much. I'm going to make a couple brief comments, turn to the chairman, and I ask my colleagues to be succinct. We might not have time for answers to what they ask, but we will get there. I'm very excited about this work, some of the projects like

[00:53:31] the smaller housing units and all. There's a house in Fairfax City that went on the market built in 1954 for $715,000. These things are apparent of our problems. One of the other issues that I started thinking about, especially since we've just adopted the act of transportation. In the board's mind, we say that we want to be flexible and these are guidelines. But when staff gets a document that the board approved that lists all these things we want, I don't understand how that

[00:54:03] process is for a staff member to truly understand what can I be flexible about. And I want to be respectful of staff that that is doing the work that they think the board wants us to do and how we get to that point of flexibility because i think that's something that we're really going to have to work on mr chairman yeah so a couple points and i'll just leave with one question um first i i appreciate that we're having this conversation in a land use policy committee meaning no offense to our affordable housing our housing committee but you know this is not you I always talk about housing as it used to be it was a moral imperative.

[00:54:41] It's now an economic imperative. The old Fairfax model was people cost us money. The new model is we need people to fill jobs, and they can't afford to live here. And that is a huge transformation. We know it.

[00:54:58] Most of us know it. We need to make sure our community knows that. And that, to me, is one of the biggest hurdles. You know, a number of the state actions that were taken were taken because there are some really bad actors in Virginia who keep affordable housing out, period.

[00:55:14] Their ordinances, their comprehensive plans are designed to prevent it from happening. Here, we actually want it to happen. And the challenge is, is we need to be ahead of the state because, frankly, we understand land use a lot better than they do. And so this is, you know, there are some state policies coming in line, but we need to think about why that happened to begin with.

[00:55:34] And that is because a lot of parts of Virginia just don't want this to happen. And that's a very real, very real problem. On what Kathy was saying about the policies, I mean, to me, the best policies that we have in the county are the ones that are flexible enough to understand the moment we're in.

[00:55:53] Understand the moment we're in. Our comprehensive plan, our zoning ordinance, they're living documents, but they're not living with us, unfortunately, because the moment we're in is we're in a housing crisis. And so how do we look at those with the flexibility that we need?

[00:56:08] And so I really appreciate these initiatives. You know, the next point is when we review cases, and Tracy was talking about this a little bit, many of our transportation, we have a case coming forward for housing. There's a lot of focus by the staff of the community on the transportation impacts in the intersections around it.

[00:56:28] But the reason we have a transportation problem is because people have to drive too far from where they live to work. They focus on the environmental problems, and it's important. The stormwater on the site, the pocket park, all of those things. But many of our environmental problems are because people work too far from where they live.

[00:56:48] Or we have legacy developments that have not been incentivized to redevelop, and they were built under old policies that were in place that didn't respect the environment. And so we have to think about the collective transportation problems, the collective environmental problems that we're trying to solve, not just the ones at the intersection and not just the ones that are on the actual site of the development that has been proposed. Every parent that I talk to in the county right now is worried about whether their kids will be able to afford to live here. We can solve that. But the problem is

[00:57:25] when those same parents come before us and oppose housing near their neighborhood, they don't understand what was being explained to us at the beginning of this, which is if we don't do that, your kids are destined to never afford to live here.

[00:57:41] And unfortunately, most of the testimony we get is about not allowing things to happen because people are thinking, I've got my house and I'm okay. Instead of thinking about where are these kids going to live? Where are our seniors going to live who want to downsize?

[00:57:57] Where are we going to get the people to fill these jobs that our employers are talking about? They need jobs filled. So I'm going to close with kind of a challenge, I guess, to us as a board, and maybe it's a little bit of tough love here. But the one thing that staff didn't put in this document, which is the most important one, is do we have the political will to actually do this? As leaders, we can't just respond to a couple people who are outspoken against things. We have to also understand what

[00:58:32] the silent majority needs right now. What moment are we in? The state, for the wrong reasons, has recognized we're in a housing crisis. And so what have they tried to do? Impose their will upon local governments. We understand land use a lot better. But at a certain point, we also have to impose our leadership skills on the rest of the community to understand we can't just be thinking about what's going to happen next week or next year in this county. We have to be thinking about what is our county going to look like in 10, 15, 20, 25 years? We're getting ready to celebrate

[00:59:05] graduations. A lot of kids walking across the stage that we've made a $16,000 a year investment in their public education. The question is, after they graduate, if they go to college or they go into the workforce, where will that be? And we would be crazy to not want them here. But if the number one problem is they can't afford to live here, we've got a supply and demand problem. It was very well laid out, very well laid out. The intersection of that problem, though, in our land use process don't neatly line up. It is our job to try to make sure those things neatly line up.

[00:59:45] And the question is, will we do it or not? Because my board matter, you know, instigated a lot of these conversations. The question is, do you go from conversation to action or not and help the rest of the community understand the moment that we are in? And the moment we are in was very well laid out at the very beginning of this presentation. I think, Ben, you did a great job.

[01:00:08] The numbers are clear. We have a great problem. We've created a lot more jobs than we have housing to support on an economic development standpoint. But if we don't bring the people in to fill those jobs, eventually those jobs will go somewhere else. Or worse, the people who fill them will exacerbate sprawl further out into areas outside of Fairfax County and drive through our communities to get to their jobs. Destroying the environment, perpetuating sprawl, putting personal stress into their daily lives through long commutes, missing events that they want to see for their kids at

[01:00:43] night. I mean, those are the real questions that families in the county are facing, and I think we're very well articulated here. So I appreciate the way this was presented. I appreciate that we have real tangible actions that we can take, and I appreciate that some of this stuff now you've put in the travel lane of the board to decide which path that we take moving forward. So thank you.

[01:01:06] Oh, I do have one question and I don't want it answered now, but I would ask us to go back and look at the housing in this county that has already been approved and unbuilt and why. Is it a zoning interpretation problem? Is it conditions that were put on it that's the problem? You know, I mentioned earlier about going out and reaching out to the vacant office building owners to find out what it will take to get rid of those vacant office buildings, I think we should reach out to anyone who has a housing entitlement in the county unbuilt and ask them what it will take to get that accomplished now. And so I would just ask you as a takeaway to think about the best strategy to do

[01:01:45] that, because we know they're out there. Thank you. I have Stork, Palczyk, then Herity. Thank you, Madam Vice Chair. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you very much for the presentation. It's wonderful. It's a beautiful, wonderful follow-on from our economic committee meeting where we talked about the thriving nature of our community and our county and how we're continuing to grow, and we will continue to grow if we can solve our biggest challenge.

[01:02:12] And this is directly from our Committee for Economic Opportunity, the CEO Committee, where we have business leaders, others come together, and they have made it very clear that is our number one problem. And there's only one way to solve that, and that's a supply-demand issue, which means housing for all.

[01:02:32] I've been using that phrase a lot. Housing for all doesn't mean just necessarily the lowest-cost housing or the highest-cost housing. is know we need the specter of housing but right now we know without additional housing we're pricing out the folks who who can really provide that entry level which give them the opportunity to to go up the ladder in whatever way they want so i'm deeply supportive of that um my first question is i was talking to a planning commissioner who will remain nameless at the moment and they said yeah um and this person clearly is a very diligent person he said yeah i never have a chance to read all those staff reports that I get for all the different things.

[01:03:12] And I have to admit, I'll plead guilty to that as well. They're like this thick, right? So is that something that this issue, that something that can be taken on in this process? I know for me, I tell my staff, I don't want narratives anymore.

[01:03:27] I want bullet points. I can scan bullet points. I can see clearly what the key points are. They're like a slide, the presentation that we were just giving today. Those things give me a chance to have a sense of how to bring those things together. So my first request is to take a look and do we really need, you know, reports that thick. And I'm not the best person to ask because I don't have kind of that level of knowledge, but I know that it's an issue that I want to see us try to address. The other thing I wanted to ask about is this is really all terrific, and we talk about the front end process really all throughout, but

[01:04:06] But there, and it does seem to be very, very focused on the upfront part of this, but we know once, you know, what about once construction starts? So we have the site visit, we have all the folks coming together, they're going to say what they're going to do, construction starts. How do we make sure that the people that are also just as critical in getting this done, you know, whether it's the site inspectors, the fire marshals, really all the other agencies that have to sign off in the end to have this supply of housing happen.

[01:04:34] So how do we know that this process is also getting streamlined and can be improved? So those are my questions. Yes, thank you. Quick answer to the last question. We did identify that in the whiteboarding sessions. The development community identified that as a challenge. As mentioned, LDS does publish the timelines, but they had not for other entities.

[01:04:52] The fire marshal recently agreed to allow them to publish and have access to fire marshal data. So those will all be published on the website. I think KPIs are the way of us all having a conversation that's realistic and not some, well, we want to do all these wonderful things.

[01:05:08] Now, tell me what your KPIs are and how did you actually deliver what you said you weren't. So, again, thank you very much. Thank you. I have Palchuk, Herity, and then Beerman. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I'll try to be very brief. Thank you all so much. Brandy might be the only one I hadn't met in person or worked with. Excellent work.

[01:05:24] Really appreciate it. To me, there are really two big things, and really following, I think, on what the chairman was speaking about. For me, it's slide number six that's the most critical, fostering a more collaborative, all-parties culture oriented to yes, if, and not no, because.

[01:05:42] And to me, that cultural change starts with us, with the community, with the leadership. I think we have a tendency to get frustrated at staff, and we're not hearing what we want here but i think we have to understand we got here over decades of very different goals and very different leadership and so i appreciate that we're we want to change and and now the buck is up to us to really ensure that we have the political will to make those changes and we have a roadmap so thank you um but it really we have to value um measure what we value and measure it as a board and as our community.

[01:06:21] So that's why I'm so thrilled to see that the community engagement piece is so critical because I think that's one that I've had some frustration with and that often is seen as a checkmark and depends on our offices probably more than it should because that creates a lot of inequity and a lot of different processes.

[01:06:40] And so to me, yes, KPIs are important, but it's what KPIs and how are we shifting and how are we leading from the top and saying we all believe in this rather than finger-pointing to others when it doesn't happen. So I very much appreciate that.

[01:06:56] And to me, another additional question I've been thinking about, I'm glad we're doing this with economic development, is sitting here, I think Jimmy and I are the only ones maybe who fit in the, I don't know, 30 to 44-ish category, maybe a couple more of us. But I've been thinking about that community and those who, for whom are you?

[01:07:16] i don't know andres i don't try if you feel but i think if you feel that age is different because it's about timelines right and understanding when i was in high school here we knew we could afford to live here right if you were if you were in the timeline where you were having a family buying a home 10 20 years ago you are most likely in the group that's at a different place economically and able to continue to make that investment and think about growing your family and retiring here.

[01:07:47] And then this is the same group that I want to understand how many of those have lost their jobs because of the federal government changes and how much that has exacerbated for the 30 to 4-year-old groups. The ability, I've known many anecdotes, but the ability to continue to stay in this county And to look at both the housing and the economic impacts and knowing that those who have often paid off their mortgages are in a very different place.

[01:08:18] And so as we look at the data and look at each subgroup, I hope we also look at age ranges. We look at areas in the county and we, again, don't see the county as a whole. But as was mentioned, right, getting from Mount Vernon to Reston is not an easy feat.

[01:08:38] And so how do we continue to look countywide at policy, but really hone in on the areas? Because it's the areas that our community moves to. It's not the county necessarily as a whole. And then finally, I think it's important that as we look at those areas, we look at some of those major landowners.

[01:09:05] I know we've talked about this. I keep thinking about groups like INOVA that own a lot of property, private entities. And so because land is so limited now, it's no longer land available for more development.

[01:09:21] As we need to grow up, literally, as a county and build up, especially in our transportation quarters, who owns that land, right? I think that's what we're looking at through real estate. But who owns it? Where can there be opportunities to develop community?

[01:09:40] To me, at the end of the day, it's that 15-minute community. It used to be I could drive across the county in almost 15 minutes. Now I can barely get to my office in 15 minutes, right? And so what is it that is needed in each of those communities?

[01:09:57] Is it housing? For what ages of housing? For what incomes? Is it early childhood schools, libraries, parks, spaces, small businesses? what are the things that are needed in each community and so even though we're doing these all in our separate committees and agency works the more we can especially with jennifer here and her team look how these interact across the board right what makes for a community that someone can move to live in and thrive in and and where are those gaps so that's the one thing is just as as a whole as a community i want our whole community to be able to say fairfax is focused

[01:10:36] on building more housing Fairfax is focused on making it livable and affordable to live here and to have it feel less wonky and so really appreciate because to me this is how we shift that conversation and it is going to take our board having that political will we have one two three four five six seven points right here on the last slide that we are going to have to move forward on um and so the buck is now passed to us and i appreciate it and i personally and i hope our board is ready to take that on thank you thank you harry bierman then alcorn

[01:11:13] yeah and i'm going to try to be quick jen ben and team thank you for the the presentation that's good and i didn't thank you for the last one too but very good work um you know as industry constantly reminds me it's a quantity problem i mean and it's and it's as supervisor stork mentioned it's all levels not just the affordable level i'm going to save my comments on affordable until the the next uh the next presentation but you know really it's getting through that culture of no and getting getting back to what supervisor smith said in the in the requirements versus the recommendation and the flexibility the only thing i want to add to that is we need to make sure the planning commission

[01:11:52] gets the message too because our staff right now is a little afraid of the planning commission So we need to make sure they get the message as well as us. That culture shift is important. Some of us have been talking about it for a long time.

[01:12:08] It needs to happen. I had asked staff yesterday, Mr. Chairman, on the report, the FTPs that had been approved but not built, and I just had one go to that status that I thought was going to proceed.

[01:12:29] It would have been 400 units of housing. They're currently paying about $40,000 in tax. If it gets developed, they'd be paying $2.2 million in tax. It's construction costs. It's accounting costs. Just the permit stuff costs them $10 million.

[01:12:46] And cap rates. We need to look. If we want to solve the problem quickly, and stuff that's not on here, is we need to look at those ones that have been approved in what it would take to get them from approved to construction.

[01:13:04] And creative things like reducing the ADU requirements is what one of the builders suggested potentially. Looking at our revitalization zone, and can we make, if they're replacing a vacant commercial office building, could we make that a revitalization zone and get that housing built?

[01:13:26] Could we do something with commercial office building teardowns That would be an economic incentive because right now it mentioned tariffs before but but terrorists and construction costs are really holding up a lot of these and if we can help them get a little bit over the hurdle We might get a lot of units out I I think affordability we're doing our comp plan review affordability needs to be added somewhere in our comp plan. It's not Unfortunately our comp plan we're going to be dealing with a lot of specific language that's been added over the years So it's going to take us a while to get out of the hole we're in.

[01:14:05] And I still would go back to review our regulatory. I've been saying this for years, the cost impact of our regulation on a cost per unit. We need to take a look at that. I think we can. And my favorite one is, of course, Fair Lakes.

[01:14:21] The whole plan for all of Fair Lakes was 12 pages. Now most of our plans require 12 pages just for landscaping. So, you know, how much landscaping do we really need our developers to put on a page of paper?

[01:14:38] Can't we leave a little bit of that to them? So I'll close with that. Thank you. I have Bierman Alcorn and Sesmore Heiser. Thank you. I'd like to turn to slide 17 and about suburban village centers. This seems like a really promising opportunity.

[01:14:57] Do we know what suburban village center opportunities we already have in the county? Have we identified those locations? Hi, Kelly Atkinson, director of the planning division. Yes, Graham Owen, with the adoption of the policy plan, took the initiative to start to look at what areas would qualify as a suburban village center.

[01:15:18] So we had initially identified just kind of very quickly 43 areas in the county that could potentially qualify as suburban village centers throughout the county. And so as we start to think about further, like, what a board authorization would look like, we'll start having conversations with the affected board members to kind of talk about those opportunities.

[01:15:37] And how many units do you predict that you could deliver in those 43 locations? I do not have that answer for you yet. And it says publication PC and Board of Supervisors hearings by Q2 fiscal year 28. Is that for rezonings or applications in a full entitlement, or is that just to get the plan done by then?

[01:16:01] That is to get the plan done. We're going to focus first on the comp plan flexibility plan amendment and then come to you a couple months later with the authorization to look at the suburban village centers. The suburban village centers takes a little bit more work on our end just to kind of make sure the transportation and all and the infrastructure is suitable as well.

[01:16:18] Okay. I think that's not nearly as aggressive a timeline as you should go for, especially if we have potentially 43 areas where we could take advantage of this, especially given that you say you've already identified potential landowners and potential places to do this.

[01:16:39] One of my colleagues earlier was saying that it's really important that you get the plan in place and then you let everything happen beyond there. I think it's got to be concurrently. I'm not going to disagree with him entirely. Getting the plan in place is what is going to allow us to do more of this.

[01:16:57] But we're not in a situation where we can wait for the plan to be perfect. I think we need to figure out whether it's more site-specific plan amendments, whatever it is, to move that timeline much more aggressively. The idea of just getting the plan in place and then sort of waiting for it all to happen is how we ended up with 22,000 units in the last 10 years while we got 50,000 jobs.

[01:17:19] So I think we should really, I think this to me is exactly why we would have the real estate development team that was mentioned earlier in the last meeting to be the type of people who are taking that landowner who's ready to turn a suburban village center into something different, into mixed use, into more housing, and moving them through this process at speed. Thank you. Supervisor Behrman, I am not disagreeing with you. I just want to make sure I say that. What I want to do then is go look at the work plan and see if we can reshuffle the

[01:17:52] deck to see which we should prioritize as first, second, and third. And maybe this rises up to the top of your work plan, and then we can come back with a better answer for you. Yeah, sure. And I, again, I think it's actually something that's going on concurrently. We're finding the few opportunities that we can move quickly and setting the policy in place so that we can move on more of those opportunities later. Thank you, Supervisor Alcorn, then Sizemore Heiser. Thank you. Good timing. Just to follow up on that, Kelly, you're talking about the concept for future development, correct? That's where this would be implemented? That would be part of it as, yes, as part of this.

[01:18:30] Okay. And let's not forget, because there's new language also in the policy plan about transit ready yep okay we've already yes suburban village center is also transit ready okay yeah we heard you loud and clear during policy plan fantastic uh great thank you and chairman okay thank you very much for bringing up at the end uh more information on basically why things that have been approved have not and i've mentioned this before in reston we have there are 13 development applications over 10 000 units approved but not under construction and i'm going to add to that

[01:19:02] But also in the 100-mil district, right next to the Spring Hill Metro Station, two car dealerships are renovating instead of building the thousands of residential units that have already been approved. And one thing I didn't see, and I'd ask for this when you did the board matter, financing.

[01:19:23] Is there some way that we could look at participating in financing market units? Maybe this is a conversation with the General Assembly, but frankly, what I hear from developers, and Pat, I respect what you hear, but I hear every time, I can't get the financing.

[01:19:44] I can't get the financing. So, and I think there is interest in our General Assembly in having, at least some members, having that conversation. So, thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Sizemore Heiser. I'll be quick. I think you've got some great ideas here. I like the fact that you've sort of hit on different pieces.

[01:20:02] But the big picture of what is the housing that we need to look like, whether it's the compact villages or suburban village centers, I'd love to see that fleshed out a little bit more in terms of how we get there. I love those 43 sites identified. I think transit-ready is great, but if we limit it to just transit-ready, we risk losing large swaths of the county.

[01:20:19] Because let's be real, our county isn't really – the transit was designed to get people from the county to Arlington or D.C. And so I think if we try to just shoehorn around that, we're going to miss parts of the county. Because what I see happening here is what I imagine happened in the 60s and 70s.

[01:20:37] When the growth of the federal government, the military-industrial complex, you went from a rural county to a suburban sort of bedroom community of D.C. I think that same thing is happening now where we're going from a bedroom community of D.C. to our own entity.

[01:20:53] We saw the economic development. We're seeing it in housing. And we're building a lot of infrastructure, doing a lot of great things around it, but we have to have that mindset. So if we're just building around transit ready, what we're focused on is getting people out of building housing on where people have access to get out of the county.

[01:21:10] And we should be looking at housing for where people can and should want to live around the county, including transit oriented. So I just wanted to make that point that if we're making that shift as a county, we should make that shift in every part of what we do. So that's the point I want to make.

[01:21:27] I want to share a quote, I think, around. I love the streamline that you're doing on policies. I want to share a quote from my colleague here because I love it. I'm sorry to share it because she forgot to say it. Policies should be shields, not swords. And I think that mindset shift, right, should be shields, not swords, right?

[01:21:43] We're defending ourselves from bad things, but we're not trying to stop good things. I'm going to stop that analogy before I go down too far the road with it. And then I think the community engagement, which I think we'll hear more about in the next section, is key to this, right? As we're understanding the shift we're making in our community from rural to suburban to our own entity, we need our community to come along with us on that shift, and we need to speak to them in a way that speaks to them.

[01:22:11] The other thing I think we need to talk about that I didn't care a lot about is the lack of land, right? Like we don't, you know, converting, I think that's where we need to be really proactive in what my colleague said, reaching out to owners of underutilized office buildings, but also incentivizing them.

[01:22:28] When I've had conversations with owners of underutilized office building, they're still hoping that office building will go above 50% occupancy. And so helping them understand maybe that's not going to happen. And so this is a better option. I think there's some engagement with that that we need to do, some more proactive, because we don't have the land.

[01:22:47] So we've got to be creative about where all of these suburban village centers, compact villages, and we need to start looking around the transit, around density of height, too. So just some things to think about. But I appreciate this work. This is great, but I think if we can consider what we're shifting ourselves to as a county and how that looks to everything.

[01:23:07] If we're just focusing on getting people out of our county, maybe that's not going to be a good growth for the entire county. Thank you. Okay. I am going to end this Land Use Policy Committee meeting. Thank you all for all the work. I look forward to the updates and our collaboration together to make this a great place to live, work, and play.

[01:23:26] Thank you, everyone.

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