Dear Friends,

I hope you’re having great summers. These posts have been on a bit of a hiatus while the work has continued. We had a mini break for the July 4th holiday and have been back in session the past few weeks, with one final meeting next Monday night, July 27 before we take a summer recess.

Three calendar things before the city business:

• Civic Jam is tonight! if it’s not on your calendars already, the weather looks perfect for the rescheduled event. Join your friends and neighbors in fun ways to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the US. Food, games, brews, and live music all night.
• Coffee with a Cop is next Wednesday morning, July 29 930 – 11 am at Grocery Outlet. Meet members of our Police team, enjoy coffee and pastries and check out our newest grocery store.
• Summer and fall is the season for block parties and neighborhood gatherings! Falls Church Forward has a new microgrant program to give $50 to $150 to host gatherings that encourage neighbors to build connections, get to know one another better, and imagine what’s possible for our shared places. Grant requests close at the end of July.

There is a lot to catch up on! As usual, these posts aren’t meant to be comprehensive, so I’ll share key topics from city business that have high community interest – read on for the latest updates on affordable housing, public safety, street safety, and commercial area snow removal. A theme that weaves through all of these topics: how we prioritize limited time and resources. Falls Church has big ambitions, but we’re still a small city with a small staff. Every new project means making choices about what gets done first, what has to wait, and how we make those decisions as transparently as possible. We’re also continuing preparing for the next phase of Virginia Village now that the RFP has been issued and we are awaiting bids (due August 6), We have also been interviewing candidates in our search for our next City Manager. We are entering an important transition period and appreciate all the thoughtful input I’ve received from residents and employees.

After next Monday night, we will recess and our next Council meeting will be August 24. I’ll also have my last summer office hours on Wednesday evening August 26 – save the date.

See you soon –
Letty

What Happened This Week (and Last):

(1) Affordable Housing – progress, but plenty of work ahead

We received our annual Affordable Living Report last week which shows real progress – we now have 336 committed affordable rental homes across the city, including 100 new affordable units that opened in the new buildings at Broad and Washington, the Alder at West Falls, and Modera Falls Church (fka, Founders Row 2) the past 2 years and 17 affordable ownership homes.

At the same time, the numbers are a reminder of how challenging affordability remains. Over 40% of Falls Church renters are considered cost-burdened, our median home value is now over $1 million, and hundreds of households remain on waiting lists for affordable housing.

(2) Annual Police Report – one of the safety communities in the region

Police Chief Shahram Fard presented the department’s annual report, and there was a lot of encouraging news there as well. Crime fell another 8% in 2025, giving Falls Church its lowest crime rate in 17 years. Burglaries were cut in half compared to the previous year, and crimes against people reached a five-year low. Traffic safety is also moving in the right direction. While there’s still plenty of work to do, reportable crashes during the first half of 2026 are down 22% compared to the same period last year (they were up in 2025).

Red light cameras will also move to two busy intersections to help improve safety. Revealed at this meeting, the two likely intersections with the most safety risk and actual crashes where the red light cameras will move to: Broad/Washington and Broad/Roosevelt.

(3) Safe Streets

A good segue to our meaty work session this week, where we had a deep dive into transportation safety and neighborhood traffic calming with the CACT – the volunteer board that advises us and works on all things transportation.

The TL;DR:

• Historically, many neighborhood traffic projects have been driven by resident petitions through the Neighborhood Traffic Calming Program.
• At the same time, Council has pushed for a more data-driven, tops down approach and more throughput of projects in response to community desires to make our streets safer for all modes.
• Staff is trying to respond to crash data, school safety concerns, requests from Council, and other city-wide transportation priorities. Those all compete for the same limited staff time.
• While NTC has been on hold the past few months from new requests, staff has been advancing projects already in the queue and working on a restructured program.
• Proposed restructure: staff proposed limiting NTC to 2 resident-initiated projects per year, freeing up capacity to address data-driven safety priorities on higher-risk corridors.

City Council and CACT broadly supported trying this approach, with discussion about whether “two” is the right number or whether a budget allocation model would be more appropriate, the role of CACT taking a bigger role in vetting and prioritizing NTC project requests, doing before-after “did it work?” analysis to ensure solutions addressed the original safety issue, and eliminating neighborhood voting processes which are often time consuming and sometimes water down the recommended engineering solutions.

I appreciated this holistic look at all the projects underway under Safe Streets

(4) Snow Removal Policies

Thank goodness “snowcrete” of last winter is now a distant memory. But even knowing that it was likely an anomaly, we have wanted to revisit snow removal policies in advance of next winter. Last year, there was proactive staff outreach to repeat offenders before storms to clear their commercial properties, a “snow removal phases” graphic used extensively on social media to inform and encourage everyone’s responsibilities, and DPW crews took on curb ramps with heavy duty equipment and bus shelter clearing in commercial areas. We have also had 6 (commercial) and 12 hour (residential) deadlines for snow clearing, but no real enforcement mechanism.

Staff is recommending a combination of legislative and operational changes for the coming winter:

• Fall 2026 (immediate): Amend city code to establish a uniform 24-hour post-snowfall clearing deadline for all properties (Council proposed 12 hours instead)
• Remove the existing fine language from the code, which has been generating complaints because it is unenforceable as currently written. The relevant state code currently applies only to Northern Virginia counties, not cities.
• Seek authority to issue $100-per-day civil penalties for commercial properties that fail to clear sidewalks from the 2027 General Assembly session
• Next winter: deploy inspectors to actively check commercial properties 24 hours after snowfall ends and issue warnings/reminders – a shift from the prior complaint-only model.

We also discussed the importance of school routes, bus stops, crosswalks and corners where the ramps are, and whether the city could maintain a list of commercial snow removal contractors that property owners could hire.

What’s Coming Up:

July 27 – City Council Meeting*

Summer Recess

August 24 – City Council Work Session*

August 31 – City Council Meeting*

*All Mondays (except 5th Mondays and holidays) at 7:30 pm. You can access the agenda and livestream here, including recordings of past meetings

Letty’s Summer Office Hours:

August 26 – 630 – 8 pm (Little Beast)

Dear Friends,

With the July 4th holiday next week, I’ve been thinking about our country’s upcoming 250th anniversary and the choices that shape a community. Milestones like these invite us to celebrate the past and also ask what we’re leaving for the next generation. That question was on my mind throughout Monday night’s City Council meeting.

Virginia Village took center stage in one of our longest meetings in recent memory (we finally wrapped up around 1 am!). It’s one of the biggest decisions we’ll make this year, and I know many residents have been following it closely. We had a packed room, extensive public comment, and several hours of discussion before voting 6-1 to issue an RFP to help determine what comes next. While much of the conversation over the past several months has focused on technical details like zoning and process, underneath those debates is a much simpler question: will future generations have the same opportunity to build a life in Falls Church that so many of us have had?

Read on for the top concerns we’ve heard, how I think we’re addressing them, and the comments I made Monday night. And what’s next – this is just the first of many decisions, far from the finish line.

We’re taking a mini recess before returning on July 13, so these updates will be back in a few weeks too. In the meantime, I’ll be holding my monthly office hours next Monday June 29 at 630 pm at Harvey’s. Stop by if there’s anything you’d like to chat about.

Best,
Letty

What Happened This Week:

On Monday night, we took several votes on Virginia Village:

• Updated the South Washington Street Small Area Plan and Comprehensive Plan (first reading)
• Created a new Virginia Village Overlay District (first reading)
• Authorized staff to issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) to affordable housing developers with 3 scenarios (preservation and small expansion, lower density redevelopment, medium density redevelopment)

As we approach America’s 250th birthday, I hope we remember that every generation inherits a community and leaves one behind. The parks, schools, neighborhoods, and small businesses we enjoy today all exist because previous generations chose to invest in the future, not simply preserve the present. My hope is that years from now, people will look back and say we made room for the next generation to call Falls Church home.

Top 5 concerns we heard and my thoughts:

(1) This is moving too fast.

Over the past five years, the City has been thoughtfully acquiring quadplexes in Virginia Village (see my post about our first acquisition in 2021). The goal has always been the same: preserve and expand affordable housing in a community where the demand for low to moderate income housing far exceeds the supply, despite doubling our affordable units inside the new mixed use buildings the past few years. We also updated our affordable living policy last year, which was a year-long process with the community. Staff has also done a commendable job in community engagement, with 11 public meetings so far – with Virginia Village residents, with adjacent neighborhoods and stakeholders, and broader community.

The vote this week was one of the first milestones with many more decision points to come at the end of the summer, the fall, and into 2027. We’ll get responses to the RFP at the end of this summer, the community will see executive summaries of the proposals, an evaluation committee of city residents/key stakeholder groups like the Planning Commission and Housing Commission will help evaluate the proposals, City Council will decide on a top proposal, begin negotiations with a partner, and make any final tweaks to the zoning code in a “second reading” this fall.

(2) Wait until zoning is finalized before issuing the RFP.

My view is that we actually make better policy decisions when we know what’s feasible. The RFP isn’t selecting a developer or approving a project. It’s gathering information with responses from experienced housing developers about what they could realistically build (based on the city-owned parcels, financing conditions, construction prices, etc) under several different scenarios. In the city’s experience, we have also had several examples where we created zoning rules in a vacuum, only to have no market response and no one use the available zoning.

(3) Any project needs to be compatible with the neighborhood.

I agree that compatibility with the neighborhood is important. I also want to balance leaving enough flexibility in those zoning and RFP rules so we get high quality, creative, financeable options in the RFP responses. We listened to concerns about neighborhood transitions, building heights, setbacks – and those have all been adjusted from staff’s original proposal of 25′ setbacks to 35′ setbacks facing Winter Hill, 3-4 stories facing Winter Hill, and gradually increasing to a maximum height of 6 stories, reduced from 7 stories, on the side facing Maple Ave. Under the medium density redevelopment option – keeping the entire project to 3 stories isn’t financially realistic given high land values.

(4) The zoning overlay changes or removes property rights from owners.

The new zoning overlay is optional. If a private owner wants to keep using their property under today’s zoning, they can continue to do exactly that. The overlay simply creates an additional pathway if an owner chooses to redevelop in the future with more density than what is allowed in their zoning today, by adding open space or adding affordable housing – both are public policy goals that are encouraged with this overlay. While we welcome additional properties to join in the potential city project, we are not using eminent domain to force anyone to sell their properties either.

(5) City Council should not give up control and retain a special exception/special use permit process for any project.

I’ve linked my remarks from Monday night’s vote which covered much of this. If you’ve ever wondered why someone who is naturally cautious (me) would argue for less discretionary review, I’ve tried to explain my thinking. 10 years of observing and being a part of housing and land use decisions in Falls Church have convinced me that good outcomes come from clear rules and thoughtful planning – not the illusion that more control always produces better results – especially if we are serious about affordable housing and smaller scale, infill projects that can’t afford the time and cost of our traditional approval processes. I believe we can be “careful without being fearful.”

What’s Coming Up:

July 1 – Ask the Council Office Hours (9 am, City Hall)

July 13 – City Council Meeting*

July 20 – City Council Work Session*

July 27 – City Council Meeting*

Summer Recess

August 24 – City Council Work Session*

August 31 – City Council Meeting*

*All Mondays (except 5th Mondays and holidays) at 7:30 pm. You can access the agenda and livestream here, including recordings of past meetings

Letty’s Summer Office Hours:

June 29 – 630 – 8 pm (Harvey’s)

July 15 – 630 – 8 pm (Grillmarx)

August 26 – 630 – 8 pm (Little Beast)

Last fall, you laid out an ambitious and transparent process for how this would unfold. You have spent months listening to residents, accurately capturing feedback from across the city, and continuously refining both the zoning language and the RFP—now on its fifth iteration. You’ve shown patience, professionalism, and a willingness to adapt as Council and the community have worked through difficult questions and kicked this RFP vote out a month. The fact that we’re here tonight is a testament to that listening and hard work.

And hopefully, this is just the first of many milestones and the beginning of the work ahead.

When we talk about the future of Virginia Village, I get why people have questions and anxiety. This is one of the most significant affordable housing opportunities our city has seen.

For those just coming into the process or feels this is too rushed – you should know for the past five years, we’ve been thoughtfully acquiring the quads – each one of those were public decisions that re-emphasized our long term goal and commitment to affordable housing. We didn’t just decide to do this overnight. Across the city, we’ve doubled our committed affordable housing units within the new mixed-use buildings. Last summer, we adopted an Affordable Living Policy that set ambitious goals for who we want to be as a city. To the comment we received over email – “Council members should develop zoning that represents their constituents goals and vision for the community” – that’s actually what we’re doing tonight.

And now the moment has arrived.

The question before us is simple: are we willing to follow through on the vision and values we’ve already embraced?

I believe we are. In our hearts, we all know that this is the right thing to do for the city’s future. 

And in this moment, I really want to encourage us to be careful without being fearful. Because that is mostly what I hear.

Whenever communities talk about housing, it’s human nature to focus on what could go wrong. We spend so much time imagining worst-case scenarios that we lose sight of the very real challenges that already exist today.

Today, families struggle to find housing they can afford. Seniors who want to downsize and stay in Falls Church often have few options. Teachers, first responders, healthcare workers, restaurant employees increasingly find themselves priced out of the community. Students and young professionals find it impossible to return to the hometown they grew up in, maybe to only return to their parents’ basements or hopefully backyards.

Many of those people are not in this room tonight.

Meanwhile, communities across Northern Virginia and the US are having these same debates. Years of meetings. Years of hearings. Years of worrying about every possible downside. Years before anything gets built.

And then we wonder why housing costs keep rising.

The status quo is not risk-free. It has consequences too.

What happens if housing costs continue to rise faster than incomes? What happens if more families are priced out? What happens if our workforce has to commute farther and farther away? What happens if we miss an opportunity like tonight to create a community that is more inclusive and invests in the future to be who we say we are? 

And yes, what happens if we write rules so restrictive that we never receive the creative, high-quality proposals we’re hoping for?

Those are risks too.

So addressing the final concerns I heard tonight:

1/ On process – I believe the sequencing of the RFP and zoning changes to inform each other is a feature, not a flaw as staff has designed.

Planning in a vacuum rarely produces the best outcomes. We need community input, but we also need real-world feedback about what is feasible and achievable. Given the ambitious timelines we are trying to hit – the purpose of issuing the RFP after first reading of zoning is not to lock anything in. It’s to test our assumptions, invite creativity, and learn something before final adoption of zoning. We are setting the guardrails now and can tweak and tighten as necessary when we finalize the zoning at second reading this fall.

That’s not abandoning planning, in my opinion. That’s smart planning.

2/ Similarly, I know some up here have concerns about by-right zoning because it feels like we’re giving up control. Hence some of us directed staff to add a special use permit (SUP) process tonight to add more control back in. And hopefully we decide to only apply that process to the non-city owned quads so we really can invite maximum creativity and not scare people away with a discretionary, uncertain process on the other side.

I will remind us though – even when you have control, you don’t achieve flawless results. 

For those of us who have been around for multiple special exception (SE) approvals and or those who feel like public trust in Council over development is an issue – I’d like to remind us that SEs that City Councils cast votes on are not mistake and complaint free. We now lament about the architecture or tree canopy at Founders Row, the traffic signals and new intersection at Broad Washington, the lack of pull off zones at Founders Row 2. Those were all SE projects that took 5-15+ years and had plenty of public input and debate. In the end received majority support from Council and created new homes, lively businesses, gathering areas, bring in millions of revenue annually we wouldn’t otherwise have, and improved what was there before – we learn from each one, but clearly they weren’t perfect. 

So I really would caution us into falsely believing that SEs, where City Council has some control, create perfect outcomes.

And that is for large projects that can afford the time or money a SE or SUP processes demand. Predictability matters if we actually want affordable housing, infill or smaller-scale projects, and innovative proposals. A city that relies exclusively on discretionary approvals – because we think we’re the best at negotiating – often creates delay, uncertainty, and higher costs. And again if we care about affordability, those higher costs ultimately get passed on to future residents.

Finally, I’ll end with where I started. 

I believe we can be careful without being fearful. 

Leadership is about keeping a keen focus on our policy objectives, our goals and commitments we made to the community now and to future generations. 

Years from now, no one is going to remember whether the RFP was issued before or after a particular vote. No one is going to remember the exact wording of a setback or bulk plane calculations.

But they are going to remember whether we had the courage to do something tonight – to match our actions with our values. Whether we created enough homes for families who otherwise couldn’t afford to live here. Whether we preserved the opportunity for future generations to call Falls Church home.

This is a generational opportunity, much like the bold decision to invest in a new high school and reimagine the land around it that helped pay for it. We can approach it with caution and thoughtfulness as we did 8 years ago. That was a much bigger leap. But we should not let fear make the decision for us.

As leaders, we should set guardrails, not eliminate possibilities. And we should have the confidence to believe that the future of Falls Church can be even better than its past.

Dear Friends,

Happy Juneteenth! I went back to my posts from June 2020, when we first recognized Juneteenth in Falls Church. June 2020 feels like lifetimes ago for many reasons. It was a good reminder of the social justice awakening that swept across our country and the energy and conviction we all felt to do better. I had noted that Falls Church has been socioeconomically and racially segregated – we are half as diverse as our neighbors immediately next to us. Since then, we have grown our population and housing (remember, housing at all affordability levels matters!), but we have more work to do. I went back and read the ideas I shared in 2020. What struck me most was how relevant those reflections remain today. The challenge is not simply acknowledging the complicated truths of our history, but translating that understanding into real policies and actions that create a more inclusive community. Six years later, the opportunity before us at Virginia Village is one such moment.

If you don’t yet have plans, join the community in celebrating Juneteenth at the Tinner Hill Historic Site today.

Read on for my thoughts on Little City Sips, a timely New York Times article, and Virginia Village ahead of our vote next Monday. Public comment continues to be welcome offline via email, virtually, or in person next Monday night. And note, my office hours in June will be Monday, June 29 from 630-8 pm. Full summer schedule below.

Take care,
Letty

What Happened This Week:

(1) Little City Sips

For those of you who enjoyed the Little City Sips last Saturday with the other 4000 people, you saw Falls Church at its finest. Live music, walkable streets, delicious food and drink plus perfect summer evening weather. I’ve never seen Broad St so vibrant and full of people. One restaurateur commented to me that it was “the best thing the city has done in 20 years!” A big thank you to city staff who worked hard in securing the license with the ABC, the details and coordination with our business community, public safety and public works staff who prepared and worked the event to keep it safe and enjoyable for all.

After action meetings are underway to discuss what went well and how we can learn from last Saturday. This was a pilot, and my hope is that we’ll be able to expand the geographic area to include more businesses and have several more Little City Sips in the coming months. More to come.

(2) New York Times – One City Might Have Just Cracked the Housing Crisis (Vancouver)

Before you wonder what Vancouver has to do with Falls Church, I encourage you to spend 5 minutes with this article (it’s a gift link so you can read it without a paywall). Beyond the inspiring story of the Canadian government returning 10 acres of land to the Squamish Nation, two themes stood out to me:

• Housing is connected to almost every challenge local governments are trying to solve. The article argues that density is not an environmental problem to be managed, but a solution to environmental, economic, and social challenges. People who live in walkable communities drive less, consume less energy, and have greater access to jobs, services, and opportunities. Housing, transportation, sustainability, economic development, and community building are not separate conversations – they are deeply connected.
• The article also captures a tension familiar to anyone involved in local government. In trying to ensure fairness and public input, we’ve often created processes that make it extraordinarily difficult to say yes to anything. As the article notes, every decision can be appealed, every objection weighed, and every delay justified. The lesson is not that developers should have free rein. It’s that we should be careful not to become so focused on avoiding mistakes that we lose sight of the costs of doing nothing.

(3) Virginia Village

With the caveat that I have not yet read the posted materials for next Monday’s meeting, where I expect there will be changes to the zoning and RFP drafts based on our work session this week, City Council is poised to consider first reading (ie, vote 1 of 2) on the zoning for the Virginia Village site and authorize the release of the RFP so we can hear how the development community might renovate or redevelop the city owned quads.

A few thoughts:

We’re just beginning. If we move forward next week, this is the beginning – not the end – of a process that will likely stretch into 2027 – full of ifs and decision points to come. There will be multiple opportunities for public input, proposal review, negotiations, additional zoning action, site plan review, and affordable housing funding applications before any project moves forward. Specifically: hopefully we’ll get back interesting proposals from the development community at the end of the summer, we’ll have a high level presentations of the proposals to the community, a committee will be reviewing and scoring the proposals, City Council will choose a proposal and partner in the fall, negotiations on interim and comprehensive agreement with the partner, final zoning changes (vote 2 of 2) in the late fall, then a site plan process in early 2027, and affordable housing funding application with Virginia Housing in March 2027.

Leadership requires setting guardrails, not eliminating possibilities. The concerns we’ve heard about setbacks, height transitions, and neighborhood compatibility deserve thoughtful responses. At the same time, we should be careful not to layer on so many restrictions that we discourage the very proposals we’re hoping to attract. As our JLL consultant reminded us this week, the market will respond to the rules we establish.

The goal should be to create zoning that both respects the surrounding neighborhood and allows for financially feasible, affordable housing options to be built. If setbacks are too deep or height limits too restrictive, we may significantly reduce the number of affordable homes we can create. That’s why I support more flexible ranges and encouraged staff to ground their recommendations in real-world examples elsewhere in the city and the practical realities of the site, rather than arbitrary numbers.

Finally, I’m not convinced an additional discretionary review process is necessary if we are doing the work now to establish strong zoning guardrails. The community conversations about building form, transitions, height, and compatibility are happening today. Adding another layer of review later, even a skinnied version, would add time, cost, and uncertainty to a project where the financial margins are already tight – all of which means less housing or more expensive housing or no housing at all. While a typical development process brings people along to help shape the project, we’re having those exact discussions and debates right now.

Affordable housing requires tradeoffs. If we want more homes that working families, seniors, and young people can afford, we have to be willing to provide enough certainty for those projects to move forward and give up a little bit of control. We should be attracting strong proposals, so we can evaluate real options rather than deter opportunities before they ever reach us.

What’s Coming Up:

June 22 – City Council Meeting*

July 1 – Ask the Council Office Hours (9 am, City Hall)

July 13 – City Council Meeting*

July 20 – City Council Work Session*

July 27 – City Council Meeting*

Summer Recess

August 24 – City Council Work Session*

August 31 – City Council Meeting*

*All Mondays (except 5th Mondays and holidays) at 7:30 pm. You can access the agenda and livestream here, including recordings of past meetings

Letty’s Summer Office Hours:

June 29 – 630 – 8 pm (Harvey’s)

July 15 – 630 – 8 pm (Grillmarx)

August 26 – 630 – 8 pm (Little Beast)

Dear Friends,

This week’s post will be shorter than usual. Our City Council meeting touched on two issues that will shape Falls Church for years to come: how we create more affordable housing and how decisions made in Richmond affect our community. Having just returned from a quick trip to Richmond, this is a timely topic so read on.

Even though Virginia Village wasn’t on our agenda this week, we continued to hear public comment and again will welcome public comment at our June 22 meeting or via email in the meantime. As we work towards a RFP issuance, our goal remains clear: preserve and expand affordable housing while creating a high-quality community that fits within its surroundings. To continue the conversation next week, two opportunities for your calendar:

• The city will host a walking tour of Virginia Village and adjacent neighborhoods before our work session – next Monday June 15, 6-7 pm. Staff will be marking proposed setback distances so we can better visualize how future buildings could relate to neighboring homes and open space. Seeing current conditions and concepts like setbacks and height in person provides a much clearer understanding than reviewing plans on paper.
• Falls Church Forward is hosting our monthly happy hour and a discussion with city staff about Virginia Village next Thursday, June 18 from 6-8 pm at Cafe Zevian.

Stay cool and have a safe weekend – hope to see you out at the Pride Pop Up and Little City Sips tomorrow!

Best,
Letty

What Happened This Week:

General Assembly Briefing, aka What Happened in Richmond Matters Here at Home

We were joined by Delegate Marcus Simon for a recap of the 2026 General Assembly session. While I focus on local decisions, state legislation often has a significant impact on Falls Church especially being a Dillon Rule state. In this session, there were 3,646 bills, 2,379 passed, 723 failed, 447 carried over to the next session, 1131 signed by the Governor, and 31 were vetoed.

For a more detailed briefing, see the staff report but here are my highlights:

Housing was a major focus this year. New state laws related to housing:

• New limits on parking requirements near transit. Parking is a significant cost in development – as much as $50K per underground parking space – which raises the cost of housing. And while no one believes it, we also overbuild parking such that we have excess spaces because parking requirements are often made up (this is an especially good and entertaining video). Parking is also an important amenity for residents – so builders generally know better than the government how much parking is needed and have the incentive to build enough in order to rent or sell their homes – ie, we should let the market work! Meanwhile, government has a role in managing adjacent street parking to encourage turnover near commercial properties and limits any monopolies of those spaces with overnight parkers.
• Expanded opportunities for affordable housing development on certain nonprofit and religious properties
• Stronger tenant rights

The General Assembly also expanded local authority in several areas that could affect quality of life in Falls Church:

• New legislation allows localities to use noise enforcement cameras to address excessive vehicle exhaust noise
• Expanded automated traffic safety enforcement options (note: staff is analyzing if/how/where this could apply in Falls Church)
• Allows for small, portable solar generation device, often referred to as “balcony solar”, in residential structures
• Permanently authorizes ranked-choice voting for local elections should communities choose to adopt it in the future

The state budget remains unfinished. A special session is underway as lawmakers continue negotiating differences over data center taxation and other issues. This matters because local governments depend on many state funding commitments. One item we are watching particularly closely is Metro funding. If the current funding proposal is not included in the final budget, it could have a meaningful financial impact on our region and on our budgets.

Celebrating Public Service

Finally, one of the highlights of the evening was recognizing four public servants whose combined service to Falls Church spans more than a century. Delegate Simon presented General Assembly commendations honoring Renee Bergman Andrews, Ted Trott, Joe Carter, Veronica Prince, and Danny Schlitt for their decades of dedication to our community. As local government often focuses on projects, budgets, and policies, it is worth remembering that our success ultimately depends on people. This week’s recognitions were a reminder of just how fortunate we jave been to have so many dedicated public servants and volunteers helping move our city forward.

What’s Coming Up:

June 15 – City Council Work Session*

June 22 – City Council Meeting*

July 1 – Ask the Council Office Hours (9 am, City Hall)

July 13 – City Council Meeting*

*All Mondays (except 5th Mondays and holidays) at 7:30 pm. You can access the agenda and livestream here, including recordings of past meetings

Letty’s Summer Office Hours:

June 29 – 630 – 8 pm (Harvey’s)

July 15 – 630 – 8 pm (Cafe Zevian)

August 26 – 630 – 8 pm (Little Beast)

Dear Friends,

For fellow FCCPS families, happy last day of school!

As summer gets underway, it’s been another busy week in Falls Church. From national recognition for our quality of life, to important conversations about affordable housing, to community discussions about the future of the Farmers Market, I’ll share a recap of what I’ve been working on and where I’d welcome your input.

I also kicked off the week by joining regional leaders in Alexandria at the memorial for the 67 people who died in the January 2025 crash between an American Airlines flight and an Army helicopter. To quote Congressman Don Beyer who spoke: “Grief only exists because we love, and it fades so slowly because our loss is so real.” It was a beautiful and moving tribute, and a reminder that while community conversations are important, not every disagreement deserves the weight we sometimes give it. Moments like these help put things in perspective and remind us that our shared humanity matters far more than our differences. We are fortunate to live in a community where people care deeply, and we can all benefit from extending a little more kindness and humility and assume positive intent.

Happy summer,
Letty

PS – If you haven’t already, mark your calendars for a fun day in the Little City next Saturday June 13: after a family-friendly Pride Event in Cherry Hill Park in the afternoon, we’ll kickoff the evening with our pilot Little City Sips. We want this to be a successful, fun, and safe day to support our local businesses and enjoy a beautiful night in our downtown.

What Happened This Week:

(1) Quality of Life Recognition

This might seem like the sort of click bait I don’t read or share. But this is worth a mention because it’s backed by a legitimate source and one that I’ve personally researched years ago. Falls Church was named the most livable community in the South. This was based on the AARP’s Livability Index (no surprise: what makes communities livable for seniors also makes communities livable for all age groups!) Falls Church earned particularly high marks for healthcare access, parks, walkability, and our strong sense of community.

While accolades are always nice, what stood out to me is that many of the things recognized are the result of years of work by residents, city staff, volunteers, local businesses, and community organizations. Our parks, trails, schools, small businesses, and civic engagement don’t happen by accident. At the same time, the report highlighted something many of us already know: housing affordability remains one of our biggest challenges. That’s why I continue to believe we need to focus on creating housing opportunities for residents at a range of income levels while building on the qualities that make Falls Church such a special place to live.

(2) Virginia Village – continued discussions

A good segue to the meat of our City Council work session this week – we had in depth discussion on the upcoming Request for Proposals (RFP) for the redevelopment of Virginia Village, one of the city’s most important affordable housing initiatives for our generation. The RFP is expected to come before Council later this month for a vote to issue it, with responses from development teams anticipated at the end of the summer.

If you missed my May 9 post with more information and FAQs, I encourage you to go back to that one and/or see the city website with the latest information. We’re working on the draft of the RFP to elicit responses from affordable housing and real estate partners to respond to three scenarios (or a hybrid) – renovate the city-owned buildings with small expansions, low density redevelopment (3-4 stories), or moderate density redevelopment (6-7 stories) with affordability targets spanning 30–80% Area Median Income (AMI) and a target vote to release the RFP on June 22. We welcome public comment at our upcoming meetings on June 8 and 22 (see schedule below) or offline anytime via email: cityclerk@fallschurchva.gov or to me personally.

Letty’s Thoughts:

A few themes that are guiding my thinking:

1. Curiosity – what will the development community propose? We should preserve flexibility in the RFP so we don’t limit creative options we might get back
2. Affordability needs to remain the primary objective of the project.
3. Thoughtful balance of building height and scale, parking, environmental standards – how to balance our policy goals and financial realities of delivering affordable housing while being respectful of adjacent neighborhoods
4. Tenant protections for current Virginia Village residents – the city has an existing relocation policy we will be discussing on June 15. We discussed ensuring that any displaced residents will have a new home during construction (if a project happens) and they get first priority to return at affordable rents comparable to what they currently pay.
5. Clarity where the city will still make decisions – the City Council will issue the RFP, we will choose the top ranked development partner from RFP respondents (there will be an evaluation committee who helps us do the scoring and vetting but City Council makes the final decision), we will negotiate and sign any interim and comprehensive agreements with a development partner, and there will be final site plan approval for any project.

In my opinion, staff has done a good job listening to the community and incorporating the considerations we heard as guardrails in the drafts of the RFP, planning documents, and zoning code changes that we’ll begin discussing in a few weeks. We will continue to debate and wrestle with the ambitious timeline and details about zoning rules – but it’s also important to remember that we have not only professional staff but also JLL, the real estate consultant we’ve hired to advise us on the process, financials, and evaluate eventual RFP responses. They will be at the table with us at our next work session so we can leverage their expertise.

(3) Farmers Market Discussions

One of the most talked-about community discussions this week centered on a proposal to pilot a temporary street closure during the Saturday Farmers Market. Our award-winning Farmers Market is one of Falls Church’s greatest success stories. It has grown into a regional destination that supports local farmers and businesses, attracts visitors, and serves as a gathering place for residents from across the community.

This week, the EDA (Economic Development Authority) heard public comment on a proposal to temporarily close a portion of Little Falls Street and/or Park Avenue during market hours. The idea, brought forward by Falls Church Forward (full disclosure – many of you know I’m a member of Falls Church Forward’s leadership team), would test closing a portion of Little Falls Street and/or Park Avenue during market hours to give it more room to breathe – create additional gathering space, provide room for existing sidewalk vendors, and potentially allow a limited number of additional vendors who are on the waitlist.

As expected, there were strong opinions on all sides.

One longtime farmer expressed concerns about preserving the producer-only model, worried that adding prepared food vendors or expanding too quickly could impact existing vendors’ sales and alter the character of the market. Nearby restaurants and businesses also raised questions about competition and street access during one of their busiest business periods of the week. At the same time, another local business owner made a compelling case that the city should give them a path to being part of the market, being unable to get off the waitlist, despite operating multiple Falls Church businesses, sourcing local ingredients, paying local taxes.

The idea is in its exploratory stages and no decisions have been made.

Letty’s Thoughts: What struck me most is that all of the goals above are not necessarily in conflict. We shouldn’t be afraid to try things. The schools teach our kids a growth mindset: we should always be asking how can we make something better. It is reasonable to ask whether there are ways to create opportunities for more local businesses, more gathering space, more community activity – while preserving the success of the market. What is currently being discussed is not a permanent expansion, nor a wholesale change to the market’s identity. It is a pilot—a chance to gather data, learn what works, and evaluate the impacts before making any decisions.

The conversation also highlighted a broader question about how we use public space. A few hours of street closure on a Saturday morning would undoubtedly require adjustments, but we already close streets for community events throughout the year because we recognize that streets can serve purposes beyond moving and storing cars. (And we have 3 garages with free public parking within a 10 minute walk that would be better utilized.) Sometimes streets can also be places for people to gather, connect, shop, and build community.

As with many issues in Falls Church, the challenge isn’t choosing between preserving what works and embracing change. It’s finding ways to do both. Some of our most successful community assets – pocket parks, housing, economic development, transportation projects – exist because we grow and try new ideas while staying true to the things that make us special. As this conversation continues, I hope we can approach it with that same spirit of curiosity, flexibility, and community-mindedness.

What’s Coming Up:

June 8 – City Council Meeting*

June 15 – City Council Work Session*

June 22 – City Council Meeting*

July 1 – Ask the Council Office Hours (9 am, City Hall)

July 13 – City Council Meeting*

*All Mondays (except 5th Mondays and holidays) at 7:30 pm. You can access the agenda and livestream here, including recordings of past meetings

Letty’s Summer Office Hours:

June 29 – 630 – 8 pm (Harvey’s)

July 15 – 630 – 8 pm (Cafe Zevian)

August 26 – 630 – 8 pm (Little Beast)