Dear Friends,

This week’s Council work session went til midnight and covered three topics that will be of much interest – housing, specifically revisiting past zoning changes and seeing if they accomplished the original objectives, closing out the fiscal year and proposed uses of the year end surplus, and bike code clean up and changes, including adding code to allow police to seize “off road vehicles” if they’re being illegally operated (which includes the “e-motos” / electric dirt bikes I’ve received many concerns about). The first is particularly important to me – not just because of the housing topic – but because I think success isn’t just adoption of a policy or finishing a project. It’s seeing whether we actually delivered results. That feedback loop of measuring and analyzing past decisions to inform future priorities is an important way of thinking that I think government should do more of.

It’s been a really busy week with a lot of regional activity – as one of the smallest jurisdictions in NoVA, it’s important we stay connected with the region and learn from others. So read on for those too.

In case you missed it, the city’s two red light cameras have been moved to Broad/Washington and Broad/Roosevelt intersections with the 30 day warning period underway. This is an example where we are more data-driven in our approach to transportation safety – instead of keeping them at their previous locations where they did their job at reducing red light running, we’re moving them to the intersections with higher risk.

Look forward to hearing from you this week.

Best,
Letty

PS Early voting turnout continues to be strong! Since it’s a FCCPS long weekend during Election Day – make plans to take advantage of the early voting this weekend and next week. You can vote early up until next Saturday, Halloween at City Hall.

What Happened This Week:

(1) Housing Outcomes – measure what works and be willing to improve it

We spent a good part of the evening looking back at three zoning changes intended to diversify our housing options with the Planning Commission and Housing Commission: cottage housing, transition zone (aka T Zones), and accessory dwelling units (ADs). I think this kind of retrospective is incredibly important. We spend a lot of time debating zoning changes, often with strong opinions about what might happen. But once the rules are in place and the market responds, we also need to look at what actually happens.

Cottage housing is a good example. We adopted a pilot ordinance in 2017, but nearly a decade later, only one project has been built: the 10-home Railroad Cottages on Railroad Avenue, off the W&OD. The project has some great features, including geothermal heating and cooling, and it created a housing option different from the detached single-family homes that dominate many of our neighborhoods. But the ordinance comes with several restrictions, including a 55+ age requirement, a requirement that sites be within 500 feet of a revitalization district, and a minimum 1 acre parcel size. We heard that at least two other interested projects couldn’t meet the distance requirement. And when you consider how expensive land has become—a quarter-acre lot can cost nearly $1M —it’s fair to ask whether the current rules make these projects financially feasible in the first place.

The T-1 zone has produced more results. Three townhouse projects have been approved, with 32 townhomes built and 15 underway. These projects are generally selling at prices around $1M (which is actually around the city’s median home value), so they aren’t what I’ve called “capital A” affordable housing. But they do offer a different option for people who want to live in Falls Church without buying a detached single-family home and are more affordable than that default option. When we approved the T zone changes in 2023, besides townhomes, we also hoped the zoning flexibility would also created stacked townhomes (aka, 2 over 2s) that are becoming more popular across the region – again, as another diverse housing option that will be more “lower case A” affordable. So far, no one has proposed 2 over 2s in T Zone sites so it merits asking why.

ADs are still a work in progress. We’ve received five applications since we legalized them in 18 months ago, one with a building permit and others moving through the process, with none under construction or even built yet. That pace was roughly what staff expected, but I’d like to understand more about what happens between someone expressing interest and actually building an AD. Are construction costs, utility work, financing, or the 1,000-square-foot limit keeping people from moving forward? Are people building them for family members, rental income, or to accommodate changing needs as they age? ADs can create flexibility for homeowners and additional housing options for renters. But they typically cost at least $350K to build, so we need to understand whether our rules and processes are helping or getting in the way.

Letty’s Thoughts:

Housing supply matters at different price points. When someone moves into a cottage or townhouse or condo, they free up another home for someone else. Those moving chains are one reason adding supply can help ease pressure throughout the housing market, even when every new home isn’t affordable to everyone.

I also want us to revisit some of the concerns raised when the ordinance was first adopted. People worried about parking, traffic, stormwater, and tree canopy. Which concerns proved justified? Which requirements improved the project, and which added costs without delivering meaningful benefits? We also discussed whether the parking requirements in these projects are getting the balance right. We should learn from that experience rather than simply carrying every original requirement forward indefinitely. My view is that we should be willing to revisit these policies based on evidence. We can’t solve our housing challenges by changing zoning alone. But we also shouldn’t assume that a policy is working just because we adopted it. Good policy requires follow-through, honest evaluation, and continuous improvement.

(2) Closing out Fiscal Year 2026 – financials update & budget amendments

Our FY26 financial report showed good results. Unaudited figures indicate that the City brought in about $2.1M more revenue than budgeted and spent approximately $330K less than appropriated (0.3% variance which is remarkable), leaving a net surplus of roughly $2.4M. After accounting for replenishing the various rainy day funds per our financial policies and revenue sharing with the schools ($600K), the city has $1.1M available one time funding or to go into reserves or a combination.

Much of the revenue growth came from taxes and our local economy continuing to exceed expectations. Personal property tax collections, sales tax, and meals tax all came in above budget. Compared with the prior year, meals tax revenue grew 16.9%, sales tax grew 12.7%, and personal property tax grew 14.8%.

These are encouraging numbers. Some of it is inflation but they also reflect economic activity in our community, including growth in restaurant and grocery businesses. But there are important caveats. Our Finance Director cautioned that the unusually strong revenue growth we’ve experienced in recent years may be nearing its end and we may return closer to the 3% growth years.

We also discussed the first amendment to the FY2027 budget (the budget year we’re in right now that started in July 2026) which includes fleet replacement for police, sheriff, public works, repairs at City Hall, city events, and adding more budget to transportation safety and traffic calming. A deferred item from the last budget is $180K for solar panels for the Community Center, potentially allowing the City to take advantage of federal tax credits before the applicable deadline. Besides reducing our greenhouse gas emissions and supporting the city’s climate goals – the cost to moving to renewable energy sources is recouped through utility bill savings.

(3) Bike Laws

We also previewed two police-related ordinances to clean up code for bike usage and taking advantage of state code to allow us to deal with a concern we’ve heard about “e-motos” – not to be confused with e-bikes. The first would align our bicycle and e-bike code with state law and changes on the W&OD. That includes updating definitions to distinguish among different classes of e-bikes (prohibiting Class 3 e-bikes on sidewalks and shared use paths) and removing provisions that duplicate or conflict with state law. The second ordinance, under a 2024 change in state law, allows us to seize off-road motorcycles operated unlawfully on highways, sidewalks, or paths. This is an important distinction from simply issuing a citation: it would give police another enforcement tool when the legal requirements are met.

(4) Regional Activities

I was glad to have shared a stage at Supervisor Palchik’s Green Fairfax Environmental Summit with Congressman Walkinshaw and Senator Salim to discuss the local vs state vs federal role in climate and environmental goals. IMO, local decisions have a huge role! After all, 90% of greenhouse gas emissions come from buildings and transportation and those are directly tied to local land use policies.

Then we officially cut the ribbon with the Northern Transportation Authority (NVTA) on the $15.7M transportation improvements at the western gateway to the city around the secondary school campus and the West Falls project. This $15.7M investment includes upgraded intersections and traffic signals, improved sidewalks and crosswalks, better bicycle and pedestrian access, enhanced bus stops and transit connections, and utility relocation and undergrounding. The city has been fortunate to win grants from NVTA over the years, which helps us take on big capital projects to upgrade our transportation infrastructure to be more multimodal and reduce congestion.

And yesterday, Falls Church hosted regional leaders from Fairfax County, Fairfax City, and Vienna in Senator Salim’s annual summit – discussing taxation policy, transportation, school priorities, cannabis sales beginning next July, and energy policies. As a region, we share many of the same goals and challenges so I appreciated this new annual summit bringing us together to hear from localities and see where we can work together ahead of the General Assembly session in January.

What’s Coming Up:

Monday, October 26 – City Council Meeting*

Monday, November 2 – City Work Session (begins at 7 pm with closed session)

Monday, November 9 – City Council Meeting*

Monday, November 16 – City Council Work Session*

*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 Fall Office Hours:

Wednesday, November 18 – 630-8 pm (Lucky Thai)

Dear Friends,

I returned from the annual Virginia Municipal League (VML) conference in Norfolk – besides a special opportunity to chat with the Governor as a member of the VML Board, it’s always good to meet with other local electeds to connect and share learnings across the Commonwealth. I learned how tough the restaurant industry is right now (42% of restaurants report being unprofitable due to increasing fixed costs like food and labor while decreasing alcohol and food sales). And I learned about stop sign automated enforcement technology we’re eager to explore with new authority from Richmond.

We had one of our shortest City Council meetings in recent history, wrapping up after 90 minutes. So I’m using this week’s post to share topics that I know are of community-interest. Read on for Flock cameras in the city (TL;DR – we don’t have any) and what I personally think and official 2026 school enrollment counts and the big picture of why that matters.

I received a lot of input on bus rapid transit options last week (thank you) so if you missed that post, do check it out. We also are seeing high early voting turnout so far – as of Tuesday, we have 15% turnout so far, which is the highest of any election since 2020. You can continue to vote early in person on weekdays, with weekend hours starting next week. And we’ll see you at our fall Little City Sips tonight!

Take care,
Letty

PS – my October office hours are next Tuesday, Oct 20 at 630 pm, but I’m moving the location to Helena’s to accommodate later hours. Hope you can drop by.

What Happened This Week:

(1) Flock Cameras

There has been a lot of national attention on Flock cameras recently – most notably privacy concerns and misuse of the data.

To start, it’s helpful to understand that Flock is one company that makes fixed ALPRs (automated license plate readers). ALPRs are usually mounted in public spaces like utility poles, traffic signals, etc. In Falls Church – the city has not deployed stationary ALPRs and we have not contracted with Flock. Private communities like HOAs, shopping centers, etc may use fixed ALPRs for security and safety purposes, but the city does not. We’re one of the few localities in Virginia that has not used stationary ALPRs and have no plans to do so.

That said, the city does use mobile ALPR technology for specific law enforcement and tax collection purposes – the police has mobile ALPR technology inside police cruisers as part of the in-car dash cam system and the Treasurer and Commissioner of Revenue also have a car-mounted ALPR system for tax collection purposes. Both have been important tools for crime fighting and tax collection and are subject to strict retention, privacy, and data sharing laws set by Virginia. The police department has a helpful FAQ that goes into a lot more detail and answers the top questions and concerns I’ve heard in the community.

Letty’s Thoughts:

Like most policy decisions in front of us, I think there’s a lot of nuance and it’s never a simple black and white call. While I support and understand the concerns in neighboring localities to stop their contracts with Flock given the reports of abuse and invasion of privacy – I want to make sure we don’t “throw the baby out with the bathwater” and decide we don’t want cameras at all. Entirely separate technology from fixed ALPRs is automated photo enforcement cameras that record images for possible traffic violations. We do use those for speeding, red light running, and school bus arm violations. That data can only be used for enforcing traffic violations and is destroyed within 21 days after the citation is resolved.

Given the concerns about traffic safety in Falls Church – it’s not possible to re-design every street in Falls Church to slow cars down and it’s also not practical to have police enforcement everywhere, all the time. Plus the automated traffic enforcement reduces human bias. I remain supportive of having cameras for automated traffic enforcement provided there are strong protections for privacy.

(2) 2026 School Enrollment Data

As neighboring school districts have all reported declining enrollment (Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William) due to birth rate trends, immigration policies, federal workforce changes, and the high cost of living in the DMV – so much so that some districts are canceling future school expansions and reassigning staff – Falls Church’s enrollment has held steady.

The official FCCPS September 30 enrollment numbers came out a few weeks ago – with enrollment at 2723 students across the entire district. Last year’s enrollment was 2712 so the change is more or less flat. Because of the new housing growth we’ve added the past several years, enrollment last year was supposed to be closer to 2900 students (2873 specifically) that hasn’t materialized. Later this fall/early winter, the “where students live” analysis will come out – which will help drill down into housing-specific trends, but here’s my post from last year.

Letty’s Thoughts:

School enrollment matters for many reasons – year to year, operating budgets are largely driven by enrollment for teacher staffing and class sizes and for capital planning so we know where we may run out of room (not any time soon – we have room!) and where we need to renovate or expand schools. And this dispels the boogeyman myth (one of the top FAQs I just fielded again this week!) that development is crowding our schools. We’ve added 30% more population since 2010 via mixed use buildings mostly, which has lower school-aged children than single family homes. With the new buildings that have come online the past 2 years and now nearly fully occupied, we did not see the +150 students expected. And had it not been for the new housing, I suspect our school enrollment would have declined like everyone else’s in the region.

More broadly – population growth is important, as long as it’s planned. We actually don’t want population decline as it strains economic systems, social safety nets, and has really broad-reaching implications. In the near term, the tax burden per household grows because the same amount of taxes are needed to sustain a community but there are less people around to pay the bill. There are less customers for businesses and less spending power all around, plus we’re left with infrastructure built for a larger population. In the medium to long term – if birth rates continue to drop and we see young families leave the region – the proportion of older adults grows while the younger population (children and eventual workforce) is smaller and left to support everyone else. That really turns upside down the US social safety net programs like pensions and Social Security. Plus, fewer people entering the workforce also means labor shortages and slowdown in economic competitiveness and innovation for the region as a whole. This is why housing matters!

What’s Coming Up:

Monday, October 19 – City Council Work Session*

Monday, October 26 – City Council Meeting*

*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 Fall Office Hours:

Tuesday, October 20 – 630-8 pm (Helena’s)

Wednesday, November 18 – 630-8 pm (Lucky Thai)

Dear Friends,

We took a break from housing this week and dove into something that doesn’t always get the attention it deserves: bus service in Falls Church and across Northern Virginia. I know many of us are not regular bus riders – I am not either. But this week, I challenged myself to try and failed. On Monday night, when I was returning from DC and arrived at East Falls Church Metro station, I was planning on riding the F20 Metrobus to get to the City Council meeting. But the bus was running late and me literally running back into the city was going to be faster. That really reinforced for me that bus service needs to be more frequent and reliable for it to be a genuine alternative over other modes of transportation.

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) has been talked about for Rt 7 for over 10 years. Moving ahead with some form of BRT does offer a chance for buses to be more frequent and reliable. Read on for the options we heard and the latest guidance we gave to staff this week – as always, I look forward to hearing your input.

Have a good long weekend – City Council is back in session next Tuesday, October 13 after the holiday.

Best,
Letty

What Happened This Week:

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Options

We heard a joint presentation from city staff and regional partners NVTC (Northern Virginia Transportation Commission) on the latest options and modeling for a regional BRT project along Rt 7.

Some background:

• NVTC has been studying concepts for bus rapid transit along Rt 7, a regional effort called Envision Route 7, since 2013.
• 57K live along the Rt 7 corridor from Tysons to Alexandria and the current Metrobus F20 runs along this corridor, through Falls Church.
• For the cars that travel through the city, NVTC estimates that 60+% of the destinations are outside of the city – this is a good reminder that Rt 7 and Rt 29 are large, regional thoroughfares which requires regional transportation solutions and coordination.
• The Metrobus F20 route carries 2.4M people each year. It’s not only the busiest route in Northern Virginia – it’s actually the busiest in all of Virginia!
• In Falls Church, we’ve long said we care about shifting modes of transportation to be more multimodal – ie, away from single occupancy vehicles, in our transportation and land use policies by making it more walkable, bikeable, increasing connections to transit, and adding more commercial options in the city that don’t require car trips farther away.

If we want more people to use transit, we need to make it a genuinely competitive option. One way to do that is BRT, which combines frequent bus service with features that help buses move faster and more reliably. Dedicated bus lanes are a big part of that equation, along with transit signal priority, better stops, and faster boarding. We are already moving forward with one piece of the puzzle: the City has secured a $1.4M grant for transit signal priority (TSP) at seven intersections along the Rt 7 corridor. This technology can help buses spend less time waiting at red lights. We also expect a new express/limited-stop Metrobus service, the F2X, to launch in December, providing more frequent service during peak toll hours on I-66. Both are welcome improvements and will be a helpful test case for further improvements for bus service.

Most recently, two specific BRT designs were studied for our stretch of Rt 7 – full and partial BAT lanes (business and transit access lanes, ie lanes for buses and turning movements) along Rt 7 and Rt 29. Dedicated bus only lanes were not studied given constrained lane width in Falls Church. Dedicated bus lanes will likely be part of the plan elsewhere along the Rt 7 corridor outside of Falls Church where the street is wider.

The Council discussion reflected different levels of comfort on our two corridors:

• On Broad St, we are moving forward with Transit Signal Priority as the near-term strategy, while continuing to consider what additional improvements might be possible with a request to study and identify funding for partial BAT lanes.
• On N Washington St, there was broader support for advancing partial BAT lanes as part of the N Washington Multimodal Improvements Project, which already has $22.5M in regional funding. Concept design and public engagement are expected to begin next summer.
• We also discussed whether dedicated bus lanes could operate only during peak hours, when buses face the greatest delays. That flexibility may help us capture significant transit benefits while limiting impacts on other traffic. Several of us also raised the possibility of a pilot approach that would let us test some changes and learn from the results before committing to a larger investment.

Letty’s Thoughts: optimizing buses with signals and a more frequent service like the F2X are good incremental steps. But how do we build a transit system that people will actually choose over driving? This is where the conversation gets harder.

Traffic modeling suggests that bus lanes could increase delays for drivers at some intersections, and we have to take those impacts seriously. Nobody wants to make an already frustrating commute worse, or send traffic onto neighborhood streets with unsafe driving activity. But I also think we need to challenge an assumption that often drives these conversations: that preserving the maximum number of lanes for cars is always the best way to move people. The main metric for comparing these different options remains “level of service” for intersections – which is simply about wait time and throughput for cars. A bus carrying dozens of passengers and a car carrying one person are competing for the same limited road space. If we measure success primarily by how quickly cars move through an intersection, we miss the bigger picture – I think we should also ask how many people are getting where they need to go, how reliably they can get there, and how much total time they spend traveling.

That’s why I asked staff to look at metrics beyond the traditional “level of service” metric, which largely measures delay for vehicles. Person-throughput and person-hours of delay can help us understand the broader impact of our transportation choices. This isn’t about ignoring drivers. It’s about recognizing that drivers are not the only people using our roads — and that giving people a reliable alternative can benefit everyone.

When we make transit more reliable, we give people a reason to change how they travel. Some drivers may choose the bus instead. Others may combine trips, walk, bike, or adjust their schedules. That shift doesn’t happen overnight, and it depends on providing good service. But if we never give people a compelling alternative, we shouldn’t expect their habits to change.

We also need to account for what happens if we do nothing. The regional modeling presented to City Council showed that congestion is expected to increase even under the no-build scenario*. Keeping every lane as it is today is not a guarantee that traffic will get better tomorrow.

*But does it? Will traffic actually increase? Below is one of my favorite charts no one ever believes, but I’ll keep sharing! In Falls Church, our population has grown by roughly 30% since 2010, while VDOT recorded vehicle volumes have actually declined. (And while volumes have increased on some neighborhood streets, that increase is still less than the total decline in car volumes across the city.) That doesn’t tell us everything we need to know about future traffic, but it does challenge the idea that more people must inevitably mean more cars on our streets.

What’s Coming Up:

Tuesday, October 13 – City Council Meeting*

Monday, October 19 – City Council Work Session*

Monday, October 26 – City Council Meeting*

*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 Fall Office Hours:

Tuesday, October 20 – 630-8 pm (The Cheese Cartel)

Wednesday, November 18 – 630-8 pm (Lucky Thai)

Dear Friends,

Did you know that it’s National #WeekWithoutDriving? Every October 1-8, this is an opportunity to rethink how we get around and better understand the experiences of people who rely on public transit and other transportation options – whether it’s due to a disability, the cost of owning a car, or other barriers to driving. To be clear, this is not saying everyone can or should stop driving. It’s an opportunity to think about the trips we make every day and consider: What options would I have if I could no longer drive? Even trying one trip without driving can help us better understand what’s working, what’s not, and why transportation options matter in our community.

It’s a privilege I can get around on foot or bike most days (although I drive plenty especially when schlepping groceries for a house full of teenage boys or going to kid sports outside of the city). I biked to the PTA meeting last night at Meridian, and it reopened my eyes to the challenges our students face biking or walking to school – curb cuts with turning cars, big intersections, no real protection from car traffic. I saw that Mustang Alley, which has vastly improved over the past year with construction nearly done, could use a longer pedestrian signal for one to safely get across Haycock Rd.

This week’s post:

• To continue with the theme of #WeekWithoutDriving, I’ll bring it back locally and how this relates to the discussion on parking policy at Virginia Village. Parking is one of those topics where everyone has an opinion – so before coming to an opinion of my own, I often try to learn about a topic first. The rest of the votes we took were largely covered in work session last week, so I’d review that post or look at the meeting summary.
• Read on also for two topics at the state and national level that merit more awareness and engagement. If you haven’t heard, there are proposed changes to the 2030 Census and you can weigh in on the proposed Dominion-Next Era merger.

And coming up:

• #WeekWithoutDriving is great timing – next Monday night in work session, City Council will be discussing Bus Rapid Transit (aka, BRT) options in Falls Church. We’ve been talking about BRT on Rt 7 for over 10 years. Why BRT, how does it help traffic, and with limited width on Rt 7 in Falls Church – what are the options, short and long term, and tradeoffs?
• Join Falls Church Forward next Thursday, October 8, 6-7:30pm at Grillmarx for a happy hour and learning social: Why Do We Drive So Much. No background needed — come with questions and opportunity to meet a new neighbor!
• And with the rainy weekend ahead, get your fall cleaning done with the city’s Recycling Extravaganza on Saturday morning. For a quieter and cleaner fall, you can recycle old gas leaf blowers, lawn mowers, and other yard tools.

I hope you’ll consider joining the #WeekWithoutDriving and share your experience!

Best,
Letty

What Happened This Week:

(1) Virginia Village (and parking requirements)

The TL;DR on Virginia Village – we voted for a new “first reading” on the zoning changes for the Virginia Village zoning and will be referred out to the Planning Commission for their input. This is actually the third first reading. Why three? Since we embarked on this process a year ago where staff presented a process where zoning code and the RFP processes would run in parallel, we have been intentionally keeping the door open to update the code. We knew as we hear from the community on compatibility, discuss, and iterate based on market response (ie, will someone be able to finance and build affordable housing based on this code?) – we could be evolving the code language. The tweaks we voted this week will allow for more flexibility as we work with Urban Atlantic, the city’s top ranked offeror, in the next stages of the development.

Parking requirements are one part of the zoning code that we debated and has a pretty big impact on housing development. As proposed, the requirement would be 0.6 space per affordable unit and 1 space per townhouse in the district. That’s actually slightly higher than a new state law just passed in the recent General Assembly session.

To have an opinion on whether these are the right or wrong requirements, I’d first suggest understanding how parking mandates are even determined. I’d suggest this 10 minute read or 30 minute especially entertaining video to understand that parking mandates are mostly arbitrary and have been made up over time.

Here are my takeaways and why parking policy is important at Virginia Village and across the city:

• Parking is costly on many levels – in Northern Virginia, a structured parking space costs about $50K per spot to build and to recover those costs, builders pass them onto consumers – increasing rents or the subsidy needed in the case of affordable housing. Besides driving up the cost of housing, parking mandates also means overbuilt parking takes up valuable space that could otherwise be used for homes, trees, open space, or other community needs. increases emissions, encourages sprawl, and harms local businesses.
• And while no one believes it, we have overbuilt parking such that we have excess spaces in many of our garages in Falls Church. Our past utilization data shows this.
• Parking is an important amenity for residents – so builders have every incentive to figure this out and build enough in order to rent or sell their homes. If they build too little parking, they have a problem. If they build too much, they’ve spent millions of dollars on spaces that don’t generate much value. They are actually in a much better position to “right size” parking based on the location, the residents, the market and the availability of other ways to get around.
• Lowering or getting rid of arbitrary mandates doesn’t mean we get rid of parking – it just means we let the market work and right size the amount of parking that is built.
• Meanwhile, government has a role in managing adjacent street parking to encourage turnover near commercial properties and limit any monopolies of street parking spaces with overnight parkers.
• The communities that have lowered or eliminated parking mandates still have parking. Parking still gets built – it just allows for more flexible, real time decisions and more people using other modes of transportation too.

I expect more conversation on parking requirements – to be informed by actual utilization data. Note that data also shows low income households own far fewer cars than the general population (in 2022, 30% of low-income households did not own or lease a vehicle, compared to just 3% of high-income households).

(2) 2030 Census

Earlier in September, the Census Bureau proposed a rule that would change who gets counted in the 2030 Census, where they get counted, and what questions get asked. Several of these changes could put an accurate count at risk: 

• Non-citizens and green card holders only. The count would, for the first time, exclude students on visas, workers on visas, refugees and undocumented immigrants. 
• A possible legal-status question. The Bureau is weighing whether to add a question about legal or citizenship status to the census form.  
• A narrower definition of “usual residence.” Instead of counting people where they live most of the year, the rule would count them where they spent the most days during a new January 3-April 1 window. This could misplace seasonal residents (e.g. “snowbirds”), students, and other mobile populations who don’t fit that narrow snapshot. 
• Heavier reliance on administrative records. The Bureau would lean more on tax, immigration and other government records to determine residency instead of self-reported information. This shift could risk missing renters, part-time workers, students, young children and others who aren’t well captured in those records. 
• The end of race, ethnicity and other demographic data. Race and ethnicity questions – asked on every census since 1790 – would be eliminated entirely and most other demographic questions would become optional. Communities rely on this data to track equitable service delivery, target economic development, and meet federal reporting requirements. 

Together, these changes could shrink the count in communities across the country. Every undercounted household means fewer resources for the entire community, not just the households that go uncounted. 

The Census Bureau is accepting comments on this proposed rule until October 13, 2026. We discussed in our City Council Meeting that we will be sending a letter. To easily submit a comment of your own – you can use a fillable form provided by the National League of Cities here to Congress or submit a comment directly to the Federal Register.

(3) Dominion-Next Era Merger

ICYMI – Dominion Power announced a merger with Next Era back in May to create what they said would be the largest regulated electric utility business in the world. The merger is under consideration with Virginia’s State Corporation Commission (SCC) with a deadline for the SCC to complete its review by Jan 2027.

You can visit the SCC’s Dominion-NextEra Merger webpage for information about the case, upcoming hearings and ways to submit public comments: Virginia SCC – Dominion-NextEra Merger. Written public comments can also be submitted to the SCC through November 9. If you’d like to go in person, there is one public hearing in Northern Virginia scheduled for next Friday, October 9, from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Board Auditorium at the Fairfax County Government Center, 12000 Government Center Parkway.

What’s Coming Up:

Monday, October 5 – City Council Work Session*

Tuesday, October 13 – City Council Meeting*

Monday, October 19 – City Council Work Session*

*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 Fall Office Hours:

Tuesday, October 20 – 630-8 pm (The Cheese Cartel)

Wednesday, November 18 – 630-8 pm (Lucky Thai)

Dear Friends,

Tuesday night’s Council work session went a little longer than planned, finishing at 1 am. I mention that not to suggest that staying late is somehow a measure of good government – it isn’t – but because sometimes the public doesn’t get to see just how much discussion happens before Council takes a position. Our work sessions tend to go long as that’s when we ask questions, debate, disagree, and offer changes all around the table. If you only tune into the votes without seeing the proceeding deliberations, you may think you’re being ignored. You may still disagree with where we land. That’s entirely fair. In fact, disagreement is part of democracy. But disagreement should not be confused with a lack of listening or undermining public trust. Our job is to listen, consider the facts and the long-term interests of the entire City, ask hard questions, and ultimately make decisions we believe are in the best interests of Falls Church. That process can be messy. It can be frustrating. And, apparently, it can occasionally last until 1 am.

The big item of the evening was Virginia Village. Council met jointly with the Planning Commission to continue working through the proposed Virginia Village zoning changes. When we discussed zoning changes in the spring and summer at first readings, we were very clear that we wanted to be informed by the responses to the RFP, paired with neighborhood input – which is why we are considering the tweaks staff is proposing now that we have responses from the development community. We had a lengthy discussion about the proposed regulations, what is and isn’t changing, and how to make sure the zoning supports the affordable housing goals we’ve been working toward. The Planning Commission input was particularly useful because this is exactly the kind of policy work where having another public body makes the deliberations and eventual code changes stronger.

Read on for more nuts-and-bolts items that I actually think are more interesting and impactful to all of Falls Church – Broad Street multimodal project that will start next year, whether we should allow Pilates studio to open at the Broad and Washington project, and a tenant relocation policy. These are the topics that make up a lot of the day-to-day work of your City government: transportation, economic development, housing.

I also spent Wednesday morning in DC – I was invited by the Council of State Governments to kick off their convening of state legislators across the US. It was fun to brag a bit about the Little City, offer a perspective on housing policy, and the collaboration needed between local and state levels. The challenges in Falls Church and Virginia are largely the same across the US, so it’s important to learn from each other.

Take care,
Letty

PS – Another busy weekend coming up. Join me here on Saturday and here on Sunday!

What Happened This Week:

(1) West Broad Street Multimodal Project

Ahead of authorizing the construction contract next week (this project uses VDOT dollars), we got a refresher on the Broad Street Multimodal improvements on Broad St, between West St and Virginia Ave. The project will bring wider, 10-foot sidewalks (where sidewalks have not yet been upgraded), safer and more accessible crossings at five intersections, curb extensions, ADA-compliant ramps, and a new mid block pedestrian-activated HAWK signal between Pennsylvania Ave and Virginia Ave. Construction is currently expected to begin in February 2027 and take one year, The goal is pretty straightforward: make it safer and easier to walk along this stretch of Broad Street while supporting the businesses and activity along the corridor.

(2) A little more flexibility at Broad & Washington?

City Council also reviewed a request to amend the voluntary concessions for the Broad & Washington development to allow a Pilates studio in one of the ground-floor retail spaces. As a primer – “voluntary concessions” are the community benefits a developer offers to the city and commits to as part of development process in mixed use projects. VCs contain everything from green building requirements, affordable housing, streetscape improvements at the project, and traditionally, the allowed and prohibited uses in their commercial areas.

The applicant contends that their final retail space, between Whole Foods and Little Beast, has has been difficult to lease to the types of uses originally contemplated (restaurant use), and the proposed change would affect about 2,800 square feet. They would like relief from that VC and instead allow a fitness use which city staff supports.

Letty’s Quick Thoughts: I generally support the idea that we become more market-responsive vs prescriptive in what should go in our ground floor uses. While it’s great to encourage diverse commercial uses we don’t have to create a more complete city, government isn’t the most attuned to changing market forces. For example, in our list of prohibited uses – which are at least 10+ years old and have generally been recycled with each project – we list arcades and roller rinks as prohibited uses. Perhaps those were not desired uses 20 years ago, but I think would be great entertainment options in the city now!

To be fair, fitness uses may not bring in as much revenue as other uses – and fiscal impact is a key part of our decision-making – but I also believe that good public policies should be more holistic than just financial.

(3) Tenant Relocation

We also continued our work on a city-wide tenant relocation policy. This has been through several rounds of discussion, and staff incorporated a number of Council’s questions and suggestions. The proposed policy would create a more consistent process for residents who are displaced by qualifying redevelopment or other covered activities, including advance notice, relocation assistance, help finding replacement housing, and a right-to-return framework.

Letty’s Quick Thoughts: New is the addition of a weighted priority system that considers multiple circumstances such as age, disability, income, children, prior displacement. While length of tenancy is an important consideration (ie, displacement could be more disruptive for long-time residents), I offered that it should be a tiebreaker so that acute, current housing needs aren’t outweighed by tenure.

(4) Virginia Village Zoning Changes

As I mentioned in my opener, we continued discussions on Virginia Village zoning changes, incorporating lessons learned from the RFP process that concluded this summer, as well as refinements from the previous work sessions. (Note as City Council and evaluation committee members remain under NDA regarding RFP responses until a comprehensive agreement is executed, we all are careful in how we discuss the zoning changes without sharing the RFP responses as covered under the NDA.)

Zoning is super wonky – so the quick TL;DR is we’re continuing to deliberate on max heights, setbacks, and parking requirements – all to continue balance the market’s perspective on affordable housing that is feasible (buildable + financeable) with neighborhood compatibility. If you want the specific details of what was discussed, Falls Church Forward offers AI-generated meeting summaries. This week’s is here. We’ll be asked to vote on another “first reading” next week in order to refer the zoning changes to the Planning Commission and then finalize in late October.

Separate from zoning, we will now begin negotiating a Memorandum of Understanding with Urban Atlantic, who we decided was the top-ranked respondent to the RFP, which Council is expected to review on Monday, October 5, and Tuesday, October 13.

What’s Coming Up:

Monday, September 28 – City Council Meeting*

Monday, October 5 – City Council Work Session*

Tuesday, October 13 – City Council Meeting*

Monday, October 10 – City Council Work Session*

*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 Fall Office Hours:

Tuesday, October 20 – 630-8 pm (The Cheese Cartel)

Wednesday, November 18 – 630-8 pm (Lucky Thai)

Dear Friends,

A lot is happening in the Little City this weekend:

• In person early voting at City Hall starts today. Besides voting for US Senator and 8th District Representative, there are also three state constitutional amendments on the ballot – marriage equality, reproductive freedom, and automatic voting rights restoration. Many people may not know about those amendments so help spread the word!
• Saturday is the 50th annual Falls Church Festival, which is perfect timing – eat up before Sunday morning’s Run for the Schools 5K. I’ll see you at both!

City Council took an important step on Virginia Village and affordable housing. Due to procurement rules, I’m limited in what I can share, but I’ll provide context on where we are in the process and what you can expect next. I’m also looking forward to a conversation about making democracy a little less mysterious next weekend. Finally, I’ll share a few questions I’ve been getting for years, including two that landed in my inbox this week. If you’re a long time reader, some of these may be familiar to you by now.

We’ll be meeting on a Tuesday next week instead of Monday due to Yom Kippur. Look forward to hearing from you.

Best,
Letty

What Happened This Week

(1) Virginia Village – we picked a partner

On Monday night, after 3+ hours in closed session discussion (due to procurement laws) – City Council accepted the recommendation of the Virginia Village Proposals Evaluation Committee and identified Urban Atlantic as the top-ranked development team for the redevelopment of Virginia Village in a unanimous 7-0 vote. You can see Urban Atlantic’s executive summary and conceptual design here.

The next step is negotiating an Interim Agreement, which will allow the City and developer to begin more detailed design, due diligence and financial feasibility work and then in early 2027, a Comprehensive Agreement and Site Plan. This is a good summary of where we are in the process and the upcoming milestones. While picking a partner to embark on the next steps is a big milestone, there are many more miles to go.

If you’re just catching up and asking why here and why now? Affordable housing remains one of the City’s highest priorities. The City has strategically acquired properties at Virginia Village over the past 5 years, with the goal of preserving and expanding affordability through redevelopment. The RFP specifically sought proposals that would preserve and expand access to affordable housing. That doesn’t mean there aren’t other important considerations — neighborhood design, open space, transportation, infrastructure, financial feasibility, and making sure the eventual project works for the surrounding community and the City as a whole. We need more housing options, and we especially need more housing that is affordable to people who work and live here. That has been a priority of mine since my first election, and it continues to be one of the issues I hear about most from residents.

(2) Demystifying Democracy

Next Saturday, September 26, I’ll be on a panel for Demystifying Democracy as part of the Falls Church 250 commemoration. This will be a practical conversation about how to get involved in democracy. This is an event I’m particularly excited about because increasing civic engagement has been a long standing goal.

(One of the reasons I started writing regularly was pretty simple: I think government works better when people understand how it works. That doesn’t mean everyone has to agree. In fact, disagreement is a healthy part of democracy. But I’ve found over the years that it’s much easier to have productive conversations when we’re starting with the same basic set of facts — and when people know where to go to get answers, how decisions actually get made, and how they can participate. Keep the questions and thoughts coming!)

So if you’ve ever wondered what City Council actually does, how to get involved in a board or commission, how to make your voice heard, or what happens after you send that very passionate email to your elected officials, come join us next Saturday.

(3) FAQs from this week

I’ve been doing these FAQ posts for a while. In fact, my last FAQ edition was #7, back in 2023. At the time, I wrote that if we can start from the same base of accurate information, it’s much easier to find common ground and move forward together. I still believe that.

And two questions I’ve gotten this week are actually questions I’ve been answering, in various forms, for years.

Q: “Has all this mixed-use development added many students to our schools?”

A: This one comes up a lot. The short answer is: no, and not nearly as many as you might assume from looking at how much housing we’ve added.

Our overall FCCPS enrollment has remained relatively stable and is now back around 2,700 students, which was our pre-Covid enrollment (these are Sept 2026 opening day numbers – we will know official stats from FCCPS after September 30 when the count is official). The annual “Students by Dwelling Unit”, aka where students live, data from FCCPS shows that students living in newer mixed-use buildings have represented roughly 9–11% of the total school population over the past decade.

We’ve added about 30% more housing stock and population since 2010, but most of our mixed-use development to date has been relatively small apartments and condos to diversify our tax base, which generally house fewer school-aged children than larger single-family homes. I can understand how someone could look at our new buildings and assume that more housing automatically means dramatically more students. But the actual data doesn’t support that conclusion.

That said, we need more middle housing and options for families to live in Falls Church too!

Q: “Does mixed-use development actually help the City’s finances?”

A: Yes. And we actually track this.

The City periodically does a “report card” on how our mixed-use developments are performing financially. The most recent analysis, completed at the end of 2025, found that the nine mixed-use developments included in the analysis generated approximately $4.5M in net fiscal benefit to the City — meaning after accounting for the cost of providing City services.

Putting money aside – it’s also worth remembering what those properties looked like before redevelopment. Mixed-use projects often replaced underperforming commercial properties and surface parking with a combination of housing, retail and commercial space, significantly increasing the tax base. Besides welcoming new neighbors, who become customers who help sustain the small businesses we all want to keep in Falls Church, we’ve also added more vibrancy.

A related question is why don’t we just build more commercial buildings and collect the revenues without the housing? Besides the fact that there is still strong need for housing (our new buildings have been filling up as expected), the office and retail markets have changed dramatically and there is far less demand for commercial space. Office vacancy rates in neighboring Arlington and Fairfax Counties remain in the low 20% range and they’ve begun to convert office parks and older office stock into housing.

A healthy city needs a diverse tax base, and that means being open minded about what the market can support vs just demanding real estate uses that may be unrealistic.

What’s Coming Up:

Tuesday, September 22 – City Council Work Session

Monday, September 28 – City Council Meeting*

Monday, October 5 – City Council Work Session*

*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 Fall Office Hours:

Tuesday, October 20 – 630-8 pm (The Cheese Cartel)

Wednesday, November 18 – 630-8 pm (Lucky Thai)