Blog posts are the personal views of Letty Hardi and not official statements or records on behalf of the Falls Church City Council

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)