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,

Happy long weekend – May is affordable housing month so it’s fitting that we had a lengthy discussion on Virginia Village in a joint work session with the Planning Commission, EDA, and Housing Commission this week. A common critique and question I hear is that we’re building too many luxury apartments and what we need is more affordable housing. Virginia Village could be that big opportunity. This is a “yes/and” and not an “either/or.” If you read nothing else from me this weekend, here’s a really good 3 minute video on why housing of all kinds – even market rate homes – creates “moving chains” of affordability. (Here’s the Pew study that backs up the video.) It makes sense when you think about it.

With the holiday weekend and high school graduation next week, this week’s post will be briefer and I’ll be taking a break until the first week of June. We will continue to have weekly City Council meetings in June, three meetings in July, take our summer recess in early August, and then back in session for two meetings at the end of August. Note we have new sets of office hours below if you’d like to catch me or other members of City Council in more informal settings outside of our meetings.

Tomorrow, I look forward to honoring the fallen at our Memorial Day festivities. It’s especially significant this year during the 250th anniversary of the US, where we can all pause to reflect on our nation’s founding ideals of freedom, liberty, democratic governance – and the responsibility we all share to carry these ideals forward.

Stay dry,
Letty

What Happened This Week

Virginia Village RFP, Small Area Plan, Zoning Amendments

Quick recap – these is a good primer + FAQs before you dive in:

• Since last fall, we kicked off the process to begin seriously looking at a roadmap forward for more affordable housing at the Virginia Village site, where we have been slowly acquiring quads over the past 5 years (see my Nov 2025 post). We discussed how the City could proceed with issuing an RFP this year and simultaneously develop a new vision and zoning tools for the future of the Virginia Village neighborhood with community input along the way.
• Public engagement sessions were held in March and April – community meetings as well as specific outreach and discussions with nearby communities in Winter Hill, residents of Virginia Village, Tinner Hill Heritage Foundation.
• Back in March, we also asked staff to explore possible amendments to small area plans for Virginia Village.
• Much of the community feedback collected this spring contains detailed guidance beyond what is suitable for a typical small area plans, and, notably, is not currently supported by existing zoning. As a result, staff recommends amending the zoning ordinance to better align with the more prescriptive feedback received during the Small Area Plan update process which will ensure clarity and predictability.

What’s happening now:

• We’re reviewing the draft RFP which includes asking for proposals for 3 options – renovate the existing quads in current footprint, expand the existing quads to add a small additional amount of affording housing, or a redevelopment with moderate scaled development with more affordable housing. Note the RFP is only for the quads that the city owns (9 out of 20 total on the Virginia Village site).
• We’re wrestling with this “new to us” parallel process – where we are synthesizing the feedback on guardrails (eg height, density, setbacks/stepbacks, tree canopy, green buffers, mix of incomes and housing types, etc) should we get responses for a potential redevelopment that would go in small area plans and zoning ordinances – while developing and issuing the RFP.
• Based on our feedback in work session this week – we’ll hear a revised schedule from staff on how his parallel process can work.

Letty’s Thoughts: with housing affordability being an important issue for us and the region, I am hopeful that Virginia Village will be our opportunity to live our values of being welcoming and inclusive and meet our policy goals. I want to see a careful balance between being too prescriptive – we should clearly signal community expectations – without stifling creative market responses on what is realistic (buildable and financeable). We have heard consistent feedback on those community expectations, brought in expert real estate consultants to help guide us, and have a terrific staff who have experience doing this so we have all the right ingredients to take this on. And we should all be curious what the market response will be- we could find that we still need more quads, the real estate market doesn’t support it yet or other responses – and that is useful information for a preservation and acquisition strategy. While it seems like an aggressive timeline to issue a RFP in the next month, we still have decision-making authority on whether we proceed with any of the responses from a potential partner.

I encourage you to stay informed (the city website here has the most accurate information), attend meetings, and share your thoughts constructively.

What’s Coming Up:

May 26 – City Council Meeting*

June 1 – City Council Work Session*

June 3 – Ask the Council Office Hours (9 am, City Hall)

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)