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,

We continue to have packed weeks as we head into summer, so this week’s post will cover a lot. We kicked off the week with Memorial Day, one of our most beloved, meaningful traditions in the city, a midweek visit by Senator Mark Warner, and the HAWK signals that went live yesterday! I also enjoyed my ride along with the police this week, which was a fun learning opportunity. (Check out more ways to get connected with our police, including the next session of the Community Policing Academy.)

Read on about:

• CIP (Capital Improvements Program ie, big projects) updates – lots underway and coming this summer!
• New crosswalk and sidewalk standards
• City Council salaries
• Solid Waste – what’s next
• Development & land use cases on the horizon and how it all works!

We welcome your input via email, at public comment at our meetings, or at office hours – our full Council office hours are the first Wednesday morning each month and I also hold personal ones (see schedule below), or happy to schedule a meeting in your neighborhood.

Best,
Letty

What Happened This Week:

(1) Capital Projects Update

Long time readers will know this is one of my favorite regular topics – capital projects are among the most visible ways to see your tax dollars at work, they’re anchored in the top priorities we hear from the community, and because they take awhile through design, input, and construction phases, they’re often highly anticipated. And over the past 10 years, we’ve had very ambitious capital plans – new facilities across the city, infrastructure like stormwater, and transportation improvements. We know they can be disruptive, but there are often a lot of good, needed upgrades on the other side.

This snapshot with red/yellow/green status is good summary of the capital projects underway – here are a few highlights, including a big call out: the Community Center geothermal HVAC upgrade is nearly done and reopening is on track for next week, June 7.

• We have nearly 40 projects underway across the city, with almost half of them for transportation projects, 25% for facilities/schools projects and the rest in miscellaneous categories like parks and stormwater.
• Recently completed: new turf at MHS Stadium field, Hillwood 1 stormwater project, Berman Park trail crossings, new sidewalk in front of Bedo’s in the 400 block of Broad St
• Underway and starting soon: Berman Park playground equipment, Maple and Annandale roundabout, Washington and Columbia intersection improvement, Greenway Downs traffic calming, West Falls – Rt 7/Haycock improvements pending VDOT and Dominion work, Smart Cities traffic signal upgrades

(2) New sidewalk and crosswalk standards

Following our work session discussion last week, we voted 7-0 to adopt new standards for sidewalks and crosswalks. (Last week’s post has a more in depth discussion.) Thank you for the input I heard from many of you and our boards and commissions.

TL;DR –

• For new sidewalks – we will be moving to concrete sidewalks with brick banding that are more accessible, less slippery in cold/wet conditions, and more affordable to install and maintain. It is a good compromise with a nod to the past and tie in with the various permutations of all brick sidewalks elsewhere in the city.
• For new crosswalks – we will be moving to stamped asphalt (that looks like brick) with high visibility markings. If you haven’t seen the pilot crosswalk at the intersection of S. Oak/Broad, that’s a good example.

(3) City Council Salaries

City Council members are currently paid $11K ($11,500 for the mayor) per year and the salaries are regulated at the state level. Recently, the General Assembly raised the caps to $21K/22K based on our city’s population. There is a state law that stipulates that can only change salaries at least four months prior to the next regularly scheduled general election of Council members, so we are considering the change this year ahead of the November 2025 election, to go into effect July 1, 2026, and still subject to next year’s budget appropriation. (The staff report has a good history of salaries – it’s mostly stayed at this level since 2007.)

Clearly, even $22K is not a living wage in this region – the general sentiment of increasing salaries is to lower possible financial barriers so more diverse community members from all income levels might consider running for office and to lessen the financial impacts that elected service can have. A few years ago, we also became eligible to receive healthcare benefits similar to other jurisdictions.

This week, we voted at first reading 6-1 to raise the salaries to $16K/17K, which is below the $21K/22K state cap, with more discussion and a second reading/aka final vote at our June 16 meeting. Your input is welcome before then.

(4) Solid Waste Task Force

Following our budget season deliberations on how to more fairly pay for trash across the city and reduce waste (see my April post with more info and FAQs I’ve been fielding) – the city is kicking off a Solid Waste Task Force this summer, with recommendations due to us in August so we can enact the changes. There is representation with residents from condo, townhome, and single family home living and the scope of the task force is to come up with a report with recommendations on the fee structure, city-wide composting, billing, and a communications plan.

The first meeting will be Wed, June 11 at 2 pm – which will be open to the public and also recorded. Expect 3 more meetings in June and July.

(5) Development & Land Use Cases – how it all works!

We had a work session last week (a mixed use proposal at Maple & Annandale) and one next week (S. Lee/Broad St rezoning for townhomes) on two different land use projects. I last wrote about the Maple & Annandale in March 2024 when it was last in front of us in work session and continue to have some of the same concerns. And I’ll have more to share about the S Lee/Broad rezoning after we have our first work session discussion next week. You can see from the link below that there’s no other large development in the pipeline – likely due to uncertain economic environment and commercial real estate market, higher interest rates, worries about tariffs on construction materials.

Based on public comments we’ve been receiving, I do want to share more of how development/land use cases work in Falls Church. While I know City Council lives and breathe these cases when it’s going through the process, the general public may not be paying as close attention to the details so I’ll try to de-mystify it and share how when and how you can make your voice heard:

• Here’s the pipeline of projects – what’s done, under construction, under review
• Here’s how we plan across the city – Comprehensive Plan and commercial area-specific Small Area Plans (I often hear that we don’t have comprehensive or cohesive planning on infrastructure, development, transportation, climate – and if you ever need bedtime reading, all of these plans would be a good primer.)
• Here’s how the development process works. In my time on City Council, the time between stages 4 and 5 (public review and City Council action) has averaged 2 years, with multiple iterations and submissions of the project based on community, City Council, and board and commission input.

We also hear public comments about concerns about school capacity, stormwater, traffic, and more. I’ve tackled many of these as FAQ posts over the years. If you’re a new reader – I encourage you to spend some time with this “greatest hits FAQ” post, which has links to facts. The two most common FAQs when it comes to development is school enrollment and capacity and traffic, so I’ll share the data here.

School enrollment & capacity – here’s the most recent school enrollment analysis we do every fall. You can see that the new mixed use buildings (orange bar in the chart below) have contributed 7-10% of the total school population and that our total enrollment has just returned to pre-Covid levels. That said, with the 6% growth in student enrollment anticipated in the coming school year, those numbers will tick up a few percentage points but is not “explosive” growth. We also have more than enough school capacity to handle the growth and our adopted budget accounts for that.

Traffic – No one ever believes this, so it bears re-sharing. From November 2024 here’s great analysis on vehicle volumes mapped with population over time in the Planning Commission docket. I last shared similar data in 2022 based on an article analyzing actual VDOT data. From 2022, the quick summary is that while population increased about 20%, VDOT data showed that overall car volumes decreased by almost 10% in the same time period. Some streets saw small increases in volumes, but total volumes of vehicle traffic in the city decreased over time, busting the myth that more people automatically equals more cars especially when we invest in other forms of transportation, like walking, bike, and transit.

The trend below is something we’ll keep monitoring closely, as I know we still have a few more months of construction-related congestion on Broad St, return to work is creating more rush hour congestion, and individual streets and neighborhoods are seeing increased bad driving and speeding post-Covid, so we’ll continue to deploy traffic calming measures, pedestrian safety improvements, and enforcement.

What’s Coming Up:

Monday, June 2 – City Council Work Session*

Wednesday, June 4 – Ask the Council Office Hours (9 am, City Hall)

Monday, June 16 – City Council Meeting*

Monday, July 7 – City Council Work Session*

Monday, July 14 – 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 Office Hours:

Monday, June 23 – 12 pm (Mr Brown’s Park)