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,

This week’s post is coming to you from the west coast! I’m on a whirlwind 30 hour trip to San Francisco as a member of the fledgling Abundance Network and for this new book you may have heard about. The principles of abundance resonate a lot. It’s how I’ve approached my role in local government, focusing on implementation and outcomes and not just passing policies and plans that sit on a shelf. Re-orienting from a scarcity to abundance mindset is also powerful – what if we could create more of the good things we all want? More sidewalks, more housing, more climate resilience…and have government get out of our own way? I’m excited to learn from my peers across the country and bring back learnings to Falls Church.

Back at home – we heard the budget presentations from the School Board and the City Manager on Monday night, marking the handoff to us for the FY26 budget. We’ll be diving in and deliberating over the next 6 weeks and hearing from you will be important. The TL;DR: with higher revenues than most of our peers in the region, the City Manager is proposing a 2.5 cent tax rate cut (this would be a total of 17 cents of tax rate cuts since 2021). Read on for more highlights and community engagement opportunities.

We also had a final work session on Accessory Dwellings so I’ll recap the compromises to the proposal that have been made since our first reading vote back in November. Having read the emails and survey comments, there continues to be a fair amount of misunderstanding about ADs. In my opinion, staff has done a good job researching, learning the best practices, and adjusting the rules based on feedback into a reasonable proposal that will allow a modest number of ADs to be built (2-5 accessory dwellings across the entire city per year!). This is a small incremental change that provides more options for homeowners of what to do with their property and creates more diverse housing without dramatically changing neighborhoods. Our final vote is scheduled for April 14.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Best,
Letty

PS – ICYMI the narrow, inaccessible stretch of sidewalk in the 400 block of Broad St has been fixed! I’m grateful to have the cooperation of the property owner to get it done after so many years. Soon after, I saw a young family in a stroller, scooter, and bike enjoying the new, wide sidewalk which would have been impossible before!

What Happened This Week:

(1) FY26 Budget Proposal

Here are all the places you can learn about the budget:

City webpage on all things budget, including the 300+ page budget book and Capital Improvement Program (CIP)
Press release on the proposed budget
Presentations from City Manager and School Board Chair

Highlights:

• As real estate taxes make up 57% of our total revenues, it’s notable that we’re seeing 10.5% growth in real estate values, with half of it coming from new construction
• Fully funds the schools’ budget request
• Despite lowering the tax rate 2.5 cents this (making it 17 cents total over 5 years) and keeping the median tax bill to a $400 increase this year- because assessments have been higher, the tax bills hwill have risen 20% over the past 5 years
• Schools and general government budgets are growing about 6-7% while the overall city budget is actually almost 3% smaller than last year due to debt service decreasing and smaller use of capital reserves this year
• We’re setting aside $500K in contingency funds (and will likely deliberate if that’s enough) in light of federal upheaval and risk to local revenues

Budget public engagement opportunities:

(2) Accessory Dwellings

Updates to the Accessory Dwellings rules have been in progress for almost a year. Staff has held 26 public meeting opportunities, including a series of open house meetings, work sessions by the Housing Commission, Urban Forestry, Environmental Sustainability Council, Planning Commission, and City Council. Also there have been postcards mailed to residential neighborhoods where ADs would be allowed, with an opt in survey collecting more input.

Over this year, a number of amendments have been made based on the feedback we’ve heard:

• Eliminated short term rental use in ADs
• Limited size of ADs to 1000 square feet (Planning Commission and others deliberated higher square footage)
• Setbacks and heights have been modified: originally the proposal had 5’ setback for 1.5 stories/20’ in height, going up to 10’ setback for 2 stories/25’ height. As proposed now, ADs will have 5’ setback for 1 story/15’ height and 10’ setback for 1.5 stories/20’ height – eliminating the 2 story/25’ height option. It’s important to note what the current rules are in neighborhoods and making sure what’s proposed with ADs is fair and consistent. See the chart below – did you know that property owners can already build a 12’ tall garage or shed with 3’ setback and a 35’ tall house with 10’ setback in R1-B neighborhoods? See below chart for a comparison.
• No projections into the setback
• Adjusted corner lot setbacks
• Rear yard coverage limits – 30% is the current limit, the Planning Commission recommended removing it altogether, and we settled on a 50% limit as a compromise

Letty’s Thoughts: The staff report does a good job explaining all of the proposed rules, considerations, background research, and rationale. I’m grateful for all the diligence and work getting us to this point.

While the idea of allowing ADs to be built “by right” can seem scary – in my opinion, this is “by right with guardrails”. Staff has incorporated best practices from other jurisdictions that have implemented AD ordinances that have led to positive results. The proposals are reasonable and prevent unintended consequences– especially compared to what can already be built on that same lot today – while creating enough flexibility to make ADs feasible and buildable, at the estimate of 2-5 ADs across the entire city per year. We have seen that when the rules are too restrictive, property owners can’t and won’t build them, defeating the goal of allowing this new form of housing. Furthermore, the turnover of small homes to much, much larger homes is the predominant “by right” activity in neighborhoods happening right now- resulting in the loss of mature trees and maxing out impervious coverage, all legal and by right and impacts the neighborhood far more. (This Slate article about the Great White House explains this trend and why.) Detached accessory dwellings offer those property owners another choice of what to do with their land, and hopefully slowing down that trend.

What’s Coming Up:

Wednesday, April 2 – Ask the Council Office Hours (City Hall, 9 am)

Monday, April 7 – City Council Work Session*

Monday, April 14 – City Council Meeting* (final vote for Accessory Dwelling ordinance)

Monday, April 21 – 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 Office Hours:

Friday, April 11 – 12 pm AND 5 pm (Walking Office Hours – meet at Broad St entrance of Howard Herman Trail)

Wednesday, May 21 – 5 pm (Walking Office Hours – meet at Cherry Hill Park)