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,

It’s been a big week for public art and economic development – we’ve had one new mural go up in the city and another is now underway! I’m thrilled to see continued public and private investment in making our City more vibrant every year. On the economic development front, ICYMI – the replacement for the baby Target space was announced on Wednesday, with the first Grocery Outlet coming to Virginia in the 455 Tinner building – which is grocery store #6 in the Little City, a retail category that’s been resilient.

Heading into the Memorial Day weekend, I look forward to kicking off summer and paying tribute to military service members who gave their lives in service of our country. Our Memorial Day celebration is one of our most beloved traditions, so I hope to see many of you. While City Council is still meeting next week (but moving to Tuesday night due to the holiday), I’ll be taking a blogging break so posts will resume the week of June 3.

In the meantime, there’s plenty to share from another meaty work session this week: Accessory Dwelling Units kickoff, Solid Waste Management Plan, sewer purchase agreement, and a budget amendment. Check out the schedule for June office hours too, and we look forward to hearing from you.

Happy summer,
Letty

What Happened This Week

(1) Accessory Dwelling Units kickoff

City Council “kicked off” the work on Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) by reviewing the proposed roadmap – including policy goals, a community engagement plan, key considerations, and a schedule over the next year. ADUs are one tool in our continued work on housing to be diverse, attainable, and sustainable for all and support the City Council 2024-2025 strategic priorities that we adopted in March.

Background reading: I highly recommend a skim or read of the AARP primer on the ABCs of Accessory Dwelling Units and how they expand housing options for all ages. The staff report also has a good matrix comparing the rules on the books today in Falls Church vs other jurisdictions and potential state legislation that would have legalized detached ADUs across Virginia.

Letty’s Thoughts: I’m glad we finally kicked off the ADU work as it’s been in our previous work plan and we made time to discuss the expectations for how this effort will go upfront. The staff report includes a comprehensive list of issues to consider as well as a community engagement plan so input will be heard early before any code changes are drafted. A few guiding principles I offered: let’s learn from others and understand what makes sense for Falls Church. The good news is that many jurisdictions in the region and across the US have already legalized ADUs and iterated on their code to encourage production, so we’re not starting from scratch. We can learn from their experience. From their experiences, we already know that this will be an incremental tool and not a silver bullet for affordability so we should be clear about that policy goal. In my mind, accessory dwellings are a lever to boost supply and housing choices, which enables more generational diversity in our neighborhoods – homes for returning college grads, young professionals, or aging in place seniors. Finally, there is an equity element for me. Given the by-right turnover of starter home stock into large single family homes that often max out the building and impervious coverage limits – we should consider making the zoning rules and processes comparable for property owners so they have more choice and creative options on how to use their land (that may end up being more sustainable and efficient), like ADUs.

(2) Solid Waste Management Plan

Not the most enthralling topic, but an important local government function, especially if we all care about where our trash, recycling, and compostables go! The city’s Solid Waste Management plan is updated every 20 years, and we are grateful to the community task force that helped develop the plan and recommended actions. At over 200 pages (page 60 is a good summary), I don’t expect everyone to read it so I’ll share the key takeaways from our discussion, especially as you consider how you manage your consumption and household waste.

• Recycling is a growing cost for the city as there really isn’t a market for it anymore, especially plastics recycling. Instead of focusing on recycling, we should be thinking of the other Rs we all learned: reducing our consumption and reusing as much as possible before disposing.
• Reduce single use plastics – to that end, I’ve been advocating for eliminating the use of single use plastics (can we start with plastic water bottles in our government and school buildings?) so I would welcome input and community support to take that on together.
• Reduce organic waste
  • Composting is a good way to divert waste from the trash – if you’re not already signed up, curbside composting is easy, as is backyard composting or the 24 hour drop off at the Community Center.
  • Leave the Leaves! We’re still 2 seasons away from leaf season, but start thinking about alternatives to the city vacuum option by mulch mowing or backyard composting on your property. Even in a yard with a lot of mature trees, I can attest that those strategies work without all the labor of blowing or raking your leaves!
• Re-use: the sharing economy in Falls Church is thriving! Join a Freecycle or Buy Nothing Group or create neighborhood groups like tool libraries to promote re-use.

(3) Other – Sewer Purchase Agreement and Budget Amendment

Both of these will come back around for final consideration (so I’ll likely blog about them again), but be aware that we discussed high level terms of a sewer purchase agreement with Fairfax County and a budget amendment as we head towards the end of Fiscal Year 2024.

• The draft sewer agreement terms, besides purchasing additional capacity for planned growth, include commitments by the City to address peak flow issues, which has recurred more frequently with heavy rain events when stormwater enters the sewer system. More discussion will happen on the financing of sewer infrastructure between now and when the agreement will need to be finalized and signed this fall.
• The budget amendment (even though we just finished and adopted the FY25 budget) is to help close out the current fiscal year 2024. It’s largely housekeeping with small incoming revenues and expenditures. It is noteworthy to mention the sale the Virginia Tech property adjacent to the West Falls project, which nets the city $8.4M which will go into our capital reserves. As it stands, our capital reserves are at $23.6M in addition to the “rainy day” unassigned fund balance at about $27M, both of which more than exceeds the requirements of our financial policies. That is why we’re carefully deploying the reserves to top community needs in the FY25 adopted budget and CIP.

What’s Coming Up:

Tuesday, May 28 – City Council Meeting*

Monday, June 3 – City Council Work Session*

Wednesday, June 5 – Ask the Council Office Hours (9 am, City Hall)

Monday, June 10 – City Council Meeting*

Monday, June 24 – City Council Meeting*

Friday, June 28 – Letty’s June Office Hours (9 am, TBD)

*Mondays (except 5th Mondays and holidays) at 7:30 pm. You can access the agenda and livestream here, including recordings of past meetings