News-Press Editorial

By giving another reputable large-scale developer a veritable "bum's rush" at a work session Monday night, the Falls Church City Council squandered an important opportunity to address the deepening housing crisis in the City. The developer in this case, the Hekemian Company, showed up at the work session to feel out the Council's reaction to a preliminary proposal to build a four-story mixed use project on 1.5 acres at the intersection of N. Washington and E. Jefferson Streets (site of the former Pearson Funeral Home).

Instead of grabbing onto the developer's suggestion that the project include 150 predominantly one-bedroom rental units to talk about "affordable housing," the Council left the creativity hats at home and merely superimposed its criteria for mixed use projects taken from other cases to find the Hekemian project seriously wanting. One Councilman called the proposal "dead on arrival" and another said he wished to identify myself with those remarks. All the Council members blasted the lack of open space and landscaping and other features.

However, the Council's rush to judgment, which caused the developers to leave the meeting in decidedly unpleasant frames of mind, was unsettling given the City's recognized lack of affordable, or even moderate, housing options. The Council has given lip service to addressing this need, but was incapable of seeing the potential for acting on it in this case.

In the last year, the housing crisis in the City has been exacerbated by the average 25% increase in the assessed value of homes here. That one-year surge in value has raised the value of the average free-standing housing unit in Falls Church from just over $400,000 to $527,000 in one year alone. Given that the federal government standard for affordable housing stipulates that the cost of a home should not be more than 2.5 times the owner's annual income, a person would have to earn $210,800 a year to afford an average home in Falls Church.

The average household income in Falls Church, one of the highest in the region, is $85,000. Therefore, for the average household to be able to afford a home here, that home should not cost more than $212,500.

Most of the new condominiums approved for the three currently-approved mixed use projects run closer to twice that.

So, you can see, we have a real problem. City employees, school employees and employees of businesses throughout the City cannot afford to live where they work. This hurts the ability of all the above to retain the best among their workforces.

While no one seized on this issue Monday, we hope it's not too late to retrieve the developer's interest and begin negotiations anew.