When Tyler Gardens Was A Game Change for City

As City of Falls Church officials struggle for the first time in more than a decade to make meaningful gains increasing its affordable housing stock in the face of a deepening regional and national housing shortage crisis, historians are coming forward to point out how the very existence of the Little City as an independent jurisdiction is owed in significant part to a huge affordable housing advance in the post-World War II era that coincided with its official establishment.

While the City was being formally incorporated in 1947, an occasion being marked with numerous 75th anniversary events this year culminating in August, it was not a coincidence that the biggest housing project in the City’s history was being undertaken at the same time.

It was the monstrous, by standards here then, Tyler Gardens housing project (now known as Winter Hill and Cherry Hill), with 472 rental units on 27 acres, by far the biggest undertaking in the history of Falls Church in its pre-independent city iterations as an agricultural waystation, summer getaway for DC’ers, pocket of post-Civil War Black dwellings and legally-designated “town.”

It was in the works since 1942, intended to be what was called by the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration “war housing.” The “war housing” was needed to house the flood of persons moving into the region to take jobs as part of the war effort, and they were also for the planned return home of millions of young American soldiers and their families after World War II. There were thousands of colonies of low-income housing projects that were planned during the war that sprung up all across the U.S. in the context of the 1944 passage of the massive Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, better known as the GI Bill.

(This year, while being Falls Church’s 75th anniversary year as an independent city, also marks the 80th year of the passage of the G.I. Bill which, far more than the war effort itself, was responsible for the nation’s full recovery from the Great Depression of the 1930s.)

According to veteran Falls Church development attorney Paul Barkley, the site for the Tyler Gardens had been purchased from Mattie Gundry for whom Gundry Drive and the Matty Gundry Award are named. She had operated the Virginia Training School in Falls Church for nearly 50 years, serving mentally challenged children.

Barkley noted in a history he prepared for inclusion in new Winter Hill Architectural Guidelines that he drafted in 2001 that “the construction of Tyler Gardens caused quite a stir because it was the largest project of its kind in the town and the anticipated 950 new residents would pose a severe burden on the town’s water system consisting of four municipal wells.” The rents were projected to be from $65 to $93 per month.

To make it all work, the town issued 30-year bonds to finance a connection to the Arlington County water system at Chain Bridge near where Arlington received its water from the Dalecarlia Filtration Plant in D.C. That formed the basis for the growth of the Falls Church Water System, which expanded in subsequent years to encompass a large section of Northern Virginia that included Tysons Corner. It was transferred in January 2014 to Fairfax County for $40 million, plus 38.4 prime acres upon which the new Meridian High School was built and the massive 10-acre West End Development is being built, bringing enormous economic gain to the City.

In 1973, Wills and Plank contracted to purchase Tyler Gardens for conversion to the Winter Hill condominiums. The City government stepped in when Wills and Plank sent out eviction notices to residents to enact a 90-day eviction notice law and negotiated the acquisition of 81 units of the project for low and moderate income housing.

According to an article in the March 11, 1987 Washington Post, entitled, “Falls Church Buys Subsidized Apartments,” “Falls Church Mayor Carol W. DeLong said this was the first time the city’s nonprofit housing corporation, created in 1982, has tried to preserve housing by buying and maintaining units.

“Rents at 80 apartments are subsidized under a federal low-income housing program known as Section 8, and this continuing subsidy was a key to making the purchase practical, officials said. One unit is for a property manager and is unsubsidized.

“The housing corporation is getting a $3.55 million loan from the Virginia Housing and Development Authority to cover the purchase and repairs on the heating system and windows at the apartments, according to housing corporation Chairman David S. Clark.”

So Falls Church owes its existence to the efforts of the FDR administration to adopt aggressive policies to end the Great Depression at the war’s end by a bill which made possible new opportunities for many millions of young families.

The G.I. Bill gave World War II servicemen and service woman many options and benefits. Those who wished to continue their education in college or vocational school could do so tuition-free up to $500 while also receiving a cost of living stipend. As a result, almost 49 percent of college admissions in 1947 were veterans. The G.I. Bill opened the door of higher education to the working class in a way never done before.

The bill provided a $20 weekly unemployment benefit for up to one year for veterans looking for work. Job counseling was also available.

The government guaranteed loans for veterans who borrowed money to purchase a home, business or farm. Medical care for veterans was also provided in the G.I. Bill. Additional hospitals were established for veterans and the Veterans Administration took over all veteran-related concerns.

By 1956, almost 10 million veterans had received G.I. Bill benefits.