My oldest child graduated from college this year. My youngest finished his freshman year at Virginia Tech. That makes Rachel and me almost empty nesters as they still come home for summers. It has caused us to start thinking about where we want to live next. The house we raised our kids in was perfectly suited for that. We love our school pyramid, the quiet cul-de-sac, and that we back up to undeveloped parkland with a stream, trees, and trails.

Falls Church City looks like a great candidate for our next home. In addition to top-tier schools, it has vibrant neighborhoods, and a great combination of density along major corridors that step down nicely into residential neighborhoods. A walkable community with all the amenities of a big city, and a small-town feel. 

I want to applaud the City Council, Planning Commission and City staff for a job well done! What higher compliment can I pay than saying, I want to join you?

What’s stopping us? What’s stopping anyone. For many people it’s cost. Fairfax County has the same problems. I’m constantly amazed at what people are willing to pay to move into neighborhoods in the 13th District, or to pay for a house just to tear it down. 

There must be things we can do to make housing more affordable and to keep it withing reach of ordinary people. 

That’s why I’ve supported an “all of the above” approach to reigning in the skyrocketing cost of housing. In some cases that means incentivizing the creation of more new affordable housing options or it means working to preserve affordable housing where it already exists. It also means looking at our processes to see where redundancy and inefficiency are adding unnecessary costs and barriers to bringing new housing supply to the market.

It’s easy to say we have a problem, and even to point out what some of the problems are. Over the years, I’ve also been willing to propose solutions. I’ve carried and supported legislation tailored to help Falls Church be a leader in smart growth. We’ve expanded the use of accessory dwelling units, incentivized affordable housing in mixed-use developments, and supported transition zone reform to allow gentle infill and more housing choices. 

This year I sponsored a bill to bring more predictability and fairness to local land use decisions. My bill set reasonable, enforceable deadlines for local governments to act on zoning and site plan applications. It doesn’t take away local authority but rather ensures that decisions happen on a predictable timeline, so that we’re not driving up the cost of housing through bureaucratic delay.

After a project has already been approved for development, community input has been received, and the project has cleared the policy hurdles, my bill requires the local authorities to streamline the process for approving the final site plans by shortening the turnaround time and reducing the need for multiple resubmissions.

I also voted for a new law that moves final site plan approval into the hands of professional planning staff. Site plans should be judged by objective standards and not subject to shifting politics or last-minute opposition. Public engagement is critical in this process and there are plenty of opportunities for it during planning, rezoning, and design. However, the site plan stage is where we should be moving things forward, once building officials deem that the application is complete and follows regulations. 

Fairfax County has already begun adjusting its internal processes to take full advantage of the new law. County leaders have recognized that delays cost money and those costs get passed on to renters, first-time homebuyers, and families already stretched thin.

Fairfax’s planning staff now work on clear, accelerated review timelines, with performance metrics and coordinated feedback. They’ve incorporated meaningful community input where it matters most while ensuring that once the rules are set, projects that follow them get a fair and timely review.

As I said at the outset, I think the Falls Church City Council and Planning Commission have done an amazing job reshaping The Little City. So much so that I expect to become a resident myself in the not-too-distant future. Frankly, this legislation probably won’t have that big an impact here in Falls Church because the city already does things very well, and infill projects approved at any speed probably can’t provide enough supply to meaningfully change the forces of supply and demand driving prices higher.

That’s led some to wonder why the City should be subject to these new requirements at all. Legislation that makes the City move a little faster, and gives housing providers a little more certainty, though, won’t break the system. I believe it will make a great process even better.