The speed and decisiveness by which the City of Falls Church has moved to secure a deal that would bring 200 new affordable housing units to downtown Falls Church veritably takes our breath away, and we think we may have said that at least one time before in this space.
We do not know what was said in the lengthy behind-closed-doors sessions of the City Council, including the one this week that lasted a good few hours before delivering a unanimous vote of 7-0. But clearly the efforts of some like former mayor Nader Barouck to throw a monkey wrench in this process clearly has been avoided so far, setting the City up to meet the deadline for federal funds by next spring.
Admittedly, the timeline is a compressed one for the Little City. In short, the City of Falls Church must conclude its local entitlement process no later than February 2027 to meet the state’s March 2027 application deadline for federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) funding.
The low income housing tax credit program is run by giving a developer a credit against tax liability that the developer can then take in exchange for the cash needed to build a project. In November 2025, then City Manager Wyatt Shields developed an extended memorandum that included a timeline on how the City would need to act to meet the March 2027 deadline for applications for the latest round of affordable housing tax credits. That has been what has spurred the Council into its current pattern of action, and so far everything has proceeded according to plan.
Efforts to gum up the works that have been successful in the past have not worked this time, in part because no one wants to go on record saying they don’t want affordable housing, especially no one running for a public office.
So, while the usual NIMBY (“Not in my back yard”) sentiments will continue to be expressed on this project, the momentum that worked to slow down key projects in recent years like the t-zone furor that wasted over two years before a final vote was taken with not a single change of mind has not grown at all in the last couple years.
Other communities have not been so lucky. All the key controversies that have inflamed other communities in the region have been avoided here so far, one of the biggest being the derailment of an effort to consume the School Board in such a furor with revelations about the potential for national issues to be injected into a local campaign.
It was also because of the News-Press coverage of these developments and what that did to defuse a potentially explosive situation, and that was a lesson that was not lost on anyone, or almost anyone.
We urge our leaders not to let up on their current course. Let’s see where we go next.
