Expiring affordability commitments and a large site where leaders could potentially expand affordable housing are presenting questions for Falls Church policymakers.
“There’s a policy decision: What are the choices before us?” Mayor Letty Hardi said at a Feb. 18 meeting to set the timetable for discussion of key upcoming issues.
Falls Church officials are awaiting developments in Richmond to determine whether the city’s Planning Commission will get back powers that the General Assembly stripped last year.
However, legislation to restore the old arrangement could face an uphill battle.
Nearly seven years after a failed first attempt, Falls Church officials are trying again to entice e-scooter and e-bike operators to the city.
Council members are considering a proposal to allow a maximum of 100 total operating certificates for “shared mobility devices”: motorized skateboards, scooters, bicycles and electrically assisted bicycles.
Falls Church city officials have started talking with potential partners about what could be one of the largest housing projects in the city’s history.
In discussing possibilities with four nonprofit or governmental housing organizations, the city has “laid out a road map” for what could happen to the Virginia Village community, including the construction of a substantial amount of affordable housing, City Manager Wyatt Shields told City Council members at a Jan. 27 meeting.
The Falls Church City Council is preparing to vote on a region-wide proposal to increase annual spending for Metro by $460 million every year.
On Monday, Feb. 2, Council members are slated to discuss a request from the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) and Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority (WMATA) to formally support the DMV Moves funding proposal to augment Metro service.
Falls Church officials are not, to date, seeing police officers move to neighboring communities for more money.
“Not yet,” Police Chief Shahram Fard told City Council members on Jan. 12.
Falls Church’s incumbent mayor narrowly won reappointment to a new two-year term yesterday (Monday).
Letty Hardi was selected by colleagues to continue in the post on a 4-3 vote, with new Council member Arthur Agin delivering the slim margin of victory.
Falls Church homeowners may or may not see a dip in real estate taxes next year as property assessments continue to rise.
At a Dec. 3 planning session of City Council members, there was general consensus around the desire to lower the current tax rate to offset expected higher home-assessment values. But doing so was left as a goal, rather than made a requirement, as city staff begins developing the fiscal year 2027 budget.
Falls Church city and school leaders head into planning for the fiscal year 2027 budget with many unknowns to contend with.
David So, the city government’s new budget director, sketched out a number of budget scenarios at a Monday (Dec. 1) work session between members of the City Council and School Board. Depending on the scenario, his projections leave a budget gap of between $2.7 million and $5.4 million that will have to be addressed before a final budget is adopted next May.
The Falls Church city government continues to chip away at its staff vacancies, but faces ongoing challenges with public safety recruitment.
The 8% vacancy rate recorded across all city departments in early November “is, I think, the lowest we’ve been since the pandemic,” City Manager Wyatt Shields told members of the City Council’s government-operations committee on Nov. 26.
Next year could be make-or-break time for Falls Church officials’ desire to do something big on the affordable-housing front.
The city, through its Economic Development Authority, already owns nine small apartment properties in the Virginia Village community near Annandale Road. At a Nov. 19 meeting between elected officials and staff, discussion turned to moving forward on a consolidated plan for housing the neighborhood.
Falls Church leaders have begun talks on a possible tax surcharge on commercial property to fund transportation improvements.
If it’s enacted, owners of non-residential parcels in the city could pay an additional rate of up to 12.5 cents per $100 assessed value each year, similar to surcharges in neighboring Arlington and Fairfax counties.
