East Falls Church

On Saturday the Arlington County Board unanimously approved a controversial plan for transit-oriented development around the East Falls Church Metro station.

The plan calls for the creation of a mixed-use “neighborhood center” with open spaces, a public plaza and ground level retail. Some of the new development will be built on the Metro Park and Ride lot. The single family neighborhoods surrounding the station, meanwhile, will be preserved.

The height of the new residential buildings — a major source of concern for East Falls Church residents — will range from nine stories along I-66 to three stories closer to the single family homes. Lee Highway, Washington Boulevard and Sycamore Street will be redesigned to add bike lanes, on-street parking, trees and pedestrian improvements. The plan is also expected to add 100-250 units of committed affordable housing to the East Falls Church area.

See the county’s press release about the plan’s passage here.

In the news business, this is known as a “process” story. On Saturday the county board voted to accept a task force’s plan for development around the East Falls Church Metro Station. The board passed the plan on to county staff, who will review it and make changes while preserving 15 priorities outlined by the board. The board’s action will have no actual, practical consequences. That will come when the final plan is adopted by the board about six months from now, following more revisions and public discussion.

For what was essentially a procedural action, however, there sure were plenty of people who wanted to talk about it. About 25 speakers voiced their opinion on the EFC plan, most of them residents who believe that the addition of transit-oriented, mixed use retail/office buildings and the subtraction of the commuter parking lot would “destroy” or otherwise sully their relatively quiet residential neighborhood.

Passions run high on the EFC issue, and Saturday’s nearly three hour discussion was no exception. At one point, while the board was discussing the plan amongst themselves, board chairman Jay Fisette scolded development opponents for hissing.

Later, in a bit of openness that should give opponents hope, board vice chairman Chris Zimmerman acknowledged a major hurdle that could prevent the development from getting done. The commuter parking lot, which the county wants to convert into a mixed-use development that will act as the “town center” of East Falls Church, is owned by VDOT, which has said it wants the lot to remain.

“Maybe VDOT won’t allow it and it won’t get built,” Zimmerman conceded.

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The battle over the future of East Falls Church was well underway before the Arlington County Board spent more than two hours on the topic Tuesday night, but the raw emotion behind the neighbor vs. neighbor conflict became especially clear as about 20 speakers took the podium to voice their opinions.

The East Falls Church (EFC) development plan calls for the creation of a “transit town” of neighborhood-oriented retail and restaurants, six to nine-story mixed-use buildings, and pedestrian-oriented walkable and bike-able streetscapes. Development is inevitable, EFC task force chairman Mike Nardolilli says, since the station will soon become the transfer point to Tysons Corner and the Silver Line. Members of the task force spent three years working on the plan and says it mostly incorporates ideas that most residents welcome, based on a neighborhood survey.

But according to one man, supporters of the plan are “passive sheep,” the task force wants “to limit our freedom,” and the proposed narrowing of Sycamore Street is “idiotic.” That invective, and any other criticism of the plan, was greeted by loud applause from like-minded folks in the audience, who were clearly in the majority.

Critics said they weren’t adequately informed about the planning, complained that development would destroy the character of their largely low-density residential neighborhood, and worried that it would bring maladies like traffic, crime and pollution.

Development is “unneeded and unnecessary,” and the planning that has gone into it is a “sham process” one person said. “We do not want to turn our residential neighborhood into another Ballston,” said another. Several people called for an environmental impact study.

On the other side, one man was so overcome by frustration with the plan’s critics that he was, at one point, literally rendered speechless at the podium. He blasted fellow residents who believe that “everything should stop” when they move to a neighborhood.

He said that when he first moved to Arlington 58 years ago, before Metro and before I-66, East Falls Church had the kind of retail core that the development plan is trying to facilitate. Compared to the building of I-66, he said, “this is a minor change.”

“Over the years I’ve seen Arlington go through many changes and every change is controversial,” the man said. “There is always somebody who’s going to object… This is a good plan, not perfect, but it’s still a good plan.”

Other “smart growth” advocates lauded the plan, while another contingent at the meeting said the plan didn’t go far enough.

Michelle Winters, acting chair of the Arlington Housing Commission, said the plan does not have the density needed to support affordable housing and other the desired retail amenities appropriate for what will soon become the Metro transfer point to Tysons Corner on the Silver Line. She and other development advocates would like to see something more akin to the higher-density Virginia Tech East Falls Church Metro Plan, which was released in 2004.

Despite all the controversy and the raised emotions, the plan — even if approved by the board — is only a “framework,” which would guide development. The board would still have to approve individual developments through its usual process.

“This in no way is going to preclude the very rigorous debate the community will have,” board member Barbara Favola said. “The board will ultimately be able to decide on specific projects that fit within this framework. That’s a very key point.”

And in fact, the real battle may be yet to come. VDOT owns two-thirds of the five acre commuter parking lot that’s at the heart of the development plan. The proposal calls for most of the lot’s several hundred spaces to be eliminated to make way for 450,000 to 600,000 square feet of mixed-use development.

However, VDOT, which is expected to reveal its thoughts on the plan in August, views the lot as “a regional asset for mobility, not just for Arlington but for residents that live along the I-66 corridor,” according to county officials. About 80 percent of the parking is used by people from outside Arlington.

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