County staff await a presentation at the Fairfax County Redevelopment and Housing Authority’s public hearing on an interim agreement to redevelop the Franconia Governmental Center site (staff photo by Angela Woolsey)
A push to redevelop the former Franconia Governmental Center site with affordable housing is still in its early stages, but passions are already running high among local residents and housing advocates.
Fairfax County Redevelopment and Housing Authority (FCRHA) commissioners got to hear both supportive and oppositional arguments at a public hearing last Thursday (Sept. 12), as they weigh whether to accept an interim agreement with the project’s developers.
A vote is expected at the authority’s next meeting on Oct. 17, potentially kickstarting a more extensive county review and planning process.
“The interim agreement will allow the land use process and negotiations to move forward,” a staff representative from the Fairfax County Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) said at the beginning of the hearing.
The project’s origins
With the governmental center moving to a larger site on Beulah Road, where it’ll be co-located with the Franconia District Police Station, Kingstowne Regional Library, a child care center and other public facilities, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors originally transferred the 3.26-acre parcel at 6121 Franconia Road to the FCRHA in 2021, designating it as a possible affordable housing site.
A request for proposals in 2022 led to a joint pitch from SCG Development Partners and the nonprofits NFP Affordable Housing Corp. and Good Shepherd Housing for a four-story building with 120 units and 6,000 square feet of ground-floor community space, including a room that Good Shepherd would use to provide social and tenant services.
The affordable housing project proposed to replace the Franconia Governmental Center at 6121 Franconia Road (via Franconia Development Partners)
The housing will be reserved for residents who earn between 50% and 80% of the area median income (AMI), which would currently be about $54,000 to $86,650 for a single person, according to calculations for the county’s workforce rental housing program. A mix of one, two and three-bedroom units are planned.
The FCRHA was scheduled to vote on its agreement with the developers, known collectively as Franconia Development Partners, last December, but the county opted to revisit the site transfer after the Virginia Supreme Court voided its 2021 zoning code update, raising questions about the validity of land use decisions made at that time.
The zoning code was re-adopted on May 9, 2023, and the Board of Supervisors ultimately approved the transfer again on May 21 of this year.
Residents question site’s suitability
Though Franconia District Supervisor Rodney Lusk delayed a vote on the land transfer in February to allow more time for public input, some residents who spoke at last week’s FCRHA public hearing seemed to find the outreach by both the county and developers superficial so far.
One resident who described herself as a “proud supporter” of affordable housing said the proposed interim agreement needs a “structure” to ensure the developers engage with the community. More than one person lamented that the FCRHA didn’t let people testify remotely, even though the hearing was at the Fairfax County Government Center, a half-hour drive from the Franconia Governmental Center site.
Opponents argued that several factors make the site inappropriate for affordable housing, including the strain of additional traffic on Franconia Road and a lack of major grocery stores within close walking distance, though there is a small Mediterranean Gourmet Market across the street.
There are, however, four gas stations in the immediate area, one of them right next door, they noted, urging the FCRHA to put the project on hold until the potential health impacts can be reviewed.
Gas stations near the current Franconia Governmental Center site (via Google Maps)
“I don’t think anyone wants anyone to live at this site if it’s not safe,” Joy Waller with the North Franconia Civic Association said. “Soil contamination can be mitigated. Air pollution from five gas stations can’t be mitigated.”
Bill Snyder, a resident of the Valley View neighborhood, says the county “blew it” by relocating the Franconia Governmental Center to Beulah Road, arguing that the currently vacant, 6.6-acre site’s proximity to the Festival at Manchester Lakes shopping center and the Franconia Metro station would’ve made it more suitable for affordable housing.
“Are we saying that our residents who need affordable housing, they should take a bus to do their grocery shopping? That’s not right,” he said. “They could’ve walked. They could’ve been right around the corner. So, everything that they’ve said about this is wrong.”
Construction on the new governmental center began in spring 2023 and is expected to finish next summer. The county decided to consolidate several Franconia facilities on one site to make services more accessible, lowering operational costs and making it more consistent with the North County Governmental Center in Reston, according to Lusk.
The Franconia Road site, which hosts the Franconia Museum and police station as well as the governmental center, can’t accommodate all those uses, Lusk says.
“As a matter of fact, today, this site can’t handle the needs the police department has in terms of parking and staff,” he told FFXnow in an interview on Monday (Sept. 16).
Need for affordable housing critical, advocates say
Not all residents came out against the redevelopment. One longtime North Franconia resident said she took a while to figure out how she felt, but the “critical need” for affordable housing prevailed over any concerns about neighborhood impacts, which she believes can be mitigated.
“Franconia District needs to do its share to provide affordable housing,” she said. “…I want to ensure firefighters and first responders can afford to live here.”
The project also got the backing of several community organizations, including the Fairfax County NAACP, Northern Virginia Affordable Housing Alliance and the Coalition for Smart Growth. They expressed confidence that the developers can deliver a quality project based on their other work in the region, which includes the Ovation at Arrowbrook apartments in Herndon and One University near George Mason University’s Fairfax campus.
SCG broke ground this summer on Somos at McLean Metro, a workforce housing development in Tysons. The developer’s president, Steve Wilson, presented at the FCRHA hearing but declined to comment for now.
Representatives from Provision Church, which operates a mobile kitchen that serves people in Northern Virginia, said affordable housing is “one of the most common challenges” facing their clients, from a special education teacher who works near the Franconia Governmental Center but lives in a motel because he can’t afford rent to a recently hired sanitation worker still experiencing housing insecurity.
“We know these projects take time,” pastor Alyssa Densham said. “These are people we in Fairfax continue to fail time and time again. Their stories are stories that would fill a place like this housing project…We can do better for them.”
Some speakers contended that the general need for affordable housing shouldn’t override concerns about a specific site’s appropriateness.
“The problem we’re having is housing advocates feel like any affordable housing anywhere, anytime is the right solution, and sometimes, it is the wrong solution, especially when you compound the health issues that have been raised, and they’re very serious health issues,” Snyder told FFXnow.
The development process for the Franconia Governmental Center redevelopment (staff photo by Angela Woolsey)
Lusk stressed to FFXnow that “health concerns and the safety of the residents [are] a priority for me.”
If the interim agreement is approved by the FCRHA, county staff’s review of the expected rezoning application will include an environmental analysis, along with evaluations of the transportation, schools, and park needs, he said. There will also be additional community meetings and public hearings.
“I want to be clear on saying that we want to have an open and transparent process. We want to hear feedback from the community as it relates to the project, if it’s…going to be moving forward, and we want to have collaboration with the community in deciding what we ultimately do with this site,” Lusk said. “I understand that there are some who have divergent opinions about this, and that’s understandable…but I think we’re going to listen to all the voices and going to make the best decisions based on all the feedback, all the analysis and all the recommendations that we received for this project.”
Reprinted from FFXNow. For more information, see the original article.