Developer Cityline Partners got its plan to swap an office building for condominiums in Tysons’ Arbor Row neighborhood past the Fairfax County Planning Commission last week, but concerns about its affordable housing commitments remain a hurdle.
The commission voted 8-1 last Wednesday (May 15) to recommend approval of a 23-story, 240-unit residential high-rise at 7925 Westpark Drive. The lone “nay” came from Hunter Mill District Commissioner John Carter, while Mount Vernon District Commissioner Walter Clarke abstained after arriving late to the meeting.
Defying county staff opposition to the developer’s offer of cash or off-site workforce housing in place of on-site units, the vote sent the rezoning application to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, which is scheduled to hold a public hearing tomorrow (Tuesday).
Providence District Commissioner Jeremy Hancock, who represents the affected part of Tysons, said he sensed “general support” for the project but acknowledged that disagreements over whether it satisfies the county’s workforce dwelling unit (WDU) requirements have fueled “a lot of frustration from all sides.”
“The ability to remain flexible with these applications requires a lot of trust and transparency,” he said before the vote. “My hope and urging, if this application moves forward, is that this provides an opportunity for the developer and the county to work collaboratively on our shared goals, creating a vibrant, economically successful county that provides opportunities for all residents.”
Slated to be built by Renaissance Centro, the high-rise will be situated in between the Monarch condos, which were completed by Renaissance last year, and The Mather, a senior living facility that partially opened this spring. The 2.9-acre site constitutes “Block C2” of Arbor Row, a 19.5-acre mixed-use development planned by Cityline and originally approved by the county in 2012.
In addition to boosting Tysons’ housing supply, the residential building would deliver 8,500 square feet of ground-floor retail and 1.76 acres of urban parkland, including a civic plaza and a trail connection to the Monarch. Those amenities could encourage pedestrian activity and fill a gap in the network of connected green spaces envisioned for Arbor Row, Renaissance Centro’s legal agent, Lynne Strobel, argued.
“[The park space is] thoughtfully designed, there will be a large part of it that is open to the public, and we are well exceeding urban space requirements, providing connectivity and really completing this block in Tysons,” Strobel told the commission. “I don’t think staff has any issue with the use we’re discussing or park space or really any aspect of this proposal with the exception of the WDUs.”
In response to concerns raised by staff and the planning commission at an earlier hearing on April 3, the developers revised their proffers, or project conditions, with a commitment to either create workforce housing elsewhere in Tysons or contribute up to $4.8 million to the county’s housing trust fund.
According to Strobel, Renaissance Centro won’t include WDUs in the new proposed building after taking “an economic loss” by providing them in Monarch, currently the only building in Tysons with for-sale workforce units. Because the Virginia Condominium Act requires uniformity in how assessments are calculated for market-rate and affordable units, fee increases could eventually make the WDUs unaffordable.
If the developer opts for a cash contribution, which Strobel said is “likely,” it intends to pay half of its estimated contribution of $4.5 million when the first residential use permit. A second payment would come when 50% of all units are sold and be determined by actual sales prices, so it could be the same amount, higher, or lower — with a ceiling of around $4.8 million.
If WDUs are provided off-site, the county would have the option to reject any units in “non-modern” buildings constructed before 2015, but the developer wants to be able to provide units in “modern” buildings (i.e. ones built in 2015 or later) without needing the Fairfax County Redevelopment and Housing Authority’s approval.
The developer decided on 2015 as the cut-off date because anything built after that would likely have been approved after the county adopted its Tysons Comprehensive Plan in 2010, which established urban design guidelines and other expectations for new development.
“These buildings are meant to last probably 50 years, maybe more than that,” Strobel said. “…These buildings in Tysons, they have high rents. I know they’re well-maintained and will continue to be so, and I think they will be appropriate locations for WDUs.”
The “structure” of the proffer is an improvement over previous proposals, and staff agree that this project is in a “unique situation” that justifies considering alternatives to on-site WDUs, Fairfax County Housing and Community Development (HCD) Director Tom Fleetwood told commissioners.
However, county staff still take issue with “a lack of clarity” around how the off-site units would work, including where they’d be located, whether they would be for-sale or rental units, who would manage them and how much oversight the county would get for the “modern” units.
“We would like to have some ability to understand that the properties provided are also equitable or at least in good enough shape that they wouldn’t be substantially dissimilar to what would otherwise be delivered,” HCD Deputy Director for Real Estate Finance and Development Anna Shapiro said.
In addition, there’s uncertainty about whether $4.8 million for the housing trust fund is adequate compensation for the absent WDUs.
Strobel and a representative for Cityline made the case that it could ultimately lead to more units than this project would’ve provided, noting that approximately $10 million from the trust fund netted a total of 796 WDUs in the Somos and Exchange buildings now under construction. But Fleetwood and Shapiro countered that those developments were made possible by other funding sources as well, including more than $80 million from Amazon.
“The amount of the contribution is likely not high enough to incent [other developers] on its own,” Shapiro said. “It would be likely that we’d have to bring additional resources to bear on the local side or other federal resources to bring the additional private equity.”
While they don’t think it’ll necessarily set a precedent weakening the WDU policy, planning staff cautioned that other developers are likely watching how the county handles this application. Just last month, a developer submitted a proposal for another office swap in Arbor Row — this time for a hotel with 32 condo units — that offers cash in lieu of WDUs.
Hancock said he shares staff’s concerns, particularly on the need for the county to review potential affordable housing units, but feels those issues aren’t enough to deny or “further delay consideration” of the project, given the potential benefits of the new housing and amenities.
“The final piece of the C2 Block provides a cohesive development that will generate a growing pedestrian activity center that will benefit Fairfax County residents,” Hancock said. “…I believe the application before us moves the county forward towards a vision of developing Tysons into an urban, mixed-use and inclusive community.”
