Plans for significant future expansion of the Vinson Hall retirement community in McLean took a small but key procedural step forward last Thursday (May 1).
The Fairfax County Planning Commission unanimously, if informally, indicated support for adding the development proposal to a list of possible comprehensive plan amendments that will be forwarded to the Board of Supervisors in June.
If supervisors concur with that recommendation, the Vinson Hall proposal would be added to the top tier of the county’s comprehensive plan amendment work program, allowing staff to officially begin reviewing the potential land use changes.
The non-binding vote took place during the first of three workshops that the planning commission will hold this month to consider 43 Site-Specific Plan Amendment (SSPA) nominations submitted by developers and property owners earlier this year.
Following several days of community meetings and the release of a white paper with recommendations from county staff, the workshops represent “the next step on a long road,” said Planning Commission Chair Phil Niedzielski-Eichner.
The planning commission will finalize its recommendations on June 4, sending them to the Board of Supervisors for consideration on June 10.
The Vinson Hall proposal calls for a phased development that would increase the number of residential units at 6251 Old Dominion Drive to 569 with the addition of several new buildings rising three and four stories. Existing buildings on the parcel have 302 units and range from two to six stories.
Total density on the 18-acre site bounded by Old Dominion Drive and Kirby Road would grow from an existing 0.79 floor-area ratio (FAR) to a projected 1.3. FAR measures the total interior space of a parcel divided by the square footage of the lot.
The proposal calls for expanding the number of independent and assisted-living units from 235 to 349, with the number of medical-care units rising from 67 to 120.
Mark Viani, a land-use attorney representing the nonprofit organization that owns and operates Vinson Hall, said the new development would emerge “slowly, over various phases.”
“We look forward to working with the community as we move forward,” he said.
Among those to be engaged in the effort is the Franklin Area Citizens Association, which represents about 1,400 nearby families — including some residents of Vinson Hall.
The association’s president, Steve DelBianco, was not opposed to the proposal moving forward, but as the lone public speaker at the commission hearing on the project, he asked county staff and the property owner to ensure attention to four concerns of neighbors:
- Ensuring adequate stormwater facilities to avoid flooding nearby homes
- Stepping back the architecture so buildings won’t dominate street views
- Managing construction timing carefully to minimize impacts
- Taking steps to reduce negative impacts of increased parking and vehicular traffic
“It’s a significant increase in the number of people who will come and go,” DelBianco said.
Dranesville District Planning Commissioner Alyssa Batchelor-Causey asked her colleagues to move the proposal forward.
“This project supports community housing goals,” she said.
Vinson Hall opened in 1969, initially to provide retirement housing exclusively for those having served in the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard. It’s now open to any adults aged 60 or older.
Most of its residents come from the surrounding communities, Viani said.
Arrowbrook Centre proposal could also advance
At the May 1 work session, commission members also took a preliminary vote to support consideration of a proposal that would rezone a portion of Arrowbrook Centre near the Innovation Center Metro station for housing.
The 1.8-acre site, located at 13224 Franklin Farm Road in Herndon, is owned by the Ruth & Hal Launders Charitable Trust, which has been attempting to market the parcel to be developed under its current commercial zoning for the past 18 years, but found no takers.
The trust’s request would allow for 132 attached residential units without any commercial or retail.
Located near the Dulles Access Road and Sunrise Valley Drive, the parcel once was part of a much larger tract of Arrowhead Farm, owned by Hal Launders (1908-96) and Ruth Launders (1911-2001). The couple left much of their landholdings to the trust, which uses funds from land sales to support philanthropic efforts.
The site is known as Land Bay A1 within the 54-acre Arrowbrook Centre, where it’s the only still-undeveloped parcel. Revisions to the development plan were approved by the Board of Supervisors in 2023, designating the land bay as a future office buildng.
Allowing residential development instead of offices on the parcel would provide “a significant opportunity to provide additional housing opportunities within a half-mile of the Innovation Station,” the applicant said in the SSPA nomination.
Staff supports the proposal to consider the request, but deems it a Tier 3 project — the lowest rung for consideration.
Tier 3 items will be deferred for review until after staff complete other related planning efforts. During the last SSPA round in 2023, for example, nominations for Reston sites weren’t prioritized for review until after the county finished updating its overall Reston Comprehensive Plan.
“In many instances, significant revisions to the nominated proposal, concept plans, or other elements are necessary prior to a Tier 3 item becoming active,” the staff white paper says. “Future action from the Board is necessary to re-tier a Tier 3 item.”
According to the report, the Arrowbrook Centre proposal is recommended for Tier 3 so staff can obtain “additional information on [the] land use mix” to determine if a plan amendment is actually needed.
As with the other SSPA applications, the final determination for whether the request should be added to the work program will be made by the Board of Supervisors.
More hearings coming up
The May 1 planning commission workshop focused on SSPA proposals in the Dranesville, Braddock, Franconia, Mount Vernon, Providence, Springfield and Sully districts.
The commission signaled that it’ll back staff recommendations not to move forward with proposals for a Storage Mart expansion just outside Fairfax City, townhouses that would replace commercial buildings at 6404 Telegraph Road and 6408 Highland Drive in Rose Hill, and an independent living facility at 12716 Route 29 near Fair Oaks.
Votes were deferred until June 4 on two nominations in the Mount Vernon District that weren’t recommended for the comprehensive plan work program by staff. One would allow a seven-story hotel in Newington, and the other called for up to 200 multi-family residential units and eight detached, single-family houses on nearly 50 acres of land near Pohick Road and I-95 in Lorton.
A workshop on May 15 will look at nominations in the Hunter Mill District and remaining ones in Providence District, while a May 22 meeting will look at Mason District and final Sully District proposals.
All meetings begin at 7:30 p.m.
A total of 53 SSPA nominations were submitted by landowners or the public in the current cycle. Acting on a staff recommendation, supervisors trimmed the list to 43 in February and forwarded it to the planning commission for further vetting.
