The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors directed staff last Tuesday (Sept. 9) to take a six-month-long deep dive into current housing policies, hoping to eliminate bureaucratic hurdles hampering the creation of more affordable units across the community.
“This is absolutely an essential part of our economic strategy,” said Board Chairman Jeff McKay, who proposed the action. “It comes up in every conversation with the public.”
His proposal, which was adopted unanimously, gives County Executive Bryan Hill some leeway in how he and staff approach the issue. It directs them to come back by next spring with concepts for further review.
The board’s lone Republican, Springfield District Supervisor Pat Herrity, said the package of items to be considered by staff included some hits and some misses, but he generally applauded the effort to remove hurdles.
“Senior staff is very creative, but our [current development] process is very, very burdensome,” Herrity said. “We need to work those things through.”
The Springfield supervisor said he appreciated McKay’s focus on creating more home-ownership opportunities, citing that as “the biggest thing to address” in upcoming deliberations.
County leaders have set a goal of 10,000 new affordable housing units in Fairfax by 2034. McKay said creating a stock of housing available at all price points is key not just to retaining the existing workforce, but getting a return on investment for the approximately $20,000 per year Fairfax County Public Schools spends to educate each student.
“The last thing we can afford to do is let that young talent go somewhere else simply because they can’t find affordable housing in Fairfax County,” the board chair said.
The directive to Hill includes a focus on public-private partnerships and other possibilities. McKay said he would welcome further suggestions from district supervisors on what could be part of the package, while acknowledging limitations on staffing to do the work.
McKay said he believed Fairfax residents would be eager to have a conversation on making improvements in the housing arena.
“No matter where we go in this county, I think most of us sitting at this dais will say affordable-housing for workers is the number-one issue,” he said. “Without affordable housing and without a workforce … we cannot fill the jobs.”
Streamlining rules on religious property draws debate
Supervisors had a variety of reactions to a proposal at the state level to remove barriers to development for religious institutions wishing to build affordable housing on unused portions of their property.
Mason District Supervisor Andres Jimenez cited housing efforts by First Christian Church and Wesley Housing near Seven Corners, which have been mired for years in the county’s development process as the partners aim to build affordable units.
“The process, and how long these timelines are, undermine projects like these,” Jimenez said. “Streamlining this process is critical.”
Churches in the Franklin Farm area and Dunn Loring have also recently explored adding housing on their properties. At its previous meeting on Aug. 26, the Board of Supervisors approved St. Paul’s Lutheran Church’s plan to add townhouses on its 10-acre site in Idylwood.
Housing advocates have pressed the Virginia General Assembly to direct localities to streamline the process for religious organizations and nonprofit organizations wishing to build affordable housing on their land.
To date, efforts have been unsuccessful — in part because local governments have objected to interference in their land use processes. Fairfax leaders might be able to make some changes without a state mandate, if they opted to take that route.
In his directive to staff, McKay suggested that the county could explore:
- No longer requiring religious property owners and developers to get a Fairfax County Comprehensive Plan amendment “under certain conditions” — a step that the county took in 2017 to make it easier for office buildings to be repurposed
- Allowing affordable housing by-right “in certain circumstances” and giving faith communities the option to transfer land directly to the Fairfax County Redevelopment and Housing Authority
Jimenez said the greater good is served by giving up some local authority to smooth the path toward more housing.
“Fewer procedural hurdles would make these projects easier to deliver and keep them financially viable,” he said.
While noting that local leaders “can be more flexible” in addressing those housing efforts, Herrity said he’s “not a big fan” of by-right development on church properties. In by-right zoning cases, no public hearings or votes are required to allow development, only administrative reviews.
“We take our citizens out of a very important process,” he said.
Hunter Mill District Supervisor Walter Alcorn countered that projects would still need to go through a zoning approval process.
“The community’s not being cut out of this in any way,” he said. “It just streamlines the process a little bit.”
But Alcorn preached a cautious approach, perhaps fearing community pushback.
“We have a lot of churches that are in the middle of low-density residential communities,” he said. “They are all around the county.”
Discussion on the proposal is heating up across Northern Virginia as the 2026 General Assembly session approaches.
“The status quo is not working,” said Pat Findikoglu, representing Virginians Organized for Interfaith Community Engagement (VOICE) at a recent meeting of an Arlington Housing Commission subcommittee.
VOICE is pressing for legislative approval of policies to streamline the creation of affordable housing in what is called by some the “Yes in God’s Backyard” initiative.
Some religious congregations are facing dwindling attendance and aging facilities, leaving them cash-poor but land-rich, Findikoglu said.
Some of them have turned to building housing on that land both to provide a cash cushion and serve the broader community, but the regulations on developers, non-profit or for-profit, can be onerous.
For example, the Unity Homes apartments that opened in Arlington’s Ballston community in 2024 “took 10 years, maybe 17 years, depending on when you start counting,” Findikoglu said.
“This should not happen,” she said. “We believe the housing shortage is the key moral issue of the day.”
Another speaker at the Arlington meeting, retired attorney William Fogarty, embraced the idea of more affordable housing. But he had concerns about earlier, unsuccessful legislation that focused exclusively on removing development barriers on land owned by religious organizations.
Fogarty cited church-state separation issues as reason for his discomfort, which extended to the “Yes in God’s Backyard” tagline advocates are using.
He was encouraged that a measure likely to be introduced in the 2026 General Assembly session will include land owned by nonprofits, but he wants local leaders to support an even more comprehensive effort to loosen restrictions on all affordable housing development.
Because Virginia concentrates power at the state rather than local level, any major initiative “starts with the General Assembly,” Fogarty said.
“Writing legislation is a tricky business,” he said. “We need many voices involved in the process to avoid unintended consequences.”
