By Brian Trompeter
The McLean Citizens Association (MCA) board of directors passed a resolution July 5 supporting a proposed office-to-residential conversion in Tysons, but reiterated its concern that such projects adversely could impact school enrollment and demand for public services.
The applicant, GCC 28 Owner LLC, is asking Fairfax County officials to allow construction of a multi-family residential building in place of an approved office tower at the corner of Spring Hill Road and Leesburg Pike near the Spring Hill Metro Station in Tysons.
The site involved is a 2.67-acre portion of Part E in the 31.62-acre Spring Hill Station Demonstration Project, which county supervisors approved in February 2013. Buildings E1 and E2 of Part E, along with associated parking, have been built.
The applicant’s request applies to unbuilt Building E3, which had been approved for a 22-story, 290-foot-tall (including 30-foot penthouse) structure with up to 420,000 square feet of office space and 7,000 square feet of retail/service space.
Instead, the developer would like to build City House, a 270-foot-tall residential building with up to 410 multi-family dwelling units. Because the building’s footprint would be slightly larger than the approved office building’s, the applicant is seeking a minor footprint revision for Building E5, which had been approved for either 16,000 square feet of retail/service space or 10 to 12 residential dwellings occupying 25,000 square feet of space.
The applicant’s transportation-demand-management study, which last was updated in 2012, found that switching Building E3 from office and retail to residential would result in fewer daily vehicle trips and fewer trips during the peak morning and evening hours. That study does not reflect post-pandemic alterations to commuting patterns, MCA’s resolution read.
The resolution expressed support for the application, but again cited concerns expressed in a June 7 letter to Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay (D) regarding the ongoing trend of office-to-residential conversions occurring in the county.
The MCA board’s letter asked Fairfax County officials to study impacts of such conversions on tax revenue, population density and the provision of public services such as schools, public safety, transportation, parking, parks and recreational facilities, and affordable housing.
More residential units in Tysons may result in more children arriving earlier than anticipated and force the acceleration of planned school construction in the urban center, said MCA board member Ron Bleeker, the primary person who drafted the letter.
“Right now, the first elementary school being considered in Tysons would not even go into construction until the end of this decade,” Bleeker told the MCA board at its June 7 meeting.
Because of plumbing requirements and other challenges, not every office building may be converted for residential use, he added.
MCA Board Issues Raft of Suggestions for County’s ‘Parking Reimagined’ Initiative: Members of the McLean Citizens Association’s (MCA) board of directors lent their highly conditional support July 5 to Fairfax County’s proposed “Parking Reimagined” initiative, but listed a slew of reservations and suggestions.
The MCA board passed a resolution in favor of the proposal’s goals of balancing on-site parking with day-to-day needs, providing more flexibility in parking regulations to meet site-specific circumstances, streamlining of parking-proposal reviews and approvals, and updating county requirements for vehicle loading and stacking.
But . . . (this is the MCA, so you knew there would be a “but”), the board also:
• Opposed some of the proposed reductions in off-street parking, citing a dearth of data and analysis.
• Opined that the appropriate minimum rate for off-street parking for multi-family buildings in high-density zoning areas should be one space per unit with up to two bedrooms, with more spaces provided per unit with more bedrooms.
• Favored eliminating the authority of the county’s director of Land Development Services (LDS) to approve parking adjustments. If some such authority still were granted, applicants should need to demonstrate to the LDS director’s satisfaction that fewer spaces would serve their sites’ uses and not adversely affect adjacent areas. In addition, the LDS director should publicize the proposed reductions in advance to allow for public comment, MCA’s resolution read.
• Supported inclusion of reserved parking spaces for loading activities, with the idea of maintaining access to spaces for handicapped residents. In addition, applicants would have to prove to the LDS director’s satisfaction that reductions in the minimum number of loading spaces would not affect adversely the site, adjacent areas or the availability of sufficient handicapped-accessible parking.
• Favored allowing the LDS director only to modify the location of outdoor bicycle racks or storage facilities, but not reduce the number of bicycle spaces provided.
• Recommended that granted reductions to off-street parking be accompanied by requirements to increase open space, tree canopies and/or landscaping in proportion to resulting increases in building footprints.
• Urged the Board of Supervisors, if it adopts Parking Reimagined, to pass a follow-on motion requiring county staff to assess five years later the minimum off-street parking requirements in high-density developed areas. Staff should determine whether those minimum off-street parking rates adversely have affected the subject sites or adjacent areas, and therefor should be maintained. County employees also should examine whether the resulting transportation and infrastructure upgrades merit further reductions in minimum off-street-parking rates, MCA’s resolution read.
The Fairfax County Planning Commission is slated to review the Parking Reimagined proposal on July 26 and it then will head to the Board of Supervisors for final disposition.
