Fairfax County is moving forward with plans to turn a vacant 94-room hotel near Route 50 and West Ox Road into emergency housing for families and victims of domestic violence.
The former Extended Stay America hotel building at 3997 Fair Ridge Drive was purchased by the Fairfax County Redevelopment and Housing Authority (FCRHA) in August for $14.5 million to address a growing need for emergency shelters and consolidate services provided by shelters in Reston.
Fairfax County is stepping up efforts to meet its carbon neutrality goals with new programs and tools to help residents go green, starting next year.
First outlined in May, the three-part plan includes a public awareness campaign, a climate action tracking app and a home energy advisory service to help residents transition to clean energy and reduce their carbon footprints.
Fairfax County’s overall retail environment is booming, but county leaders say targeted support is needed to assist some lagging areas.
Despite predictions even before Covid that in-person sales would be supplanted by online commerce, the brick-and-mortar retail sector remains strong across Fairfax County, according to new data presented last week to the county’s Board of Supervisors.
Fairfax County’s plastic bag tax has pulled in more than $6 million in revenue and taken an estimated 3 million plastic bags out of circulation nearly two years after it was enacted, county officials say.
“There are 3 million fewer plastic bags in circulation in Fairfax County since the bag tax was enacted, which 100% shows the intention is working,” Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay said during an environmental committee meeting last Tuesday (Dec. 10).
Fairfax County elected officials intend to take the same position on a proposed Tysons casino in 2025 that they held during the 2024 legislative session.
While some individual members have expressed explicit opposition to the possibility, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors as a whole has hedged its bets: it has concerns but isn’t averse to getting the power from Richmond to conduct a referendum on the matter.
By the Fairfax County government’s math, local residents are being shortchanged nearly $570 million annually in education funding by the state government.
Facing a $292.7 million gap between expected revenues and expenses projected for the coming fiscal year, county leaders would like their state lawmakers to leave from Richmond next year with some of that funding in hand.
Fairfax County officials are moving forward with plans to overhaul how trash and recycling are handled, aiming to have a centralized collection system by 2030.
The Department of Public Works and Environmental Services (DPWES) has proposed a “Unified Sanitation District” model to replace the current system, where most residents hire private haulers. Instead, the county would grant exclusive contracts to private companies to manage waste collection in specific geographic areas.
Virginia leaders plan to keep prodding their Maryland counterparts in the direction of revitalizing the American Legion Bridge to both ease existing congestion and provide additional transit options.
At a Dec. 5 forum sponsored by the Dulles Area Transit Association (DATA), Northern Virginia leaders acknowledged being irked by Maryland’s more cautious approach to addressing the transportation bottleneck.
Decision day is drawing closer, but Fairfax County leaders aren’t yet committing one way or another on whether to implement a meals tax as part of their upcoming budget deliberations.
Even if one is imposed, it won’t be the cure-all to the county government’s funding challenges, with a $292.7 million gap between anticipated revenues and expenses that must be filled in the coming year, one top official says.
Nearly a third of Virginia’s data centers are located within 200 feet of residential areas, with Fairfax County leading the state, according to a new report released Monday (Dec. 9) by the Virginia Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC).
Assessing the impact of data centers throughout Virginia, the JLARC report found that 55% of Fairfax County’s 20 data centers are within 200 feet of residential zones, and 70% are within 500 feet.
