The Town of Herndon is considering the placement of two single-family homes in a floodplain on Monroe Street.

First approved in January 2022, the proposal has returned to the Herndon Town Council after the applicant sought to increase the footprint of the proposed residential structures.

Because the homes are in the floodplain overlay district, the units are subject to additional planning and development criteria.

David Stromberg, the town’s zoning administrator, said the applicant wants to increase the footprint of a house at 1317 Monroe Street from 2,200 square feet to 3,500 square feet and a house at 1315 Monroe Street from 2,850 to 3,680 square feet.

Town staff recommended approval of the project at a council work session on Tuesday (Jan. 16), reporting that the plan won’t result in an increase in flood heights or the size of the floodplain.

Stromberg emphasized that the applicant must also maintain a 100-foot buffer from resource protection areas and use the most up-to-date flood information available to guide stormwater management.

Councilmember Kevin LeBlanc said he was curious to see how the development proposal would affect runoff in the overall neighborhood — a criterion generally not evaluated within the scope of this proposal.

“They still have to meet all the stormwater requirements that are out there as far as making sure the drainage doesn’t go onto an adjacent property…and that you are meeting stormwater quality requirements,” Stromberg said.

He noted that the applicant must comply with all additional zoning ordinances and receive compliance approval from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

The special exception request will get a public hearing and final vote before the Herndon Town Council later this month. The council’s next regular meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 23.

Town of Herndon officials estimate a modest influx of general fund revenues in fiscal year 2025 as work begins on preparing the upcoming budget.

At a Herndon Town Council meeting on Jan. 2, Director of Finance Marjorie Sloan said the town expects roughly $41.1 million in general fund revenues — down from $47.6 million in fiscal year 2024, which began on July 1, 2023.

Town council members emphasized the need to find ways to maintain the town’s current level of services, given the overall revenue picture.

“My concern has always been our revenues are not increasing that I think that we need to maintain,” said Councilmember Cesar del Aguila.

Still, Town Manager Bill Ashton II said Herndon is likely “one of the best capitalized localities in Northern Virginia.”

So far, occupancy and meals taxes are “trending favorable” in the budget, according to Sloan. Revenue has also been buoyed by higher-than-average interest rates on investments, and the town is able to shed some costs after deciding to discontinue the Herndon Festival.

Despite the town’s relatively strong cash position, however, high staff turnover — nearly 50% for some positions — remains a challenge.

Councilmember Pradip Dhakal said he’s concerned about the high costs of onboarding new staff and potential implications for turnover in future years.

“50 percent new hires…To me, that’s a little scary, but I think we’re awesome so we can handle it,” del Aguila said.

Tax increases or increases in some town fees may be inevitable, some council members concurred. Still, Sloan said it was important to consider that the current outlook was simply an estimate.

“The bottom line is you can’t always look at the mid-year update and see exactly where we are,” she said.

The council will review a resolution on budgetary guidance at its Jan. 16 meeting. Work sessions on the budget kick off in February — including discussions of a 7% rate increase by Fairfax Water. The proposed budget is scheduled to be publicly released around March 31, followed by the beginning of public hearings on May 9.

A plethora of administrative and logistical issues led to the Town of Herndon’s decision to permanently put the Herndon Festival to bed after a 43-year run, staff say.

At a Herndon Town Council meeting on Tuesday (Dec. 12), Town Manager Bill Ashton II laid out several issues that nearly derailed the festival in previous years and ultimately prompted the permanent cancellation of the four-day event, announced earlier this week.

“In my mind, the question was, ‘Should we spend these countless hours planning and preparing, or could this be an opportunity?’” he said.

According to Ashton, last year, town officials scrambled to find a security company to conduct bag checks during the festival.

Two companies abruptly cancelled their commitments — one of them just a day before the festival was set to begin. Staff scrambled to ratify a contract with a company just 1.5 hours before the festival’s gates opened. Local police officers are prohibited from checking bags at the festival without probable cause.

“It was that close,” Ashton said.

Ashton also said the Herndon Police Department must pull every officer that is not on actively watch for rotating shift. Like other public safety entities, the department has faced hiring and recruitment challenges in recent years, and the town can also no longer rely on regional partners to bolster the police presence at the festival site.

Ashton also noted that, in the event of a significant public safety emergency, the town would have no choice but to cancel the festival if a police force was required outside the festival.

“If we have a significant incident…we would have to shut the festival down to adequately put crime scene [officers] and detectives on site,” he said.

Town staff also struggled to secure dedicated volunteers for the event, which relies heavily on volunteer manpower from key organizations and community partners. Many of those groups cited a major dip in volunteerism in general, particularly as key volunteers age out.

Ashton said volunteers are critical to the event, even with staff putting in thousands of hours of work.

“Everybody’s leave gets cancelled or disapproved. Everybody has to be there,” he said. “If you aren’t there, you better have a doctor’s note.”

The Town of Herndon has major knowledge gaps as well. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the parks and recreation department has undergone 100% turnover, and its director, Cindy Roeder, recently retired.

A major construction project to improve Spring Street is set to kick off this spring near the Northwest Federal Credit Union, where the festival would have taken place.

As part of the project, a state contractor will be working on the intersection of Spring Street and Herndon Parkway, requiring lane closures and changes to pedestrian access. Ashton said the town is not an a position to delay the project, which has already seen cost overruns in utility relocation and land acquisition.

Ashton said the community should instead see the cancellation of Herndon’s staple event as an opportunity to pursue more micro-events in the future — similar to the approach adopted last year for the Celebrate Fairfax! Festival. He noted that Fairfax County is open to partnering with the town.

The Fairfax County Times reported that Celebrate Fairfax Inc., the nonprofit organization that organized the county’s annual festival, has officially ended the event after a “private decision” by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, citing a tweet from Springfield District Supervisor Pat Herrity.

Photo via Herndon Festival/Facebook

Town of Herndon officials are seeking $1.5 million in federal funds for major improvements along Sterling Road.

At a Herndon Town Council work session on Dec. 5, town staff noted that no local match is required to proceed with the project. The town is also requesting $500,000 for ADA-compliant sidewalk and trails improvements throughout Herndon.

Jaleh Moslehi, a project engineer for the Town of Herndon, said the Sterling Road project will include additional lane capacity improvements at the Herndon Parkway intersection, along with safety measures for pedestrians and bicyclists.

“The objectives for this project are to increase safety, to incorporate cycling and pedestrian improvements, reduce congestion, enhance connectivity and circulation, and also doing all of this, but retaining the residential character of the Sterling Road corridor,” she said.

Once completed, the project would reconfigure Sterling Road from Elden Street to Herndon Parkway in order to “reflect the town’s current plans for traffic management and circulation in residential areas,” according to the town’s budgetary documents.

The project will begin with a concept design and traffic impact analysis, determining whether there is a need for a signalized intersection at Crestview Drive. The study will also determine the feasibilty of a bicycle facility between Elden Street and the town limits.

In the second project, town-wide sidewalk and trail improvements are planned based on Herndon’s Pedestrian Plan and Bicycle Network Master Plan.

Funds for the Sterling Road project would come from a federal Regional Surface Transportation Planning program, while funding for the other improvements is through the Congestion Mitigation Air Quality program. Both projects are administered by Northern Virginia Transportation Authority (NVTA).

Councilmember Cesar del Aguila noted that he and others in the community were happy to hear that the Sterling Road project is moving forward.

Anne Curtis, a spokesperson for the Town of Herndon, said the Sterling Road project is on pause, initially as a result of “COVID delays but also due to need for additional funding.”

A plan that will guide the redevelopment of 94 acres of 25 privately owned properties near the Herndon Metrorail Station is expected to go before the Herndon Planning Commission early next year. 

The final draft of the Transit-related Growth (TRG) plan will head to the commission by Feb. 1, but one of three property owners that collectively pitched $500,000 to complete the study pulled out from the plan, staff told the Herndon Town Council at a work session yesterday (Tuesday).

Herndon Hotel Ownership LLC has asked to remove itself from the planning effort. The town will still receive the full $500,000 to complete the study, according to Elizabeth Gilleran, Herndon’s director of community development.

Gilleran told the council that the owner changed his future plans for the property, which appears to be Hyatt House at 467 Herndon Parkway, per Fairfax County property records.

“Since his plan changed, he wasn’t ready,” Gilleran said, adding that the trio of property owners had committed to moving forward with redevelopment.

At the work session, the council considered a proposal that would extend the review period for the TRG plan and add a brief reference to it in the town’s 2030 Comprehensive Plan. 

The town hired Skidmore, Owings and Merrill to complete the plan. So far, after public input, the town is settling on one of three preferred alternatives for the future of the TRG.

The area is bounded to the south by Herndon Transit-oriented Core (HTOC) redevelopment area, to the east by Fairfax County Parkway, to the north by Spring Street and to the west by the Downs and Van Buren Estates residential subdivisions.

Work on the TRG plan kicked off in early 2022. Once approved, the document will establish a long-term vision for the future redevelopment of the hodgepodge of parcels into a “well-designed and viable mixed-use district,” according to the town.

From a Dec. 5 staff memo:

The plan is expected to encourage redevelopment, recognize the probability of disparate development timelines, provide redevelopment, provide appropriate buffers to abutting neighborhoods, formulate a unique sense of place as well as an identity integral to the Town of Herndon, contribute to a multi-modal transportation network, and establish a pattern and expectation for innovative, sustainable, and excellence in architectural and urban design.

Lauri Sigler, the town’s deputy attorney, said that while work on the plan has taken time, all parties have worked diligently to move forward.

“Things have taken a little longer than expected even though staff and SOM have been working diligently to get the plan over the finish line,” Sigler said.

The Town of Herndon is formalizing its donation program for cultural festivals in an effort to create a system for supporting and encouraging events that encourage cultural celebrations and promote its brand.

The move follows the council’s adoption of a policy statement that supports community cultural festivals on Oct. 24.

“Often referred to in discussions with Town Council as ‘mini-festivals,’ the desire is to complement the town’s already robust community event opportunities, with focus placed on celebrating and sharing the cultures represented in the community,” the policy statement reads.

The Herndon Town Council will discuss the matter in a meeting tomorrow (Tuesday). Organizations may request donations, but not all events will be eligible to receive town money.

Under the approved policy statement, the host organization must be a nonprofit or not-for-profit in good legal standing that’s either located in the town or offers services and programs that directly benefit the Herndon community.

The event itself must be a new community-oriented event, located within the Town of Herndon, free and open to all, and celebrate cultures found in Herndon.

If the program is approved, applicants must request a donation at least 90 days before the proposed event and submit a companion review application for the event itself.

Events that receive donations will be allowed to feature the Town of Herndon’s logo and will be used in the town’s marketing efforts.

Once the donation program is agreed upon, the town will launch it on its website.

Discussions on ways to support cultural programming in the Town of Herndon have been underway for several months. In October, the council approved $2,015 for Pakistan Heritage Day organized by town Councilmember Naila Alam and the nonprofit Global Beat Foundation. During those discussions, council members called on town staff to formalizes the processes for donation and event approvals.

Town of Herndon staff are currently reviewing building permits for the stalled redevelopment of downtown Herndon.

At a Herndon Town Council meeting on Tuesday (Nov. 14), Town Manager Bill Ashton II said the review should be completed by the holidays.

“It’ll be ready to rock and roll,” Ashton said.

Reston-based developer Comstock paused the development — which is a public-private partnership with the town — in April last year, citing unfavorable market conditions. Movement on the project resumed around August when Comstock submitted a revised site plan to the town.

Once expected to break ground in 2019, the project will transform nearly 5 acres of land into a mixed-use development with 273 apartments, roughly 17,000 square feet of retail, a new arts center, and a 726-space parking garage.

Ashton told the council that he plans to meet with Comstock officials today (Thursday) after nearly three weeks.

The development pause can be in place for up to two years since it went into effect. That means the latest construction would begin is April 2024.

A shake-up might be in the works for the Town of Herndon’s annual farmers market.

The town is exploring the possibility of moving the seasonal event from its usual Thursday morning time slot to Saturday or Sunday, though it’s not clear yet whether the Fairfax County Park Authority — which currently organizes the market — could accommodate the change.

“As a matter of course, the town is always evaluating programs and events, no matter how successful, to see if we might improve upon them and make them and more inclusive,” town spokesperson Anne Curtis told FFXnow.

Launched on May 4, the Herndon farmers market takes place on Lynn Street every Thursday from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. through Nov. 9. It has 15 vendors, along with master gardeners, and typically draws 500 to 700 attendees per week, “depending on the season and the weather,” according to Curtis.

However, the town council and staff are now considering whether the market could draw even more of a crowd on the weekend. The proposal was partly inspired by a recent survey of the business community that found a desire for more special events that could attract customers.

“The business community has told us weekends, second Saturdays, it’s a larger pool of potential revenue for the town,” Councilmember Cesar del Aguila said at an Oct. 17 work session. “In my humble opinion, we’ve reached the point on a lot of our events of diminishing returns. Doesn’t matter what we do, doesn’t matter how much we put into it, it’s not going to grow…But a second Saturday, a more focused event or series of events, mini festivals, that’s why we’re considering this.”

At an earlier work session on Oct. 3, Town Manager Bill Ashton told the council that the FCPA seemed open to moving its Herndon market to Saturdays, but the agency won’t know for sure until its list of vendors is finalized in February.

According to Ashton, the park authority has scheduled the Herndon market for Thursdays to avoid conflicts with the Reston Farmers Market held on Saturdays at Lake Anne Village Center.

An FCPA spokesperson confirmed that the agency has been working with the Town of Herndon to determine “what may be possible.”

“The Fairfax County Park Authority is definitely committed to the continued success of all 10 of our Farmers Market locations,” the park authority said in a statement. “We welcome ideas and recommendations that can help further that endeavor. Of course, any changes to the program calendar for next year need to be well-planned with the market volunteers, vendors and service providers.”

The town could partner with a different organizer, such as the nonprofit FreshFarm, which operates year-round farmers markets in the Mosaic District, Oakton and at St. John Neumann Catholic Church in Reston.

“It makes a better option, but they cannot commit to the weekends until they figure out who’s returning on their current market list,” Ashton said.

Not everyone is sold on the proposed shift.

During last week’s discussion, which focused on whether the Thursday farmers’ market should be left off of the town’s official calendar, Mayor Sheila Olem noted that “several” vendors are busy at the Lake Anne market on Saturdays. She also pointed to some advantages of working with Fairfax County, including the composting services now offered at all 10 of its markets.

Vice Mayor Clark Hedrick said the town has “seen a lot of comments” from people concerned about the farmers’ market getting taken off the calendar without any opportunity for public input.

The council ultimately agreed to leave the market on Thursdays for the 2024 calendar, but there will be an asterisk indicating that the date is “subject to change.” A resolution that will also solidify the holidays listed on the calendar is set to be approved by the council when it meets tonight (Wednesday).

The Herndon Town Council wants to move forward with creating a new advisory committee focused on the small business community.

The committee would focus on developing recommendations from the town’s recent business survey, which highlighted the business community’s desire for more support from the town.

Councilmember Kevin LeBlanc introduced the recommendation at a council work session on Tuesday (Oct. 17) in response to the findings.

Respondents to the survey, conducted by Priority Metrics Group (PMG), said they would like to see the town have more business-focused events, such as networking, promotional, or informational sessions. LeBlanc said that would be the focal point of the committee.

“I feel like it’s really important that we do something that’s kind of immediate to show that we’re acting on the results,” LeBlanc said.

According to a town staff memo, the committee will have six to eight representatives of small businesses based in Herndon, and it will be in place for six months or until the recommendations are provided. The group’s job will be to “provide prioritized recommendations with details and analysis of cost/approach specific to events the town can provide or support in collaboration with other groups,” the document states.

Councilmember Donielle Scherff supported the idea of the committee, saying it would benefit the council in multiple ways, even if she feels it doesn’t go far enough.

“We get the benefit of the experience and the background of those who are serving on each individual subcommittee or committee,” she said. “And then they get our immediate attention so that there is no lapse and we are responsive.”

Councilmember Cesar del Aguila also voiced support for the idea, noting that there were “a lot of actionable items” in the survey.

“I think we pick one or two and put resources to it — let’s show that we are committed,” Aguila said.

The next steps include identifying a town council member to serve on the committee and selecting other people to be on the committee. However, the timeline is unclear, as the council said it would need legal advice on how to put the committee together.

Photo via Google Maps

The Town of Herndon is offering financial support for Pakistan Heritage Day, a celebratory event organized by town council member Naila Alam and the nonprofit Global Beat Foundation.

At a Tuesday (Oct. 10) meeting, the Herndon Town Council voted to approve $2,015 for the event that will take place at the Herndon Community Center on Oct. 21 — a contribution that includes waiving $1,005 in facility rental fees.

The move is part of a renewed effort by the town council to support and expand more cultural events throughout the Town of Herndon.

While council members expressed support of the overall strategic mission, some called for clearer guidelines and protocols to approve funding for future events.

Councilmember Cesar del Aguila characterized the town’s financial support as an effort to promote the town’s equity goals. Since the town lacks the bandwidth to lead cultural programming, del Aguila said it should step up and boost events organized by local residents.

“We all benefit when we can diversify ourselves and celebrate the diversity of our town,” del Aguila said. “This is a start.”

But Vice Mayor Clark Hedrick said the decision should not merely be characterized as a vote for or against equity.

“I think we are in sticky territory,” Hedrick said.

Councilmember Keven LeBlanc said he was concerned that a portion of the funds would cover floral decorations, adding that it was unclear how the nonprofit organization was supporting the event.

“Every organization should have some skin in the game,” LeBlanc said.

Councilmember Donielle Scherff was dismayed that a more defined mechanism to approve similar funding requests was not established. However, she said she felt comfortable supporting the event since it is less than two weeks away and the town was unable to establish criteria prior to the vote.

The town council removed an age restriction for event entry. The event flyer previously said only attendees age 18 and above were permitted at the event.

The approval came after vigorous debate at an Oct. 3 work session.

Council members stressed the need to verify that events supported by the town are focused on cross-cultural exchange and do not veer into religious celebrations.

The event is the second this year supported by the Town of Herndon. A Juneteenth celebration organized by Arts Herndon also received financial support from the town.