Public Affairs

News Highlights

• Read Fairfax County's new Sustainability Intiatives Report to learn about how we're working to protect the planet everyday.

Behind the scenes, Fairfax County works to make its everyday operations environmentally sustainable, and these efforts are highlighted in a new report.

“Fairfax County is doing great work in promoting sustainability and protecting our precious natural resources,” said Fairfax County Chairman Sharon Bulova. “From solar programs to tree coverage to green transportation initiatives, you are invited to learn more about Fairfax County’s latest environmental successes in our latest Sustainability Initiatives Report.”

This comprehensive annual report details our environment sustainability efforts, and here are four things you might know not about what we’re doing to protect the planet:

1. Installing LEDs to Save Energy - and Money

Our facilities managers aim for a yearly 1 percent reduction in energy use per square foot in many of our buildings. So far, we have been meeting or exceeding our goal despite substantially increasing our total square footage as we add new or renovate buildings.

We are meeting this goal by retrofitting, upgrading and installing new equipment like LED light bulbs in libraries, RECenters and many other buildings.

Since July 2016, we’ve replaced 2,278 bulbs in county facilities with LEDs. This has resulted in:

• $482,769 in lifetime savings on electricity costs
• More than 6 million kilowatt hours less in lifetime energy use

This decreased electricity use is equivalent to avoiding the greenhouse gas emissions from:

• 962 cars driven for a year
• 4.9 million pounds of coal burned
• 10,398 barrels of oil consumed

2. Reusing Wastewater to Protect the Bay

We’re reusing clean, treated water from our wastewater treatment plant—432 million gallons worth in 2016—which helps to protect the Chesapeake Bay.

Instead of using drinking water, we’re putting this reclaimed to use to water the Laurel Hill Golf Course and the Lower Potomac Ball Fields. And, about 1.3 million gallons per day is also used as cooling water at the waste-to-energy plant.

By reusing this water, we’re reducing the amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus that reach the Chesapeake Bay. We’re cutting greenhouse gas emissions too, saving 1.1 pounds of equivalent carbon dioxide (CO2e) per kilowatt hour. This emissions savings results from the lower electricity use to produce this reclaimed water compared to drinking water.

3. Turning Cooking Oil Into Biofuel

Thanks to residents, the county achieved a 50 percent recycling rate in 2016—twice the state’s goal. Besides the usual paper, cans, plastic bottles, the county sells used cooking oil to companies that turn it into biofuels. Before this effort, the oil was burned along with household trash.

4. Saving Bees and Pollinators

Last year, we planted a one-acre pollinator meadow at the Government Center. We took this action because 40 percent of pollinator like bees face extinction, and this meadow, seeded with native plants and wildflowers, offers food for theses endangered insects that fertilize many of the foods humans eat like potatoes and blueberries. This meadow also helps prevent and treat polluted stormwater from flowing into our streams.

As a result of the success of this first meadow, we’ve expand the effort, and a similar meadow will be planted at our Alban Maintenance facility in Springfield. This new meadow will treat stormwater runoff before it runs into Accotink creek.

We’ve also taken a further step to work with George Mason University to install 12 honeybee hives at the at the I-95 landfill complex. As part of the project, nearly five acres of turf at the landfill have been seeded to grow a native meadow for the bees.

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News Highlights

• Board of Supervisors authorized changes that will provide the zoning mechanism to implement some of the higher intensity mixed use recommendations already adopted as part of the county’s Comprehensive Plan.
• The new zoning law doesn’t grant automatic increases in development intensities. Properties must be rezoned, a process that includes public notice and public hearings before the Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors.
• The property is within a transit station area, community business center or commercial revitalization area.

To allow for planned mixed use development near Metro stations and older commercial areas, like Reston or Annandale, Fairfax County updated its zoning laws on Tuesday.

The Board of Supervisors approved the zoning changes that will provide the zoning mechanism to implement some of the higher intensity mixed use recommendations already adopted as part of the county’s Comprehensive Plan. These are specifically in places where the county’s land use plan already calls for a greater mix of homes, shops, and restaurants focused in lively, walkable environments.

Officials say the update was needed to align the county’s zoning laws with its land use plan. The ordinance regulates allowable development, and without the changes, the mixed use development recommended for certain areas can’t be considered through the rezoning process.

The change allows a maximum, 5.0 floor area ratio, a measure of development intensity, in specific areas. This FAR would only apply to planned commercial and planned residential mixed use districts if they are located in a transit station areas, community business centers or community revitalization districts.

Reston offers a good example. The county approved greater development intensities two years ago for the areas around the four Silver Line stations. In some locations closet to the rail station, the land use plan calls for development intensities that can reach a 4.5 FAR, but the zoning law didn’t allow this for FAR until now.

Under the updated zoning law, the increased development intensities would be allowed only if:

• The property is within a transit station area, community business center or commercial revitalization area.
• The land use plan recommends a higher intensity at the specific property
• The property is rezoned based on an action by the Board of Supervisors following public notice.

Officials stress that the new zoning law doesn’t grant automatic increases in development intensities. Properties must be rezoned, a process that includes public notice and public hearings before the Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors.

The county is encouraging mixed use development near transit and older commercial areas to:

• Protect existing suburban neighborhoods
• Revitalize older commercial areas
• Create mixed use communities with easy access to transit that are increasingly desired by millennials to boomers
• Stimulate greater economic growth

By 2040, the D.C. area may add 2.1 million new residents based on regional forecasts. Fairfax County is estimated to grow the most with more than 287,300 new residents. Because of this anticipated growth, Fairfax, along with other localities, want to locate new housing and jobs in mixed use activity centers. The county’s land use plan clusters future commercial and housing development into these centers that make up about 10 percent of the land in the county.

The plan puts 99 percent of possible, future office, retail, hotel and industrial development in these centers, along with 83 percent of new housing.

This strategy protects existing suburban neighborhoods that make up most of the county—and it also helps to boost economic growth.

The zoning update supports the county’s Economic Success Plan. In part, this plan calls for building dense, mixed-use, transit-oriented developments where people can live, work, shop and play. These projects attract more residents, jobs, and businesses.

These urban, walkable communities produce higher economic returns, according to academic research. The think tank Brookings looked at 201 walkable communities in the D.C. region, including Fairfax. Compared to suburban locations, researchers found that walkable places generated on average per square foot:

• $81.54 more in housing values
• $8.88 more in office rents
• $6.92 more in retail rents
• 80 percent more in retail sales

Increasingly, these communities are where everyone from millennials to baby boomers want to live. For example, 45 percent of Americans want to live where can easily walk to shops and restaurants, according to a national poll by the National Association of Realtors. This figure is even higher among millennials at 51 percent making this approach to future growth and development all the more important for Fairfax County.

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News Highlights

• Shape factor rules now apply to properties in the Residential-Conservation zoning district, encouraging more uniform lot shapes.
• The new zoning rules will affect almost 51,000 acres, mainly along the county's western border.

Ten years after first passing a law to tame the tangle of strangely, shaped home lots, Fairfax County extended the rules to cover larger, more rural properties.

On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors updated zoning rules to limit oddly shaped lots in the Residential-Conservation zoning district. The change will affect almost 51,000 acres, mainly land located along the county’s western boundaries.

The law applies a formula, known as a shape factor, to lot dimensions to produce more uniform geometric shapes.

County officials cited the recent growth of these convoluted lot shapes as the reason for the change. They feature elongated fingers of land, sharp angles and extreme widths or depths that can cause confusion for homeowner over property lines.

Economics and the amount of buildable land are driving the creation of these contorted lots, officials say. As the county becomes more developed, smaller, infill lots have become both less available and more expensive. As result, developers have been turning to properties with Residential Conservation zoning that are a minimum of five acres in size.

The irregular lots shapes create problems, including:

• Easily figuring out property lines, including what identifying what is front or back yard in some instances
• Make it difficult to perform yard and septic maintenance
• Making it challenging to determine setbacks and locations for fences and sheds

Recent developments with uneven lots shapes include Stonebridge at Bull Run Winery, Sudley Farm, Bull Run Woods, and Stuart’s Crossing. For example, Stonebridge’s lots contain long slivers of land that extend more than 4,500 feet from the main portion of the properties.

When the board adopted the shape factor rules in 2006, Residential-Conservation-zoned properties were deliberately excluded. In part, officials wanted to give builders greater flexibility to site wells and septic fields which are used by most of these properties.

For more information about the specific for the new ordinance, contact the Fairfax County Zoning Administration Division at 703-324-1314, TTY 711.

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News Highlights

• Walkable, urban development produces outsized economic and social benefits, including higher GDP and lower transportation costs for families.
• Fairfax County's strategic plan to boost the economy calls for encouraging the development of more of these places.

Walkable urbanism. This is the future for real estate development and economic growth, says a new study from George Washington University’s business school.

It finds that walkable, mixed use development produces large economic and social benefits compared to drivable suburban development.

Fairfax County officials say the study highlights why the county is encouraging walkable, urban development as part of its strategic plan to boost the economy. They point to recent efforts to redevelop Reston, Seven Corners and Tysons, as examples.

The research, which focused on the 30 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S., examined the economic and social benefits of these walkable places. They are characterized as dense, mixed use areas that are accessible by foot, bike, bus, rail and cars. The D.C. region, including Fairfax County, ranked as the second most walkable in the nation, and in Fairfax, these walkable places included Annandale, Bailey’s Crossroads, Reston, Seven Corners and Tysons.

Importantly, the study finds that both walkable urban and suburban development can coexist.

“The image of Fairfax is drivable suburban heaven, and that’s going to stay that way,” said study author and national urban planning expert Christopher Leinberger. “That’s not going away. About five percent of your land mass will be converting to walkable urban.”

Walkable urban places only make up a small portion of a metropolitan area's land mass. They make up about one percent of the land of the approximately 4.1 billion acres of real estate in the DC region, according to Leinberger's previous research. This amounts to about 17,500 acres in total.

For example, Fairfax’s land use plan envisions that 90 percent of the county will remain as suburban neighborhoods. Future growth, however, is concentrated into walkable, mixed used areas. In fact, the county's plan calls for putting 99 percent of possible, future office, retail, hotel and industrial development into these mixed use areas, along with 83 percent of new housing.

In the region as a whole, most walkable places are also located outside the District: 58 percent of these places were in suburbs, like Fairfax, compared to 42 percent in D.C. based on 2012 findings.

Economic Benefits

While small in terms of the amount of land, walkable places generate outsized economic benefits, including:

• Higher Rents: On average for the 30 metros studied, the rents per square foot for offices, retail and apartments are 74 percent higher compared to drivable suburbs. In the DC region, this figure is 66 percent, and this premium has grown by 10 percent between 2010 and the fourth quarter of 2015.
   
• Higher Economic Output: The most walkable urban metro areas have a higher GDP per capita than less walkable ones, as well as a substantially higher percentage of highly educated workers who produce this higher economic output. In the D.C. region, for example, 51% of residents over 25 have college degrees, the highest rate in country.

These walkable places also help Fairfax as it strives to become an innovation hub. These hubs, which attract startups and new technology companies, are city-like, transit-accessible places.

“They’re dense cores where there’s an unusual amount of activity, both residential, real estate, commercial activity, but then also research occurring inside transit-accessible areas that are connected with broadband and other amenities,”  says Scott Andes, a senior policy analyst at Brookings Institution that is studying the phenomenon.

Social Equity Benefits

“The most walkable places are counterintuitively the most socially equitable,” Leinberger said.

While housing costs are higher in these areas, people with moderate incomes pay less for transportation and have more access to jobs. The study found that these households have:

• 14 percent lower transportation costs
• Two to three times more access to jobs

Increasing Market Demand

Walkable, mixed use development are increasingly in demand by everyone from millennials to baby boomers. For example, 45 percent of Americans want to live where they can easily walk to shops and restaurants, according to a national poll by the National Association of Realtors. This figure is even higher among millennials at 51 percent, making this approach to future growth and development all the more important for Fairfax County.

The market demonstrates the demand for this kind of development. In the D.C region, 91 percent of new office and apartment development occurred in walkable, mixed used areas between 2010-2015.

The demand for this kind of development has been growing since the 90s.  Only 12 percent of the region’s new apartments were built in walkable places in the 1990s. By the early 2000s, this figure rose to 19 percent, and it climbed to 42 percent by 2012.

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News Highlights

• Unlike other economic development plans, Fairfax's Economic Success Plan uniquely focuses on social equity because it can boost economic growth and productivity. The plan includes more workforce training, expanding access to pre-K education, housing and more.
• One analysis finds that Fairfax County's GDP would have been $26.2 billion greater in 2012 if racial gaps in income were closed.
• Education produces economic benefits for individual people and society.

As Fairfax County leaders work to grow and diversify the economy, they are looking beyond traditional ways to boost growth.

Unlike many economic development plans, county officials are putting an emphasis on social equity—that is ensuring residents have access to education, housing, employment, and other opportunities.

“One of the unique elements of our plan is the inclusion of social equity as primary component,” says Deputy County Executive Rob Stalzer. “We’re broadening our understanding of why social equity is so important in terms of future economic success.”

The county recently brought social equity expert, john a. powell, to discuss the topic with senior leaders. Powell, a Berkeley University professor who directs the Hass Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society, is known for his work on equity, race, poverty and civil rights.

Along with many economists, Fairfax recognizes that social equity—or the lack of it—can either help or hurt economic performance.

Social equity boosts growth because it means investing in what economists call human capital—or people’s education, training and skills. In today’s knowledge economy, this investment leads to greater productivity and innovation that benefits everyone.

This is why Fairfax County’s Economic Success Plan focuses on expanding access to education; encouraging more science, technology, engineering and math education; delivering workforce training; and ensuring everyone can reach their highest potential.

Inequality Hinders Economic Growth: a $26.2 Billion Impact in Fairfax

Two years ago, ratings agency Standard & Poor’s warned that inequality is “dampening” the nation’s economic growth. In its report, S&P scaled back its growth forecast over the next decade as a result of this rising inequality.

Since 1980, inequality lowered U.S. economic growth by 15 to 20 percent, according to Harvard economist Nathaniel Hendren. His recent research concluded this amounted to a social cost of about $400 billion.

Locally, inequality also may carry a high price tag. Fairfax County’s gross domestic product would have been $26.2 billion higher in 2012 if its racial gaps in income were closed. This finding comes from an analysis conducted last year by PolicyLink and University of Southern California's Program for Environmental and Regional Equity, two national research institutes.

Social inequality also inhibits innovation, one of the drivers of new job growth. Looking at patents issued, a common measure for innovation, researchers found that children born to wealth families are more likely to get one later in life. The group from Harvard, U.S. Treasury and London School of Economics came to this conclusion after they compared 1.5 million patent filing, tax records and school test scores.

The difference between children from high and low income families is stark. The patent rate is 22.5 patents per every 10,000 children for those whose parents are in top 1 percent for income. In contrast, just 2.2 patents are received per every 10,000 children for those whose family income falls below the U.S. median.

This gap results from education, not natural differences in talent or ability. Children from wealthier families are more likely to attend top colleges, and this explains 90 percent of the relationship between income and patent rates, researchers found.

Education Is a Key to Social Equity

“Investing in education builds a strong and inclusive society in a number of ways,” says john a. powell, a social equity expert at Berkeley. “It actually increases earnings, the earnings of the person who is educated. It also increases the tax base and revenue for society. It also increases social inclusion. The more educated they are the less likely they are to be involved in crime, less likely they are to drop out of school, to go to prison.”

Education’s economic benefits are enormous, especially for early education.

Researchers studied children who attended a pre-K program in Michigan compared to a control group. This long-term study found that the program produced a $16 return for every dollar invested. Of this total, almost $13 dollars was returned to the public through higher tax rates and lower public service costs. Program participants got more than $3 in value through higher wages and other benefits. They earned 14 percent more than their peers, for example.

This study helps demonstrates why Fairfax County’s economic success plan aims to expand access pre-K education.

S&P, among others, have found that more education results in greater economic growth. They projected that if Americans completed just one more year of school this would result in a 2.4 percent increase in GDP over five years. This productivity gain would add about $525 billion to the U.S. economy.

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Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Raymond F. Morrogh informed Colonel Edwin C. Roessler Jr., Chief of the Fairfax County Police Department, on Friday, Dec. 16 that he found no basis for criminal liability on the part of the Fairfax County Deputy Sheriff involved in the deployment of deadly force on Monday, Aug. 15, 2016, on the campus of INOVA Fairfax Hospital. The Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office will conduct an administrative investigation in accordance with its standard operating procedures. Commonwealth’s Attorney Raymond F. Morrogh’s final report can be found here.

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News Highlights

• Mustang Sally in Chantilly is Fairfax's newest microbrewery, and county officials, who attend the grand opening, want to see this industry grow as part of the efforts to diversity the economy.
• Craft beer is big business in Virginia, employing more than 8,900 people and producing more than $1 billion in economic impact.
• Fairfax will celebrate craft breweries with its first ever Workhouse Brewfest on Aug. 13, 2016.

Mustang Sally, the newest brewery in Fairfax County, opened its doors in Chantilly on Wednesday.

The craft brewer joins more than six others in Fairfax, and county officials attended yesterday’s grand opening. Officials are celebrating this industry growth as the county works to diversify its economy under its strategic plan for economic success.

"Fairfax County is really interested in helping to grow the tourism community, wine industry and now the microbrew industry,” said Board of Supervisors Chairman Sharon Bulova.

Craft beer is now big business in Virginia. These breweries employ more than 8,900 people and produce more than $1 billion in economic impact in the state, according to the Brewers Association.

This expanding industry helps Fairfax achieve the goals in its economic plan, including encouraging entrepreneurs and innovation; promoting arts, hospitality and tourism; supporting events that cultivate a vibrant, energized community.

& very thankful for the warm welcome & trem support fr @fairfaxcounty, @visitfairfax & #Dulles Regional Chamber! https://t.co/bXeWJJypQt

— Mustang Sally Brewing Co. (@msbrewing) May 26, 2016

Congrats to @msbrewing on their grand opening celebration! #FXVA is lucky to have you! #vabeer #craftbeer Open til 9 pic.twitter.com/pBXx55C2RW

— Visit Fairfax (@VisitFairfax) May 25, 2016

The county will celebrate the industry with its first ever Workhouse Brewfest on Aug. 13, 2016. The event will offer nearly 100 craft beers from 30 breweries, bands, arts, and food. It will take place at the Workhouse Arts Center on the historic grounds of the former Lorton Prison that is being redeveloped into a mixed use community.

Mustang Sally will be joining four other local breweries at the event:

• Caboose from Vienna
• Fairwinds from Lorton
• Forge from Lorton
• Lake Anne Brew House from Reston

Check this listing to find other craft breweries and beer pubs in our area.

Sean Hunt of @msbrewing was beery happy to have @fairfaxcounty, @VisitFairfax & #Dulles chamber leaders at opening. pic.twitter.com/AlpW9Qb32Y

— Fairfax County EDA (@FairfaxEDA) May 25, 2016

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News Highlights

• Nonprofit's innovation fund will help to diversify our economy, a key goal in Fairfax County's Economic Success Plan.

Innovations often can start as small ideas that ending up having a big impact. Just look at Silicon Valley.

You don’t need to be a tech rock star to create innovations that benefit our area. The Community Foundation for Northern Virginia is looking for ideas and money for its Innovation Fund.

The grantmaker uses “venture philanthropy” to provide startup dollars for innovative programs. In part, the fund focuses on diversifying our economy, something county officials are working to achieve.

“The goals of the Community Foundation’s Innovation Fund are to help inculcate a culture of innovation in the region, build a source of venture philanthropy, and promote an economic growth model that is equitable and inclusive of all segments of our local work force,” said Eileen Ellsworth, the foundation’s president. “These goals are highly aligned with the goals of Fairfax County’s Economic Success Plan in many important ways.”

Local Impact

Innovation grants have made a real impact in Fairfax County. For example, the fund provided venture capital to:

• Expand the Cyber Patriot program in Fairfax County Public Schools. This money will bring the program to 10 middle schools this year and next.
• Launch the very first Mini Maker Faire at South Lakes High School in Reston that was attended by more than 3,000 visitors in both 2014 and 2015.
• Allow the Children’s Science Center, which focuses on STEM education, to expand into a permanent location.

“I’ve been on the receiving end of the power of the Innovation Fund,” said Tanya La Force, board chair for the Children’s Science Center. “It invested in the center at critical times of our growth.  With these seed funds, we grew our mobile program and later opened Northern Virginia’s first science museum – the Children’s Science Center Lab at the Fair Oaks Mall.  Not only were the funds important, but the Innovation Funds’ support also helped elevate awareness for our mission.”

Innovation Is Key to our Economic Plan

We’re trying to stimulate innovation as key strategy in our economic plan, and the Innovation Fund helps us to achieve the plan’s following goals:

• Create innovation hubs that can lead to new companies and jobs
• Expand research and development activity in the county
• Attract companies in emerging industries like, cyber security, data analytics and translational medicine
• Expand training and preparation in science, technology, engineering, arts and math
• Provide coordinated and efficient workforce training

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News Highlights

• First development proposal accepted through Fairfax's new electronic zoning application submisison system, and planners say this first case shows the system offers even greater speeds than anticipated.
• Novus Propety Holdings' proposal calls for a 340-unit apartment building along Richmond Highway, about two miles from the Huntington Metro Station. The project can help revitalize the corridor, bringing much needed housing. The building also will replace a car-title lending business at the site now.
• As part of its Economic Success plan, the county is improving the speed, consistentcy and predictability of its land development review process, and e-Plans is one intiative in this effort. The plan also calls for creating more urban, mixed use developoments near transit..

Fairfax County’s new electronic zoning application submission system is already exceeding expectations for staff review speed, say planners who announced that the first application has been submitted and accepted using the new system.

Novus Property Holdings was the first developer to complete the applications acceptance process electronically under the county’s new pilot system called e-Plans. The developer proposes to rezone a 5.3 acre site to build a new apartment building in the Penn Daw area along Richmond Highway.

Fairfax planners were able to respond to their proposal with deficiency comments within four days of its submission, moving even faster than anticipated using the new e-Plans system. The county’s current goal is to issue an acceptance determination on zoning applications within 10 business days or send comments back to developers outlining the missing requirements from proposals within this timeframe.

While it will take more use to know how much the system will speed up acceptances ultimately, officials are strongly encouraged by this first case.

“After working with Fairfax County for nearly a decade and submitting hundreds of plans through the paper process, Bohler’s Development Services Group has found the new e-Plans system to be not only intuitive and easy to use, but extremely efficient,” said Brian Clifford, a planning manager with the firm that’s on the Novus development team. “Having the ability to upload plans and review staff responses electronically has streamlined the submission and acceptance.”

e-Plans allows the county to ditch the inefficiencies—for both developers and planners—resulting from paper-based submissions for major zoning proposals. Fairfax is testing out this new system as part of a broader strategy to rev up its economy. Through its Strategic Plan for Economic Success, the county is actively improving the speed, consistency and predictability of its development review process.

“E-Plans dramatically cut staff review time and sped up the application acceptance process thereby allowing us to move forward to the public hearing process in a much shorter time frame,” said Sara V. Mariska, an attorney with Walsh Colucci Lubeley & Walsh PC which is on the Novus team. “The online application reduces the amount of paper typically needed for a submission and allowed us to meet our deadline and exceed our client’s expectations.”

e-Plans helps address some of the biggest lags in a paper-based process – document delivery, reconciliation and routing.

The paper-based submission and review process that has remained unchanged for decades requires review staff to spend time hand checking each hand delivered application to see if the required documents are included. When paperwork is missing—about 20 percent of cases say officials, time is lost obtaining and correlating documents. e-Plans has the capability to  eliminate this delay because documents are tracked within the system which more clearly focuses the developer and staff on the applicable regulations. Not only can developers more clearly identify submission requirements, but also developers can upload revisions to their applications 24/7. Staff are currently working to familiarize internal review staff with electronic review capabilities of e-Plan with a goal of significantly reducing the requirement to submit 23 paper copies of plan sets for the initial review of zoning applications.

If ultimately approved, Novus’ project will help to revitalize the Richmond Highway corridor, replacing a car title lender at the proposed site along Richmond Highway and Fairview Drive. It also supports the county’s Economic Success initiative that calls for the creation of livable, walkable mixed-use activity centers that are aligned with multi-modal transportation infrastructure. The proposed multi-family apartment community will diversify the area with residences within about two miles from the Huntington Metro Station.

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News Highlights

• Fairfax County wants to create an innovation ecosystem that will foster more startups and entrepreneurship, and the county's Economic Success Plan is pushing forward this effort.
• Startups are key to job growth, producing 20 percent of net jobs created.

One persistent myth about economic growth is that it’s small companies that are engines for job creation. However, the truth is that it’s young companies that create the most jobs.

Most new firms are small, but economists now agree that it's age not size that matters.

Startups employ three percent of the nation’s workers every year—yet they account for 20 percent of net jobs created. This finding came from research conducted by economists from the U.S. Census Bureau and University of Maryland.

During the dot-com boom in the 2000s, startups, defined as firms less than a year old, and high-growth businesses created 70 percent of all new jobs created in the U.S.

This outsized impact is one reason Fairfax County officials are trying to foster more startups and greater entrepreneurship as part of their strategic economic success plan.

“We also want to grow the innovation ecosystem in Fairfax,” said Eta Davis, Fairfax County’s economic initiatives coordinator. “We have to think about how do we make connections between entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, future workers and big companies.”

To help spark this ecosystem’s growth, officials are working to create innovation districts, as well as encourage greater urban, mixed use development that offer a lifestyle that’s attractive to millennials to boomers.

Making Fairfax into a place that’s attractive to entrepreneurs is underscored by research from consulting firm Endeavor Insight. Their study found that entrepreneurs decided where to live years before starting their companies based on quality of life and personal connections; 80 percent lived for at least two years in the city where they started their business.

Officials are also looking to nurture an environment where successful entrepreneurship breeds more even more startup activity.

“To build a virtuous cycle in Fairfax County, I think we could do two things,” said John Backus, managing partner at venture capital firm Nav.VC. “Number one is as parents we can let our kids know that being an entrepreneur is actually a viable option. It wasn’t an option when I went to school. Number two, we can support small, fast-growing businesses with good ideas. Instead of taking the safe path and buying from the Fortune 500 company, if you see something you like that’s started by a local, talented entrepreneur, you ought to consider buying her or her product.”

In addition to building the ecosystem, Backus recommends other actions too, including encouraging individuals and institutions to invest in venture funds, lower tax rates, and luring small, rapidly growing firms to our area.

“We can’t do it alone,” said Fairfax’s Davis. “We need to partner with the other stakeholders in the community.”

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