Public Affairs

Today, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors approved the Fiscal Year 2017 Budget Carryover package following a public hearing. Fairfax County Executive Edward L. Long presented his recommendations for use of FY 2017 Carryover Funds at the board meeting held July 25. Carryover is the process by which certain unspent or unencumbered funds for commitments to pay for goods and services at the end of one fiscal year are reappropriated to the next fiscal year. FY 2017 ended on June 30, 2017.

The FY 2017 Budget Carryover package includes:

• $58.88 million to be allocated in the carryover package as follows: 
  • $35.81 million for funding county reserves and infrastructure needs based on county policy.  
     
  • $15.40 million to fully fund the demolition of the Massey Building (Public Safety Center), which is anticipated to be vacated by the end of 2017.
     
  • $1.52 million for the Planning and Land Use System (PLUS) Project using permit fee revenues received in FY 2017 and funding for 10 positions, fully offset by anticipated FY 2018 revenues, to continue the ongoing investment to improve the county’s land development process.
     
  • $0.50 million placed in reserve for gang prevention efforts in the community. In addition, $1.1 million is allocated to the Community Services Board to increase residential treatment and medical detoxification beds to begin to address the growing opioid epidemic. An additional $2.5 million is set aside in reserve to provide ongoing flexibility as the county works to develop additional strategies to combat opioid use.
     
  • $0.76 million for funding other requirements such as the Aug. 29 School Board at-large special election, Park Authority equipment needs and one-time funding to support the county's summer entertainment series. In addition, at no net cost to the county, 11 positions are added to address increasing public assistance caseloads and one position is added to support workload requirements related to the maintenance of Fairfax County Public Schools' vehicles.
     
  • $4.89 million in reserves associated with disbursement increases funded in the carryover package.
     
• $0.80 million to be held in reserve to address critical one-time requirements and funding needs. When added to the $0.24 million held in reserve as part of the FY 2018 Adopted Budget Plan, a total of $1.04 million is available for one-time requirements in FY 2018 or FY 2019.

More information on the Fairfax County Budget can be found at www.fairfaxcounty.gov/budget.

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Ballots and voter information is now available in four languages by the Fairfax County Office of Elections, including English, Spanish, Vietnamese and Korean.

Spanish language voter information has been available since 2011 for county voters, as required by Section 203 of the Federal Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Vietnamese language is a federal requirement effective December 2016. The Fairfax County Electoral Board added the Korean language effective for the June 13 primaries since the county is very close to meeting the federal requirement.

Fairfax County is the only jurisdiction in Virginia with the additional language requirements.

The Voting Rights Act mandates that a state or political subdivision must provide language assistance to voters if more than five percent of voting age citizens are members of a single language minority group and do not ‘‘speak or understand English adequately enough to participate in the electoral process’’ and if the rate of those citizens who have not completed the fifth grade is higher than the national rate of voting age citizens who have not completed the fifth grade.

Read the Federal Register announcement, including language requirements for other counties throughout the U.S. (begins at bottom of second column).

Voting information and resources that are now available in all four languages includes:

• Ballots
• Voter Registration Forms
• Absentee Ballot Applications 
• Bilingual election officers (at many poll locations)

In addition, the Office of Elections has language access for voters who call 703-222-0776 or email voting@fairfaxcounty.gov. For more information on voting in the June 13 primaries watch the county's Facebook Live on Monday, June 5 at approximately 2 p.m.

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News Highlights

• Zoning laws were updated to better define commercial vehicles and make enforcement easier.
• As before, the updated law only applies to commercial vehicles parked on residential properties, not public roads.
• For the first time, the law prohibits trailers, like the ones used to transport equipment, and it prohibits vehicles based on their dimensions.

What counts as a commercial vehicle was made clearer under Fairfax County’s zoning rules, as the Board of Supervisors approved changes on Tuesday.

The changes were needed to make them simpler and easier to enforce. The county’s code enforcement inspectors have faced challenges under the previous rules with a number of cases going to the Board of Zoning Appeals. As an example, the appeals board ruled that a six ton dump truck was not a commercial vehicle.

As before, the rules only apply to commercial vehicles parked on residential properties, not on public roads. Other laws regulate commercial vehicles parking on streets, and these codes are enforced by the police.

Five key changes were made to the zoning ordinance:

• Deleting the carrying capacity: The previous zoning rule defined a commercial vehicle in part as having a carrying capacity of 1,500 pounds or more. This specification was deleted because many SUVs and trucks that many people drive for personal use exceed this criteria. A Ford F-150 pickup truck can carry 12,200 pounds, for example.
   
• Removing the reference to advertising: Under the previous rules, a commercial vehicle also was defined as displaying “advertising lettering.” This description was removed to comply with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Now, the rules display “indicators that the vehicle is designed or used for commercial purposes.”
   
• Adding vehicle size: The rules now specifically prohibit commercial vehicles based on their size: vehicles that are longer than 21 feet—including ladders or other equipment attached to it—eight feet in height or 8.5 feet in width. Non-commercial vehicles are not subject to any size limitations.
   
• Prohibiting all tow trucks and trailers: Under the old rules, wreckers that exceeded 12,000 pounds were banned from parking on residential properties. Now, the rules prohibit all towing and recovery vehicles regardless of weight. For the first time, trailers, like those used to transport lawnmowers or other equipment, were added to this list of prohibited vehicles.

Unchanged is provision that one commercial vehicle may be parked at a residence if it is owned or operated by the homeowner and provided it is not a specifically prohibited commercial vehicle.

The following vehicles are prohibited from parking on residential lots:

• Food trucks
• Garbage trucks
• Tractor-trailers
• Semi-trailers
• Cement-mixers
• Dump trucks
• Construction equipment
• Towing and recovery vehicles
• Trailers used for transporting equipment whether attached or unattached to another vehicle
• Vehicles, including any appurtenances attached to it, that are greater than 21 feet in length, eight feet in height or 8.5 feet in width
• Vehicles carrying commercial freight in plain view
• Vehicles with more than three axles

There rules also define vehicles that are not considered commercial, including:

• Vehicles actively providing delivery, repair or moving services
• Government vehicles, like police or fire trucks
• Boats, horse trailers and other recreational equipment
• Vehicles used for ride sharing services like Uber or Lyft

For more information or questions about these rules, contact the Zoning Administration Division of the Fairfax County Department of Planning and Zoning at 703-324-1314, TTY 711.

To make a complaint about commercial vehicle parked on a residential property, call the Department of Code Compliance at 703-1300, TTY 711. Call the Fairfax County Police non-emergency number at 703-691-2131, TTY 711, for complaints about commercial vehicles parked on public roads.

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News Highlights

• To grow and diversify the economy, the Board of Supervisors allocated $500,000 in matching grant funding for agriculture and agrotourism businesses that qualify for a state grant to expand their facilities or add jobs in Fairfax County.
• Fairfax County has the fifth most agriculture jobs in the state, and the industry generates $780 million dollars in total economic impact in the county.

Tech companies are usually the focus when it comes to expanding the new economy. Fairfax County, however, is going back to the earth.

County leaders agreed on Tuesday to allocate $500,000 in seed money towards agriculture and agrotourism. The Board of Supervisors acted to set aside the economic development funds to help these businesses that want to expand their facilities or add new jobs.

The move was led by Board of Supervisors Chairman Sharon Bulova.

Agriculture is a key industry that can help the county add new jobs and companies, Bulova said. While technology firms make up 25 percent of jobs in the county, many may not know that agriculture is a major employer in the county.

A new state-sponsored study finds that Fairfax County ranks fifth in Virginia in the number of people employed in agriculture jobs, and the industry generates $780 million dollars in total economic impact in the county.

There are 6,201 agriculture jobs in the Fairfax County, according to the University of Virginia’s research. In comparison, this total only trails slightly behind Loudoun County’s 6,701 jobs, the third most in the state.  

This study also finds that agriculture is a growing industry. At $91 billion, agriculture and forestry’s economic impact have increased 30 percent statewide since 2013, and employment has grown by seven percent.

In separate study this year, Virginia Tech states that agrotourism alone contributed $754 million to the county’s economy.

In recognition of this industry’s importance, board members directed that agriculture be added to the county’s strategic plan to expand and diversify the economy. Fairfax also will seek a $25,000 state grant to help its effort to create new policies to expand urban farming and agrotourism.

This follows other ongoing efforts to encourage this economic activity. The county is already working on new zoning rules for agrotourism. It is also encouraging vertical farming, or indoor farming, in vacant commercial buildings as part of the plan to reposition or reuse them.

The county’s seed money will leverage a state matching grant program called the Governor’s Agriculture and Forestry Industries Development Fund.

Under the state’s program, local governments may apply for a matching grant on behalf of businesses. To qualify, localities must also contribute money, along with the company. Fairfax County will require businesses to make a three-to-one match for any dollars the county pledges.

Last year, the county established a special fund for economic development, and it appropriated $5 million to kick start the Economic Opportunity Reserve Fund. The $500,000 allocated for matching grants will come out of this fund, and the Board of Supervisors must approve any spent.

The economic reserve was created to invest one-time, seed money into projects that will provide direct economic benefits to the county. This makes it different from traditional economic incentives that some governments offer to companies or developers. Qualified projects must be for capital development, property acquisition, or programming support for economic development activities identified in the Economic Success plan.

This economic plan also calls for attracting tech startups and entrepreneurs, especially in data analytics, cyber security, translational medicine, and other emerging technologies; creating innovation hubs and stimulating R&D activity in the county.

For more information on the matching funds for agriculture or agrotourism, contact Scott Sizer, Office of the County Executive, 703-324-2581, 711.

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News Highlights

• Proposed rewrite of the zoning rules for signs will focus on making them "content-neutral" in response to a U.S. Supreme Court decision.

In light of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, Fairfax County is moving to update its zoning rules for signs.

Zoning officials are working to rewrite the existing regulations in a “content-neutral” manner to respond to the highest court’s ruling. The effort also will reorganize the existing rules into a more user friendly format.

On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors directed staff to work on the development of these proposed zoning changes that they must ultimately approve.

The 2015 court case involved an Arizona town that regulated signs based on their content or message, as do many local jurisdictions around the country. The court ruled that these “content-based” regulations do not meet the strict scrutiny test required by the First Amendment to protect free speech.

However, Fairfax County’s current ordinance regulates some signs based, in whole or part, on the message on them, requiring them to be rewritten.

For example, the rules for freestanding building identification signs in office and industrial parks are content based as they say: “Such sign(s) shall be limited to identifying the name of the building and/or the individual enterprises located therein, the address, trademark or identifying symbol or any combination thereof.”

The revisions will primarily focus on updating the rules for temporary, prohibited, and exempt signs since these are the areas with the most content-based language.

County officials will seek public input on these suggested changes beginning in August. The proposal must undergo review by the Planning Commission, which is anticipated to hold a public hearing late this fall, with a board hearing on any changes anticipated in the beginning of 2018.

The county is undertaking the zoning revisions for signs as part of its project to modernize its zoning ordinance, known as zMod.

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News Highlights

• Proposed rules would create new, more generic zoning definitions for restaurants, along with possibly simplifying or lifting some use limitations.
• Restaurants are a growing sector of the county’s retail economy, and the proposal will help them more easily locate and do business.

Fast casual restaurants like Panera, Elevation Burger or Pei Wei didn’t exist when Fairfax County first developed its zoning rules for restaurants 36 years ago.

The county hasn’t changed its zoning definitions for restaurants since they were first created in 1981, and these definitions haven’t kept pace with how the industry has changed since then, making it challenging for owners of restaurants to understand where they can locate and do business.

This is why Fairfax County zoning officials are considering changes to the existing regulations governing restaurants. On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors directed staff to move forward with the development of proposed zoning changes and to engage the county residents in the process.

The changes are important in part, officials say, because restaurants are a growing segment of the county’s retail economy. Fast casual restaurants have had sales growth that’s topped 12 and 13 percent in the last two years, according to Technomic, a research firm that tracks the restaurant industry.

Currently, the county defines restaurants based on how they operate, using these characteristics to distinguish between traditional sit-down and fast food restaurants. The classifications consider whether employees bring food is to a customer’s table, individual menus are given out, or whether disposable plates and silverware are used. Fast casual restaurants have blurred these distinctions.

As a result, the county is considering simpler, more generic definitions: one for restaurants, one for restaurants with drive-through service and one for carryout restaurants. Lifting or simplifying some of the use limitations is also under consideration. For example, existing rules restrict the size or number of restaurants allowed in a shopping center based on their square footage or floor area. These limitations may no longer be relevant, as they present an unnecessary obstacle to filling vacant retail space in shopping centers at a time when many other retailers are closing their brick-and-mortar stores.

County officials will seek public input on these suggested changes beginning in August. The proposal must undergo review by the Planning Commission, which is anticipated to hold a public hearing late this fall, with a board hearing on any changes anticipated in the beginning of 2018.

The county is undertaking the zoning revisions for restaurants as part of its project to modernize its zoning ordinance, known as zMod.

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News Highlights

• The Board of Supervisors adopted specific  recommendations for condos in high-rise buildings in Tysons, opening up a path to affordable homeownership.

Seven years ago, the depressed condominium market looked unlikely to ever revive—or so thought the neighborhood leaders, housing advocates, developers and county officials when they crafted the plan to remake Tysons.

As a result, Fairfax County’s plan set its 20 percent affordable housing goal with apartments in mind, never distinguishing between rental and for sale housing which is done elsewhere in the county. This changed on Tuesday. The Board of Supervisors adopted specific  recommendations for condos in high-rise buildings in Tysons, opening up a path to affordable homeownership.

The new policy sets percentages for the total number of condos in a redevelopment project that should be designated as workforce units:

• 14 percent of affordable for-sale units if the units are provided on-site in the same development with the rest of the condos
• 16 percent of affordable for-sale units if they are provided off-site elsewhere in Tysons

Officials took action because the condo market appears to have rebounded since the Tysons plan was first put in place, and the county wants to encourage homeownership in Tysons. The need for a change became clear when the board approved the first new high rise condo in Tysons last summer.

Renaissance Centro, the developer of The Arbor, faced a challenge in meeting the 20 percent target, and received approval for a lesser percentage of affordable units and flexibility to provide units on- and off-site.

Financing and economics are more challenging for high-rise condos than they are for rental projects, said Fred Selden, director of Fairfax County Department of Planning and Zoning. New high-rise condo projects are much smaller than rental projects and find it difficult to take full advantage of the bonus density that is available for providing affordable units

The new policy opens the door for affordable homeownership. From the beginning, the Tysons plan has called for housing to be provided for a mix of incomes, in different unit types and rental as well as homeownership opportunities.

County officials came up with the new policy working with an advisory group that included affordable housing advocates, developers and former Planning Commissioners who helped create the Tysons plan.

To date, every new redevelopment project in Tysons has committed to fulfill the 20 percent goal. This will provide up to 4,200 affordable housing units in the future. Developers are also expected to contribute to an affordable housing trust fund for every square foot of non-residential development in Tysons. This policy has deposited more than $2.8 million into this fund as of this past June.

There is a large demand for affordable rental housing in Fairfax County. Approximately 31,630 rental units are needed for renters earning 80 percent of the area median income or below, according to the Virginia Tech Center for Housing Research.

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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

• Startups can participate in the census until Dec. 2, 2016, and results will be released in January 2017.
• Fairfax County is one of 12 financial sponsors for this first, detailed census of startups in the DC region because county leaders want to help foster an innovation ecosystem, along with the growth of more new companies.

Because entrepreneurs are a major driver for economic growth, Fairfax County is helping to sponsor the first detailed, census of startups in the DC region.

Fairfax is one of 12 businesses, universities and economic development agencies that are financing Fosterly’s 2016 Regional Startup & Innovation Economy Census.

The count will provide granular data about the DC region’s startup and innovation ecosystem, including funding raised, annual revenues, number of employees, location, bandwidth needs and opportunities and challenges for growth.

“We’ve joined this census because we want to grow the innovation ecosystem,” said Eta Davis, Fairfax County economic initiatives coordinator. “I think someday everyone would like to be able to say that the DC region is the next unicorn farm.”

Fairfax County’s plan to boost the economy seeks to nurture an environment where successful entrepreneurship breeds more even more startup activity. These young firms produce an outsized economic impact, economist say.

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.

Fosterly hopes that the census will be a resource for startups, offering information to individual companies about their position in the marketplace and local resources to help them grow. The project also aims to educate the general public and lawmakers about the status and needs of innovative companies within the region’s competitive entrepreneurship environment.

Startups can take the survey from now until December 2. It takes about 20 minutes to complete, and Fosterly is offering airline vouchers and gifts from local businesses as an incentive to participate. Responses to the survey will be kept private, and the data will be aggregated into community averages.

Census results will be released on Jan. 17, 2017.

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News Highlights

• The county is the headquarters location for 14.5 percent of startups, and Northern Virginia is home for 32 percent of startups in the region, finds a new census of startups in the D.C. region.
• Fairfax County and the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority sponsored this research, along with others, to get a granular look at the area's innovation ecosystem as the county works to grow and diversify the economy.
• Most startups make money from sales to the private-sector, not the government. Startup creation is also at a higher rate than at the national level.

Fairfax County has the highest density of startups in Northern Virginia, according to the results from Fosterly’s 2016 regional census.

Fairfax is the headquarters location for 14.5 percent of startups, and Northern Virginia is home for 32 percent of startups in the region, trailing just behind D.C. at 40 percent.

Fosterly’s census surveyed startups in the D.C. region, and it provides granular, local data about the area’s innovation ecosystem. Fairfax County and the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority sponsored this research, along with other companies and public agencies.

The census points to the region’s growing entrepreneurial scene, including the number of firms formed, jobs created and revenues generated.

Most startups were founded in the last five years—with 25% setting up shop in 2016. This is an encouraging sign as national economic data show startup creation at a 40 year low. In the U.S., only 8.9 percent of companies were in business for two years or less, says the U.S. Census Bureau in its most recent 2014 survey of entrepreneurs.

Fosterly’s findings also point to positive job growth. It finds that 83 percent of companies will hire full or part-time employees in the next 12 months, with 22 percent planning to hire between five to 10 people.

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

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.

Significantly, the census reveals that most startups make money from selling to the private sector, not to governments as might be expected. The data showed that 77 percent of revenues came from private sector sales, including business-to-business and business-to-consumer sales.

This is important news as Fairfax officials work to diversify county’s economy as federal budgets are expected to continue to be strained. Officials want to attract and expand firms in emerging technologies like translational medicine, data analytics and cyber security.

Fosterly’s figures also point to rising revenues. This year 45% of startups project revenues of more than $500,000—twice the number that exceeded the half million dollar mark in 2015. The number of firms that will record $2 million in revenues or greater is expected to more than double this year compared to two years ago.

This was Fosterly’s first annual census. Their results are based on the data collected, although the survey is not a comprehensive assessment of every company in the region.

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