Public Affairs

Today, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors appointed Rebecca Moudry as the first director of the new Department of Economic Initiatives. Her appointment is effective Oct. 21.

Moudry has more than 20 years of experience in economic development, community development and investment policy in both the private and public sectors. She has led programs at the local, national and international levels and is specialized in regional competitiveness. Most recently, Moudry was a vice president at ROI Research on Investment.  As part of the executive team she supported economic development clients to develop and execute industry cluster assessments, strategic planning and business attraction and retention programs.

Previously, Moudry served as deputy director for investment services at SelectUSA at the U.S. Department of Commerce. This federal program facilitates job-creating business investment into the United States. At the U.S. Economic Development Administration, she led a program to increase investment in innovation clusters across the country. Her expansive experience includes positions at the District of Columbia Office for Planning and Economic Development, the International Economic Development Council and the Inter-American Development Bank. 

Moudry earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Puget Sound and received a master’s degree in regional planning with a focus on economic development from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Moudry will receive an annual salary of $165,000.

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Mount Vernon District Supervisor Dan Storck and Lee District Supervisor Jeff McKay hosted a dedication ceremony on Sept. 20 to rename the South County Center – located at 8350 Richmond Highway in Alexandria – as the Gerry Hyland Government Center. The name change is in honor of Gerald W. Hyland, who served as the Mount Vernon District representative on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors from 1988-2015. 

In addition to his supervisor role, Hyland served as chairman of the Public Safety Committee and co-chairman of the Community Revitalization and Reinvestment Commit¬tee. He served on the Inova Health Care Services Board and the National Association of Counties Board of Directors; and regionally for District of Columbia, Fort Belvoir and Prince William County interjurisdictional committees. 

“Gerry Hyland was a supervisor for the people and the epitome of a public servant,” says Storck. “Throughout his 30 plus years of public service, he improved the lives of many, many individuals in Mount Vernon and Fairfax County. Gerry’s innate compassion for the struggles of residents along the Richmond Highway corridor was instrumental in getting the South County Center built and bringing human services to Mount Vernon and Lee residents who otherwise had to travel long distances.”
The Gerry Hyland Government Center is home to family services, community health, career programs, a senior and teen center and more, including many public rooms essential for community meetings and workshops. “It is a fitting tribute that we honor Gerry by naming the county government center after this beloved public servant,” says Storck.

Hyland also served as chairman of the Virginia Railway Express and is a past president of the Virginia Association of Counties. He has served as a board member of the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission, the Washington Metropolitan Council of Governments, the Environmental Policy Committee, the Woodrow Wilson Bridge Improvement Study Coordinating Committee, the Metropolitan Washington Air Quality Committee, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority and the Board of Zoning Appeals. He is the former chairman of the Fairfax County Human Rights Commis¬sion and is a retired Colonel in the United States Air Force.

Hyland was instrumental in the efforts to close the county I-95 landfill, he led the effort to keep the Inova Mount Vernon Hospital open and led the transformation of Lorton. He is known as an advocate for all people, as well as a pun master and gentleman farmer.

“No one has dedicated themselves more to our community than Gerry Hyland,” says McKay. “His decades of service were invaluable to the success of Fairfax County and the Mount Vernon District and we’re a much better, stronger, safer and compassionate community because of him. This newly named center is but a small token of our thanks to him for being a leader and role model to all of us.”

In addition to Storck and McKay, speakers at the dedication ceremony included Congressman Gerry Connolly, Congressman Don Beyer, former Congressman Jim Moran, Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Sharon Bulova and William “Bill” Bock, a close friend to Hyland. Hyland then addressed the large crowd of friends and colleagues before the new signage in front and behind the building was unveiled. 

The Library of Virginia has awarded the Office of the Fairfax Circuit Court Clerk a $8,281.50 grant through its Circuit Court Records Preservation (CCRP) program. The funds will be used to conserve Fairfax Court Order Book 1768-1770; Plat Book 3, p. 1-68; Plat Book 3, p. 69-135; and Subpoenas and Rough Minute Book 1846-1855, 1871 stored in the Court’s Historic Records Center in the 1799 Courthouse, 4000 Chain Bridge Road, Suite 1600, Fairfax.

“As the proud custodians of these 18th- and 19th-century records, we are thrilled that the Library of Virginia is supporting our Five-Year Preservation Plan,” said Chief Deputy Clerk Gerarda Culipher. “We are all students of history, but some of us have the great privilege of working every day to preserve, and showcase, these court records as primary resources for today’s researchers….and for future generations." 

The Clerk’s Office conducts free, guided tours every Friday at 3 p.m. and Monday through Thursday by appointment. “Come down for a tour, and see just what we’re doing to keep Fairfax’s past available to you,” encourages Culipher. More information on tours.

The CCRP grant program is a part of the Library of Virginia's Local Records Services Branch. Funded through a $1.50 portion of Virginia’s land recordation fee, the CCRP provides resources to help preserve and make accessible permanent circuit court records stored in the 120 circuit courts around the commonwealth and in Richmond at the Library of Virginia. This year, CCRP awarded more than $1 million to 90 local clerks’ offices.

For more information, contact Heather Bollinger at 703-246-4168.

Fairfax County is leading the way in solar energy in the state, becoming the first municipality in Virginia to receive a Gold designation from the national SolSmart program. SolSmart recognized Fairfax County earlier this year with Silver status for taking bold action to encourage solar energy growth and remove obstacles to solar development. The new Gold designation comes after the Board of Supervisors voted earlier this summer to amend the zoning ordinance by explicitly allowing residential and non-residential buildings to add solar as an accessory use.

“We are receiving this Gold designation from SolSmart because the Board of Supervisors continues to invest in the county’s solar energy programs,” said Kambiz Agazi, director of the Office of Environmental and Energy Coordination. “We are excited to continue working in collaboration with Fairfax County’s residents and businesses to create a greener and more energy efficient community one building at a time.”

For companies looking to expand, a SolSmart Gold designation is a signal that Fairfax County is open for solar business.

To receive this top designation, local governments must put in place processes to make it faster, easier and less expensive to install a solar energy system. This includes streamlining permitting and zoning rules, as well as offering economic incentives.

Fairfax County offers:

• No-fee permitting for residential or commercial solar systems.
• Same-day building permits for solar systems .
• Tax exemptions for homeowners and businesses who install solar equipment , including solar panels, solar water heating systems and passive solar energy systems.
• Discounted solar systems for homeowners and businesses through Solarize Fairfax County , which during the past three years has resulted in 2,263 solar assessments that led to 142 solar installations totaling 1,135 kW.
• $5,000 grants for homeowners associations’ energy conservation projects like solar through the Northern Virginia Soil and Water Conservation District.
• A solar webpage that summarizes solar resourcs, incentives, and opportunities in the county.     

The programs and incentives are offered through a partnership between multiple county agencies, including the Department of Land Development Services, Department of Planning and Development, Department of Tax Administration and Office of Environmental and Energy Coordination.

The county’s solar incentives and programs complement its overall Operational Energy Strategy that aims to reduce local government energy consumption through energy efficiency, renewable energy and innovative technologies. As part of this strategy, Fairfax County Government and Fairfax County Public Schools are planning to install solar panels on multiple facilities . The county also recently allocated $2.5 million for electric vehicle charging stations and LED streetlights .

SolSmart uses objective criteria to award communities points based on the actions they take to reduce barriers to solar energy development. The non-profit is led by The Solar Foundation and the International City/County Management Association and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office.

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Fairfax County received a prestigious planning award for its urban design guidelines for development in Reston’s transit station areas.

The American Planning Association’s Virginia Chapter recognized the county with its 2019 Commonwealth Connectors Award. The award was presented at the group’s annual meeting on July 23.

In presenting the award, the association lauded the county’s extensive public engagement and collaboration with residents, property owners and others to craft the guidance.

Formally called the “Guidelines for Development in the Reston Transit Station Areas,” the 190-page document offers flexible guidance on how to implement the urban design elements recommended in the Comprehensive Plan. This includes:

• Streetscape layout.
• Hardscape elements.
• Planting strategies.
• Building placement.
• Building mass.
• Architectural form.

The guidelines ensure forward-thinking design while preserving the Reston’s original vision and character. This includes focus on bicycling, pedestrian movement and enhanced connections between people and nature. The integration of buildings, sidewalks, plazas and public art with natural elements, such as tree canopies, open space and water features, helps create these connections.

The county developed the guidelines following a multi-year process that involved the participation of multiple county agencies, the use of surveys and consultations with an appointed advisory group, the Reston Association, the Reston Design Review Board and other stakeholders, and public outreach efforts.

For more information, contact the Department of Planning and Development, 703-324-9300, TTY 711.

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News Highlights

• One map application, available on any device, with over 170 layers to view, combine and analyze.
• Detailed property reports especially useful for land development.
• Save, share and print your map creations.
• Current and historical aerial imagery, viewable from multiple angles.

While Fairfax County has long provided many specific, web-based maps and applications, the release of the new Jade interactive mapping application serves a unique mission as a general map viewer. Jade was designed to provide the public with never-before released map layers, reports, exclusive aerial imagery, and analytical tools to explore County data and business processes.

Jade application screenshots. Click to expand.   

170 Maps in One

There are over 170 map layers to explore, including property information, land development, public facilities, infrastructure, environmental, and more. Most layers also provide easy access to other County resources such as applications and webpages for more information.

Jade is particularly applicable to those undertaking land development and other engagements with Fairfax County government using custom reports and workflows.

Report, Save and Share

Detailed property reports describing legal and environmental conditions are especially useful for land development activities. To meet this need, Jade users will be able to create reports for every property in Fairfax County:

• A general parcel report uses the most current County data to display information on a property’s description, zoning, structures, ownership, and tax/assessments.
• A separate environmental parcel report includes information on watersheds, floodplains, resource protection areas and soil details.

Users can then capture their efforts in the Jade by exporting created images and maps. They may also share their work via email and social media. 

See Fairfax From Different Angles

For the first time, Fairfax County is making its library of oblique aerial imagery available to the public. Users can virtually move around any location in Fairfax County with side-views from each cardinal direction. Furthermore, there are 14 years of aerial imagery, ranging from 1937 to the present.

Businesses, community based organizations and residents often seek information to inform them about demographic and economic changes occurring in Fairfax County. Jade is one of many county efforts to democratize open data through powerful, yet intuitive, interfaces, allowing them to:

• Understand patterns, trends and challenges.
• Evaluate services and programs.
• Obtain customized data for the purposes of business development, policy making, etc.

The Fairfax County interactive mapping gallery offers access to more than 70 available mapping applications. For more information, visit Geographic Information Systems (GIS), a division of the Department of Information Technology.

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Resources:

• GIS Open Data
• FY 2020 Information Technology Plan (PDF)
• Fairfax County Awards

At its meeting today, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors appointed Michael A. Becketts as the next director of the Department of Family Services. Becketts will succeed Nanette Bowler, who is retiring from the county on Friday, Aug. 2. Becketts will take on his official role as DFS director Sept. 3. 

Becketts currently works at the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services where he has served as assistant secretary for human services and senior director for policy and planning. For the past two years, he has provided executive leadership in the delivery of social services programs and evaluating North Carolina's model used to deliver social services and child welfare programs.

Over a nearly 20-year career, Becketts has worked in settings that provide supportive services in the areas of child welfare, aging, health, mental health, juvenile justice, academic medicine and education, with a career focus on supporting the health, safety and well-being of marginalized and vulnerable populations. 

Becketts began his career as a child welfare social worker in the Washington, D.C., foster care system, supporting families working toward reunification or finding a permanent, stable home for children. He has also served as deputy director of the Baltimore City Department of Social Services and director of Durham County, NC, Department of Social Services. 

Becketts has a bachelor’s degree in social work from McDaniel College and a master’s degree in social work from the University of Maryland, Baltimore. He also earned a master’s degree in health administration from the University of Baltimore, a master’s degree in education from Widener University and is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Widener University. 

Becketts will receive an annual salary of $195,000.

Fairfax County’s plan to transform Tysons calls for a central, signature park to serve the entire area, and the newly approved development called The Mile will finally accomplish this goal.

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors approved the more than 3-million-square-foot, mixed use development on July 16. The project, which sits about a half mile from the Tysons Metro Station, will deliver a five-acre park that will make up an entire block of the development.

“I love the signature park,” said Fairfax County Chairman Sharon Bulova. “It’s really going to be landmark in Tysons.”

Long before the county began its efforts to remake Tysons nine-plus years ago, the property’s previous owner West Group had envisioned a park at this site, according to Providence District Supervisor Linda Smyth.

“So here we are a number of years later and finally coming up with this place for the signature park in Tysons,” Smyth said. “And it wasn’t easy. You might think about that much acreage in Tysons and what you could do with it. And how much it would cost, just the land value all by itself.”

She called it a “lasting achievement for Tysons.”

Overall Plan

The Mile will remake an existing 38-acre, suburban office park located between Westbranch Drive, Jones Branch Drive and Westpark Drive. P.S. Business Parks intends to construct 2.8 million square feet of residential development, plus office, hotel and retail uses.

The plan calls for 10 new buildings spread across eight blocks. Five buildings are residential along with supporting retail, and another four buildings include options for either residential, office or hotel uses, plus retail. The 10th building is a 5,000-square-foot retail kiosk planned for The Mile’s Signature Park. The approved plans also allow for an option to include 300,000 square feet in mini-warehouse or storage in one of the residential buildings.

These new buildings will join Highgate, a 395-unit luxury apartment building along Jones Branch Road completed in 2017.

As part of its approval on Tuesday, the board also signed off on final development plans for The Mile’s first building to be constructed. Tentatively called Exley, the seven-story apartment building with ground-floor retail will offer up to 435 units on Westbranch Drive near the intersection with Westpark Drive.

Signature Park and Athletic Field

Overall, The Mile will provide 10 acres of parks as envisioned by the county’s conceptual parks plan for Tysons. The project’s largest park, called Signature Park, will make an entire block along Jones Branch Drive. At about five acres, it will include a:

• Large open lawn.
• Performance stage.
• Walking, jogging and biking trail.
• Children’s play area.
• Seating and tables.
• Bikeshare station.
• One- to two-story food pavilion.

This park will be given to the Fairfax County Park Authority or Board of Supervisors, and the developer will maintain it in perpetuity.

To meet the need for athletic fields, the developer will build a 330- by-180-foot synthetic turf field at an off-site property that it owns on the south side of Boone Boulevard near the intersection with Gallows Road. This field will include lighting, bleachers, storage facilities and at least 25 parking spaces.

Local Street Grid

The Mile will also help to build out the local street grid in this part of Tysons. The development includes construction of four new streets: Mile Avenue, Rowling Street, Blyton Street, and Maitland Street. Mile Avenue, which will run east to west, will function as an extension of the recently constructed Jones Branch Connector, and the avenue will intersect with Westpark Drive. Maitland Street also will be extended from Hornby Street, where it ends today, to Westbranch Drive.

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Susan Friedlander Earman will be presented her official commission as a Fairfax County General District Court judge on Thursday, July 18, at 4 p.m. at the Fairfax County Courthouse, Courtroom 5J, 4110 Chain Bridge Road, Fairfax. 

Before joining Fairfax County General District Court as the 11th judge, Earman served as a substitute judge from November 2012, hearing criminal and traffic cases and in Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court. Prior to taking the bench, she worked alongside her father and uncle in their family law firm, Friedlander, Friedlander & Earman P.C., focusing on civil litigation with a concentration in land use and real estate.

A native of Northern Virginia, Earman earned a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics from the University of Virginia and her Juris Doctor from the George Mason University School of Law.  Earman also served as a planning commissioner for the City of Falls Church for five years and then on its Board of Zoning Appeals for 10 years.

For reasonable ADA accommodations, email your request to GDCMail@fairfaxcounty.gov or call 703-246-3136 TTY 711.

Tysons will get its first high-rise, continuing care facility following the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors’ approval on June 25 for two senior living towers.

Called the Mather, the two towers—which will reach 19 and 27 stories—will offer medical care and services with independent living, assisted living, and memory support units and skilled nursing beds. It will be operated by nonprofit Mather LifeWays.

“It’s new for us in Fairfax County,” said Providence District Supervisor Linda Smith who represents the Tysons area. “We’re used to Greenspring and that’s the sort of horizontal spread of a senior living facility. What we have is an urban version, a vertical version where people don’t have to walk miles of hallway to get places.”

The high-rises will join CityLine’s more than 2.6 million-square foot Arbor Row development near the McLean Metro Station. The towers will rise up on a four-acre site at the southeast corner of the Westbranch Drive and Westpark Drive intersection.

The plan calls for 300 age restricted units and 78 assisted living, memory support and skilled nursing beds, along with 13,286 square feet of retail and a community facility. The Mather will be open to people ages 62 or older.

The Mather also will offer 2,750-square-foot community facility for public use by people ages 50-plus. While the nonprofit build, equip and operate this community space, they will enter into an agreement with the county to collaboratively develop programming and activities. This community facility will operate Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

There are currently no continuing care facilities in Tysons, according to Mather Lifeways in its development application. The Mather also marks the first such facility since Fairfax County adopted its new zoning district for continuing care facilities last year.

“I’m pleased to see senior housing in Tysons,” said Board of Supervisors Chairman Sharon Bulova. “I think that is an ingredient that has not been included in other developments, and I think it’s great to have a new provider who will be at play in Fairfax County, providing senior housing.”

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