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| Fairfax County Adopts Social and Racial Equity Policy Called One Fairfax | News Highlights
This joint policy commits both boards to consider equity in decision-making and in the development and delivery of future policies, programs and services. One Fairfax offers a framework—or “lens”— for the county and schools to look intentionally, comprehensively and systemically at barriers that may be creating gaps in opportunity. “Fairness is our shared value as Americans, and every child should have an equitable chance to succeed if they work hard,”said Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Sharon Bulova. “Not only does One Fairfax recognize that our commitment to equity is the right thing to do—but it also recognizes that equity is an economic imperative to help every resident thrive.” “The foundation for a successful community is a school system where all students have access to an excellent education—no matter where they live, where they come from or what challenges they may face each day,” said Fairfax County School Board Chair Janie Strauss. “The One Fairfax resolution and policy renew our promise to focus on each child by name and by need and to continue to develop a workforce that reflects the growing diversity of our student population.
Equity generates better economic outcomes—greater economic security for families, increased revenue for businesses and an even stronger local economy, says a growing body of economic research. Cities and counties with greater social and racial inclusion have stronger and longer periods of economic growth, and they have faster per capita income growth. Although Fairfax County has achieved an exceptionally strong local economy and high quality of life, as its population has grown and diversified over the last 25 years, inequities in income and opportunity have also increased. These inequities carry a high price tag, according to a study by the nonprofit research and action institute Policy Link and the Program for Environmental and Regional Equity at the University of Southern California. The study found that Fairfax County’s gross domestic product would have been $26.2 billion higher in 2012 if its racial gaps were closed. The One Fairfax policy identifies 17 areas of focus to promote equity including community and economic development, housing, education, environment, and transportation. It also creates shared definitions, along with a process to implement the policy. Policy development work began in July 2016 when both board adopted a joint resolution to form the policy. The One Fairfax policy was developed through intensive collaboration between schools and county officials that included conferring with national experts and examining best practice models. Senior leadership and staff were provided equity-focused training to increase their shared knowledge and to better understand the role of equity in government and education. The county and schools look to further engaging with the community to identify equity goals and opportunities for working together to foster equity. “Leadership Fairfax is eager to work with the county, schools and community to identify actions that address these inequities,”said Karen Cleveland, president and CEO. “We signed on as a co-sponsor of the Equitable Growth Profile because we immediately recognized the potentially devastating impact on our community without action and the compelling economic opportunities when everyone is given the chance to succeed.” Recognizing that equity drives growth, Fairfax County’s Strategic Plan to Facilitate Economic Success pointed out, “No community has a preordained right to prosperity. Prosperity can only be achieved and sustained when a community's citizens, businesses, and government work in concert for everyone's benefit.” For more information, visit the county's One Fairfax webpage of the school's One Fairfax webpage. ###
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Read full article | November 21, 2017 | November 21, 2017 | /publicaffairs/sites/publicaffairs/files/Assets/images/one-fairfax-graphic-thumb.png | 0 | |
| Fairfax County to Receive State Grant to Train Workers for High Demand Cybersecurity, Data Analytics and Computer Programing Jobs | News Highlights
In partnership with eight other Northern Virginia jurisdictions, Fairfax County and neighboring governments were collectively awarded $737,500 through a state economic development program to create high-paying jobs. The money will be used to train, attract and retain computer programmers, data analysts and network and cyber security experts to Northern Virginia. The funding also will go towards creating a state-of-the-art engineering technology “Fabrication Laboratory” in Northern Virginia. The grants will come from the Growth and Opportunity for Virginia, better known as GO Virginia. This program focuses on creating high-paying jobs by encouraging regional collaboration. The funding was announced on Dec. 12, and it makes up a portion of the total $2.2 million in initial Go Virginia grants awarded this year. “These projects will leverage public and private funding to grow and diversify each region’s economy,” said Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe. “There are many innovative proposals from our regions that will assist in addressing the challenges my administration has worked to tackle in areas such as cybersecurity and workforce development. These projects will strengthen our workforce, support collaborative programs, and will bolster our successful efforts to build the new Virginia economy.” Fairfax County collaborated with eight other jurisdictions to secure the $487,500 regional workforce development grant. The county submitted its joint project with the cities of Alexandria, Falls Church, Fairfax, Manassas, and Manassas Park and counties of Arlington, Loudoun, Prince William counties. The county was also a partner with the Northern Virginia Community College in its winning $250,000 grant proposal to create a high-tech lab to spur more engineering jobs. The college will develop the new “Fabrication Laboratory” in collaboration with Micron Technology, U.S. Army’s Night Vision and Sensors Directorate, and BAE Systems. The project also will help create the engineering jobs by leveraging established internship programs at Micron Technology and BAE Systems, as well as the existing SySTEMic curriculum at Northern Virginia Community College. The workforce development project capitalizes on the high demand for data analytics, cyber security and computer programming jobs in Northern Virginia. These kinds of jobs make significant industry clusters in Northern Virginia’s economy. For example, the region has largest number of computer security analysts in the nation. Yet, there is still a significant demand for more workers. There were almost 9,500 total cyber positions being advertised in Northern Virginia in the second quarter 2017, according to research by the Northern Virginia Community College. The Northern Virginia Technology Council has identified five kinds of jobs that are hard-to-fill: big data and analytics; cyber security and privacy; data center and cloud infrastructure; network systems and programming and software development. The Go Virginia grant will help to train, attract and keep these kinds of workers in the region. Fairfax County strategic plan to grow and diversity the economy calls for expanding jobs in cybersecurity, data analytics, translational medicine, other emerging technologies. Along with many other actions, the county sought the grant to help advance this plan and grow the local economy. Read the 2017 update to learn more about other actions the county is taking. The county will not be awarding Go Virginia funds to individuals and organizations to provide programs and services who were not already included in the grant proposals. For more information, contact Eta Davis, economic initiatives coordinator, in the county executive's office at 703-324-2531, TTY 711. ###
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Read full article | December 15, 2017 | December 15, 2017 | /publicaffairs/sites/publicaffairs/files/Assets/images/go-virginia-logo.JPG | 0 | |
| Fairfax County Holds a Hackathon to Code Tech Solutions for Traffic Congestion, Safety and Mobility | News Highlights
It’s no secret that the D.C. region suffers some of the worst traffic congestion in nation—second worst in the U.S. to be precise, according to the Texas Transportation Institute’s annual rankings. Can technology create solutions to get traffic flowing more freely? This is what Fairfax County and the Virginia Department of Transportation asked when they brought together software and app developers, data scientists and transportation experts this month. To find out, the county and VDOT held a transportation hackathon on Nov. 16-17, at Refraction, a tech co-working space in Reston. More than 100 people participated in the intense, two-day sprint to write code for apps, programs and technology to improve traffic tie ups, safety and mobility. The hackathon was also intended to spur the development of new technologies and startups, a key strategy in the county’s plan to grow and diversify the economy. “The whole event was about growing the innovation ecosystem and getting entrepreneurs, tech companies, government and people involved in infrastructure into one room to think differently about how we tie together,” said Eta Davis, Fairfax County’s economic initiatives coordinator.
It also was designed to test VDOT’s new data portal that’s part of the department’s push to innovate. The portal serves up real-time information from traffic signals, sensors, dynamic message signs and more. “We wanted to really focus on big data to see what we can do with the data we have available from VDOT, as well as Fairfax County, U.S. DOT and others,” said Virginia Lingham, special assistant to the state agency’s chief of innovation. Eleven teams competed for cash prizes up to $3,000. The competitors included individuals, established tech firms and George Mason and Old Dominion University students.
The teams produced ideas that ranged from employing artificial intelligence and machine learning to predict congestion or accidents to an app to help people who are blind safely cross the street to using big data to identify what makes intersections safe or find trends or hotspots to improve safety. These innovations were evaluated on criteria that included their creativity, likelihood for commercialization and use of data. Judges represented the tech industry, academia and government and included Virginia Deputy Secretary of Technology Anthony Fung.
While two days wasn’t enough time to create market-ready products, the hackathon was a success, officials said.
“There are great ideas here that challenge us,” said VDOT Chief of Innovation Rob Cary. “It certainly challenges us to think about how we can get more data out there.” He pointed to other data sources, like livestream E-ZPass toll and travel time information, that could be added to the portal to fuel creative consumer apps. As result of this first event in Fairfax, VDOT plans to hold hackathons in Hampton Roads, Richmond, Roanoke and Blacksburg, Cary said. “We design, maintain operate a system of roadways, but we have a lot of data that others can do fantastic things with,” said Cary. “And I think you saw great examples of that today.” For the county, the hackathon fostered collaboration between the public and private sectors that can help make Fairfax an innovation hub, and the event injected the startup mentality into county government. “We were hoping that by working together we could educate the folks in the room about how government works and help the government folks in the room think differently,” Davis said. “How do we incorporate some of that entrepreneurial spirit in how we do business as government.” James Quigley, who leads the Reston-based tech company GoCanvas, agrees. “I also represent, and have been passionate about, this collaborative work on the public side,” said Quigley who serves on the county’s Economic Advisory Commission. He said the hackathon was an example of this shared focus on innovation that’s happening across the region. “I think you’re going to feel more and more of this energy,” Quigley said. “And the realization that it happens in urban centers, and it happens together.” To this point, the hackathon wouldn’t have been a success without the many partners that made the hackathon possible, including Refraction, 1776, Smart City Works, George Mason University and Virginia Tech. Financial support was provided by Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce, Qlarion and Reston Chamber of Commerce, and lunch was provided by Le Pain Quotidien.
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Read full article | November 28, 2017 | November 28, 2017 | 0 | |||
| Zoning Update Facilitates Mixed Use Development in Areas Already Planned for More Intensity | News Highlights
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:
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:
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:
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. ### |
Read full article | June 21, 2016 | June 21, 2016 | 0 | |||
| New Zoning Rules Call For Geometric Regularity for Housing Lots | News Highlights
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:
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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Read full article | September 21, 2016 | September 21, 2016 | 0 | |||
| When it Comes to Economic Growth, Walkable Urbanism Outpaces Suburban Development | News Highlights
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 BenefitsWhile small in terms of the amount of land, walkable places generate outsized economic benefits, including:
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:
Increasing Market DemandWalkable, 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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Read full article | June 5, 2016 | June 5, 2016 | 0 | |||
| Fairfax Focuses on Social Equity to Achieve Economic Success | News Highlights
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 FairfaxTwo 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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Read full article | March 3, 2016 | March 3, 2016 | 0 | |||
| Commonwealth's Attorney Report on Officer Involved Shooting Aug. 15, 2016 | 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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Read full article | December 20, 2016 | December 20, 2016 | 0 | |||
| Mustang Sally Opening Shows that Fairfax’s Economy is Brewing Success | News Highlights
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.
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:
Check this listing to find other craft breweries and beer pubs in our area.
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Read full article | May 26, 2016 | May 26, 2016 | 0 | |||
| First Electronic Zoning Application Fuels Fairfax’s Need for Speed in Approving New Developments | News Highlights
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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Read full article | February 5, 2016 | February 5, 2016 | 0 |
This week, the Fairfax County 
