January 11 – 17, 2018
FA LLS CHUR C H, V I R G I NI A • WW W. FC NP. C OM • FR EE
FOU N D ED 1991 • VOL. XXVI I NO. 47
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City of Falls Church Police are on the lookout for a hit-and-run driver who ran a red light, struck another car and sent four people to the hospital last Saturday night. SEE NEWS BRIEFS, PAGE 9
F.C. R��� E����� M����� B����� ��� C����� The new tax cut signed into law last month brings major changes to the local real estate market and could cause the Falls Church City Council to adjust promises previously made.
F.C. Kept in Dark About WMATA Plans to Develop W. Falls Church N��� B���� M���� 70 Y����
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Starting the new year strong, George Mason High School’s girls basketball team downed Thomas Jefferson High School and won their first district match against Rappahannock County. SEE PAGE 24
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RECOGNIZED AS THE longest active member of the City of Falls Church Police, Sergeant Steve Rau receives a newly-designed badge commemorating the department’s 70th anniversary as F.C. Police Chief Mary Gavin looks on. Community and spiritual leaders performed a ceremonial blessing of the badges at an event commemorating the anniversary last Sunday. (P����: G��� M�����)
F.C. Personnel Changes Set To Optimize Development BY NICHOLAS F. BENTON
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS
INDEX
Editorial.................6 Letters...................6 News & Notes10–11 Comment . 12, 21–22 Business News ...23 Sports .................24
Calendar .......26–27 Classified Ads .....28 Comics, Sudoku & Crossword ..........29 Critter Corner......30
Falls Church City Manager Wyatt Shields announced at the City Council meeting Monday a series of major shifts and additions to City staff aimed at helping gain the maximum economic development punch from what’s now being called the “West Falls Church Project,” formerly known as the 10 acres set aside for commercial development on the George Mason High School campus.
The Council also voted 5-2 to exercise eminent domain on the so-called Fellows Tract on S. Oak St. adjacent Thomas Jefferson Elementary School. Under the personnel changes announced, the City’s Economic Development and Planning Offices are merged under this plan, with current Planning Director Jim Snyder elevated to head up the recruitment of potential developers and tenants for the 10 acres, and current senior planner Paul Stoddard elevated to
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS
the position of planning director. In addition, the consulting group of Alvarez and Marsal will be retained through the summer of 2019 to also work on finding the best developers and development plan for the project, while the Washington D.C. Deputy Mayor for economic development, Lee Goldstein, has been retained to be the manager of all the major decisions of the project. He will begin Jan. 16.
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SEE PAGE 22
BY NICHOLAS F. BENTON
Despite the desires and expressed intentions of top City of Falls Church officials to seek cooperation and collaboration with the surrounding areas as they proceed toward development of the 10-acre West Falls Church development project, they were caught totally unaware this week when reports surfaced that new plans for the adjacent 24 acres of property at the West Falls Church Metro station were submitted to Fairfax County in December. The plans, in the form of a “North (Fairfax) County Site Specific Amendment Proposal” to adjust Fairfax County’s Comprehensive Plan, were submitted by the Washington Area Metropolitan Transit Authority (WMATA) to the county’s Office of Planning and Development on Dec. 5, 2017. Its main new component calls for 150,000 square feet of office uses and 50,000 square feet of retail uses, over and above 500 proposed residential units, closest to the West Falls Church Metro station. The plan calls for, along with the residential, a 85-foot maximum height limit with an urban plaza adjacent Haycock Road and framed by the office-retail buildings to “function as a gathering place and visual anchor,” and with a walkway linking the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech education center with (Falls Church’s) George Mason High School to the West Falls Church Metro station.
SEE REAL ESTATE SPECIAL, PAGE 13
The anti-Trump movement, of which I’m a proud member, seems to be getting dumber. It seems to be settling into a smug, fairy tale version of reality that filters out discordant information.
WMATA ‘Transit Area’ Excludes Anything in City