More housing and pedestrian improvements will be coming soon to the Tysons area, located within a golf shot of George C. Marshall High School.
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors on Jan. 25 unanimously rezoned a commercial property at 7700 Leesburg Pike in the Falls Church area to make way for 104 townhouses.
The 6.73-acre, commercially zoned site currently is developed with circular-shaped, low-rise office buildings constructed in 1976. Marshall High is located to the property’s south on the other side of Leesburg Pike.
The applicants, 7700-4 Leesburg Pike Associates LLC and 7700 Homes Associates LLC, will include nine affordable-dwelling units in their development mix, which will have an overall density of 15.45 dwelling units per acre.
The units’ widths will vary between 14 and 24 feet. The dwellings will not have privacy yards, but all except for the affordable units will have the option for an upper-level additions and cantilevered decks. All of the affordable units will include decks, county staff said.
The property will be accessed from a single point on a service drive along Leesburg Pike and have 281 parking spaces, including two in the garage of each unit and some on-street parking.
The developers in the future plan to add a second entrance located farther west along the service drive, which will be a right-turn-in, right-turn-out access point. When Leesburg Pike is widened and bus-rapid-transit facilities introduced, the site’s eastern entrance will be removed.
The development will feature a grid of 20-foot-wide private streets and a 18-foot-wide alleys, from which residents may access their garages.
The applicants will dedicate land to the county for a proposed future road under the comprehensive plan that would connect with the Pimmit Hills community.
Stormwater-control measures will include an underground detention facility and two water-quality treatment facilities, county staff said.
There will be a tree-save area at the home-plate-shaped development’s northern peak. Thirty-eight percent of the site will remain open space and there will be fitness and playground areas as well as a central walkway to the open-space areas. The site’s 0.88 acres’ worth of park space is more than double the recommended amount, said the applicants’ representative, attorney Mark Looney.
Townhouse builder EYA is the driving force behind the development, Looney said. The project will replace obsolete commercial structures with residential uses in a residential area, reduce vehicular trips (compared to a fully occupied office building), boost green areas and open space, and preserve trees on all edges except its southern one, he said.
New pedestrian improvements will benefit students who need to cross Leesburg Pike to attend Marshall High, Looney said. The development likely will not generate many students, however, because the builder caters to empty-nesters, he said.
The project also will add sidewalks and pedestrian pathways on an adjacent church property, which will aid students going to and from Marshall High while separating them from traffic at the church, Looney said.
Fairfax County Planning Commission members on Nov. 10 last year recommended approval of the development.
Supervisor John Foust (D-Dranesville) thanked the Pimmit Hills Civic Association and McLean Citizens Association for their “excellent work” on the application. EYA representatives cooperatively addressed issues that arose and produced a suitable development for the site, he said.