Two weeks after agreeing to help finance the Dominion Square West affordable-housing project in Tysons, Fairfax County supervisors on Feb. 8 were slated to designate the site as a revitalization area to aid the applicant in securing low-income-housing tax credits.
The supervisors’ action is needed so the project’s development partner, Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing (APAH), can meet the March deadline for submitting its tax-credit application to Virginia Housing (VH), formerly known as the Virginia Housing Development Authority.
The 2-acre Dominion Square West property, located at 1592 Spring Hill Road in the Hunter Mill District, will be the future site of 175 affordable multi-family housing units in one nine-story building featuring both structured and surface parking. The building will be located within a quarter-mile of the Spring Hill Metro station.
The project’s 35 one-bedroom, 105 two-bedroom and 35 three-bedroom units will be available to people earning between 30 and 60 percent of area median income, as determined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
(Fairfax County’s area median income is $129,000 for a family of four, so families of that size that qualify for housing at Dominion Square West will be allowed to earn up to $77,500 annually.)
APAH is planning to apply for low-income-housing-tax-credit financing to help finance the project’s first phase. Such funding is available through a highly competitive process, with Virginia Housing officials awarding points to projects that meet specific criteria. Projects may receive 15 additional points if those sites are designated as revitalization areas as described in state code.
If county supervisors declared the Dominion Square West property as a revitalization area, APAH would use that designation solely to receive additional points for the 9-percent tax-credit application. The designation would not affect any areas in the county that supervisors have determined, or might in the future, to be revitalization areas or revitalization districts under the county’s comprehensive plan that are separate from those under Virginia Housing’s revitalization statute.
The county’s Tysons comprehensive plan aims to transform the area from a suburban commercial center into an urban “downtown” with eight transit-oriented mixed-use residential neighborhoods.
Since approving that plan in 2010, supervisors have given the green light for more than 44,000 new residential units in Tysons. As of Aug. 1 last year, 752 of the 4,081 residential units delivered in Tysons were for low- and moderate-income households via the Fairfax County Affordable Dwelling Unit/Workforce Dwelling Unit Program.
The 175 affordable rental units at Dominion Square West will help achieve the goal of increasing the affordable-housing supply of at least 5,000 new units by 2034, county officials said.
Supervisors on Jan. 25 unanimously authorized the Fairfax County Redevelopment and Housing Authority to use funding of $33 million to finance development of Dominion Square West Phase 1.