Battle lines sharpen as Falls Church digs deeper into accessory dwellings | ARLnow.com

Falls Church’s consideration of zoning changes to permit standalone accessory-dwelling units in single-family neighborhoods is drawing sharp contrasts.

At a Monday (Nov. 4) City Council work session, some on the body argued the proposal would be a win for local homeowners.

Permitting ADUs will “help give people other options for what they can do with their land,” Mayor Letty Hardi said during the discussion, which continued past 11 p.m.

But at least one Council member remains deeply unconvinced.

Moving forward too quickly would represent “generosity” to developers “without fully comprehending, really, what the effect on the community is going to be,” said Council member David Snyder.

Snyder came back again and again to his concerns, suggesting staff presentations have been tilted in favor of moving the ADU proposal forward without providing an accounting or even acknowledgment of potential down-sides.

Allowing accessory dwellings on single-family properties “will generate students, will generate stormwater, will generate other demands on our already burdened infrastructure,” he said.

Perhaps believing he may not have the votes on the Council to ultimately prevail, Snyder sat one point attempted a different tack — saying the issue was so monumental that a public referendum might be warranted.

The work session was in anticipation of Council members formally sending the ADU proposal out to public review; action on that is slated for Nov. 25. Under a timeline proposed by staff, a final vote would be taken sometime in the first half of 2025.

Conversation during the work session ranged across a host of issues. Some were about the physical impacts of accessory dwellings: lot coverage, height, setbacks, tree canopy, parking requirements. Others included occupancy limits, which zoning districts they should be located in and whether units should be available for short-term rentals.

Snyder wasn’t the only one to raise red flags. His colleague Erin Flynn said that community concerns are not fully addressed in the staff proposal, and that, to date, only “a very small portion of the community” has been engaged on the issue.

Council member Marybeth Connelly said the low level of interest in outreach efforts to date may be due to no real broad-based community concerns about ADUs.

“I just wonder if there are [only] 25 people who care and are coming to the meetings,” she said.

“The rest of the process allows for more engagement,” Connelly said. “People will have the opportunity in the next couple of months.”

That was a view echoed by Council member Justine Underhill. She said there will be “lots of points for people to chime in as needed and get their questions answered.”

Falls Church’s larger neighbors — Fairfax and Arlington counties and the city of Alexandria — are ahead of the Little City in considering ADUs and enacting ordinances to permit them.

City stuff suggested that, based on the experience in those localities — particularly Arlington — the number of ADU projects in Falls Church would amount to just a handful per year. Snyder voiced skepticism about that projection.

As the discussion among elected officials showed, debate over accessory-dwelling units often falls into two categories: supporters suggest it provides opportunities for property owners and can create more housing stock, while opponents criticize it as a rush to urbanization that brings with it unintended consequences.

Hardi said Council members will rely, in part, on Planning Commission members to dig into the details over coming months. “They’ll have very meaty discussions,” she said.

The issue was one of several discussed during the special-election campaign for an open City Council seat, with candidates Laura Downs and John Murphy saying caution was warranted.

Before Monday’s discussion could begin, most Council members and City Manager Wyatt Shields had to read out conflict-of-interest disclosures stating that they owned property in single-family neighborhoods and therefore might benefit, directly or indirectly, from any zoning change.

Each of them said they could judge the matter “fairly, objectively and in the public interest,” and saw no need to recuse themselves from participation in discussion or an eventual vote.

A Northern Virginia native, Scott McCaffrey has four decades of reporting, editing and newsroom experience in the local area plus Florida, South Carolina and the eastern panhandle of West Virginia. He spent 26 years as editor of the Sun Gazette newspaper chain. For Local News Now, he covers government and civic issues in Arlington, Fairfax County and Falls Church.