How a Tysons task force built a road map for redevelopment

In 2010, Fairfax County — one of the highest-income counties in the country — adopted a plan to redevelop its Tysons area as a walkable urban place. The plan has so far resulted in thousands of new multifamily housing units and tens of thousands of units that are permitted in a wealthy suburban jurisdiction, a rare accomplishment in the United States.

A task force appointed to create recommendations for redevelopment in Tysons played an important role in shaping the comprehensive plan for Tysons that the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors ultimately adopted. The Tysons Land Use Task Force provides a potential model for permitting more housing in other expensive, suburban jurisdictions.

How the task force came to be

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors appointed members to the task force in 2005. With Metro building four Silver Line stations in Tysons, the Board sought to implement new policies for land use in Tysons. Tysons was initially developed as an auto-oriented edge city. The Board sought to allow new transit-oriented development — and a strong tax base as a result — around the new stations. The task force was charged with drafting recommendations for policies that would bring about this objective

Task force members fell into at least one of three categories: Fairfax homeowners, people with real estate or other business interests, and advocates for transit-oriented development (TOD). Of the task force’s 36 members, at least six worked for environmental causes professionally or in a volunteer capacity. Major Tysons real estate interests, including the Georgelas Group and West*Group, were also represented on the task force. Several members were also involved with their neighborhoods’ homeowners associations.

Members of the task force spent hundreds of hours over five years holding meetings and developing recommendations for Tysons policy. While some task force members participated in their professional capacity, many were volunteers. They created a report with policy recommendations for redevelopment reflecting these three groups’ priorities, and many of these priorities were also reflected in the comprehensive plan and zoning ordinance that now govern development in Tysons.

In 2010, Tysons’ population was less than 20,000 in a county of 1.1 million. The residents of surrounding neighborhoods played a more important role in the redevelopment planning process than Tysons residents themselves. Tysons residents made up less than 2% of the county’s population, and the neighborhoods surrounding Tysons were represented by some influential homeowners’ associations.

Critically, the task force was appointed to determine how, not whether, redevelopment would be permitted in Tysons. “There were some people who said they didn’t want anything to happen. But I said that’s not realistic because it’s extremely valuable, privately owned land with by-right zoning,” explained Clark Tyler, Chairman of the Task Force. Because the Board of Supervisors sought a plan that would permit increased development in Tysons, homeowners on the task force were primarily in a position of seeking policies that would limit potential negative effects of new development on the neighborhoods surrounding Tysons rather than seeking to block multifamily construction within Tysons entirely.

When the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors appointed the task force in 2005, commercial real estate in Tysons wasn’t thriving as much as it once had. COVID-19 has accelerated pre-existing trends, including remote work and online shopping, that mean that some areas zoned exclusively for retail or office use will likely no longer be able to support these uses. These locations may present opportunities for residential or mixed-use redevelopment that is both financially and politically feasible.

Local policymakers are often biased toward permitting commercial uses rather than residential because retail, office, and industrial development produce tax revenue without requiring many services. But vacant strip malls and declining office parks can turn this fiscal calculus on its head.

In Tysons, prior to the adoption of its redevelopment plan, office vacancies were on the rise as tenants were choosing space in Arlington or Washington because their workers preferred more walkable locations. In order to remain a healthy source of tax revenue, retail and office development relies on nearby residential development to provide customers for shops and restaurants and, in turn, a pleasant neighborhood for office workers.

Many suburban jurisdictions similarly have retail and office developments in decline. Malls — and the parking lots surrounding them — often fall into this category. Increasingly, suburban office parks are also becoming obsolete. Appointing a group similar to the Tysons task force provides a potential way to facilitate mixed-use redevelopment on these sites.

Transit-oriented development in the suburbs

Other jurisdictions in the region have taken some steps to convert their aging commercial zones, but none quite on the scale of Tysons. One the small end, the Ballston mall redevelopment permitted a new 406-unit apartment building, providing some much-needed housing along with a larger customer base for the mall. Montgomery County adopted a plan for TOD in White Flint, which has permitted thousands of residents to move into new multifamily projects. The plan will eventually permit the redevelopment of the White Flint Mall. Tysons, on the other hand, has already delivered 4,000 new residential units, with many thousands more in the pipeline.

In general, the interests of Tysons land owners and real estate interests aligned with the goals of the TOD advocates. Both wanted to see dense development that took advantage of the new Silver Line stations. They collaborated on a vision that made redevelopment financially feasible, but that is also delivering on priorities for the TOD activists on the task force, including gradual contributions from developers to a new pedestrian-scaled grid of streets.

Bruce Wright, Founder of the Fairfax Alliance for Better Bicycling, was a task force member who supported TOD and safe infrastructure for cyclists and pedestrians. He explained the political feasibility of upzoning in Tysons, near the neighborhoods of wealthy suburban residents. “The reason it worked so well in Tysons is that it was next door but not in their backyard,” Wright said in an interview. “They made sure there were limited incursions. There were some fights over height limits, but not nearly as much as there would have been in a typical residential area.”

In recent years, efforts to “upzone the suburbs” have often focused on reforming single-family zoning, as in Oregon’s state law that requires many localities to permit duplexes, and in some cases fourplexes, on the land where they had previously permitted exclusively single units. The Tysons approach doesn’t offer the same housing justice benefits as repealing single-family zoning because it doesn’t directly increase access to the neighborhoods where Fairfax’s highest-income residents live. But Fairfax County’s success in adding residential density to a moribund commercial area gives housing advocates an additional strategy to pursue.

“When planning for Tysons started, few people lived there, and there was a real problem with people not being able to afford housing near their jobs,” Tyler said. “Tysons had just 17,000 residents and 100,000 jobs. A real success of the plan has been allowing more housing.”

Outside of housing, the Tysons plan does have some opportunities for improvement. Wright pointed out that transforming Routes 7 and 123 into pedestrian- and cyclist-friendly boulevards hasn’t proceeded as he had hoped. These roads continue to be unsafe and unpleasant for people other than drivers, holding back quality of life for Tysons residents who want to move around their neighborhood on foot, bike, or use the Silver Line for commuting.

But Tysons development has proven a politically feasible route to permitting new residents in multifamily housing to largely access the same economic and social benefits that are available to residents in other parts of the county, but at much lower prices relative to its single-family houses. Across the county, the median house price is about $590,000 compared to just under $500,000 in Tysons, where housing is also transit-accessible. The task force provides a potential model for policymakers in other high-income suburbs to identify politically feasible ways to permit extensive new multifamily development.