For

a New ‘Euro’ Ambiance in F.C.?

At this week’s Falls Church City Council work session, the Council mulled two moves that promise to shape a significant change in the City’s self image and presentation to the big outside world. It may not have seemed as such in the context of another dreary overly long session, but insofar as things are what you make of them, the subjects of this session contained within them the kernels of innovation and promise.

To sum them up, one dealt with the ways in which the City will be reconsidering in the next period significant changes in the relative importance of retail parking versus outdoor dining and related activities, on the one hand, and the way it embraces and promotes a variety of diversity options represented by the Vietnamese community’s centerpiece Eden Center. Both remain open to public input at this stage and won’t be finally acted upon for another month or more.

But one of the hidden blessings of the pandemic has been the way local businesses have entered into considerable creativity to survive and even prosper, and for Falls Church, this has had a lot to do with the ways, with critical support from City Hall, that local restaurants, in particular, have used the considerable parking availabilities put there from another era, when the emphasis was far more on making sure ample surface parking was available.

There are 13 such businesses in the wake of the pandemic that have already applied for permanent access to outdoor dining that they originally utilized in an emergency way to keep their doors open. They’ve found that in the wake of that situation, the loss of traditional parking did not hurt them. So now, we’re looking at ways to adjust the relevant City’s codes to permanently enhance the outdoor dining experiences at spots all around town, and to do so in a way that will not cause a huge dust up from the traditional vehicle driving community.

The second move, built around the City’s East End Small Area Plan proposal, takes the interests of the commercial entities, predominantly Vietnamese-American owned, into serious account for future planning in that area.

Hitherto studies of that area, including one conducted in the City by a team from the Urban Land Institute three years ago, proved highly disappointing when it envisioned the eventual absorption of the Eden Center into an unimaginative grid of commercialization.

Now, the City’s Planning Division is touting a plan that is far more appreciative of the unique parameters of the Eden Center and its “Little Saigon” ambiance as something to be valued, enhanced and preserved.

If only the City could now figure a way to make access to that center easier for City residents, thousands here still have yet to discover the wondrous world that holds forth up there and that we should be striving to integrate better into the life of the Little City. There appear no simple answers to that one, but it is the $64 Dollar Question.

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Thoughts on Looming T-Zone Issue

Editor, affordable housing stock, neighborhood retail, and successful transitions from commercial to residential zones.

Wow, what a blind leap of faith and curious interpretation we received from Allison Brown’s take on the looming T-zone issue. Why she would believe that implementing this ill-conceived proposal would magically result in a rash of affordable housing within the City but all of them have focused on the big dollar payoff so why anyone believes that would change now is incredulous. And to further believe that granting every manner of ridiculous building waivers in these T-zones to developers would not impact traffic exceeds ratioinal understanding. In a parkingstarved enclave like Falls Church, allowing developers to create commercial and/or residential buildings without any requirement for providing commensurate off-street parking is pouring petrol on an exisitng fire. Quite frankly, this entire proposal hasn’t passed the sniff test since it burbled to the surface. It seeks to ‘fix’ an issue that doesn’t exist and has the look and feel of another project created with a wink and a nudge from insiders who have cozied up to our elected officials. And until reading Ms. Brown’s comments, I was not aware of a single citizen, other than perhaps those with a vested interest in the development of said sites, that had voiced approval of this proposal. It is also peculiar and disappointing that the News-Press has chosen to remain strangely silent on an issue that could negatively impact the day-to-day enjoyment of so many citizen’s lives. Our council members were elected to represent the good people of Falls Church, not the developers, and I certainly hope that they uphold their duty to reflect the will of their constituents when it comes to a vote. This one really stinks.

Among other problems, the ordinance will not provide the affordable housing the public has been led to believe it will. The staff report states that the units in the high rise would sell for an average of $800,000 with only 10% set aside as affordable. The ordinance also treats the 50 or more very diverse parcels in the T zones the same, it threatens to put many existing City residents in the Broadway in perpetual shade with a 50 foot tall building 10 feet from their property line, and it restricts public participation in the review of plans that can drastically change neighborhoods.

The ordinance as written will not achieve our supposed goals and merely tweaking it will only make it worse. Let’s go back to the drawing board and do it right.

I urge you to attend the community meeting sponsored by the League of Women Voters on February 9 at 7:30 at Meridian High School to find out the details.

Marty Meserve

Former Vice Mayor

Comments on ‘Racist F.C. Past’ Article

Editor,

The Devil Is in The Details

D Scott Editor,

An ordinance to amend the Transitional zones in the City is under review. The proposed ordinance is flawed and will create a flood of unintended consequences. There are better ways to achieve the purported goals of more diverse and

In “Racist F.C. Past Unveiled in Land Covenants,” Professor Moon says that 1920s developer Harry Birge, “clearly had an agenda to segregate Falls Church.” But a developer’s principal agenda is profit, and other details in the article point to the profit motive, including E.B. Henderson’s 1915 letter citing Birge’s alleged fear of lower property values in proximity to “colored people.” I’d bet that if Mr. Birge could have made more money through integrated development, he’d have done so. The point is worth mentioning because when we throw notable players under the bus, we fail to appreciate the game they were fairly playing. Developers merely exploited, for profit, the social and economic systems created by the laws that sprung from our democratic processes. Vilifying an individual such as Mr. Birge is a distraction from the important process of understanding who we are and whence we came.

Brian D. Kraft Falls Church