Affordable housing project will have limited parking
The Columbia Crossroads affordable housing project in the works for Bailey’s Crossroads might not have enough parking, members of the Mason District Land Use Committee said at a meeting on July 28.
The seven-story apartment building will be located on the site of the Crossroads Interim Park on Columbia Pike between Radley Acura and the Alta Nova market-rate apartments. An office building on the lot was torn down years ago.
The apartment building will have 160 units available for households with incomes between 30 and 60 percent of the area median income. The ground floor will house two nonprofits that serve the community: Neighborhood Health and Second Story.
Pamela Lee, assistant vice president at the NHP Foundation, which is developing the project with several partners, told the MDLUC the building will have two levels of parking below the residential units with a total of 169 spaces. That comes to 1.06 spaces per unit.
Related story: Affordable housing project to include space for nonprofits
That should be adequate, Lee said, because the property is next to a bus stop, within walking distance of another one, and is across the street from a shopping center with Trader Joe’s and other shops.
Each tenant will have one reserved space, regardless of the number of bedrooms they have, she said.
Several members of the MDLUC questioned whether that will be enough, as there is virtually no street parking nearby. Others wondered where residents’ guests and staff and clients for the Neighborhood Health and Second Story facilities will park.
“The only practical solution is to restrict residents from having more than one car,” one committee member suggested, although it’s unclear whether that can be done.
The major restraint to adding more parking is cost, Lee said. “We’re trying to do what we can with what’s available to us. We’re still trying to close a $4 million funding gap.” If the project added underground parking, it would cost $50,000 per parking space, she said.
“We will provide adequate parking for everyone who parks over the course of a day, sized to how comparable buildings perform.” Lee wrote in an email after the meeting. “We are still in the design phase, and the final count will reflect a range of factors, including what has worked at similar developments. At other affordable buildings in comparable locations, we have found that parking demand runs below the code-based projections, because residents, staff, and visitors need spaces at different times of day and the same spaces serve multiple users.”
Related story: Community members speak out against a substation at Plaza 500
The apartments are aimed at drawing families. Fifteen percent of the units will have three bedrooms, 20 percent will have one bedroom, and the rest will have two. The units will be accessible for people of all abilities.
The project includes an extension of Seminary Road to Columbia Pike with a shared-use path. The non-residential space will face Columbia Pike and will have a separate entrance.
The NHP Foundation has submitted a rezoning application to have the property changed from office use to residential. A hearing is scheduled before the Planning Commission on Nov. 4.
Lee hopes construction will start in 2028 and the building will be completed in 2030.
The MDLUC meeting also drew a big crowd for a presentation on Dominion Energy’s proposed substation for the Plaza 500 data center. In addition, Fairfax Water gave an overview on the replacement of the water tank in Seven Corners.
Related story: Planning underway for a new water tank in Seven Corners
They seriously are going to have 1.06 spaces per unit. So a young couple -with two cars is supposed to do what??? That means no guest passes as well.
What will happen is people will start parking and leaving their cars in the plaza across the street. Then they will have to have pay parking or parking enforcement at the plaza. Which, in turn, makes those shops a PITA to go to.
Mason District is incredibly short sited. A BUS STOP? Are they joking.
The solution to the problem you describe is incredibly difficult. To maintain free and or easy parking anywhere requires that it be maintained everywhere.
Aside from requiring buildings to offer parking in an amount equal to the number of residents of legal driving age, what would you have the Government do?
Keeping in mind that these are affordable housing units, so every solution ends up being paid for by everyone of us.
The Alta Nova building looks like there are sill a lot of vacancies. It is a nice addition to the neighborhood.
So, why add another building nextdoor?
They will all park across the street at the shopping center. No question.
That’s ok -they can park in the bike lanes like they do now and that Fairfax Police ignore – or prohibit renters from owing a car – ride the bus to and from work, school, grocery shopping, the gym, visiting people….
Oh, please. This is the most short-sighted plan ever, even for Mason District. Let’s see 3 bedrooms in a low income apartment complex. Families are most definitely not going to have only one car. Has anyone driven down near any of the other high occupancy buildings? There are vehicles aplenty. Where will the kids go to school since they think families will be moving in? Let’s see, perhaps in the overcrowded schools where they’ll be able to go into one of the many trailers covering the fields of the schools.
Welcome to the new “revitalized “ Mason District, more density, no parking and no thoughtful redevelopment.
The MDLU committee should require the developer to provide more parking or less apartments. Simple as that! Why should the rest of the area be negatively impacted by this development. Who are they working for, the developer or the residents of the Mason District.
Great question, Jane. This county works very hard to make developers dreams come true and they don’t care if it impacts residents who are paying for most of it. It started in 2015/16 with the Gartner Report which only had input from the industry. The entire county government has been restructured to accommodate desires of the developers. It’s an old report but it is the roadmap that got us here, and we got to pay for it with no opportunity for public input: https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/landdevelopment/sites/landdevelopment/files/assets/documents/pdf/nvbia/fairfax-vision-and-recommendations.pdf
such a disgrace.
To the members of the MDLUC – STAND YOUR GROUND!! You are 100% correct – the parking is grossly inadequate as it is with all of the high rise developments being floated in the Seven Corners/Bailey’s Crossroads area of Fairfax County. Tell the developers to suck up the extra cost or forget it as I am tired of their profitability taking precedence over those that currently pay to live with an already overburdened infrastructure.
Bus Stop, Metro eliminated the express bus to DC “16L” making the morning commute painfully slow and the Mason Supervisor does nothing! Limited parking is short-sided and will cause other parking problems that will affect everyone including retail. Don’t build if you’re not going to do it right. No household has a single car anymore. Were the planners still living in the 1960s when this building was designed ????
This is awesome! We need to have significantly less parking in the area and have a more transit-focused and pedestrian-friendly approach to planning.
Do you even work? Outside the home? Do you have groceries delivered? -Please justify your position…
Miggy is obviously a troll. No one in their right mind would think that this is a good idea. Putting in affordable housing in an area where there is going to start with 1 space per apartment regardless of if you have 1, 2 or 3 bedrooms is ludicrous. It is interesting that the committee member that said we should limit the people to 1 car each is basically the equivalent of Marie Antoinette’s “let them eat cake” comment. It doesn’t work. I wonder why that committee member isn’t named. Perhaps it is Miggy?
Has anyone actually ridden the bus system solely to travel everywhere? The only person who can do that is one that has the luxury of taking an hour or more to go a short distance, then to try to tote their groceries with them on the bus. Miggy, please spend a week solely doing that and you’ll see that it isn’t feasible. There isn’t even a real grocery store close by and Trader Joes isn’t the equivalent of a large store, even though they do have a lot of products.
I ask where is our Supervisor once again to try to mitigate these issues? Oh, he’s driving around at breakneck speeds in his 2025 Porsche. He has no real clue anymore how the real person lives.
This should not be happening! Not all jobs are on metro or bus lines. The county has been pushing the idea of fewer parking spaces for some time. Do any of the planners or Board of Supervisors live in this? Probably NOT!
It’s always build now , we’ll worry about the problems it brings later . In other words the residents in and around the area will have to worry about the problems it brings later .Columbia Pike is already congested at rush hour . With more people having to get in and out of these complexes and school buses it’s sure to make quite a traffic mess .
Funny that we never hear this argument when a massive tract of land is subdivided so that single-family homes can be built and sold for +$700K. Build now, deal with the problems later has been the default way of developing land for decades in Fairfax County – its just been building single family homes over and over again, increasing car dependency, and then letting this generation deal with the challenges. Traffic back ups happen when you don’t have adequate public transit and too many people spread out.
Low emission travel modes should be required. Electric bikes, scooters, skateboards, Segway. Replace the car parking spaces with slots for the electrics. Increase the number of affordable housing units.
So just to be clear – go grocery shopping on your electric bike or scooter?
No , that’s silly. You go to work on your scooter, but you do your grocery shopping in a skateboard.
Considering weather alone, I’d estimate that, over a year, less than 20% of days in the D.C. area are suitable for any type of transportation other than a car. The weather here is not only bad, but unpredictable.
For the last 15+ years, I’ve commuted every possible way to Arlington, Alexandria, and D.C. from Annandale and Falls Church. By every possible way, I mean car, bike, bus, motorcycle, bike to metro, uber, uber to metro, bike to bus. I’ve constantly searched for a way that made sense and that balanced cost, convenience, and reliability.
Despite the horrendous traffic around here, driving a car is without a doubt the best way to commute. Long gone are my days of having an expensive suit ruined by the rain or mud, my bike seat stolen, my motorcycle pushed over for no reason, being drenched in sweat and nasty all day. I drive and park in a parking garage and life is better as a result.
This is just lies and neither is this a reason why, we dont have enough trees and shade because its so car oriented, all the surface parking makes it feel hotter and caused climate change for temperatures to get higher.
A multifamily apartment building right outside a bus stop does not need a ton of parking. This is a good step forward to reducing car dependency. Folks who don’t have second vehicles in the family won’t need the additional parking. Some folks will choose not to have a car and will instead walk or take the bus. There is even a grocery store in walking distance. Don’t fret about less parking and then also complain about traffic – it makes you look silly and unserious.
Have you ever ridden the Columbia Pike busses ? To get to any Metro is about 30 minutes – they are not dependable and in rush hour you may never get where you are going – and then there is the rain, heat and snow – but hey -it appears you are a community planner – just like in China -“you will not have a car and like it.”
EVERYONE NEEDS TO BE REMINDED that this non-sensical, illogical and ridiculously excessive development in our Mason District sits squarely on the shoulders of one just person — SUPERVISOR ANDRES JIMENEZ. He is the “leader” pushing for this flawed, over-sized development… all to appease his developer cronies. This self-serving, opportunistic sham of a local politician (who was just charged with reckless driving for going 104 mph in our community) needs to be voted out office in the next primary. We Won’t Be Fooled Again…
Love this we need less parking lots!!