The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors will hold its public hearing on EYA’s plan for the Lake Fairfax Business Center on Tuesday, Nov. 17. The Board’s 3:30 p.m. block of land use hearings lists eight other cases ahead of EYA’s, so the item may come up later in the afternoon. The Board’s vote is the last county decision on whether seven office buildings north of Sunset Hills Road give way to as many as 1,042 homes. EYA would set aside 3.96 acres for a future school, and it could buy that land back if the county declines it or decides against a school.
The Planning Commission recommended approval on Oct. 14 by a 9-0-1 vote. Commissioner Timothy Sargeant abstained because he had missed the public hearing, and two commissioners were absent. We covered the plan in detail before that vote and reported the result two days later.
The Board’s Nov. 17 draft agenda lists the rezoning, RZ-2025-HM-00002, with no deferral notice. The county posts a final agenda by the Friday before each meeting, and we will check it on Nov. 13.
EYA’s two options would build 956 or 1,042 homes
EYA wants to rezone 49.37 acres from the I-3 and I-4 industrial districts to PRM, the county’s Planned Residential Mixed Use district. The county staff report lays out EYA’s two options:
| Option 1 | Option 2 | |
|---|---|---|
| Townhouses | 329 | 316 |
| Stacked townhouses | 242 | 209 |
| Multifamily | 385 | 517 |
| Total homes | 956 | 1,042 |
| Floor area ratio | 0.87 | 0.93 |
Floor area ratio, or FAR, compares a building’s total floor space with the size of its lot. The Board’s agenda advertises the rezoning at 0.93 FAR, the Option 2 figure, and the plan caps the count at 1,042 homes, so that is the most the Board can approve.
Both options include a seven-story, 385-unit building at Business Center Drive and Wildlife Center Drive with up to 21,990 square feet of retail and resident amenity space on the ground floor. Option 2 adds 132 condominiums in three six-story buildings at the north end of the site, in place of some stacked townhouses. EYA’s proffers, the written conditions that become binding if the Board approves, let EYA, not the county, choose the layout section by section.
EYA must make its “best efforts” to fill at least 2,000 square feet of the apartment building’s ground floor with a restaurant or retail store. The proffers define best efforts as hiring a retail broker or in-house leasing agent and marketing the space for at least 24 months from the first building permit application. If no tenant signs, EYA can turn the space into resident amenities without going back to the county. The proffers also let EYA run up to half the units in a rental building as a short-term hotel for the first two years after it opens. EYA would report lease-up, hotel-unit and length-of-stay figures to the county each year.
Twelve percent of the homes built will be affordable dwelling units (ADUs) or workforce dwelling units (WDUs), homes priced for households at set shares of the area median income. After the Sept. 23 hearing, EYA revised its proffers so it can move up to three ADUs from the regular townhouses to the stacked townhouses and add three three-bedroom workforce townhouses, according to FFXnow.
EYA would give the county 3.96 acres for a school and could buy them back
The proffers set aside 3.96 acres at the north end of the site, labeled Land Bay E2, for a future public school, or a public park if the Board chooses. EYA offers the land in place of the cash it would otherwise pay toward schools.
Proffer 57, attached to the Oct. 14 Planning Commission action, sets the timing. EYA reserves the land before the county approves its first site plan, then deeds it to the county when the first building in the neighboring Land Bay E1 gets its occupancy permit, or sooner if the County Executive asks in writing. The deed may also include these terms:
- EYA builds the private road and utility lines to the site at its own cost.
- Until the county builds, EYA may use the land for construction staging or put in a public park and temporary playing fields.
- If the county, through written notice from the County Executive, declines the land or decides not to build and run a school there, EYA could buy it back at fair market value. Developing it would take a new zoning amendment, and that amendment would have to include the cash contributions for schools and athletic fields that the land was meant to replace, at the rates in effect at that time.
County staff doubt a school fits on 3.96 acres. FCPS noted that state guidelines call for about 14.5 acres for a 950-student elementary school, more than three times the reserved site, and the school system has no urban school model in place yet. Staff expect “challenges with feasibly constructing an elementary school” there. The schools system projects 334 students from the larger option. The site sits in the Sunrise Valley Elementary, Hughes Middle and South Lakes High attendance areas, and FCPS projects South Lakes at 101 percent of capacity and Sunrise Valley at 98 percent by the 2030-31 school year.
EYA values the school land at about $14 million. Without the land, the county would typically expect about $5 million for schools ($14,956 per student). The plan separately generates a need for about $3.64 million for athletic fields. EYA argues the land, worth nearly double the combined $8.6 million, covers both, and its proffers say so. Staff disagreed in the September staff report, arguing that schools and fields serve different needs, and as of the Oct. 14 vote EYA still had not agreed to pay for the fields, FFXnow reported.
SkateQuest, Life Time and the Homewood Suites stay where they are
The rezoning covers 49.37 acres of the 73-acre business center. The parcels outside it are not part of the rezoning: the Homewood Suites hotel, the Life Time fitness club, two smaller office buildings and a data center.
SkateQuest, the ice rink on Michael Faraday Court, sits outside the business center altogether, on the site’s western edge. EYA’s plan extends Wildlife Center Drive through the new neighborhood to the SkateQuest property line so the road can connect to Michael Faraday Court if that land redevelops. The new road would run about 18 feet below the rink’s lot, behind retaining walls about 14 feet tall. The plan offers two alignments for that stretch of road, and EYA picks one.
Life Time owns the existing stretch of Wildlife Center Drive in front of the apartment site, so widening it needs Life Time’s sign-off. If Life Time says no, the curbs stay where they are and EYA still builds the sidewalk and street trees on its side, the staff report notes.
The data center next door gets a wall, a noise study and a disclosure
The data center inside the business center stays, and the nearest new townhouses in Land Bay H would sit at least 100 feet from it, according to county staff. The county’s 200-foot setback between data centers and homes covers only new data centers, so it does not apply here.
The proffers add three protections for the homes nearest the data center:
- Noise study. Before the first building permit for a home in Land Bay H, EYA must model the noise reaching homes within 200 feet of the data center’s wall. Homes the study finds above 65 decibels outside must get construction that holds indoor noise to 45 decibels.
- Disclosure. Where rooftop decks would exceed 65 decibels, EYA must say so in the HOA documents and sales materials.
- Screen wall. If it can get the needed off-site easements, EYA will put up a solid or board-on-board fence at least 6 feet tall between the homes and the data center before anyone moves into a unit along Street L, the new road between them.
A noise analysis EYA filed on Oct. 2 found the data center’s low-frequency hum would be quieter than traffic on nearby roads, FFXnow reported.
Several staff requests were still open in the Oct. 9 memo: a midblock pedestrian crossing, and the removal of townhouse balconies that would hang over private alleys, which staff opposed over ownership and maintenance. Staff recommended approval anyway. “While we do have recommendations to improve the project, on balance, the development is still meeting the comprehensive plan,” Katelyn Quinn, the county planner handling the case, told the commission, according to FFXnow.
Buyers near Lake Fairfax Park should watch the Board and then the site plans
Before the vote. Anyone can speak at the hearing or send comments. The Clerk to the Board takes speaker sign-ups, and the clerk’s office answers questions at 703-324-3151. The meeting is at the Fairfax County Government Center.
After the vote. Approval would let EYA move to site plans and building permits. The apartment building and the school site would still need their own final development plans. The school land gets reserved before the first site plan, and the data center noise study comes before the first home permit in Land Bay H. EYA also committed to negotiate in good faith with Reston Association and the Reston Town Center Association about the townhouses joining one of them, without promising membership.
The site sits within half a mile of the Wiehle-Reston East Metro station, according to the staff report, and next to Lake Fairfax Park, with a new trailhead to the park’s Rails to River Trail. For owners in Equestrian Park and the other neighborhoods around the park, Nov. 17 settles the use of the land next door.
We will update this post with the Board’s decision. If you own near Lake Fairfax Park and want to talk through what the plan could mean for your home, or want to hear when the first townhouses go on sale, reach out.
See something missing or wrong? Email us at [email protected] and we will check it and update the post.
