The Fairfax County Planning Commission holds a public hearing Wednesday, Nov. 18, on a plan change that would let two apartment buildings with about 435 affordable homes go up on Dulles Greene Drive, on the north side of the Innovation Center Metro station. The Board of Supervisors is scheduled to hold its own hearing on Tuesday, Dec. 8.
Most of the land belongs to the Fairfax County Redevelopment and Housing Authority (FCRHA), the county’s housing agency. Today it holds a cricket field. The housing authority picked the nonprofit developer True Ground Housing Partners, formerly the Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing, to build there. The homes would be reserved for households earning 30 to 60 percent of the area median income, the midpoint income for the region, which the county puts at $166,100 for a family of four.
County planning staff recommend approval in a staff report dated Oct. 28. The Planning Commission’s Nov. 18 agenda, revised Nov. 5, lists the case with no deferral.
The amendment would roughly double the homes allowed on the site
The case is a site-specific plan amendment, SSPA 2023-III-18UP. A plan amendment changes the county’s Comprehensive Plan, the long-range guide that tells developers and zoning officials what each piece of land is meant to become. It does not approve a building. True Ground’s rezoning, the step that would, comes later.
The site is two parcels between the Dulles Toll Road and the Reflection Lake neighborhood, east of Innovation Avenue: the housing authority’s 9.6-acre property at 13500 Dulles Greene Drive and a vacant 1.5-acre lot next to it, which True Ground has under contract from the Peterson Companies, according to its 2025 proposal to the county.
| Current plan | Proposed plan | |
|---|---|---|
| Homes allowed | 222 | 440 |
| Office, retail or daycare | 5,000 sq. ft. | 0 in staff’s estimate |
| Daily car trips (staff estimate) | 1,331 | 2,090 |
The current plan calls for apartments at 16 to 20 homes per acre, with garden apartments next to Reflection Lake capped at 40 feet and mid-rise buildings up to 65 feet. The new language allows up to 440 homes, including the bonus density the county grants for affordable and workforce units, if the two parcels are combined. It lets the county consider buildings taller than 65 feet when the developer shows they fit next to the neighbors, and it keeps a 50-degree “bulk plane,” an imaginary slanted line rising from the neighbors’ property that new buildings cannot cross.
The amendment also deletes old language reserving part of the site for a commuter park-and-ride. The county built that garage south of the Toll Road instead, an eight-level, 2,100-space structure.
Staff expect the 759 added daily trips to mean 12 more in the morning rush hour and 5 more in the evening one.
True Ground plans two buildings that step from seven stories down to four
True Ground’s concept splits the homes between two buildings: Dulles Greene North with 210 apartments and Dulles Greene South with 225, according to its May 11 community presentation. Each building rises to seven stories, about 85 feet, on the side nearest the Metro station and steps down to four stories, about 45 feet, along the edge facing Reflection Lake. The neighboring homes in Reflection Lake are about 35 feet tall, and the four-story wings sit on ground roughly level with them, the staff report says.
Two-thirds of the apartments would have two or more bedrooms, up to four. True Ground’s 2025 proposal to the county listed 63 three-bedroom and 14 four-bedroom units, with 93 homes set aside for households at or below 50 percent of the area median income.
For a household of four, 60 percent of the area median income is $99,700 a year, according to the county’s housing staff. For a single person it is $69,700.
The buildings would wrap around courtyards, with one level of underground parking each. True Ground’s presentation showed 305 parking spaces plus on-street spaces on Dulles Greene Drive, an EarthCraft Gold green building target, resident services and bike storage.
The Metro station is less than a quarter mile away
The site sits within a quarter mile of the Innovation Center station on the Silver Line. A 10-foot shared-use path, the Innovation Station North Neighborhood Access path, opened in February 2026 along the south side of the site, with a bridge over Horsepen Creek and lighting, giving Reflection Lake and other nearby neighborhoods a walking route to the station.
Dulles Greene Drive is mostly unpaved today and has no continuous sidewalk to Innovation Avenue. The amendment calls for a trail from Farougi Court to the station, sidewalks on both sides of Dulles Greene Drive where they fit, and a review of the Innovation Avenue intersection. It also bars any extension of Dulles Greene Drive to Farougi Court, so no car traffic from the apartments would route through Reflection Lake. Staff want high-visibility crosswalks on all four legs of the Innovation Avenue intersection and say the county should monitor it for a future roundabout or signal.
Hutchison Elementary runs at 98 percent of capacity today
The site falls in the Hutchison Elementary, Herndon Middle and Herndon High attendance areas. Staff estimate 47 to 157 students from 440 apartments, compared with 24 to 82 under today’s plan.
| School | Capacity used, 2025-26 | Projected, 2030-31 |
|---|---|---|
| Hutchison Elementary | 98% | 81% |
| Herndon Middle | 90% | 77% |
| Herndon High | 77% | 71% |
Those projections do not count any students from this project, and the staff report describes Hutchison as approaching a capacity deficit. The school system’s capital plan already lists the need for a new “Silver Line” elementary school.
Staff also note that the area around the Innovation Center station is short on parkland. They want pocket parks, plazas and a central mews, a landscaped walkway, across the site. Only about 2.3 of the housing authority’s 9.6 acres can be built on, the staff report says. The rest is Resource Protection Area in the Horsepen Creek watershed, land that environmental rules keep from being built on, so the buildings concentrate on that ground and the 1.5-acre lot.
The county is weighing a 50-year tax break for the project
At a Board of Supervisors Housing Committee meeting on Oct. 6, county staff proposed piloting a new state law on Dulles Greene and one other project: the county could rebate property taxes for up to 50 years on new affordable housing owned by qualifying nonprofits, FFXnow reported. Property taxes average 5 to 10 percent of operating costs for a rental affordable complex, or about $3,000 per unit, a housing authority official told supervisors. Dranesville Supervisor Jimmy Bierman asked for a cost-benefit analysis before the Board decides. The Board has not voted on the idea.
True Ground plans to finance each building with low-income housing tax credits on a long-term ground lease from the housing authority.
The housing authority also bought 1.93 acres at King Johns Way, on the south side of the same station, in August. We covered that purchase in our October post. Between the two sites, the housing authority is planning for roughly 835 affordable homes around one Silver Line stop.
Construction is not expected to start until 2028
- Nov. 18, meeting starts 7:30 p.m.: Planning Commission public hearing on the plan amendment.
- Dec. 8, 4 p.m.: Board of Supervisors public hearing on the plan amendment. The Board can act that day.
- Jan. 27, 2027: Planning Commission hearing on True Ground’s rezoning, according to FFXnow. The county has not posted that hearing yet.
- 2028 to 2031: County housing staff expect the north building to start construction in May 2028 and finish in September 2030, with the south building a year behind.
Capital Cricket can keep using the field until construction starts, under the 2023 Board vote that moved the land to the housing authority.
Residents can speak at either hearing. The county’s amendment page lists the planner on the case, Lia Niebauer, at 703-324-2772.
For owners in Reflection Lake and the other neighborhoods off Rock Hill Road and Innovation Avenue, the plan amendment sets the height, density and road rules the rezoning will have to follow. If you own nearby and want to talk through what a project like this means for your home’s value, reach out.
See something missing or wrong? Email us at [email protected] and we will check it and update the post.
