Over two days this week, Fairfax County moved three housing proposals forward on office land. EYA’s plan for the Lake Fairfax Business Center in Reston won a Planning Commission recommendation. So did K. Hovnanian’s Lincoln Park townhouses on Centreville Road. A day earlier, the Board of Supervisors adopted a plan change that opens the last vacant piece of Discovery Square, the community directly south of Lincoln Park, to apartments and shops.
None of the three can break ground yet. Lake Fairfax and Lincoln Park go to the Board of Supervisors on Nov. 17. The Discovery Square rezoning reaches the Planning Commission on Nov. 4.
The Planning Commission recommended EYA’s Lake Fairfax plan 9-0-1
On Oct. 14, the commission voted 9-0-1 to recommend that supervisors rezone 49.37 acres of the business center, at 1759 Business Center Drive, from industrial to planned residential mixed use. Commissioner Sargeant abstained, and two commissioners were absent. A second 9-0-1 vote approved EYA’s final development plan, the detailed site layout, which takes effect only if the Board approves the rezoning.
The commission had delayed the vote after its Sept. 23 hearing so EYA could answer staff’s technical questions. EYA’s proffers, the binding conditions it offers in exchange for the rezoning, keep alternate layouts for three sections of the site. Those alternates leave both versions from our preview before the Board: 956 homes or 1,042.
Four of the proffers set terms buyers and neighbors would live with:
- Data center noise. EYA must model noise for every home within 200 feet of the existing data center. Any home above 65 dBA Ldn outside (a day-night average sound level that weights nighttime noise more heavily) must hold indoor noise to 45 dBA Ldn. Sales materials must disclose rooftop decks above 65 dBA, and EYA must screen the data center with a fence at least six feet tall.
- Affordable homes. Twelve percent of the homes must be affordable dwelling units or workforce units, with workforce units set aside for households earning 60 to 100 percent of area median income.
- A school site. EYA will reserve 3.96 acres for a future public school, or a public park if the Board chooses, in place of a cash payment for schools.
- Lake Fairfax Park. EYA will build a natural-surface trail into the park and pay $1,500 for each park tree that construction kills.
The proffers also reserve Sunset Hills Road frontage for a future right-turn lane from westbound Sunset Hills onto Business Center Drive.
Supervisors adopted the Discovery Square plan change for 108 apartments and shops
On Oct. 13, the Board adopted the Discovery Square plan amendment, SSPA 2023-III-4UP. The Comprehensive Plan, the county’s long-range land use guide, now allows up to 108 apartments and about 31,460 square feet of neighborhood-serving retail on the vacant 8.08-acre parcel northwest of Wall Road and Centreville Road. The plan had called mainly for campus-style offices there. The Planning Commission recommended the change 9-0 on Sept. 9; the county has not yet posted the Board’s vote count.
The parcel is the last undeveloped piece of the roughly 67-acre Discovery Square community the Board rezoned in 2007. The staff report counts three Fairfax Connector routes within a quarter mile, including Route 983 to Dulles Airport and the Innovation Center Metro station. The new plan text calls for a publicly accessible park as a gathering space and better crossings at the surrounding intersections.
A plan amendment approves no buildings. It sets the limits a rezoning must fit within. Pulte Home Company and Potomac Land Group III have filed the matching rezoning, which goes to the Planning Commission on Nov. 4.
Lincoln Park’s 278 townhouses won a 9-0-1 recommendation
After a public hearing the same night, the commission voted 9-0-1 to recommend approval of K. Hovnanian’s two Lincoln Park rezonings at 3078 Centreville Road, with Commissioner Batchelor-Causey abstaining. It also approved both final development plans.
The proffers cap Lincoln Park I at 184 homes on 10.08 acres and Lincoln Park II at 94 homes on 5.45 acres. Together they would replace two office buildings and their parking lots with 117 townhouses and 161 stacked townhouses, according to the county staff report.
The site sits between EDS Drive and Centreville Road, about a third of a mile from Dulles Airport. The Nysmith School is across EDS Drive, Highland Mews and Chantilly Highlands are across Centreville Road, and Discovery Square’s Timber Ridge homes border the south side. A quarter-mile linear park would run along that southern edge, beside a Colonial Pipeline jet fuel easement, with paths into Timber Ridge.
The Lincoln Park proffers also govern what buyers get and pay for:
- Disclosures. Buyers receive a disclosure package before signing. It must explain the community association’s upkeep duties for private streets, retaining walls and stormwater facilities, and state that the sidewalks, trails and parks are open to the public.
- Size and parking. Townhouses top out at 50 feet and stacked townhouses at 55, all with rear-alley garages.
- Affordable homes. Workforce units must make up at least 12 percent of for-sale homes, on top of the county’s required affordable dwelling units.
Lincoln Park and Discovery Square would add up to 386 homes on Centreville Road
Both sites carry Herndon 20171 addresses and sit beside the Discovery Square, Highland Mews and Chantilly Highlands neighborhoods. K. Hovnanian’s proffers provide for model homes and a sales office, so nearby townhouse owners who sell after Lincoln Park opens would compete with new construction next door. If you own nearby and want to know what a new-construction neighbor could mean for your home’s value, reach out.
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