Mar 2021 Community Responses

What Communities Are Saying

-- How have communities county-wide responded to the overwhelming amount of information in zMOD AND OTHER NEIGHBORHOOD CRISES? They have joined together and shared their work products and ideas:

The following declarations, statements and letters offer a repository of factual information and different perspectives. Collectively, they document the urgency with which concerned citizens wish to share the many issues and concerns zMOD raises among our varied, unique communities.

These communications have been openly shared in email threads among Fairfax civic/homeowner associations and individuals. The GOAL is to facilitate communication with county leadership. --

Please, take advantage of this resource.

Add your voice!

Holmes Run Valley Citizens Association Testimony to Board of Supervisors

on zMOD 3/9/2021:

"In Jan 2018, Board Chairman Sharon Bulova introduced zMOD at its first public meeting with clear assurance that, beyond revising the list of uses, the project would not make significant changes to ordinance regulations. Gratuitous changes, changes not necessary for restructuring and updating uses, would not be made. Three years later residents are battling to protect our neighborhoods from draconian gratuitous changes including one that would delete the current requirement that high-density developments should taper down in density and provide compatible screening where they interface with residential districts."

Dunheimer Testimony to Board of Supervisors on zMOD 3/9/2021:

"Today, I’d like to highlight the negative impacts of Staff’s insertion of the term “major thoroughfare” throughout the zMOD final draft, and I’m formally requesting that the Board of Supervisors vote to withdraw this term’s use from zMOD. Roadway development conditions should be determined for land use utilizing existing specific Federal Highway Administration roadway terminology reflecting a road’s Functional Classification."

WFCCA Testimony to Board of Supervisors on zMOD 3/9/2021:

"WFCCA objects to zone ordinance modification that conflicts with long established HOA covenants or County zoning ordinances that community members have grown comfortable with regard to the use and character of a neighborhood home. In particular, we object to any change that would threaten the residential character of a community neighborhood. Surely a community of like-minded owners should be permitted to govern themselves within time-honored norms."

Virginia Run Community Association Testimony to

Board of Supervisors on zMOD 3/9/2021:

"The Virginia Run Community Association is an important voting body that represents 1405 homes and well over 2800 potential voting participants in the western portion of Sully Magisterial District. It is one of the largest single homeowner’s association in Fairfax County’s residential conservation zoning district."

MacArthur Testimony to Board of Supervisors on zMOD 3/9/2021:

"An alarming number of issues in zMOD are short-sighted. They are not ready to be written into law. They have not been sufficiently vetted, and they are not sufficiently understood by your constituents. 100 meetings notwithstanding, to a person no one I asked had even heard of zMOD until community activists,
against all odds, during a pandemic, worked tirelessly to raise the awareness of what was going on."

Springfield Civic Association Testimony to Board of Supervisors

on zMOD 3/9/2021:

"People don’t expect or even want to live in Mayberry. Our neighborhood is one of the most diverse ethnically, economically and socially you could have. Folks love living here!

Please don’t make our neighborhoods a social experiment – especially one based on failed ideas and a faulty paradigm."

Ellison Heights - Mt. Daniel Civic Association Testimony to Board of Supervisors

on zMOD 3/9/2021:

"Based on statements by some of you, I fear that you are not listening to us, your constituents, and after paying millions of our tax dollars to consultants with agendas, you believe that ZMOD is the trendy wave of the future. Several of you have conflated ALUs with affordable housing. There is no such requirement for affordability. In fact, any ALUs created, with the exception of flats for aging relatives, are likely to be market rate, ultimately increasing the density of neighborhoods with no provision for the holistic infrastructure to support them, and in certain cases, damaging the environment. "

Koerner Letter to to Board of Supervisors on zMOD 3/15/2021:

"This letter is intended to help provide clarification to some of the difficult technical complexities regarding water quality that face the Board as you review the Draft ZMod Ordinance. These are not easy issues, and a detailed understanding of the science of water quality is critical for the effective stewardship of our watersheds and the safety of our drinking water. Hopefully this will help you make quality, technically-defensible decisions on issues that affect the future health, safety, and economic well-being of the citizens of Fairfax County."

MacArthur letter to neighbors and Civic Association members 3/19/2021:

"Instead, the BOS is ignoring us - it is even ignoring its own Planning Commission! It is allowing a Consultant to lead the charge, one who was publicly reprimanded by a Planning Commissioner for dissing the Fairfax citizenry as unknowing. It is leaving unanswered, questions that experts have taken the time to write. It is moving full-steam ahead with fundamental changes to the laws that govern the built environment we all share, during a pandemic when none of us can take the time to realize what’s going on."

Laney Letter to Board of Supervisors 3/22/2021:

"It is my opinion that zMOD deserves greater visibility and input from the citizens that will be impacted. This is especially true considering the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused major disruptions and distractions to your citizens. I ask that the BOS give people more time to understand zMOD and not rush it through the approval process without proper public discourse.."

Garver Letter to Board of Supervisors 3/22/2021:

"This changing in zoning needs to have a proper public hearing and review. The environmental impact (on humans, traffic, infrastructure, etc. in addition to nature) should be reviewed and shared with the community before voting. To vote upon such a dramatic change without allowing the public to be informed and share their concerns is not how our democratic republic should work. If proper information was made known, public hearings held, and then a vote held it would pass the sniff test. What you are doing does not."

Johnston letter to Chairman McKay 3/22/2021:

"You have received testimony and several papers critical of zMOD’s ALU proposal, which you and some your fellow supervisors have chosen to disregard as NIMBY and as “misinformed” resident’s views. We are not on a mission as you might believe to be on a deliberate effort to circulate misinformation. We are begging to be heard in a public forum, have someone listen to reasonable concerns, and trying to find a reasonable accommodation that will improve our neighborhoods and not degrade them. "

Franklin Area Citizen's Association position on zMOD 3/23/2021:

"We appreciate and support the staff’s efforts to re-organize and streamline the county’s 40-year old zoning ordinance. However, we saw soon after zMOD began that this proposal would also include modifications to the zoning ordinance – many well beyond zMOD’s initial advertised scope and purpose.

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