Our past choices about where and how we grow have led to limited and unaffordable housing, and left too many of us dependent on driving for almost everything.
Smarter land use means more inclusive, vibrant, and sustainable communities: communities that are safe and convenient for walking and biking to daily needs – schools, stores, parks, and jobs; offer a diversity of housing options for people at different income levels; and are served by reliable, frequent public transit.
It’s good for our environment, good for people, and good for business.
Direct new homes and businesses to existing communities with access to transit
Providing more homes and businesses in existing communities with transit supports connected, economically thriving communities. It is also more sustainable and efficient than chasing sprawl development with new and costly infrastructure. Instead, focusing growth in already established communities allows us to welcome new neighbors and means private developers can contribute to modernizing aging infrastructure, like our schools, transit services, roads, sidewalks, and stormwater facilities.
Create compact, walkable, bike-friendly, mixed-use communities
We envision communities where each of us can conveniently meet our daily needs, and have more choices in how we get around. Walkable, bikeable, transit-oriented communities can provide easy access to jobs, services, retail, and community gathering spaces. This creates opportunities for connection and requires shorter and fewer car trips—reducing household transportation costs and greenhouse gas emissions.
Preserve rural farms, forests and natural areas
The smart growth approach to land use reduces pressure to convert farms and forests and natural areas to development – which is key in this era of climate change. Instead, smart growth focuses on turning existing and underutilized parking lots and commercial spaces into mixed-use, walkable neighborhoods with homes and businesses. Along with tools like agricultural zoning and conservation easements, this allows us to protect our farms, forests, natural areas, and drinking water supplies.
Latest Happenings
When you think cool communities, you might think of vibrant neighborhoods with great streets and parks, coffee shops, bars and restaurants, a variety of stores and other activities. But these communities also offer the opportunity to help reduce the warming of our climate, while reducing oil consumption and transportation costs. Where we build and how we build our neighborhoods will make a real difference.
We request that the board not approve the DSP as proposed but request a full revision of the “Commons at Addison Road” in order that ensure the project conform with transit- and pedestrian-oriented design standards in the Approved Sector Plan and Sectional Map Amendment for Addison Road Metro Town Center and Vicinity (ARM).
Fairfax County is in the midst of an evolution, where the focus for future growth will of necessity be transit stations and commercial corridors. Places that will evolve into mixed-use, mixed-income, walkable, bikeable and transit oriented communities. This is the best way to protect suburban neighborhoods, to accommodate population growth and changing demographics (including downsizing empty nesters and retirees), to address traffic, and maximize the energy efficiency and competitiveness of the county. We hope that the experience from the Tysons Corner process will result in new and enhanced public planning processes, and multidisciplinary staff teams for re-planning the commercial corridors of the county.
We would like to express our support for the White Flint Sector Plan and urge the Council and County Executive to support it too. We strongly support the County focusing growth here at a Metro station rather than new areas that require major new public infrastructure investments like the Gaithersburg West Plan, which we oppose in its current form. We need to make the distinction – we should focus growth around our Metro stations and revitalize major commercial corridors like Rockville Pike. Conversely, the great amount of development proposed in the Gaithersburg West Plan fosters sprawl, long distance commuting, increased traffic, air and water pollution. Overzoning Gaithersburg West undermines the redevelopment of Rockville Pike and Metro station areas – the very areas where we should be encouraging sustainable, transit-oriented development and great urban boulevards and streets.
We urge you to oppose the Gaithersburg West Plan. We believe that the major expansion in planned employment proposed in the Plan is detrimental to county residents and poses a serious threat to smart growth in the region. We urge the county to refocus efforts to ensure a quality growth plan for the White Flint Metro station area, and fostering employment growth at existing underutilized Metro stations and along transit corridors in down and east county locations. The Life Sciences Center (LSC) portions of the Gaithersburg West Plan proposes excessive density for the location–far from a Metro station, which will exacerbate the housing-jobs imbalance, and induce sprawl and unnecessary car traffic.
