A Vision for an Environmentally Sustainable Fairfax County: 
Inclusive, Walkable, Transit-Friendly Communities

2023 Fairfax Healthy Communities Platform

We call on all candidates for office in Fairfax County to commit to building a prosperous, equitable, and sustainable future for everyone in the county. We ask that you uphold OneFairfax, advocate for an equitable county, and prioritize new growth and development towards creating walkable, mixed-use, mixed-income communities close to transit that will improve equitable access to opportunities, reduce reliance on driving, and improve environmental and social outcomes.  

As part of this vision, we call on our elected officials to:

• Recognize that every land use decision is an environmental decision; 

• Ensure the county Policy Plan, land use planning, zoning, and public investments are directed towards creating walkable, bikeable, transit-oriented communities accessible to a mix of incomes; 

• Protect our natural resources by discouraging sprawl into auto-dependent undeveloped areas; 

• Preserve and expand affordable housing while avoiding displacement of low-income minority residents and businesses; and

• Ensure good urban design and placemaking for people, with a mix of uses and activated ground floors, street trees, wide sidewalks, public squares, and access to parks and green spaces. 

Four Key Components for this Vision:

Housing for All

Provide housing opportunities for people of all incomes, abilities, and stages of life by ensuring a mix of housing types and affordable housing throughout the county that are energy efficient and near transit, economic opportunities, and green spaces. Work to address the legacies of racial segregation on access to housing in the county.    

• Increase Fairfax County’s goal of 10,000 new affordable homes by 2034 and ensure one-for-one replacement of affordable and workforce housing during redevelopment of older neighborhoods. 

• Engage residents in communities facing displacement on the vision they see for their community, including their desires around affordable housing, parks and recreation, upgraded infrastructure for walkability, and improved access to public transit, jobs and educational opportunities, grocery stores, and health care.

• Document the county’s history of racial segregation, including land use laws, policies, and practices such as racial covenants in order to educate residents and decision makers, and support policies to dismantle exclusionary zoning and other systemically racist policies. 

• Enforce fair housing laws, especially in regards to rentals, mortgage lending, and real estate practices, with aggressive testing programs to detect unfair housing practices.

• Enable wealth-building by: expanding homeownership opportunities including supporting forms of communal ownership  such as land trusts and cooperatives; incentivizing owners of mobile home parks to sell to nonprofits or co-ops rather than to developers: and providing more assistance for first-time home buyers.

Sustainable Transportation

Ensure transit, walking, bicycling and other modes of active transportation are well-funded, safe, convenient and accessible for people of all ages and abilities so that residents have more transportation choices and experiences, reduced traffic congestion and transportation-related climate emissions, air pollution and health impacts.

• Shift transportation spending away from road expansion toward investment in safe and connected complete streets, active transportation, and public transit.  

• Create a robust transit system, in close partnership with WMATA and neighboring jurisdictions, focusing on providing frequent, fast, reliable, and affordable public transit that is seamless across Northern Virginia.

• Achieve 100% electrification of Fairfax County Connector and Fairfax County Public School buses by 2035

• Develop and adopt the Multimodal Additional Measures of Effectiveness for a more balanced assessment of mobility needs.  

• Complete and fund the ActiveFairfax Transportation Plan and Safe Streets for All program, including additional staff capacity needed to fully support program implementation.

• Expand micro-mobility options as first and last mile connection to transit by ensuring adequate storage and safe trail, sidewalk, and on-street bicycle connections near transit stations and bus stops. 

• Fully implement the County’s planned $100M active transportation project funding as well as provide new permanent funding towards the maintenance of trails, sidewalks, and bikeways to address the backlog of deferred maintenance by 2030; prioritize the highest-need/lowest level-of-service neighborhoods and corridors; and ensure improvements include adjacent tree preservation and planting.

Climate Mitigation, Resilience, and Green Spaces  

Ensure the county’s resilience to the impacts of climate change by implementing and building on the Community-wide Energy and Climate Action Plan (CECAP) and Resilient Fairfax plans, and incorporating these priorities into the county’s Policy Plan. Promote stormwater retrofits in communities built before modern regulations, protect our diminishing natural resources, and preserve the ability of streams, forests, open space and tree canopy to be the natural first line of defense against climate impacts.

• Adequately fund and hire expert staff, including a Climate Administrator position, to implement CECAP, reduce carbon emissions, and ensure that the county meets its 2050 carbon neutrality goal. 

• Implement Resilient Fairfax, including providing relief and resources to homeless and low-income residents who were identified as the most vulnerable and the least able to cope with climate impacts. 

• Ensure environmental impacts and protections are formally considered at the beginning of the decision-making process for proposed development and transportation projects instead of late in the process, after most other decisions are made. 

• Encourage developers to implement the highest energy efficiency standards possible under state law, such as renewable energy and green buildings, and pursue more favorable state laws for this purpose.

• Prioritize preservation and expansion of the county’s native tree canopy, particularly in areas already identified as heat islands, and protect environmentally sensitive areas. 

• Fully fund the FCPA’s budget needs for proactive forest management and invasive species control.

• Enhance stream valley integrity, drinking water quality, and minimize flooding (inland and otherwise), particularly with strong stormwater management mitigation for new and redeveloped properties throughout the county. 

Food Security

Safeguard county residents’ consistent access to fresh, nutritious, affordable and culturally appropriate food, and bolster the local food supply chain through county policy and regulatory updates and providing needed funding to support programing. 

• Update policies and zoning regulations to more comprehensively and equitably support food production on public and private property, such as allowing larger front-yard food gardens, expanding public community gardening opportunities into more food-insecure areas, reducing barriers to equitable food production, and allowing residents to sell produce grown in community and home gardens in order to generate income. 

• Create policies, regulations, and financial incentives to encourage local commercial urban agriculture operations, such as providing tax incentives and allowing agricultural operations in vacant office space, vacant parking lots, and rooftops.

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* An asterisk after an organization indicates a 501(c)(4) organization.
All other above signatories without an asterisk are 501(c)(3) organizations. This platform is strictly educational and is being shared with all candidates and the public. By law, our organizations are strictly prohibited from participating in, or intervening in (including the publishing or distribution of statements) any political campaign on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office.