County wins planning award for Embark Richmond Highway
(Fairfax County Department of Planning and Zoning image)
Embark Richmond Highway’s vision for the future of southeast Fairfax has earned the American Planning Association’s Virginia Chapter’s 2018 Commonwealth Plan of the Year Award.
The APA will present the award to representatives from Fairfax County’s Department of Planning Zoning during the association’s annual conference on July 24. Embark was one of two Commonwealth Plan of the Year Award winners selected out of 25 entries, with Bristol, Virginia’s comprehensive plan the other winner.
“Embark seamlessly accounts for urban design, environmental assets, stormwater management, urban parks, and public spaces — often times disparate disciplines that must have strong leadership from project management staff to bring together for a unified vision,” the APA’s awards committee said in their review of Embark.
Multiple departments within the county collaborated on Embark, meeting weekly for almost three years to create and refine a plan that seeks to radically transform the 7.5-mile corridor between the Beltway and Fort Belvoir. Employees from the department of planning and zoning, department of transportation, the Park Authority and office of community revitalization all contributed to the planning effort, which was formally adopted by the Board of Supervisors in March.
“To win an award like this for all the work people put into Embark … it’s just an amazing recognition of this plan that [so many people] all put together,” said Sophia Fisher of the department of planning and zoning, who will receive the APA award along with colleagues from other county agencies at the July 24 ceremony.
At its core, Embark paves the way for drastic changes in transportation and development along the Route 1 corridor. It allows for more high-density, mixed-use development in six community business centers (CBCs) from North Gateway to Woodlawn. A bus rapid transit (BRT) system will be at the heart of the transportation changes coming to the area, with the BRT connecting the CBCs and running between the Huntington Metro station and Fort Belvoir.
Embark also envisions a more pedestrian and bike-friendly corridor, with wider sidewalks away along Route 1 and dedicated bike lanes in both directions. Embark also calls for the extension of the Yellow Line to Beacon Hill/Groveton and Hybla Valley/Gum Springs.
The APA praised Embark for its multimodal transportation approach, replacing “auto-centric, piecemeal strip centers along the corridor” with a “cohesive, place-based community with a myriad of transportation options for residents and businesses.”
The county envisions the six CBCs along the corridor as distinctive places that draw on their history, natural resources and current uses to inspire future development. For example, the Beacon/Groveton CBC is the planned to be an urban town center that serves as focal point of the corridor, while the Hybla Valley/Gum Springs CBC is seen as a ecologically and historically themed center because of its proximity to Huntley Meadows, Little Hunting Creek and the historic Gum Springs neighborhood.
That approach caught the eye of the APA, who saluted Fairfax’s planners for avoiding a cookie-cutter approach.
“Embark respected the unique character of the many individual sub areas along Richmond Highway, avoiding a ‘one size fits all’ approach that would have neglected adjacent neighborhoods,” the APA reviewers said.
The work leading up to the final Embark text approved by the county was years in the making. The project was initiated in 2015 after the state’s Route 1 Multimodal Alternatives Analysis, which recommended BRT and the extension of the Yellow Line, among other things. A 13-member advisory committee was formed and met regularly with county officials. Feedback from the public was solicited in five Embark open houses for between May 2016 and January 2018, and regular updates about the project were posted on Fairfax County’s website.
That outreach effort impressed the APA’s judges.
“The Embark project team conducted extensive community outreach with local stakeholders,” the APA reviewers said. “They fully used the web for this outreach, and should be commended for the Story Map that breaks new ground for common sense public engagement.”
APA-VA 2018 Project Winners
Commonwealth Plan of the Year
Award Winner: Fairfax County
Award Winning Project: Embark Richmond Highway Comprehensive Plan Amendment
Commonwealth Plan of the Year
Award Winner: City of Bristol, VA
Award Winning Project: City of Bristol, VA Comprehensive Plan
Old Dominion Innovative Approaches Award
Award Winner: Prince William County
Award Winning Project: Prince William County Comprehensive Plan – Interactive Online Format
Terry Holzheimer Economic Development Award
Award Winner: City of Alexandria
Award Winning Project: Old Town North Arts and Cultural District
Nelsonite Award – Virginia’s Planning Advocates of the Year
Award Winner: Frederick County Conservation Easement Authority
Award Winning Project: Landowner Informational Video Series
Dogwood Award – Virginia’s Citizen Planners of the Year
Award Winner: Albemarle County Planning Commission
Award Winning Project: 2016 Planning Commission Annual Report
Resilient Virginia Community of the Year
Award Winner: City of Norfolk
Award Winning Project: Building a Better Norfolk – A Zoning Ordinance for the 21st Century
2018 Individual Winners
Outstanding Faculty Award
- Benjamin Teresa – Virginia Commonwealth University
- Andrew Mondschein – University of Virginia
- Yang Zhang – Virginia Tech
Outstanding Student Award
- Antwan Hoy, Undergraduate Student – Virginia Commonwealth University
- Hannah Cameron, Graduate Student – Virginia Commonwealth University
- Cory Paradis, Undergraduate Student – University of Virginia
- Chantal Madray, Graduate Student – University of Virginia
- Nicole Boling, Graduate Student – Virginia Tech
Congratulations on Fairfax County for receiving this prestigious recognition. The fact that the county has made the commitment to spend millions of dollars restoring green space out of land that is currently entombed in asphalt is a great thing.
Unfortunately, along Route 1, south of Fort Belvoir it is a different story. There, the county deservers the American Planning Association’s Virginia Chapter’s 2018 Commonwealth disaster of the Year Award, if there is such a thing.
In this case, the county has decided to asphalt over the only park between I-95 and Richmond Highway, south of Pohick Road in an area that the comprehensive plan deems as in need of additional parkland. This five acre park, which was paid for with park bonds in a referendum in 1981 to create “a five acre park” is being sacrificed to build a community center when there are several alternative pieces of county owned land in the immediate vicinity that would be better locations.
In addition to it being idiotic policy to eliminate green space like that (in a generation from now will we be looking at Embark 2.0 for the southern part of Rt 1 and spending millions to restore green space there?), it is a violation of the voters will when 37 yeas ago they voted in increase their taxes to pay for a park – not a county facility.
If this project goes forward, voters in Fairfax County are going to have to think long and hard before they vote to support bond referenda in the future, since it seems that the pledges the county makes on these is not worth the paper it is written on.
To find out more about this disastrous project visit: https://www.facebook.com/SaveLortonPark/