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Casino battles raise question of who should have power over siting: the state or local governments

The dream of a Fairfax County casino may have gone bust before it even really got off the ground.

Last month, two Virginia lawmakers introduced identical bills that would have amended state law to allow a casino to be built in any locality that has a population of more than 1 million and operates under an urban county executive form of government.

There’s only one county in Virginia that currently meets those requirements, and that’s Fairfax County.

But just days after being filed, both bills were withdrawn, with patron Sen. Dave Marsden, D-Fairfax, saying they were “rushed” and more research was needed.

Marsden has left the door open for legislation to be re-introduced in 2024 in media interviews. However, discussions with lawmakers, county officials and a regional economic policy expert show there may be little appetite to go all in on a Fairfax County casino even if the proposal were to come up again next year.

The response “has mostly been negative,” Marsden told the Mercury. “It’s an election year, so people are nervous talking about those kinds of things.”

The bills also set further parameters on where a casino could go in the county, limiting it to being outside of the Beltway, not in the Dulles International Airport flight path, and “within one-quarter of a mile [of] an existing station on the Metro Silver Line.”

Those restrictions seem to leave only a few options for sites. Those likely include locations near Tysons Corner mall, Reston Town Center and Herndon’s new Innovation Center Metro station, as the Washington Business Journal reported.

Marsden said anxiety over the Silver Line and its newly opened 11.4-mile stretch connecting Reston and Loudoun County, an extension that cost $3 billion, is a big reason he proposed the bill in the first place.

“I’m very concerned about the future of Metro. … Ridership is down and we are facing a fiscal cliff here shortly in terms of how we are going to support Metro,” Marsden said. “Getting places built up with attractions and generating nightlife, generating restaurants and making it a destination improves both the economy of the commonwealth, the economy of Fairfax County and ridership on the Silver Line.”

However, at least one Fairfax County official isn’t buying into this rationale. Supervisor Walter Alcorn, who represents the district that includes Reston Town Center, has called the siting of a casino near the Silver Line a “bad idea on multiple levels” and “foolhardy.” Furthermore, he said, none of his constituents have expressed support for the idea.

“I’m not opposed to having a casino located near a Metro station somewhere, but why you would put that on the most valuable property in the region around the Silver Line stations baffles me,” Alcorn told the Mercury, pointing to research showing property values around the line are likely to soar.

Metro does have “serious problems,” he said, but a “casino is not going to bail Metro out of its financial woes.”

Virginia’s casino conundrum

Casinos have been a hot topic in Virginia since 2020, when the General Assembly approved legislation allowing casinos to be built in five Virginia cities if local residents supported the idea in a referendum.

Residents in four cities — Bristol, Danville, Norfolk and Portsmouth — voted in favor of casinos. Late this January, Rivers Casino Portsmouth opened, becoming the first permanent full-service casino in Virginia.

But in the fifth city of Richmond, voters rejected the option in 2021. Petersburg has since vied to take over the fifth slot, but the legislation required to authorize the city to move forward faces tough prospects in the Senate.

The battles over casino siting have also raised the question of whether the General Assembly should continue to take the lead on deciding where casinos will and will not go in Virginia.

The referendum provisions of state law mean a casino can only be built if residents approve it, and any specific proposals have to go through local land use processes, including zoning review and public hearings. But under current law, the General Assembly continues to set the basic parameters of where a casino can go, leading to bills such as those put forward this year specifying casinos can only be sited outside of the Beltway and near a Metro station.

That’s because of the Dillon Rule, said Mark Rozell, dean of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. Virginia adheres to the Dillon Rule, which dictates that localities can only exercise powers expressly granted to them by the state. In terms of legislating exactly where a casino can and cannot go, the state does have the authority to make that call, but that doesn’t mean it has to exercise it.

“Local governments in Dillon Rule states such as Virginia have for years pushed for greater autonomy to meet their own needs as they see best,” Rozell said. “The detailed conditions outlined in these bills suggest that state legislators do not trust localities how to figure this out for themselves. It is a bit paternalistic in my view.”

Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chair Jeff McKay has repeatedly pushed back on the notion that a county with over 1 million people and an annual budget exceeding $4.7 billion shouldn’t be trusted to make decisions not explicitly allowed by the state. In fact, this issue of the state ceding some of this decision-making authority back to Fairfax County is part of the county’s legislative agenda for this year.

“Existing local government authority must be preserved and expanded, particularly in such key areas as taxation, land use, and the protection of public health, safety, and welfare,” the agenda reads.

Asked about the casino issue, McKay’s office reiterated the “long standing position” that localities should have more authority over land use decisions but declined to take a stance on the casino legislation.

Is building a Northern Virginia casino a gamble?

Beyond the local authority issue and the increasing popularity of gaming in Virginia, the question remains if a casino within the Silver Line corridor would be a good idea for Fairfax County and Virginia.

Terry Clower, director of George Mason University’s Center for Regional Analysis and a professor of public policy, certainly doesn’t think so.

“My first thought [when seeing the bill] was why,” Clower told the Mercury. “My second thought was why the hell why.”

Casinos today are more than just gaming, explained Clower; they are huge entertainment venues and a “destination” complete with restaurants, shopping, hotels and concert halls. The justification for their development is not simply that they will attract local residents to spend money there, but that they will attract others from far and wide to bring new money to the local economy.

“That’s getting to be a much harder argument because of the ubiquitousness of the casinos themselves,” Clower said.

Currently, a very large MGM-branded casino sits across the Potomac River from Alexandria in National Harbor. Another casino is in Baltimore. Four more are under development in the commonwealth. The question becomes how many of these massive entertainment centers can be supported in the market, Clower said.

Furthermore, he said, if a casino is built but isn’t successful, it may still pull spending and revenue from other local businesses, reorienting the economy around one massive attraction and “hollowing out” surrounding neighborhoods. And, in a worst-case scenario, the casino could just close.

“Then you got this big empty shell sitting there that depresses local property until you eventually have to raze it and redevelop it,” said Clower. “Then you have lost all resources and effort.”

Despite the continued need for development, Clower said building a casino along the Silver Line would signal panic.

“I can’t help but think of it as being in a way a measure of economic development desperation,” he said.

Marsden, however, continues to call a Fairfax County casino an “intriguing idea” and notes the legislation was simply a “trial balloon” to gauge interest. He said he will propose legislation again next yet only if county officials tell him they think it’s potentially a good option.

If not, then legislation to allow for a casino to be built in the Silver Line corridor will no longer be in the cards.

“You would never see it again,” said Marsden.

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A day after neighboring Arlington County made waves by ending single-family exclusive zoning, Fairfax County saw its own zoning reforms reversed two years after they were approved.

The Virginia Supreme Court declared the county’s Zoning Ordinance Modification Project (zMOD) void yesterday (Thursday) because the new code was adopted at a mostly virtual meeting — a ruling could have consequences for other actions taken during the first years of the pandemic, as noted by Inside NoVA, which first reported the decision.

The county is now operating under its previous zoning ordinance, which had been in place since 1978, according to the zoning administration division’s website.

“We are currently evaluating the Virginia Supreme Court decision and considering our options,” Tony Castrilli, the county’s director of public affairs, said. “In the meantime, the 1978 Zoning Ordinance is presently in effect and available for reference on the County website.”

In a 29-page opinion, Justice Wesley Russell sided with four residents who argued that the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors violated the Virginia Freedom of Information Act’s open meeting requirements by not holding an in-person public hearing or vote.

The county contended that an ordinance adopted on April 14, 2020 gave it the flexibility to hold public meetings on the zoning update and other subjects electronically during the Covid state of emergency.

The Supreme Court disagreed that the ordinance allowed the county government to conduct all regular business electronically, finding that the zoning update doesn’t qualify as “necessary to ensure the continuation of essential functions and services.”

“The modification of a 40-year-old zoning ordinance after a five-year revision process does not satisfy this standard,” Russell wrote. “It is not a time-sensitive matter, and its adoption is not and was not necessary to allow the County to continue operations.”

The residents behind the lawsuit — David Berry, Carol Hawn, Helen Webb and Adrienne Whyte — filed a complaint in Fairfax County Circuit Court on March 5, 2021 seeking to prevent the board from adopting zMOD at a public hearing on March 9, 2021.

The circuit court denied the request and ultimately dismissed the complaint on Sept. 9, 2021, stating that it had been rendered moot by the adoption of zMOD on March 23, 2021 and that the county board’s emergency powers gave it the authority to act at an electronic meeting.

According to Russell’s opinion, the circuit court found that zoning “is inherently an essential act of local government” that’s especially “critical…in the context of a national emergency and state emergency because civility between neighbors is the foundation of domestic tranquility.”

In overruling the lower court, Russell pointed to the five years spent on the zoning code update, which began in 2016, and the fact that the previous ordinance had been in place for 40 years as evidence that its passage wasn’t time-sensitive and, therefore, not “essential”:

Everything about the history of Z-Mod suggests that the adoption of Z-Mod could have waited days, weeks, or months without throwing the County’s operations into even minor distress let alone chaos. Simply put, the consideration and adoption of Z-Mod was not time-sensitive, and thus, acting on it in March 2021 was neither essential nor necessary to allow for the continued operations of Fairfax County government.

The court acknowledged that Virginia adopted a new law more broadly allowing virtual public meetings during states of emergency, but that didn’t take effect until Sept. 1, 2022. The opinion doesn’t comment on the substance of the zoning changes.

Publicly launched in 2017, zMOD was intended to simplify and improve the accessibility of the existing code, which topped 1,000 pages in length.

The county also sought to update the document to better reflect modern trends in land use and development, introducing new categories like solar power facilities that didn’t exist in the 1970s and eliminating ones no longer considered relevant.

Proposals to ease restrictions on accessory living units and home-based businesses and limit the heights of flag poles emerged as the most controversial elements, inspiring five-hour-long public hearings before the board and Fairfax County Planning Commission.

As it determines how to proceed, the county says individuals and businesses can refer to the Department of Planning and Development website for updates.

Ox Hill Companies is moving forward with City Centre West, a seven-story development in Fairfax, Va., that will feature condominiums, office and medical office space.

The Fairfax City Council approved the application for development Tuesday after a five-year design process.

SEE ALSO: Brookfield Advances Plans for Former TSA HQ Near Amazon’s HQ2

Located on 1.78 acres at 10501 Main Street in Old Town Fairfax, the 210,029-square-foot mixed-use development will feature 79 condominiums and penthouses, 28,200 square feet of office space, plus an additional 8,500 square feet for medical offices. The building will also feature a drive-through bank, ground-floor retail, restaurants and a park named Corner Public Plaza Park.

Ox Hill assembled the three parcels for the project in 2019 through separate purchase agreements. The prices of the deals were not disclosed.

“The luxury condominium market is one of the least-served product types in Northern Virginia,” Chris Smith, managing principal of Ox Hill, told Commercial Observer. “Buyers of this product type have limited choices of products and locations and often leave Fairfax County for D.C. and other places. Fairfax provides a quaint walkable town, centrally located, for luxury buyers interested in a slower-paced environment and higher quality of life.”

Ox Hill is committed to — and designing in accordance with — the requirements and goals set forth in the Old Town Small Area Plan, which was part of the larger 2035 Comprehensive Small Area Plan for the City of Fairfax. The plan was originally adopted by the City Council in 2020.

“With this first project, Ox Hill will be focusing on Key Idea 5 — establishing a balanced city center with a transition into mixed-use buildings,” Smith said. “The appeal for the city is focused on the need for increasing multifamily options in Old Town. For the buyer, it provides the highest quality construction and luxury in the region.”

Amenities in the building will include a rooftop pool, concierge service and private underground parking.

Thomas Juul-Hansen, a New York City-based designer, is designing both the interior and exterior of the building.

Groundbreaking for City Centre West is expected in March, with a completion date projected by spring 2026.

Keith Loria can be reached at Kloria@commercialobserver.com.

Making the switch to solar can be easier than you think and there are many benefits, such as:

Many neighbors are opting to install solar panels on their homes, and you can too. Here are three reasons why there’s no better time to switch to solar.

Fairfax County is teaming up with the Local Energy Alliance on Solarize Virginia and Solar United Neighbors on Capital Area Solar Switch. These two programs make switching to residential solar a snap. Participants receive a free assessment and quote from a qualified solar installer, and a guaranteed discounted rate. There are even opportunities to bundle your solar system with electric vehicle charging stations and solar battery storage.

Both solar purchasing programs are offered for a limited time through the end of August.

Solarize Virginia This grassroots, community-based outreach initiative is managed by the Virginia nonprofit Local Energy Alliance Program (LEAP) in partnership with the Northern Virginia Regional Commission. Through Aug. 31, homeowners can sign up to receive a free satellite assessment to see if their home is a good fit for solar, and discounted prices from vetted installers. LEAP also provides ongoing customer support and education throughout the process to make it as streamlined as possible.

Register now for an informational webinar on July 27 at 6 p.m. to learn more

Capital Area Solar Switch Managed by national nonprofit Solar United Neighbors, Capital Area Solar Switch is a new program that provides residents living around the D.C. area with the opportunity to learn about installing rooftop solar panels, battery storage and electric vehicle charging stations for their homes. Throughout the program period ending Aug. 30, you can join free virtual and in-person information sessions on Solar 101 (solar technology, financing, and incentives), as well as sessions with solar installers.

Sign up to attend a virtual information session on Aug. 9 at 6 p.m.

As part of the Inflation Reduction Act, homeowners can also take advantage of a 30% solar tax credit by deducting a percentage of a solar energy system’s installation cost from their federal taxes with no cap on the value.

Fairfax County also offers other resources and benefits for homeowners looking to go solar, such as waived permit fees and a Solar Energy Equipment Tax Exemption.

Visit our webpages on going solar.

Members of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors joined housing officials in breaking ground Thursday on the The Lodge at Autumn Willow.

|Updated Fri, Jul 21, 2023 at 2:38 pm ET

FAIRFAX, VA — Fairfax County officials broke ground Thursday morning on The Lodge at Autumn Willow, an independent living community that will add 150 units to the county's affordable housing stock.

“We know that Fairfax County’s older adults need options to age in place affordably. These 150 units will provide people that opportunity,” said Jeffrey C. McKay, chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors in a release. “We want the people who grew roots in Fairfax County to stay in their community of choice. This development is special because it provides an affordable place for older adults to keep writing our local history.”

Once completed, 11 percent of the affordable dwelling units at The Lodge at Autumn Willow will be for older residents at or below 30 percent of the Area Median Income; 14 percent will be for residents at or below 50 percent of the AMI; and 75 percent will be for residents at or below 60 percent of the AMI.

"Getting to the moment where we break ground on an affordable housing community requires a complex set of resources and experts. That is what we do at the Fairfax County Redevelopment and Housing Authority," said RHA Chair Melissa McKenna. "We are committed to bringing together experts in the development, real estate, environmental engineering, and finance industries to create affordable housing opportunities for our community. This is especially critical for older adults, who deserve to live and thrive in their desired community."

The Lodge at Autumn Willow project is funded with $8.7 million in Housing Blueprint loans and financed via private equity raised through Low Income Housing Tax Credits. The project received energy efficient funding from the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, National Housing Trust Funds and Virginia Housing Trust Funds. Truist and Berkadia provided additional financing.

Once the project is completed, Michaels Development will manage The Lodge and FCHRA will hold a 99-year ground lease, which will ensure that the land will remain dedicated to affordable housing for the next century.

The Lodge at Autumn William is located at 13090 Autumn Willow Drive off of Stringfellow Road in the Springfield District. Construction has already commenced and is expected be completed in eight months.

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