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The Fairfax County Planning Commission has deferred its recommendation on Pomeroy Companies’ revised Aurora Station at Dulles proposal until Sept. 16, citing issues that remain unresolved after a July 8 public hearing.
“We’re still not ready to move forward on this application,” Planning Commissioner Alyssa Batchelor-Causey said before the commission delayed action again on July 16.
Aurora Station is proposed for 39 vacant acres at 13710 Frying Pan Road, south of Herndon and near the Innovation Center Metro station. The property, east of Dulles International Airport, is bounded by Frying Pan Road, Sunrise Valley Drive and Mount Pleasant Baptist Church.
Pomeroy is seeking amendments to a rezoning plan, development conditions and conceptual and final development plans approved in 2019. The revisions would retain slightly more than 2 million square feet of approved overall density while shifting more of the project toward housing.
Residential development would increase by 388,000 square feet to 1.96 million square feet, while commercial development would be capped at 150,000 square feet. Depending on which alternatives are selected for individual land bays, Aurora Station could include 1,414 to 1,551 homes in four multifamily buildings and four townhouse or biplex blocks. Retail or other commercial uses, potentially including a grocery store, could be incorporated into the multifamily buildings.
The choices include replacing a senior-living option in Landbay C with either 98 stacked townhomes or biplex units. In Landbay B, the proposal calls for no more than 93 traditional townhomes or 96 stacked townhomes or biplexes.
Those alternatives leave the project’s final housing count, commercial space and affordable-housing commitment uncertain. Depending on the options chosen, 27 to 49 homes would be designated as affordable or workforce dwelling units.
County staff identified continuing concerns involving affordable housing, transportation, parks, construction phasing, pedestrian facilities and the amount of urban park space. Staff nevertheless recommended approval as a way to increase housing production in Fairfax County.
A proposed internal street has become a particular focus of the commission’s review. The road would connect Sunrise Valley Drive with Frying Pan Road, but Pomeroy’s current proposal would make it private instead of public, as contemplated in the 2019 rezoning.
Planning Commission Chair Phil Niedzielski-Eichner said that arrangement could leave future property owners responsible for maintaining an important connection through the development.
“To approve a development of this nature for a private road only and to put the onus on maintaining that system on the property owners, to me, is unfair to them,” Niedzielski-Eichner said.
Pomeroy representative Scott Adams said the company would prefer a public road, but the Virginia Department of Transportation had declined to accept it into the state’s secondary road system for maintenance. According to county staff, VDOT’s position relates to a two-legged traffic circle shown in one Landbay A option that would not meet the agency’s definition of an intersection or roundabout.
Pomeroy offered $25,000 to help the future homeowners association maintain the private road, but Niedzielski-Eichner said the amount was insufficient. Commissioners also questioned gates that would restrict vehicle access to some land bays to residents.
“We have an obligation to look out to the future,” Niedzielski-Eichner said. “We’re protecting the future community members as well as the developer’s interest.”
School capacity also surfaced during the July 8 hearing, when a resident asked how Aurora Station might affect a future elementary school contemplated in the neighboring One Sunrise Valley development. Fairfax County Public Schools had not begun planning work for that school. Pomeroy has agreed to contribute funding to offset Aurora Station’s effects on existing schools and support construction of the future school, though the supplied record does not specify the contribution’s amount or timing.
The Planning Commission is scheduled to reconsider the applications Sept. 16. Amendments covering the full conceptual development plan would then require a Fairfax County Board of Supervisors public hearing. No board hearing had been scheduled as of July 22.