Beacon Hill Apartments Proposal Not Recommended By Task Force

GROVETON, VA — A nomination for changes at the Beacon Hill Apartments has attracted opposition during the South County Site-Specific Plan Amendment Process. A Lee District task force meeting to discuss the Beacon Hill and two other nominations was held virtually on Monday.

The 2019-2020 South County SSPA process allowed anyone to submit a nomination for a land use change. Task forces were formed in the Lee, Mount Vernon and Mason districts to determine if they should be added to the county's Comprehensive Plan, the guiding document for land use and development decisions. The task force's decision to recommend or not recommend a nomination goes to the Fairfax County Planning Commission. If a nomination is recommended for the Comprehensive Plan, it would go to the Board of Supervisors for final approval.

Beacon Hill Apartments is currently a 734-unit low-rise apartment community. To the east is the Beacon/Groveton Community Business Center district, which is being planned as a town center because of a future Bus Rapid Transit station at Beacon Hill Road and Richmond Highway.

The South County SSPA process nomination calls for a residential use with a density of 65 to 75 dwelling units per acre with maximum building heights of three to seven stories. The current residential use allowed at Beacon Hill Apartments is 16 to 20 dwelling units per acre. The nomination also calls for incorporating the area into the Beacon/Groveton Community Business Center (CBC), as the site is close to the future Bus Rapid Transit station.

A preliminary county staff report did not recommend that the nomination be added to the Comprehensive Plan. And as Alexandria Living Magazine reported, the task force made the same recommendation at Monday's meeting.

Here's what the staff report said:

Development of the subject site at the proposed intensities that approach those planned within the CBC, prior to the implementation of the adopted Plan for the CBC, may undermine the policy of locating the highest intensity development in close proximity to the planned BRT stations, and does not provide adequate transitions between the higher density development in the CBC and the single-family neighborhoods to the west. Furthermore, the proposal would result in the potential for greater building heights than those recommended in the adjacent portions of the CBC and would likely present challenges to accommodating adequate onsite amenities such as recreational open space, buffering, and screening to the adjacent neighborhoods, all of which are central objectives of the adopted plans for development in the CBC.

Two residents who share a property boundary with the complex also wrote in opposition to the nomination. Harry P. Lehman and Anna Marie Hicks wrote that the concept drawings included with the nomination show "massive destruction of open spaces, further over arching encroachment on long standing existing single family homes, expansion into the suburban neighborhood, and no adherence to social responsibility."

More updates on the South County SSPA process are provided online.