Land Use Committee backs concept of standalone Healthy Communities element for county plan

The Fairfax County Land Use Policy Committee on Monday reviewed staff proposals to add a standalone "Healthy Communities" element to the county comprehensive policy plan, with planners asking for guidance on five proposed topic areas and the board outlining next steps for outreach and draft text.

Anna Rickland, Health and All Policies manager with the Fairfax County Health Department, told the committee the proposal responds to evidence linking land use and community design to health outcomes and to direction in the countywide strategic plan to integrate health and equity into planning. "Public health is what we're doing together as a society to ensure the conditions where everyone can be healthy," Rickland said during the presentation.

Rickland and Corinne Bebek of the Department of Planning and Development proposed five interrelated categories for the new element: health care and human services; active living and safe transportation (parks, trails, sidewalks); food production and access; social connections and placemaking; and green infrastructure and climate health. Staff showed county maps of physical inactivity (CDC data), pedestrian fatalities (2015'023) and census-tract heart-disease rates as examples of place-based data they plan to use to guide policy priorities.

The committee heard examples of existing references to health in local and regional planning documents, including the countywide strategic plan, the American Planning Association's Healthy Communities Policy Guide, the Reston Plan, the City of Fairfax policy framework and neighboring Prince George's County and Charlotte comprehensive plans. Bebek said the new element would be integrated with — not duplicative of — other plan chapters such as transportation and environment, and that some existing human-services content would be folded into the health element while other parts would remain in public facilities.

Supervisors generally supported the five-topic framework but raised questions about implementation and emphasis. Supervisor Palcic said the proposal addresses aging and demographic change and noted the potential role of placemaking and safer separated bike lanes in building social connection. Supervisor Alcorn and others urged staff to avoid redundancy with existing text and to show how the new element would guide public investments. Supervisor Stork said health data should be analyzed with age distribution to avoid conflating older populations with poverty-related drivers of disease and urged language that makes healthy food and health-care access the default option, not merely an aspiration. Supervisor Herrity pointed to Burke as an example of an older planned community that has healthy infrastructure despite its age and asked staff to consider costs developers would face to meet any new standards, particularly for affordable housing projects.

Bebek described the outreach and schedule: community meetings in the first two weeks of February, a staff community feedback report afterward, draft plan text to the board and planning commission in the spring/summer and staff'prepared reports and a target for public hearings in fall 2025. "We will be coming to the board and the planning commission to discuss draft text," Bebek said, adding that further changes could follow public comment.

Committee members asked staff to return with clearer cross-references to existing plan language (so readers can find related transportation, tree canopy and facility policies), age- and equity-focused implementation options, and a more detailed timeline for community outreach and when the board would see draft language.

Next steps: staff will issue a community feedback report after February meetings, prepare draft text for review by the planning commission and the board, and aim for public hearings in the fall of 2025.