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Legislation roundup: Fairfax staff identify bills on short-term rentals, ADUs, faith-based housing, data centers, and parking tax concerns
Summary
County staff reviewed a wide set of pending bills, recommending positions or monitoring steps on issues from short-term rental registries to accessory dwelling unit limits, data center studies, and a proposed parking-space tax for Northern Virginia.
At its January meeting the Legislative Committee reviewed numerous bills filed in the 2025 General Assembly session that staff said merit positions, monitoring or further work with patrons.
Short-term rental registry (HB 1557): County staff described a state-run registry for short-term rentals and recommended supporting a version that would share more information with localities than past proposals. Staff said prior registries sometimes withheld addresses and remittance detail, hampering local auditing.
Project labor agreements (HB 1570): Staff recommended opposing a bill that would repeal the 2020 allowance for local use of project labor agreements; Fairfax identified the 2020 law as a county priority and advised opposition to repeal.
Accessory dwelling units (HB 1832 and related): Staff recommended opposing a permissive statewide ADU mandate that they said removes local ability to tailor size, attachment rules and special-use protections, arguing one-size-fits-all statewide ADU rules could allow detached units that in practice function as full houses.
Faith-based affordable housing (SB 1351 and related bills): Staff said one bill would allow religious or nonprofit property owners to build affordable housing by right on land owned before July 1, 2023, with only 40% of units required to be affordable and possibly unlimited density. Staff recommended opposing the bill and proposed seeking carve-outs or other language that preserves the county’s local planning and existing county programs that expedite faith‑community housing.
Housing growth and zoning bills (SB 975 and SB 839): Staff recommended opposing measures that would require localities to increase housing stock by a fixed statewide percentage or require by‑right residential use in all commercial zones, citing concerns about a one-size-fits-all mandate, local entitlement versus building realities, and infrastructure compatibility.
Data-center and utility studies (SB 960): Staff recommended supporting a State Corporation Commission study to examine whether electric customers broadly are subsidizing data centers’ energy use; staff said many related bills are expected and the county will continue to bring them forward for action together.
Parking-space tax to fund bike/ped improvements (SB 1007): Staff and several supervisors raised technical and equity concerns about a proposed 50¢ annual tax per off-street parking space across Northern Virginia that would route funds through NVTA. Tax administration staff said jurisdictions do not have readily accessible, auditable inventories of all parking spaces and that collection costs could absorb a large share of revenue; staff recommended extensive revision before support.
Other bills discussed included proposals on solar-site zoning changes, speed-camera authority on federal parkways, transit contractor labor rules, and changes to transient-occupancy tax treatment for longer short-term rentals. In many cases staff recommended opposing bills that would pre-empt local land‑use authority or create new unfunded administrative burdens and recommended monitoring bills that require more study.
Next steps: Staff said they will return to the board with refined recommendations and will seek to coordinate negotiation and technical fixes with bill patrons and the county delegation.
