The 1,001-dwelling Dulles Discovery easily passed the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors this week, green-lighting the age-restricted development for construction in the western end of the county.
With the planned 55-or-older community, The Peterson Companies is tapping into Fairfax County’s growing population of aging residents, which is slated to swell dramatically in the coming years. The county predicts its population of residents aged 55 to 64 will grow from 111,670 in 2005 to 123,474 by 2010, and 138,519 by 2025.
“The demographic trend in the county is there is an increasing need for housing above the age of 55,” said Jeff Saxe, senior vice president of planning for Peterson.
The development, despite its targeted nature, is still among the largest recently approved in the county, sitting on about 77 acres on the east side of Route 28 in the outlying Sully District. It comes amid a dramatic housing downturn that has some builders rethinking large-scale projects. Saxe, however, said he expects Dulles Discovery to weather the slump. “The market slowdown is a short-term phenomenon,” he said. “This project will start in 2008 and go on for 5 to 8 years.”
The development is split between villas and apartments, 120 of which will be rented out and the rest sold, Saxe said.
The Board voted unanimously at a public hearing Monday to pass a rezoning for the project. As part of the standard negotiation between builders and governments in the rezoning process, Peterson pledged to build roads linking the Air and Space Museum Parkway with Centreville Road and hold some units at lower rental rates for “work force housing,” among other proffers.
Peterson, based in Fairfax, has built about20,144 dwellings in the region, including the 1,646 home Franklin Farm in Herndon and the 2,500 condo, apartment and townhouse National Harbor in Maryland, according to the group.
