5 min read

City’s Ambitious Environmental Goals Include Revamp of Community Center’s Energy Design

City’s Ambitious Environmental Goals Include Revamp of Community Center’s Energy Design
Soon to boast a new energy design: Community Center, City of Falls Church at 223 Little Falls St. Courtesy City of Falls Church.

Background: The City of Falls Church is a longtime leader in environmental sustainability.

Named the first “Green Power Community” in Virginia and a “Tree City USA” for the last 42 years straight, the City of Falls Church has long served as a role-model in environmental stewardship.

In 2009, the City formed an Energy Efficiency/Climate Change Task Group which then reformed as the Energy Transition Subcommittee of the Environmental Sustainability Council in 2016. Its mission was to “take actions to establish the City as a leader in community energy management in Virginia.” 

Of course, the goal of “community energy management” was to reduce the City’s contribution to Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GGGE), the major source of the global climate crisis. 

In 2017, the Little City approved its “2040 Vision” statement affirming it will continue to “strive to be a leader in environmental sustainability.”

Known for its cooling tree canopy: The City of Falls Church. Courtesy FC EDO, Facebook.

In Feb. 2020, the City dramatically strengthened its commitment to mitigating causes of global climate change and reducing negative environmental impacts from within the city. 

The Council voted unanimously to amend the city’s 2005 Comprehensive Plan to “update and replace” the city’s environmental policy goals with a far-reaching agenda. It replaced the old “Natural Resources and the Environment Plan” with the re-imagined “Environment for Everyone: Environmental Sustainability, Resilience, and Natural Resources” plan. 

According to the report, the “City has matched or exceeded the accomplishments of jurisdictions many times its size.” It’s been “recognized as a SolSmart community and a Community Wildlife Habitat, and has achieved Platinum certification in the Virginia Municipal League Green Community Challenge.” It also “often leads the state in recycling rates.” A tradition of volunteerism here “demonstrate[s] the community’s longstanding commitment to environmental protection and improvement” as well.

A More Ambitious Climate Agenda for the City

The City’s new environmental Vision Statement spelled out its priorities. “Environmental Leadership [is needed] to: Increase the resilience and environmental sustainability of the City by protecting, enhancing and expanding the City’s natural resources; increasing the use of green infrastructure; reducing consumption and waste of both energy and materials; and using all possible means to achieve beneficial environmental impacts and enhance community quality of life.”

In response to the publication of a “Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory” from the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG), the City responded to fresh data on “community greenhouse gas emissions” and identified “major sources of emissions,” prioritizing how to reduce them.

With the goal of “reducing energy use,” the City soon “replaced all its traffic signals and some of its streetlights with lower energy use light-emitting diode (LED) lighting” and began to adopt ambitious goals to reduce GGGEs from its public buildings. 

More Than Transportation, It’s Buildings

While many believe transportation to be the key cause of GGGEs, it’s actually buildings.

“Buildings are the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions in the City….,” the “Environment for Everyone” report said. “Building for optimum resilience contributes significantly to emissions reductions. Adding renewable energy sources and reducing the use of fossil fuels such as natural gas, as well as incorporating net‐zero‐ready building designs, can also improve building resilience and decrease greenhouse gas emissions.”

Buildings account for the majority of GGGEs. Cited in "Environment for Everyone" report.

Among the reports “proposed policy actions” were to 

  • “Strengthen the City’s green building policy for all publicly owned facilities to achieve high standards for sustainability in construction and renovation and address climate change”;
  • “Conduct energy audits and implement energy use reduction plans for public buildings. Track and publicly disclose sustainability measures such as energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in public buildings and operations...”;
  • Use renewable energy solar radiation for “passive solar heating  (controlling indoor temperatures by window shading), or solar photovoltaic panels … to convert solar radiation to electricity”; 
  • Install geothermal heat pumps (GHPs) which use the ground as a “heat source” for heating in the winter and as a “heat sink” for cooling  in the summer…”;

The report embraced the City's high environmental standards for public buildings outside the school system. “The City has a green building policy for publicly owned non-school facilities, which aims for a minimum of LEED Silver certification,” it said.  

“The City must also continue to mitigate its impact on climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, contributing what it can to address an important global issue,” the report continued. “....Infrastructure, buildings, and landscapes, should be designed or modified to reduce the impacts of weather extremes. Heat mitigation and resilience requires forethought in building, landscape, and infrastructure design.” 

“Building orientation, construction material selection and site landscaping can all contribute to optimal protection from increasing heat and extreme weather. Reducing building energy use also reduces the impact of weather extremes. In public, commercial, and residential buildings,… energy use is highest for heating, ventilation, air‐conditioning (HVAC) and lighting. The key to energy use reduction in most buildings is therefore to minimize losses by improving insulation and air sealing and using more efficient HVAC equipment and lighting.”

As part of its community action plan, “home and business owners [were] encouraged to check for energy waste using thermal cameras available at the Mary Riley Styles Public Library.”

Mayor Hardi Announces New Energy Design Installation for Community Center 

And now the ambitious plans come to the center of the community…

The Falls Church Community Center in the heart of the city at 223 Little Falls St. will soon see major renovations designed to meet the city’s ambitious climate goals. 

City of Falls Church Mayor Letty Hardi. Photo accompanying story from WTOP News, "The Mayor of Falls Church is a first-generation immigrant. Here’s why she loves ‘the little city.’ Courtesy Mayor Hardi, to WTOP.

Community Center HVAC Upgrade

Writing constituents on June 7, Mayor Letty Hardi discussed the "Community Center HVAC Upgrade" coming down the pike.

City staff have been authorized to “pursue a more energy efficient HVAC system [to] include a new geothermal system, new ductwork, and renovation of the gym since it will be impacted by the installation,” she wrote. 

Geothermal HVAC is a cleaner option that supports our adopted Government Energy Action Plan (GoEAP) to achieve carbon neutrality by 2035, not to mention long term utility and maintenance cost savings. Current cost estimate of the project is $3.9M,” Hardi said. 

“This was a relatively easy decision for us as federal tax credits offset the initial upfront cost and make geothermal HVAC comparable in cost to a traditional gas/electric system,” she continued. “The real test will be when the greener choice is more expensive upfront! Our commitment to lowering our greenhouse gas emissions is especially important in the backdrop of disheartening news of record-breaking CO2 levels this month.)”

Hardi also scoped out the scheduling impacts the refurbishment of the Community Center will have. 

  • November 2024 – February 2025 – Farmers Market will move to the Community Center parking lot (and parking will be in City Hall) during the installation of the geothermal wells.
  • February 2025 – June 2025 – Rec and Parks staff will relocate to trailers at Oak St., ongoing discussions with churches and other civic groups for alternative sites for Senior Center programming and rec classes.

No impacts anticipated for Nov 4th election and work is scheduled to complete before summer camps in 2025.


By Christopher Jones