Op-Ed by Myron Maslowsky, City of Fairfax Resident
In Fairfax City, affordable housing is a frequent rallying cry among our leaders. Mayor Catherine Read has repeatedly emphasized its importance to the City’s vitality and long-term growth. She’s championed diversified housing types, supportive projects like Beacon Landing, and even sought legislative changes to help religious institutions build affordable units. Those are worthy goals — but they ring hollow if other City actions make living here increasingly unaffordable.
What’s lost on Mayor Read, and her like-minded City Council members, is the detrimental effect of recent Council spending decisions on the affordability of housing. For example, recent actions such as landscaping City Hall, providing all households with trash & recycling bins, and providing re-usable grocery bags to individuals experiencing homelessness contributed to a significant jump in real property taxes in 2025. The City’s total real property assessment value jumped 6.5% and the tax rate increased 2.4%. Based on the median sales price across all home types in Fairfax City in 2025 ($805,000 according to Redfin, and Fairfax City is required by law to assess real property at 100% of Fair Market Value), the median increase in real property taxes amounted to $708, or 9%. While all of these spending actions represented “nice-to-have” projects, none of them were necessary, and the resultant increase in property taxes certainly made living in Fairfax City less affordable.
The latest in the long line of “nice-to-have” but unnecessary projects is the proposed Willard-Sherwood Health and Community Center. At a recent Working Session of the City Council, a presentation on the Center indicated a total cost of over $54 million, resulting in annual debt service and operating costs of more than $3.8 million. While it would be nice to have additional meeting rooms, a fitness center and track, locker rooms and an arts/performances space, unless other funding sources are identified, the effect on Fairfax City property owners would be a tax rate increase of $0.0433, or 4.1%. Getting back to our median property owner, that’s an increase of $350, certainly going in the wrong direction if our goal is to make housing more affordable.
Meanwhile, lurking on the horizon, is the effect on property tax rates of the $220 million of bonds approved by voters for capital improvements to the City’s schools. If the $54 million Willard-Sherwood project corresponds to a $0.0433 increase in the tax rate, a simple proportional comparison suggests the $220 million school bond could require an additional $0.17–$0.18 — though final figures would depend on financing structure and timing. That’s another $1400 for our median property owner! However, renovating and upgrading our schools is certainly a more necessary project and a better use of taxpayer monies.
The City Council would be better served to consider the overall context of its spending decisions instead of the individual merits on a stand-alone basis. If you combine the actual tax increase of 2025 with the potential effects of the Willard-Sherwood Center and the approved school bond spending, the effect on the median household’s property bill would be an increase of close to $2,500. For many homeowners — especially seniors on fixed incomes and young families already stretched by high mortgage rates — a $2,500 annual increase is not theoretical. It’s the difference between staying and leaving.
Affordable housing isn’t just about building units. It’s about ensuring that people who live here can afford to stay here. When the cost of property taxes grows faster than wages, or without clear means to offset it, the very residents the City says it wants to retain and support are the ones most at risk of being priced out.
City leaders need to stop evaluating spending decisions in isolation and start considering the cumulative tax impact on residents. There’s nothing wrong with investing in community amenities — but not at the expense of the affordability the Mayor and City Council claim to value.
If Fairfax City truly wants to lead on housing affordability, its budget priorities must align with that goal. That means scrutinizing discretionary projects, identifying alternative funding sources, and ensuring that efforts to improve our quality of life don’t inadvertently make life here unaffordable.
