The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors postponed its vote on a plan to build 13 single-family homes on the Wolf Trap Nursery site on Leesburg Pike.

The board deferred the public hearing on rezoning application RZ-2025-DR-00021 from Sekas Homes, according to the Oct. 13 board minutes. The hearing had been scheduled for 3:30 p.m. that day. No reason for the deferral appears in the minutes.

As we reported Oct. 8, the Fairfax County Planning Commission recommended approval of the proposal at its Sept. 30 hearing. Vienna-based Sekas Homes wants to rezone the 6.58-acre property at 9439 Leesburg Pike from R-1 to PDH-2, a planned development housing district allowing up to two homes per acre.

The application was originally scheduled for a March 18 Planning Commission hearing but was continued multiple times before the Sept. 30 session, according to county records.

The proposed neighborhood, called Castleton Hills, would include 13 detached houses at a density of 1.97 units per acre, with an average lot size of 12,400 square feet. The layout places about 50 feet between the homes and Leesburg Pike.

Tree preservation is a central issue in the plan. Only 5,381 square feet of canopy would be saved, falling nearly 40,000 square feet short of the county's requirement. Sekas Homes is seeking a deviation from that standard, citing the poor condition of existing trees.

Mike Van Atta, acquisitions and development leader for Sekas Homes, told the Planning Commission on Sept. 30 that healthy trees were scattered across the site rather than clustered in one area. "That's always been a challenge with this application, but it's an infill residential development. There are a lot of different things we're balancing here, and this was really the best we could do," Van Atta said at that hearing, as FFXnow reported.

To offset the shortfall, Sekas Homes proffered funds for offsite landscaping improvements. The spending would be coordinated with the Fairfax County Forest Conservation Branch and Dranesville District Supervisor Jimmy Bierman's office. Those funds could pay for new plantings and removal of invasive species elsewhere in the district.

The plan also calls for new sidewalks, a community gathering area, an updated shared-use trail along Route 7 and removal of one of the nursery's two curb cuts on Leesburg Pike.

Wolf Trap Nursery has served the area since 1972. It announced on its website that it would begin winding down operations at the end of June.

A closing sale is underway.

The rescheduled public hearing is set for 3 p.m. Oct. 27 at the Fairfax County Government Center, 12000 Government Center Parkway in Fairfax.