Strategic Plan

Summary

The City of Fairfax Strategic Plan topic encompasses the city's overarching city-wide strategic planning effort as well as several domain-specific strategic plans. At the April 2025 City Council Retreat, a Strategic Plan update was scheduled as part of the morning session, but no outcome was recorded. At the January 2026 City Council Retreat, Assistant City Manager Melanie Zipp presented the existing 2023 strategic plan framework and a proposal for developing a new city-wide plan; Council provided feedback on direction, public engagement, scope, governance, equity, and strategic priorities and budget, but took no formal action. By July 2026, progress was being tracked against the broader strategic plan's 333 action items, with 88 updated since the prior January review across categories including land use, multimodal transportation, economic vitality, and community services. Several domain-specific strategic plans have reached completion or adoption during this period: the Affordable Housing Strategic Plan was adopted in spring 2026, and the Commission on the Arts Strategic Plan is complete. A Sustainability Strategic Plan is identified as a planned future initiative, currently slated for FY2028 and beyond.

Open questions & options on the table

• No formal Council action has been taken on the proposal for a new city-wide strategic plan; the direction, scope, and timeline for developing that plan remain unresolved.
• The Sustainability Strategic Plan is listed as a future priority (FY2028 and beyond) but has not yet been initiated; its schedule is noted as subject to change.
• The July 2026 action item progress report (88 of 333 items updated) reflects an interim status; the full implementation of remaining action items across all plan categories is ongoing and unresolved.

What members have said

Positions as recorded in meeting minutes; votes without recorded comment aren’t summarized.

Discussion time

Minutes of named discussion per transcribed meeting.