If you have books that you no longer need, there are two places to donate them to:

One is our Tysons-Pimmit Regional Library on Route 7. You can donate books, audio CD and video DVDs to them at any time. They hold used books sales every few months. Their next sale is April 14 & 15.

The other is the local chapter of the American Association of University Women:

From Fairfax County: The Fairfax County Animal Shelter is experiencing the positive results of a trap, neuter and return (TNR) program that the municipal agency enacted in October 2008. Since the humane solution was implemented for feral cats (outdoor cats not socialized to people), the shelter has noted a significant decrease in the number of feline offspring entering the shelter’s foster care program.

The shelter saw a 58 percent decrease in the number of feral offspring in the shelter’s foster care program in 2011 versus in 2010. In addition, foster data from 2008 through 2011 show a 41 percent decrease in the number of bottle-fed kittens entering the shelter and a 9 percent decrease in the total number of kittens less than 8 weeks of age (pediatric kittens) needing foster care when comparing 2010 to 2011.

The above is the title of a blog post from the blog Greater Greater Washington and the article and comments are interesting to read and relevant for us in Pimmit Hills. Some of the comments refer to the impact the redevelopment of Tysons Corner will have on its next door neighbor--us. Read More

From Fairfax County Police: An 86-year-old Springfield area woman was told last week she had won the lottery. But there was a catch; she needed to wire money to the “caller” in order to collect her winnings. She did as she was asked.

A 91-year-old Fair Oaks area man was upset and concerned when he got a call from his “grandson” who said he’d been arrested and jailed in Peru a few weeks ago. Doing what any loving grandparent would, the man wired over $13,000 in an attempt to help.

An 80-year-old woman wired $4,800 to Bolivia to her “granddaughter” who was there for a wedding and had gotten into a serious accident; then sent $5000 more for medical expenses.

From Fairfax County:

At its January 24 meeting, the Board of Supervisors endorsed the Tysons Corner Urban Design Guidelines.

Tysons Urban Design Guidelines

While the land use plan for the area sets out the vision for Tysons as a walkable, green, urban center, these guidelines give specific recommendations on how to achieve this goal through urban design. The new guidelines offer principles for the design of streets, sidewalks, street lighting, signage, parks and buildings.

From Dranesville District Supervisor John Foust:

Dranesville District Dispatch January 2012 newsletter (.pdf)

Dear Dranesville Resident: Happy New Year! Best wishes to you and your family in the coming year. I hope all of you are enjoying this relatively mild winter.

The next Pimmit Hills Citizens Association (PHCA) Community Meeting will be held on Tuesday, March 6, 2012 at 7:30pm at the Pimmit High Center (school) on Lisle Avenue. This is going to be a very important meeting and we would like to have as much community input as possible. A town vote on an important issue will be taken.

At this meeting, the association will be getting a presentation on a Fairfax County proposal to tear down the Barns on Cherri Drive and build a universally accessible house for six physically disabled people, a group home.

Million dollar homes in Pimmit Hills! Take a look at this stat: 8 homes are available for sale in Pimmit Hills as of 1/19/2012. The lowest priced one is a 3br/2ba listed at $379,000 and the highest is priced is a 8br/8.5ba at $1,299,000. Houses in Pimmit Hills are really changing. Read a 2011 Pimmit Hills real estate report from Soldsense: Real estate in the Pimmit Hills subdivision in Falls Church did great in 2011. Over 50 homes sold during 2011 and at a higher “similar home average” than in 2010. The increase in prices is not that significant but the trend seems clear – prices have stabilized and are slowly increasing (graph later in this post.) So, is the turnaround in prices here to stay? Are there still forclosures and short sales in the pipeline? And how long is the typical home taking to sell this year as compared to last year? Read on and you will get the information needed to answer those questions! [Read the rest plus see charts/graphs about home sale and rent prices in Pimmit Hills]

The inaugural Pimmit Hills Environmental Committee cleanup was a great success. 19 volunteers braved the cold weather on the Martin Luther King Jr holiday to collect eight bags of trash from Pimmit Run between Lemon Road and Olney parks. Volunteers also removed invasive vines such as English ivy, Bush Honeysuckle and Japanese Honeysuckle.

From the Washington Post: AEW Capital Management, following the lead of other Tysons Corner landowners recently, has decided to put three sites zoned for high-rise apartment buildings up for sale to interested developers.

The properties make up 2.59 acres along Fashion Boulevard behind Tysons Corner Center Mall, in a 19.5 acre development called Towers Crescent. The larger development already includes four office buildings, the most recent of which is 850 Towers Crescent Dr., a 13-story, 295,000-square-foot office building that AEW built with Quadrangle Development.