Planning Commission Regular Meeting/Work Session

Good evening. Welcome to the regularly scheduled meeting of the City of Fairfax Planning Commission for Monday, May 11, 2026. First order of business is the Pledge of Allegiance. Please join me. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Next order of business is discussion and adoption of the agenda. The agenda was issued ahead of time as required. Are there any proposed changes to the agenda? No, I'll entertain a motion. Mr. Chairman, I move the agenda be adopted as presented. Is there a second? Second. It's been moved and seconded to adopt the agenda as presented.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions passes unanimously. Next order of business is presentation by the public on any matter not calling for a public hearing. We do have one public hearing this evening. Anybody who would like to address the commission at this time is welcome to do so. Seeing no volunteers, we will move on to the next item, which is consideration of the minutes from the April 13, 2026 Planning Commission. Those were issued ahead of time as well. Any comments, corrections, or amendments to those? If not? Mr. Chair, I move that the commission adopt the meeting minutes from the April 13, 2026 regular meeting as presented. Second. It's been moved and seconded to approve the minutes as presented.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Passes unanimously. Next item on the agenda is items not requiring a public hearing. We have none of those items, so we'll move on to our public hearing agenda item, which are proposed amendments to the Code of the City of Fairfax, Chapter 86 on subdivisions, to amend portions of the articles and sections contained therein, including but not limited to administration. Mr. Napty. Thank you, Chair Feather and members of the Planning Commission. As was briefly described to the Planning Commission when this was initiated last month, there were changes to the Code of Virginia on the required review times for subdivision plats by the zoning administrator.

And so the purpose of these amendments as shown in your packet is to adjust our review times to meet those. You'll notice that you had two blue sheets with you when you came in today. These are changes that came from, that were made since the staff report was sent out. The change we made was that the original recommendation was to change the review period from 60 days to 45 days. We're now recommending changing that from 60 to 40. The reason for that is that there are different types of subdivisions reviews that are defined in the state code. There are preliminary plats. These are kind of initial plats that go forward for a higher level review before we get to final plats. And then there are the final plats.

And then these specific amendments apply to final plats. And just for the Planning Commission's reference, as you may be aware, preliminary plats do come to the Planning Commission for consideration if there are more than 50 lots. Otherwise, everything for subdivisions is administrative. And so there is some confusion about how this applied. Also, in speaking to our zoning staff who review these plans, they typically review all plats, at least the first submission, within 40 days anyway, so they don't have to distinguish between whether they're preliminary or final, because often they are simple enough that they can just go through one review and not have to define them or go through the multiple-step process.

So that's the reason we're recommending that we go with 40 days instead of 45. We will still be in compliance with state code. The second edit is later in that paragraph. It says that subsequent submissions shall be reviewed in accordance with Code of Virginia. The reason that we are now referencing Code of Virginia rather than a specific number of days is that with the amendments that were made to the Code of Virginia in 2025, there is now kind of a step-by-step process and multiple options for subsequent reviews. So the first review is required to be within the 40-day period as we described. But then subsequent reviews can vary depending on whether or not an outside agency such as VDOT has to review it,

whether or not there has been a previous disapproval of the same application, and it also varies by the number of submissions. So the first couple of submissions start with 30 days, and as it goes further on, they have to get shorter and shorter. So rather than try to describe all of that and then recognize that that may change from time to time, we thought it would be best just to reference the Code of Virginia than list it all in our own ordinance. So those are the two amendments that are proposed. I'm happy to answer any questions. Are there any questions for staff? Okay. I will open the public hearing for any comments that may be warranted for this agenda item. Seeing none, we will close the public hearing and put this matter in the hands of the Commission.

Is there a motion? Mr. Chair, I move that the Planning Commission recommend that the City Council approve this proposed ordinance amending Chapter 86, Subdivisions of the Code of the City of Fairfax, Virginia, to amend portions of articles and sections contained therein, including but not limited to administration. Is there a second? Second. We move and seconded to adopt these changes to the City Council for approval. Any further discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Seeing none, the motion passes unanimously. Thank you, Mr. Napdy. Next order of business is to recess our regular meeting and go into our work session, which is a discussion of a potential formal review process for parcel-specific considerations

in the comprehensive plan. Mr. Napdy. Thank you, Chair Feather and members of the Planning Commission. For a quick background on this discussion, the parcel-specific considerations are a section of the comprehensive plan that are tied to the future land use map. This section was added with the 2019 update to the comprehensive plan, and the purpose is to identify specific parcels throughout the city that have an identified identification on the future land use map. But for various reasons, the city recognized that there may be alternatives to consider for future land use on those parcels. That could have to do with market conditions, unique conditions on the site, particularly large parcels that have different types of development opportunities.

And so the parcel-specific considerations provides text to go along with specific parcels to describe what alternatives could be considered on those sites rather than change the actual future land use map from the primary designation. With the 2024 update to the comprehensive plan, the Planning Commission went through a discussion on whether to support additional opportunities for mixed-use development outside activity centers. Prior to that time, activity centers were the only places in the city where mixed-use development, mixed-use being residential and commercial in the same building, could be supported. And so the Planning Commission decided that it would be ideal to be able to support mixed-use development outside activity centers but on a limited basis.

And the parcel-specific considerations were seen as the ideal tool to manage this. That way the descriptions on where we could support future mixed-use development could be identified on the parcel-specific considerations, but we wouldn't proactively amend the future land use map. So we'll go into that in more detail. I just wanted to provide more explanation of the purpose of this discussion. The Planning Commission did ask if we could discuss what the process would be if somebody who has a property that is not identified, that is not an activity center, and is not already identified with the parcel-specific consideration that supports mixed-use, wanted to move forward with some kind of mixed-use development.

Is there a process or should there be a process for the city to be able to consider that? And so we'll go through that. We'll start off with this presentation by providing an overview of the discussions that we went through when we were developing the comprehensive plan of 2024 where we used the partial-specific considerations, why we chose that route and how it's being used, and then we can open discussion on whether we want to establish a formal process and what our options might look like if we do that. So for background, this is a slide from when we were amending the comprehensive plan of 2024. Planning Commissioners who were here at the time might recall that we discussed several options

about how we could accommodate mixed-use development outside activity centers, and we settled on the parcel-specific considerations as the ideal process. And with this, we established a new mixed-use place type, similar to our activity center place types, our residential place types, our commercial place types. The mixed-use place type could be used outside activity centers, but it would not be proactively mapped on the future land-use map. Instead, we would rely on the parcel-specific considerations, and for those parcels where we thought mixed-use development might make sense, we could provide a text description of why it would make sense and what kind of conditions we would support it. But the underlying place type on the future land-use map would stay as it is for those sites.

So through this process, the locations of where additional mixed-use development would be identified would be through the parcel-specific considerations, but the design aspects of that would be through the standards for the mixed-use place type, and then further supported by some of the specific text in the parcel-specific considerations. So we'll go through and explain that as well. So in the comprehensive plan, the mixed-use place type has much more description than this, but this is just a quick summary of the design standards that apply generally to the mixed-use place type. So it could apply to any site that happens to have this place type. So this varies from height and density to various design elements

to ensure that it creates a pedestrian-oriented environment. And looking at the future land-use map, as I mentioned, the mixed-use place type was not proactively mapped, so the purple areas are our activity centers. And then you'll see those two white arrows pointing to the lighter purple colors. Those are the two sites that we ended up settling on to establish a parcel-specific consideration that would support the mixed-use place type as an alternative for those two sites. The underlying place type, as I mentioned, for those two sites remained. The one on the bottom is the Anova site, which is a social-civic network place type, and then the one on the right, or the bottom right, is Fairfax Square,

which the underlying place type is commercial corridor. And just for reference, we want to point out there are several other parcel-specific considerations, too. As we mentioned, this was developed in 2019, not just with the intent of supporting mixed-use development. So all these numbers on here reflect where we have a parcel-specific consideration text description in the comprehensive plan. Numbers one and two on this map are the two that support mixed-use development. For the Anova site, number one, before the 2024 update, we actually already had language that supported mixed-use development on that site. But there was no place type that could go along with it if that were ever to conform to redevelopment.

Number two is Fairfax Square. And in this case, as the comprehensive plan was open for review at that time, property representatives from that property approached us and asked about being included in this as well. And they participated throughout the process and reviewed as we were developing language for that site and so on. And that ended up being incorporated into the final amendments for that comprehensive plan amendment. So as I mentioned, with the parcel-specific considerations for each site, there is text descriptions that go along with it that describe specifics of why alternative uses could be supported on those sites, as well as specifics about design beyond just what's in the general mixed-use place type.

So these are the two. These are the parcel-specific considerations for those two sites where the mixed-use place type is supported as an alternative. And just for reference, without reading through all of them in detail, for the ANOVA site, some of the general language includes recommendations for commercial on the Cambridge Road side of the site and then transitioning to residential and to the University Drive site and to have transitions with scale toward neighborhoods on the north, south, and east. For the Fairfax Square site, the general language supports integrating any future development into the surrounding multifamily development. And to maintain the commercial presence that's there today.

So to summarize, the way things are set up now, based on the amendments that were made to the comprehensive plan of 2024, the places where mixed-use development can be considered in the city are within our activity centers, as it was before, along with these two additional sites that were identified through that review process where a parcel-specific consideration was identified in the comprehensive plan for those two sites that supports mixed-use development. Again, if development were to proceed on either of those sites, they would still have to request a comprehensive plan, an amendment to the comprehensive plan future land use map. Such an amendment could be supported by the place type or by the parcel-specific consideration.

Aside from that, residential uses are not supported in commercial corridors, and commercial uses are not supported in residential place types. So basically outside of those two conditions, an activity center or a parcel-specific consideration that specifically promotes the mixed-use place type, mixed-use development cannot be supported through the comprehensive plan at any other location in the city. So the question then comes up, what happens if a property owner wants to come forward with a proposal for mixed-use development that is not in one of these two locations? Can the city even accept it for review or support it, which is essentially the genesis of today's conversation? So in looking at this, we have identified a couple of options about how we could establish a process

to allow such reviews, and we want to acknowledge that even though we don't have a defined process now, there is still a process where such a development could happen. And so we wanted to point out, I'll go through these three options that we have. The first being no out-of-turn request means that we are relying on our five-year review for such amendments to occur. That's essentially our current process since nothing is defined. There are some caveats to that, which I'll explain. Second is a shortened cycle comprehensive plan review, where we have a window where we allow people to apply for these types of amendments. And the last is for out-of-turn requests to be accepted, where somebody can apply at any time.

I did want to point out that it's important to distinguish between text amendments to the comprehensive plan and map amendments. We currently accept map amendments to the comprehensive plan in conjunction with rezonings and other land use requests. Map amendments are a fairly light load. They don't require the type of outreach and other efforts that would be required of a text amendment where we're actually generating text. I also want to clarify, an amendment to the comprehensive plan is different from a rezoning because the comprehensive plan belongs to the city. So when we are amending it, it is the city that is taking on the effort as opposed to an applicant or a developer who goes through the main efforts when they're going through a rezoning request.

So that means we're doing our own analysis. We're doing our outreach. We're in the case of a rezoning or a developer-led effort. They are doing the majority of that work. I also want to point out and the, we did kind of some high-level research and looked at what other jurisdictions do. So, and to no surprise, map amendments to the comprehensive plan or a process for map amendments to the comprehensive plan are pretty common in Virginia. Most jurisdictions have a way of accepting that. But processes for text amendments are very uncommon. And actually, we couldn't find any examples of what we've looked at so far. We haven't looked at every jurisdiction in Virginia. But it is not something that most places have set up to accept proactively.

So in looking at our three options, I'll start with the no out-of-turn request. So our current process, again, where we would rely on the five-year review process. So to clarify, again, with our current process, we currently do accept requests for amendments to the future land use map, not amendments to the text of the comprehensive plan. The amendments that request that we get to the future land use map are usually tied to a rezoning or other land use application. And we review them in conjunction with each other. And the planning commission or the city council and or the city council takes action on the comprehensive plan map amendment at the same time that they take action on the land use request.

There is no defined venue to request a parcel-specific consideration or other text amendment. So as a reminder here, we're considering amendments to the parcel-specific considerations, a text amendment, not a map amendment. So it's a different type of process. And we have no defined way of accepting a request for that. So as a setup, so the fact that we don't have a defined process means that the only time that somebody could request such a change would be during our regular five-year review as required by state code. When we opened the comprehensive plan during a five-year review, we're open for anything. As those planning commissioners that participate in our last review may recall, we looked at the whole comprehensive plan.

We had public outreach. So people had opportunities to come and suggest changes. And actually, in the case of the Fairfax Square property, that is when that property owner became involved and ultimately influenced the outcome for their property in the comprehensive plan. I should point out, though, as a caveat to this, the planning commission or city council, by state law, can initiate a review of the comprehensive plan at any time through a positive vote. So this means that really, even though we are only opening our comprehensive plan every five years by following state code, if you tell us to do it at another time, we will do it. And we recognize, though, that this puts the planning commission or city council, whoever wants to take that action,

in a precarious position about when they would want to do this, would they support an individual property. So I just wanted to let you know that it is an option, though it probably isn't ideal. The second option is a shortened cycle review. And so this is a process that Fairfax County developed a number of years ago and has been refining ever since then, and I think they have it in a pretty good place the way they are now, where essentially they open or they provide a window for requests to be made for text amendments to their comprehensive plan at certain times. It started off every three years and it bounced around to different areas. They've gotten it down to us every two years, and the whole county is open at once.

Fairfax County is a little bit unique with their comprehensive plan because in many cases, they have language that's similar to our partial specific considerations for properties across a wide area. And so when they are opening their comprehensive plan for text amendments, they really mean this language about a specific site, similar to our partial specific considerations. And there aren't very many examples like this in the state, and so this is one of the few cases where there actually is a comprehensive plan review period outside of the typical five-year review because they have this unique type of situation, which we also now have, though on a more limited basis. And so the way this process works is that they have this announcement.

They open up the entire county for opportunities for people to request amendments to a specific site. And as I mentioned, this happens now every two years, and the map on the right shows all the sites throughout the county that they received in the last cycle, which was in 2025. And you can see in this map that there are some locations where there are bunches of sites that are in close proximity to each other. So this provides an advantage to the county because when they receive multiple proposals in the same area, they can then establish essentially an area plan where they look at the whole area, what the impacts would be if all of these sites changed where they wanted them to, and look at them in coordination with each other.

And then they go through a process of, as I mentioned before, the county leads the process for the amendments, not the proposers. And so the county has to do their own analysis. Some of these are done in conjunction with the rezoning. And so it gets a little bit strange because a developer will be going through their own analysis and outreach for rezoning at the same time that the county is doing the same thing for the comprehensive plan amendment. But, again, the benefit to them is that they can not only look at specific sites as changes happen, but when they get these clusters together, it really allows them to look at a more holistic approach, which is the way a comprehensive plan should be reviewed.

And then, lastly, out-of-turn requests. As I mentioned, we couldn't find any examples of where this is used in Virginia, but essentially this would function just like a rezoning application where we would have a form that somebody could request an amendment to the comprehensive plan text at any time. And so they would submit the materials, explain why they're proposing the request, and then the city would go through the process of initiating the amendment. Again, we would have to do our own analysis and do our own outreach because the comprehensive plan belongs to us, not to the property owners. And then we could then review these concurrently with rezoning requests, similar to how we do our future land use amendments today.

And as I mentioned on the bottom, we'd have to determine how we would coordinate cities outreach with developer outreach, recognizing that they're going on at the same time. It could lead to confusion. So the benefits of this approach, obviously, are that the changes could happen at any time. We wouldn't be slowing down development based on the comprehensive plan. But the caveats being that this essentially defeats the purpose of the comprehensive plan to have a longer-term vision, that we shouldn't be looking piecemeal at site by site. We should be looking more holistically. And so that is that option. So at this point, staff recommendation is to maintain the process that we have now. Although we say we have no process,

it essentially means that we are defaulting to our five-year review. And if necessary, the planning commission or city council could initiate an amendment at any time. The reason we are recommending not changes at this time is that we believe that amendments to the comprehensive plan text or to the parcel-specific considerations should account for longer-term policy shifts and market trends, the same reasons that we make any amendments to our comprehensive plan every five years. It shouldn't be to account for piecemeal desires based on specific sites. Our current structure is recent. This was just approved with the 2024 update. And we haven't seen that there is really a need to make any changes at this point.

There is concern that this may burden staff time, particularly with the second option compared to what the Fairfax County has, where we have a shorter window than the five-year review. As I mentioned, there are benefits to that. But the one caveat is that in order to do that, there is a process that staff would have to set up in order to announce that it is a time to accept applications and receive them and determine how to proceed. And recognizing that we are much smaller than the county, we may receive little to no response after going through that effort. And then lastly, I just wanted to provide the reminder that the current unofficial process is still an option. A property owner could wait for that five-year review, or the Plenty Commission or City Council could initiate an amendment

if they felt strongly enough about any particular type of proposal. So that's what we have for our presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions. We hope to receive feedback from the Planning Commission on thoughts about this. I want to mention we have not scheduled discussion with City Council on this yet. We want to see how this conversation goes first before we bring it to them. So thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Naphti. Comments or questions from the Commission? Ms. Lockhart. I just have a kind of scene-setting question. This seems geared towards specifically converting something to a mixed-use designation. Are there any other comp plan text amendments you would anticipate a developer bringing forward that we should be thinking about?

We would not likely recommend that. I think, as I mentioned, we haven't looked at every jurisdiction in Virginia, but the only example we could find of a jurisdiction that supports text amendments is Fairfax County because of their partial-specific consideration-like amendments. In all of those, property owners are requesting changes just for their property. If we start to support opportunities for people to request amendments outside something that's just focused on a specific property, then we get into a lot of concern about how a particular text change could affect something greater than we anticipate because, in Texas, it's generally intended to be broad, not just applied to a single property.

So if we're making a change, it's going to affect more than just we're thinking of. It could affect a property over here. It could affect some policy. And so when we go through our typical conference of plan review, that's all built in the process. If we are accepting just a specific consideration that we're basically opening up a larger type of review, but in a smaller context, which there's no ideal process for. Okay. Yeah, I mean, I couldn't necessarily think of a specific example. The closest I could get was if there was some conversion of current industrial to something more commercial or even studio usage, something of that effect. Would that be significant enough of a change to be a new designation?

It could be. And I would say in that type of case, as we mentioned, the Planning Commission City Council can request an initiation at any time. And I think the concerning part about that is if it is about a specific parcel. But if it's a more broad topic like that, I think that's more common, where you might receive a presentation from Economic Development, for example, who says the city should be more accommodating to this type of use in industrial areas or commercial areas. And then the Planning Commission then say, okay, well, staff, go and research this. We would like to initiate an amendment. And I think that's perfectly normal and acceptable to do. Okay. I mean, I'm always going to have a bias behind having an actual process versus a wait and see.

I just think that we are piecemeal approach to kind of continually do bad decisions or, you know, no decision, as the case may be. So my vote would be for having the request available, but I would also be open to the having it available on a schedule, whether that's every two years or 18 months, you know, some accelerated schedule versus every five years. Okay. Mr. Rice. I'm going to use the wrong microphone based on this one having a little feedback. Changes every five years. Seems a little slower than the pace at which we might want to react to something happening. Having it be available all the time does seem concerning. And so a middle ground does seem to be some schedule that's more frequent than five years, maybe a three-year schedule.

And a three-year schedule does seem to reflect the movement of certain big projects that might be coming through. I think that when we hear something like this, it will only be a big project, and that will be something that's taken time to be put together with ideas about financing and logistics and planning. And a two- or three-year schedule seems to meet the sort of timing that those big projects happening. But I do recognize the burden that that would place on staff. And I think what we're doing now is adequate, but it doesn't seem perhaps to be frequent enough. Anyway, I know those aren't super coherent thoughts, but in general, I agree with Commissioner Lockhart. Mr. McCarthy, any comments, questions?

Yeah. I would just say to kind of be on the other side of that coin, I would be hesitant to have, you know, where you created a framework where parcel-specific amendments started to become so common that they, like, undermine the predictability of the comp plan. I don't know where that sweet spot goes, but that's just a thought I would have. Mr. Cunningham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess it's time for the history lesson or whatever. And what I will say is that I think the task of the Planning Commission is to understand what goes on in the city because we're not very big and to look forward and try to anticipate those kinds of things. That being said, I will say that I think the genesis to this project or process started 11, 12 years ago

with a project called Oak Knolls that is now known as Mount Vineyard. And when that project started, the city had no capability to approve it in its written ordinances. And so we ended up working with the Planning Commission and staff trying to come up with ways to make that possible. And the additional beneficiary of that was the enclave in terms of changing the kind of development on sites and moving as we were moving toward greater residential development. And I think that's the same time in which in the comp plan and that we started to talk about parcel-specific recommendations. And at that time, we had many more than the two that are in there right now. But that being said, the next project that came along that I think caught the entire city flat-footed and unaware

was a large educational institution that chose to move. And no one on the Planning Commission or in the city had thought to think ahead to what you actually wanted on that parcel. And so we spent several years trying to figure out how that parcel was going to be used. And today you can see the end result of that process. I think what you've got now with two properties identified for this kind of activity is good. But I would ask, are there additional properties in the city that should be looked at? Because one is a very large piece of green space, which eight years ago came to an agreement with the city for a 10-year agreement with the right to renew. And that agreement, I believe, comes up in the next year or two for renewal.

And initially, we talked about what would you want to put on that parcel if the existing use were not going to continue. And we never have come to grips with that. So I would say that it's important that the city do its due diligence on that parcel over the next two years and see what's going to happen with the renewal. Because if the renewal goes, we can kick the can down the road for 10 more years, and it has no impact. But if for some reason that should derail, that is a major parcel that I think would fall under what we're talking about. And its current by right redevelopment process is not something I think the city really wants. I think there are much better uses. But if we are on the tail end chasing what those uses are,

I don't think that leaves us in an enviable position. I think if the time and effort were put into determining what we would want there, we are far better prepared to deal with eventualities, which is what we're talking about in this with site-specific parcels for redevelopment in different ways, then we would be. And again, as I say, if due diligence is done and there's going to be a renewal for another 10 years, there's no sense of urgency. But if that is not the case, then I don't think we're really in much of a position to scramble if something we're going to change to impact and be proactive rather than reactive. And I don't know if that makes any sense to my fellow planning commissioners,

but that's what I would say we're looking at here. I think every five years is reasonable with what you're talking about and leaving it as it is is fine. Because if we do our homework and understand what's going on in the city, these kinds of things shouldn't be popping up out of the blue to catch us by surprise. And we should have a process that can anticipate it. Or, as we said 10, 12 years ago, when Oak Knolls became Mount Vineyard, we can figure out the process and how to amend it if that's what we really want. Because that was a case of something that we wanted to happen and we found a way to make it happen, even though we didn't have current rules to do it. So I think we're in a good position either way

to be able to deal with things at the moment under our current guidelines. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Cunningham. A number of thoughts. Not quite sure where to start. Ms. Lockhart raised a question that was in my mind as well. Are there other anticipated kinds of land use changes that go beyond the specific cases that we're looking at of residential and commercial or that kind of mixed use? The industrial concept is, I mean, arguably similar if somebody wanted to propose taking the tank farm site and turning it into a mixed use development. It's kind of similar to the commercial, to mixed use or residential uses. When I look at the comprehensive plan, and the other question she asked was, are there other areas that we might want to consider

a process for text amendments kind of in between our updates? It seems to me it's the land use specific areas only that are the concern. An outside developer or somebody who's probably not going to come in and want to propose something different for our nature of community services. That might be driven by the community in general asking for something different, but it would be coming from within, not from external or the transportation needs and so forth. So focusing on land use is probably where we need to do. I can see a case for something interim. As we learned during the COVID years, a lot can change in just a couple of years in what our environment is like and how it might affect our built environment.

So I'm not necessarily advocating for a position at this moment, but I wonder if there's a case for a mid-year review only the land use section to maybe be a little bit more responsive to those sorts of things. I'm just throwing that out there right now, and I can't say I've landed on my own position. But something in between where we're not looking at the whole comp plan every two years or something, but at the two-and-a-half-year cycle. I'm concerned, though, about the workload on staff as well as we also overlay on that. What we're facing right now is updates and reviews of our small area plans, which is another heavy lift for staff. And we've run those through. We're already five years plus on some of them

and trying to overlay that as well. So I am concerned, again, about the staff burden. Cases that I'm not quite sure where Mr. Cunningham was going totally, but when I look at Oak Knoll becoming Mount Vineyard, that was a residential to a residential kind of use. I'm not sure what the zoning was or the land use case, but I see that is not quite as compelling a question as what we faced with, say, the Gatewood-Plovza situation where completely outside of an activity center along the commercial corridor where there was a request to go into mixed use. That one concerned me, and something like that continues to concern me, where we could be diluting the focus and the emphasis in the comprehensive plan

of developing mixed use, and I would add community in our activity centers. If we become too inviting for trying to do that outside of our activity centers, then I think we're diluting what I think is a priority message that I think our comp plan should be driving. I also have the concern about, in those kind of situations, about the word I used when I spoke to city council about this once was something like unharmonious adjacencies, things that don't really belong next to each other. An apartment building next to car dealerships or something doesn't make an attractive community. So inviting that, we wouldn't necessarily have to approve it, but creating the case to invite those things starts to put us on more difficult ground

in scrutinizing these projects. I am reminded on the parcel-specific considerations, there are lots of other parcel-specific considerations in our comprehensive plan now, some of which might drive us to residential redevelopment, one that comes to mind, maybe the Army Navy Country Club. We have words, language in there about a site of that size. I think zoning is probably residential. Yeah, yeah, right, based on the acreage, depending on the zoning, but that becomes a zoning question, but that's already addressed in the comp plan. Whether we should review that is an excellent question. Same for other things that are around the city now. When I think about green acres, we probably want to revisit that

in light of the Willard Sherwood project proposal. So there's certainly a case for maybe more current updates in our land use section of the comp plan as things continue to develop in the city. So, you know, we're not really talking about just text changes to the comprehensive plan. We're talking about philosophy changes, which is a much more difficult process, I think. So, you know, couching in the terms of how we want to handle potential text amendment changes related to land use is maybe understating the amount of effort and thought that will need to go into this. So it could be a lengthy process anyway, in my mind. So to kind of do this on a two-free window basis, certainly not on an ad hoc or piecemeal basis.

And that was a concern. I also heard expressed, doing it on a piecemeal basis is not the right thing to do. So that was one of your cases, sort of. Just handle them as they come in. And I don't know that there's a case to do that for sure. So. One thing I think is important to keep in mind is that someone submitting a request doesn't make it a foregone conclusion that the request or the application will be approved and that anything will move forward. I think having the formal request concentrates the, getting the right information at the right time to staff. So in some ways, yes, it's an additional ask of staff, but hopefully it makes their jobs a little bit easier because we know the big developers

are going to make these kinds of asks regardless, right? They're going to come in with 16 different rezonings or special use requests or any other number of things that require a very painstaking review by planning staff. So if we establish an upfront, you know, gate, as it were, for these types of requests, I think that actually could help in the long run. One other use case I thought of, if someone wants to have their parcel added to an activity center and it's not already part of it, would that be a similar use of this process? We would have to discuss that. I think that what we've said in the past is that we wouldn't accept requests to be added to an activity center because the activity centers have smaller year plans.

And so you don't have additional guidance for sites that are added after a smaller year plan is developed. So we prefer even if a site was adjacent to an activity center, that they do something more like the mixed use place type. Unless it was a larger effort that the city was undertaking, perhaps during a smaller year plan review, we could expand the boundaries at that time. Then that would be it. Well, I'm thinking about it in the context of if we do move forward with the zoning islands for the activity centers and someone wants to be considered for that process and they're not currently part of the activity center. The intent there is that that is not an option outside the activity centers.

And so there are other options for accommodating mixed use. We have a mixed use plan district. We are recommending that we continue to have the commercial urban district. So that alone wouldn't prevent them from proposing a mixed use development. The issues are more with a comprehensive plan than with the zoning ordinance. I think. Other thoughts or questions? I mean, ultimately, we need to provide some direction to staff as to where we believe we should go with this. So do we see general agreement that handling a piecemeal approach is not appropriate? Is that the point of agreement for us? I would think that staff's recommendation that we do nothing at this point and deal with it going forward is fine.

When we talk about the unusual things, we already do that. I mean, the idea of approving residential right next to a major industrial site is not new to the city. We approved it. And now the residents are finding out that a 24-hour operation does make night noise and have light all night long. So whatever you have in discussion, people will proceed with their developments coming through. So every one is an individual case as it comes through and is dealt with. And I think reviewing the general lay of the land every five years meets what staff is trying to do, setting up a process where every time an individual comes up with a unique idea that they want to do that doesn't really fit with our general plan

puts an unusual workload on staff because that's what individuals do with their development ideas coming in. Every one is an individual project and has certain unique characteristics. And we don't have a one-size-fits-all program here. What we've got is a program that is adequate to deal with those unique characteristics without having to do it so frequently that it becomes a major impediment to staff time. Other thoughts, comments? I'm just thinking about the last two requests, and I don't know if they were even requests, but they sort of fell under this bucket. One was, as you mentioned, the commercial conversion. The other was adding an apartment above the ice cream shop for the second such property in the city.

Neither of which moved forward, one from a general dissatisfaction with the project, the other from lack of a process to say yes to something that was actually a reasonable, or could have been a very reasonable modification to a single parcel. Woody's was the first mixed-use project in the city. Only existing, right? Right. And we found a way to make it happen. Right. Right. But we didn't with Baskin-Robbins. So... I don't know why we didn't, but I understand that the alternative use it's been put to is better than the apartment would have been. So it's not a loss, necessarily. True. But I worry about consistency of decision-making when there isn't a process to follow, when it's, well, we'll see how we feel

when it comes up in front of us. Well, that's because between generations, each one of us sees it differently, and everybody comes in with a new idea on how they want to do the project. And if we open it up to everybody's best idea at the moment, I don't know that you get the cohesive program that we're trying to get out of the city. And, you know, we've got the ability to say yes to anything we want to say yes to. Do we have the ability to say no to things that are not appropriate? And how do you go about that? In the Baskin-Robbins case, I mean, just, it's, it, quite context mattered there because it was immediately adjacent to a site that was being redeveloped. I guess it was a planned development with mixed use.

It was a standalone, almost one of the orphan kind of properties that we talk about. So to make it a little more harmonious with what was immediately adjacent to it made sense. Woody's, of course, is in an activity center where we want to entertain mixed use development. The other case was a bit more problematic. There was a community behind them, but they weren't in any way connected. Very different from the Fairfax Square case that we added a parcel specific consideration to, which while it was largely commercial, it was commercial on the Main Street side, it was part of a broader development by that meter that included behind it residential. And they're kind of reconfiguring the site so there's immediate adjacencies that are compatible.

In fact, their intent is to create a little bit more of a community with putting residential in there. You may recall from the initial briefing we had where the people who will be in the residence on this site if they redevelop as they propose will have access to the community facilities of the immediately adjacent apartment complex. Their community building on a site that there's a logic to the context, but not everything that we've seen so far offers that same kind of contextual compatibility. So, again, I don't think we want to deal with this on a piecemeal basis. My concern is, of course, inviting too much dilution of our intent and interest is a priority. There's competing priorities, we know, in the comp plan.

But I think a significant priority is development in our activity centers to create community in mixed use. And my concern is opening up too much to diluting interest in doing that. So I'm partial, I think, to moving forward as staff proposes at this point still. That was the nature of the discussion we had when this came up a year or more ago. But, you know, that's my preference, and I understand Mr. Cunningham to feel that way. But I've also heard the case for the interim of, some interim process, perhaps focusing solely on land use for these kind of considerations. But it doesn't necessarily make the effort any less for staff. But other thoughts? Is the concern regarding staff effort that there will be an onslaught of these requests,

that everyone is going to be a unique snowflake, or that they require additional work to evaluate? It's that they require additional work to evaluate, and that potentially there won't be enough interest to justify the staff time it takes to develop the process and communicate that, you know, the window is open, here's your review period, and then that type of thing. Because it also takes time. Usually we have no applications. So it's more from that front. The other thing that comes to mind is when we see community feedback on redevelopment in general, you know, it's the tough enough road to hoe for areas where we are inviting certain kinds of redevelopment for the staff, the commission, the city council to deal with.

Opening up the opportunity for more concerns me a little bit as well. is do we expect that the community would be even more willing to support something like this redevelopment in these other areas in a way we hadn't really anticipated that really makes the effort worthwhile? What's the risk to the investment of staff time? And by the way, in light of when we look at the budget situations here where it's clear city council's not supporting the addition of staff in almost every case in the city facing the budgets that we are for the next, I anticipate, several years. So that also concerns me, that practical aspect from just being able to do the work and getting done what we need to get done with the priorities that we do have.

Mr. McCarthy. Can I ask Commissioner Lockhart, what kind of, I'm just trying to think this through and listen to everyone's comments, what kind of frequency, it sounds like you would like to be for that, I don't want to speak for you, what kind of frequency, like, would you, are you thinking for this process? Well, so I'd have to defer to staff on that one in terms of, because now that I think about it, is a scheduled every X years or months sort of free-for-all creating more work, then we have this process that you can go through if you really think that your parcel deserves it kind of set aside. I almost feel like the more I think about it, advertising in open season is worse than saying, hey, if your application changes

the use of your parcel substantially enough, this is the process that you have to go through. It's hard to tell. I think from a review standpoint, having the open window is better because we can go through the process with several parcels at once, especially if they're close to each other. Even if they're not, I think there's some shared effort. From a, you know, looking at the number of applications we get, I think going through individuals would take more time per application because we're working on them one at a time. But you're right, we wouldn't get, you know, the onslaught of several at once. So it's difficult today. I have to say, I would lean toward a scheduled timeframe being less impactful.

But that's just, we'd have to look into it a little bit more. Again, I still think this will be fairly rare and hopefully treated quite seriously since we are emphasizing up front this is a comprehensive plan change, not merely a rezoning request. But I don't know. When you look at the opportunities for this to happen in the city of Fairfax and you look at the opportunity for this to happen in the county of Fairfax, I see a big disparity in the possibility or the need for this. I think the city is smaller than most of the districts in the county when you looked at the map and the number of projects that were out there and the amount of opportunity they have as opposed to what we have so that individual projects

when they pop up can be taken care of for us to say, well, look at how many the county has. we need to be prepared for that onslaught. It doesn't seem reasonable. Or at least I hope it's not reasonable for that kind of change to be rolling across. The other thing that had come to my mind was that if we would create a process, a schedule for something like this to be able to, I'll be brought up and come before the commission for review and city council, obviously, because it would be a plan amendment. We, in my mind, must at the same time establish the criteria by which we would make any judgment. It's not just saying, okay, you have this idea for this particular lot. We sort of went through this on an ad hoc basis

as we were entertaining parcel-specific considerations for other properties along commercial corridors that might come to us for potential redevelopment and mixed use. Think of the tennis club. Well, there were some certain issues. There were some parcels of particular sizes that you might be able to cram a lot into a small space that wouldn't be particularly attractive or appealing. Some had concerns with adjacencies to sensitive environmental areas that we wouldn't necessarily want to invite to do. I mean, it was a fairly deliberate process, and while we didn't formalize the criteria for making these judgments, we nevertheless considered things like this. But if we do want to open this process up,

it seems to me at the same time we should establish the criteria under which we might invite certain proposals. And right now, it's fairly straightforward keeping residential out of the commercial corridors that are not otherwise in activity centers. It's a very easy criteria for us to use in our judgments. So I can still see this being a fairly significant effort just to get to having the process before we even implement it, which, again, concerns me, at least in today's environment and with the plans that we just have. And having just gone through just a little more than two years ago now, finalizing the update, where we did weigh this considerably. Yeah, we're not that far out from the next one.

And by the way, it really is time to look at the small area plans. It's got to be a priority, I think. A lot has changed since the first ones of those were issued. So I remain concerned about overburdening staff in an environment where the funds aren't there to either add staff and probably not to do too much in the way of extra contracting either, my guess. But anyway. Mr. Rice, any further comments? Sorry, a little awkward for me to make the comments. Obviously, with a budget like ours, it does make a lot of sense just to maintain status quo. And if there is something significant that has a bunch of support from a lot of people, we can still do something. So I think I'm quite familiar with all the budget issues

and serving on a few other boards and commissions. It's just the common theme of every meeting. Inability to hire new staff, make do with less, no training, no overtime. It just, we need to be aware of staff time and pressures on staff. And certainly, if your recommendation is to maintain the status quo, that's, I think, important for us to accept and consider. though it does seem, five years seems like a long time, but it's not. Yeah, the fact that we're already talking about updates to small area plans blows my mind. It really has been, it has been a while, but it seems like we just finished with that. Are we comfortable as a whole at this point maintaining status quo then? I'm not sure I'm hearing

a hundred percent consensus, but if we're to take a vote, I think it might go that way, but I don't want to do that. I'll propose one more alternative to you, which is in the absence of a formal process by which applicants have to follow, can we standardize some language by which we provide to applicants so that we avoid situations like the multiple hearings on the Westwood gateway, where we basically end up telling a developer we just don't like it in so many words when we could have said it doesn't meet X, Y, and Z for our process right now or it doesn't meet X, Y, and Z criteria. Because we do put housing on 50 sometimes and we do put housing next to industrial zones. Like these are all things

that, as you point out, have happened. So to turn around and tell an applicant that we're pulling an arbitrary no out of our pocket in this case but not in others is problematic. We have not put housing on 50. And going back 14 years, 15 years, Paula Sixx. No. The housing on 50, as you call it, was live over work units. Those are not residential. Those are live over work units that are classified for putting a small business on the first floor and allowing you to live above that. Now, we did not put in a requirement that they'd be sold and you had to work on the first floor. Which, of course, is a failing in and of itself. But those were not strictly residential units. If you want to do commercial activities

out of your house, I believe you're still permitted to do that at any time. And that was the idea that they were a buffer along Route 50 as live over work units. Which is why the Baskin-Robbins project could have been a live over work unit and been absolutely consistent with all of the housing next to it. Not the housing behind it, but the housing next to it. So, there. And part of it is when you tell a developer no, do they listen? Because if they're going to come back another year later with a slightly different plan, but the same essential objective, and we say no a second time and they come back a third time, that's a lot of staff time that goes into us saying no three times and whether you have

a formal process or not. But ever since what I will call Rocky Gorge or the residential unit that was going to be where, across the street from Fire Station 33, next to urgent care, was going to be residential, that was never resolved in terms of residential on the boulevard. So, it goes back that far along with the breezeway and the debate on residential. the council has never said no but has never been willing to approve a project where we actually put residential from that standpoint. Multi-family, yes, with the Methodist project down next to the Lamb Center. Hotels, other than that, not residential. it's commercial, it houses people, but it's not residential, so to speak, from the standpoint

of privately owned single family. And privately owned multifamily has been included in that. So, once you can get consensus and resolution of that, you could have language that we will not put residential on the boulevard or you could have language that says we will and what are the circumstances that were permitted. But you've got to get that consensus from my perspective which has never been achieved. I don't know why. I think it is maybe a good idea to think about the kind of language we might use. I've always been a little bit bothered by, I'm not exactly sure the words in the comp plan that residential uses are not supported. Sounds kind of weak and maybe, and could invite some things that we might not

want otherwise. But maybe being a little more specific would be a good idea when we get around updating the comp plan again. I think that's a good suggestion. We can initiate a text amendment to the comprehensive plan. That's where the language is currently. It would have to be an action in the commission. Is it worth it doing it at this point for one particular thing? Maybe not. Next time we update the comp plan I'd put it on the list of action items though. We're still trying to persuade one member to go with the staff recommendation. I think there's, I feel like we have some general agreement to maybe make some improvements and when we get around to some of the updates focusing on the things we need

to do for sure at this point with the small area plans and make some, start our parking lot of items to be addressed when we make the reviews in the next comp plan review. And for sure, some of these parcel specific considerations we have today probably need to be revisited now in light of other developments that's gone in the city and is coming. are we okay with that? We see most heads nodding? Yeah, I'm okay with it. I do see a world where maybe halfway, I don't know if we need to do it right now, but halfway through you open up something and consider it. But I would be very hesitant to let it be ad hoc. That's later this year we're going to start there. Literally, halfway to the next comp plan review

is later this year, right? I really think we should be working on the small area plans as a priority. Okay. I think so. I mean, well, we may learn something. Okay. I think we have agreement. Good. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Let's reconvene our regular meeting. Go to Mr. Napty's staff report. Thank you, Chair Feather, members of the Planning Commission. We haven't met since April 13. However, in reporting on City Council updates, they primarily have been focusing on the budget during that time. One exception is that at their April 28th meeting, they did initiate a contract for the Blenheim Boulevard Multimodal Improvements Project, which is identified in the comprehensive plan. They also voted

to proceed with the Willer-Shirwood Community Center Project. Planning Commission might recall that this was approved through a Section 2232 Public Facilities Review by the Planning Commission of 2022 and then added to the Conference of Plan of 2024. And then for tomorrow's meeting, they will be receiving a work session on the accessory dwelling units draft, the same work session the Planning Commission received on April 13. For upcoming Planning Commission meetings, our next meeting is on Memorial Day, so that will be canceled. But then coming up in June, we have a number of items coming forward. We have most likely a post-application work session coming to you on the gallery at City Center.

This is the proposal between University Drive and Chainbridge Road, just north of here. and we will be providing an introduction to the potential upcoming process for reviewing the small area plans. We don't plan to begin that immediately, but most likely toward the end of this year, but we want to give you a frame of reference about what that might look like and the types of topics we might be trying to cover through that process. And then we likely will have a post-application work session on the Courthouse Plaza redevelopment proposal and a couple other pre-application briefings coming down the line. So that's all I have for the staff report today. Oh, I did want to mention one more thing.

You received an email about the 2026 fact book being released last week. As usual, we will schedule time to go over some updates and some of the interesting changes with the Planning Commission. Most likely that will be in June or July. That's all I have for the staff report today. Thank you. Any questions for staff? Mr. Cunningham. One, when you talk the Courthouse Plaza midsection review coming in, does that include a drive-through that's being proposed in that process? Do you know? I'm not aware of a drive-through in that proposal. Okay. I thought in some of my reading I thought it was a building with a drive-through. So that would be... I'm not 100% sure, but from what I can tell they're removing

what was previously a bank drive-through. Okay. Thank you. The gallery at City Center, whatever, you anticipate at the first meeting or the second? Do you know yet? Or just sometime in June? Anticipating. It's currently scheduled for the first meeting, but that's all a matter of if the materials come in at times. Yeah, if the materials come in, right. Yeah. We're shooting for first meeting. June 8th. The others probably later. Courthouse Plaza, we're thinking June 22nd. Yep. Okay. Anything else for staff? Okay. Comments from the commissioners. Anything from Mr. McCarthy? No. Thank you. Mr. Cunningham? No comment. Ms. Lockhart? Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Rice, did you get... All right. I'm going to

just mention a few things that came up at the Parks and Rec Advisory Board meeting that I attended in early April. And so the... There's just a long list of projects that have been ongoing for a while. Tice Park is being renovated and is on budget. The schedule has slipped just a little bit. And so there's going to be sawed down and some sort of soft open at the end of July. And the Parks Foundation, which is a body external to the Parks and Rec department that is able to raise funds and accept things like bequests from estates to support activity in the city. that has been... has been populated with board members and is doing well and meeting. And so that's an important vehicle for Parks to be able

to do some unique projects and to be able to deal with money flows from outside the city. Do they have a 501c3 status? I don't know the exact declaration for their status, but I'll find out and bring that back to you. Our former chair, Mr. Ingress, is a part of that activity and our other former chair, Janet D'Warski, is also part of it. So we do have some good representation. Old Town Hall is progressing well. There was a big fishing derby at Ashby Pond and so there's continual activity from the Parks and Recreation folks and just it's been fun to be a part of that. I won't be able to attend the meeting this week due to the graduation event at George Mason that our mayor is the distinguished

speaker for. So she will be speaking to the College of Science and thousands of graduates part of the College of Science and so she's been a big supporter of what we do in the College of Science. She shows up to our activities and she'll be speaking on Thursday evening and so I'll be at that event instead of at PrEP. That's it. From my perspective, Board of Architecture Review continues not to have met because there's not enough activity to warrant meetings so I have nothing to report from the bar. I sat in a couple weeks ago on the Fairfax Campus Community Advisory Board meeting. I think Mr. Napty, you were there as well. Just to hear what's going on with the campus and they're talking about various

redevelopment things adjacent to the city, one of which is they're continuing to talk about a baseball stadium that could entertain small minor league team. They did have a representative there. It's promoted the Old Glory rugby team which makes its home at the university and they've had a couple of games there, at least one and I think another one's coming up maybe at the end of this week. The other thing that's interesting is they're talking about building a bridge over Route 123 to get from the west campus to the main campus to try to address some of the pedestrian concerns at Mick Crossing 123, it's Ox Road down there, on the vicinity of the one university place. There's still some concerns

about that, the feasibility of that and the utility of it, but it could be an interesting thing adjacent because there's talk about somehow incorporating in the design something to make it look like it's a gateway to the city. It will be a long way off, but it was just an interesting thing to learn about as well. The other thing that I will report is my wife and I had lunch today at the newly opened Chill Zone, the site of the old red hot and blue barbecue place. We enjoyed Pho. They have a Vietnamese theme, a menu on the Chill Zone side, and then there's the Mediterranean style restaurant on the other half of that building, so something new to the city. I assume there will be a grand opening and

ribbon-cutting soon, but I'm happy to report that that site is redeveloped and opened up now, which had nothing to do with the planning commission, but I just thought I'd mention it and promote a new business in the city to the extent that I can. Nothing else from my perspective, so I will call us adjourned. Thank you. Thank you.