Planning Commission Regular Meeting/Work Session

James FeatherGood evening. Welcome to the regularly scheduled meeting for the City of Fairfax Planning Commission for Monday, January 27, 2025. Our first order of business is Pledge of Allegiance. Please join me as we recite the pledge. 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. First order of business is discussion and adoption of the agenda. The agenda was issued ahead of the meeting as required. Are there any comments or additions to the agenda? If not, Mr. Cunningham.

Paul CunninghamMr. Chairman, I move the agenda be adopted as presented. Second.

James FeatherIt's been moved and seconded to adopt the agenda as presented. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Any abstentions? Passes unanimously.

Matthew RiceNext order

James Featherof business is presentations by the public on any matter not calling for a public hearing. Madam Clerk, do we have any early sign-ups?

Matthew RiceNo.

James FeatherWe do not. So if there's anybody in the chamber that would like to address the Planning Commission on any matter not calling for a public hearing, you're welcome to do so at this time. We have one public hearing this evening, and that is the consideration of our report to the City Council. I mean, our recommendation on the capital improvement program. Seeing none, we will move on. Next item of business is consideration of the meeting minutes from our January 13th, 2025 minutes. A meeting, they were issued ahead of time. Any comments, corrections to be made to those? If not, it's not. Mr.

Kirsten LockhartChair, I move that the Commission adopt the meeting minutes from the January 13th to 2025 regular meeting as issued. Second.

James FeatherI move and second it to adopt them as issued. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Passes unanimously. Next order of business is items not requiring a public hearing. This is a consideration of our 2024 Planning Commission annual report to the City Council, and we'll also receive associated updates to the comprehensive plan implementation guide as well as those for the small area plans. Turn it over to Steph. Ms. Denny.

Ms. DennystaffAll right. Good evening, Chair Feather and members of the Commission. As the Chair mentioned, this presentation will cover the 2024 annual report as well as the implementation guides for the comprehensive plan and the four adopted small area plans for Old Town, North Fax, Camp Washington, and Fairfax Circle. This is

Clara Schweigerstaffthe

Ms. Dennystafffirst implementation guide update since the completion of the five-year review of the comprehensive plan. There are now 339 total actions. 84 of those are new actions as a result of the update and 28 are those that were significantly changed actions. Just to note that those 84 new actions, that's not a net increase in actions because many actions were also removed as a part of the review. So the structure of the implementation guide has also been updated. There were previously two columns for timeframes for initiation and completion. The initiation column has been removed and instead of using short term, midterm, and long term for the timeframes, they now use years, 2026, 2028, 2030, and 2035 for completion

and the ongoing category remains from the previous implementation guide for continual work. Then in the lead department column, this previously included the primary responsible party as well as any supporting departments. For most of the actions, this has been narrowed down to just the primary responsible department who would be in charge of initiating the action. There are still several that include multiple lead departments. This is due to the fact that there are multiple tasks within that action that would be led by a different department. And then in the status column, after five years of continual updates, there was some information that was just out of date or no longer relevant. And some of them had gotten rather long.

So those have now been rewritten to ensure that everything is up to date and relevant and also to be a little more concise. and then specifically for this round of updates the new and significantly changed actions are highlighted in the far left column the orange are new actions and the yellow are those that were significantly changed all right so getting to the updates there are 24 new actions in the land use chapter 18 of the 70 total actions in land use were updated this includes the addition of the new mixed-use place type the zoning ordinance project to reduce conflicts PLANS, WHICH IS UNDERWAY AND EXPECTED TO BE COMPLETE THIS FALL, AND THE AFFORDABLE HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS STRATEGIC PLAN, WHICH IS ALSO UNDERWAY AND THE REPORT IS EXPECTED SOMETIME THIS SPRING.

IN MULTIMODAL TRANSPORTATION, THERE ARE 14 NEW ACTIONS, 20 OF THE 98 TOTAL ACTIONS WERE UPDATED. THE BLENINN BOULEVARD MULTIMODAL IMPROVEMENTS AND THE GOVERNMENT CENTER PARKWAY ARE BOTH CONSTRUCTION IS BOTH EXPECTED TO BEGIN THIS YEAR. A consultant has been selected for the safety action plan, and that is beginning with a goal of adoption in mid-2026. And the review of the transit development plan is also underway, and that is anticipated to be done by the end of the year. For environment sustainability, there are 24 new actions. 25 of the 64 total actions have been updated. This includes the green building policy, which is close to adoption, should be adopted sometime soon. The climate action plan is underway and anticipated to begin.

Sorry, it's not underway. It's anticipated to begin in early spring. The sprout grant supported several tree plantings in the fall, and the invasives removal program is in development. And the solid waste assessment is anticipated to start this spring with about a 12-month timeline. And I just learned today that the city was awarded an energy efficiency community grant, which will provide free energy audits to homeowners. And then moving to economic vitality, there are eight new actions in this chapter. Ten of the 21 total actions were updated, which includes strong support for reinvestment in sub-A properties through efforts like the business support grants, lift, and international landing incentives.

In community services, there are 13 new actions. Nineteen of the 86 total actions were updated. The Parks and Recreation Strategic Master Plan is currently underway and expected to be complete early next year. Willard Sherwood Community Center is at 50% design and land use applications are under staff review. The improvements at Old Town Hall and Old Town Square will begin this spring and the land acquisition for Fire Station 3 is complete. So this is the summary pulled from the annual report. 65 actions were identified as being led by planning. The majority of those are ongoing but 11 were identified with the timeframe of 2026, 3 in 2028, 2 in 2030 and none for 2035. 17 actions are not in progress, 15 of those are new.

The two existing actions that still have no progress are multimodal 425 and commercial corridors and activity centers 114. Multimodal 425 is to evaluate a linked TDM fund for in lieu developer fees for parking requirements. This can't be evaluated until we have a citywide TDM, and there's still not enough staff resources for that. And the time frame for that action is 2030. And then the second existing action that is still not in progress is Commercial Corridors and Activity Centers 114, which is to develop urban design concept diagrams for small block and multi-block areas along commercial corridors outside of the activity centers and that's also identified for 2030. So moving on to the small area plans 13 of the 41 actions in Old Town have been updated this

includes the circulation study which is specific to Old Town but a part of the safety action plan so again expected to be complete mid-2026. The parking study in Old Town is underway and as of the TDM commitments for the Flatline University. They're required to do a survey and that survey is anticipated for this year. Moving to North Facts, 21 of the 45 total actions were updated. This includes partial funding for the North Facts East West Road. The Willowood Phase II application has been submitted and is under staff review and construction of the Warwick Avenue and Far Avenue pedestrian crossing is expected for this year. For Camp Washington, six of the 43 total This includes the pedestrian master plan, which is also part of that safety action plan to be complete mid next year.

This master plan will look at the locations that are identified through this small area plan for pedestrian improvements. Additionally, as I mentioned, the update to the transit development plan is underway, and this will also include looking at transit in Camp Washington. And then lastly, we now have Fairfax Circle. nine of the 56 actions had substantial status updates this includes that Nova parks will include invasive removal and their renovation of Gateway Park the city applied for a community flood preparedness fund grant that would allow us to conduct a flood study and similar to flats on University a TDM survey for Scout is anticipated for this year and this is the summary for the small area

From the annual report, all the actions in Old Town and Northfax are underway and all but one are underway in Camp Washington and then 44 of the 56 are underway in Fairfax Circle six months post adoption.

Mr. NaptestaffThank you, Ms. Denny. This slide we sent to the planning commission today, we added this on as an additional effort as part of this with the review of the comprehensive plan that was complete and the restructuring of the implementation guide to an extent that Miss Denny went over we want to take an opportunity to try to use it as a tool to look at some of the things that might be coming down the road for us so this is focused on things that the planning division within community development planning would be leading but these are also things that would likely be coming to the Planning Commission in some form so the way we came up with this list of potential upcoming projects is we took the time frames from the implementation guides

this is all of the implementation guides comforts plan and all the smaller your plans and pulled out all those actions that identified community development planning as a lead responsibility as was Denny said through this effort we we we tried to consolidate each of the responsibilities more though we had in the past this is something that we could do now that was that wouldn't really get us the same result before and then we looked at the time frames for each of that came up with a total of 40 something actions, so it still wasn't enough to really give us a real frame of things that we could reasonably do. But the reason there were 40 actions because many of them were kind of duplicates or they were actions that were dependent

on the same project to get to the same result. So for example, all the smaller plans recommend reviewing design guidelines to see if they should have their own kind of standards or that kind of thing. And so that would be one single effort. they're also related to the smaller your plans you'll notice here in each of the two-year cycles we have smaller plan reviews and so there are different actions related to smaller plans in each of these reviews that would be one effort to review them so for example starting and looking at this with a with a timeframe of 2026 there are recommendations looking at developing public facilities plans parking management plans for smaller plans those it'll be done as the same large effort but it accomplished multiple tasks or

actions that are in the implementation guides then going to 2028 for smaller plan reviews there are recommendations looking at particularly in North Fax the the linear park doing a more comprehensive study of that and considering the idea of a mid-century commercial historic district and then in the longer term their recommendations to look at any potential excess right of way that could result from reconfiguration of the Fairfax circle intersection the design for that intersection we don't anticipate to be completed until that time so that one's further out looking at the other projects here I mentioned design guidelines aside from the smaller plans the company itself companies of plan itself recommend reviewing design guidelines

for updates this is a effort that could be could have been a large effort or a small or relatively small effort depending on on what needs to be revised as a reminder design guidelines were completely rewritten in 2018 so we're looking at any kind of comprehensive redo here. There are multiple actions that recommend developing level of service standards. This involves coordinating with agencies that could be impacted by new development and new population, such as fire, police, schools, et cetera, and determining if there should be some kind of contribution system to offset those impacts. And then the last two in 2026, commercial industrial flexibility and cutting-edge businesses are both potential zoning ordinance amendments to accommodate more

flexibility for for businesses to locate in the city going forward to 2028 or talked about the small area plans picket in Maine this is whatever effort we we decided to go forward with with developing a plan for picket in Maine as Planning Commission discussed in the comprehensive plan review we don't see the need to do a complete smaller your plan as we have or other areas but there's still desire to do some kind of effort to focus on the future development area and then the next to relate to zoning ordinance manufactured housing was requirement for us to put into by the state code to determine if that is a tool that could be useful to accomplish more affordable housing in the city and in the arts district was recommended in the conference plan as well as the old

town small area plan that's something as supported by the Commission on the arts so we work with them on that and then the last item isn't actually from the comprehensive plan this was a previously identified task is developing a mid century mid-century commercial theme review primarily a Fairfax Boulevard to determine if there are any beneficial resources in that area and that would be a resource for the potential mid-century historic district in Northfax as I mentioned earlier also in the 2028 timeframe then looking beyond that to 2030 commercial corridor block diagrams Ms. Denny mentioned this this is one of the ones that has been in the comprehensive plan there hasn't been any progress in the primary reason for that is there doesn't seem to be a whole lot

of interest or demand for this it would be really kind of a marketing effort we did talk to the Planning Commission about whether this should be removed from the comprehensive plan when we did a review decided to keep it in at the time but we are really waiting for a real push or a need for this to move mentioned the transit demand management program this is something the the planning side of this is implementing this into our codes but that can't be done until the full citywide transit transportation to me and management plan is developed so we have that in a further out timeframe to allow that to happen and then the last item historic neighborhoods another one that's not on the comprehensive plan was a previously identified task is to

do potential neighborhood wide historic resources studies and there isn't a whole lot of push further out timeframe and all these match with the timeframes that are shown in the implementation guides 26 28 2030 and as the standing noted there are no planning tasks with a 2035 timeframe most of us stuff is happening sooner the 2035 timeframes tend to be larger projects and those types of things so so that summarizes that so for tonight what we're looking for and particularly in the annual report is just a consensus from the Planning Commission that this City Council and then we'll share that with them at their meeting on February 4th. If you have any questions, let us know.

James FeatherWe're going to further present the draft of the annual report. We've received the draft in our meeting material packet to review or just open discussion when we get to that point. I thought at this point maybe we make sure if there's any questions for clarification or comments on the implementation guides, we deal with that first and then

Mr. NaptestaffWe don't have any materials to present on it. It's really all the text is self-explanatory, but if you want us to open it and take a look at it and have questions, we can

James Featherdo that. See what the commission feels. Any questions or comments on the implementation guide? A couple of things. I appreciate the response today to the concerns I was raising about the demands on our small but mighty CDP staff when I when I reviewed some of the deadlines you had in place for yourselves mr. Hardin's entire group I suppose I got a little concerned about us actually being able to achieve these objectives your description of how some of these sort of our overlapping ones kind of reduce the number there's certainly complimentary things going on here but I appreciate the way you presented this now to help clarify some of that maybe still may be challenge to get some of these done and I hope this is a model that some of the

other departments will use to help them better visualize the demands and it needs to meet our objectives in the comp plan and a small area plan I think this is an improvement in the way it's been presented but any comments from the Commission at this point mr. rice

Matthew Ricewe've excuse me please we've heard feedback a few different departments about the issue of workload and staffing and busyness and so forth. I think like most of you, I'm endlessly impressed by the quality of the work that the staff does. I'm just more wondering if there's a regular periodic evaluation of that particular issue and whether whether CDP is comfortable raising the issue of, oh, you know, some of these deliverables and schedules are too ambitious for our group now. I know that's extremely well run and managed, but it's a concern. I think this has come up a few times with transportation projects and lots of funding and lots of things to do, but fewer staff to implement. So any comments on kind of

assessing the health of working toward the deadlines and whether there's something going on there that helps do us an assessment of that

Mr. NaptestaffI don't think we're there yet with this I think with each of these we need to do a little bit more digging into how much effort they will actually take so for example the design guidelines as I mentioned that could end up being a pretty easy effort or depending how it goes we could decide that we want to write separate design guidelines for each activity center which would be a massive project so we will continue to assess that and we will certainly raise a concern if it is something that we think there are demands that we can't meet I don't think we have quite enough information yet but we'll keep working on this and hopefully get there

Matthew Riceokay because we want to be able to advocate for resources for you if we need and I think it's helpful to have other people that work closely with you calling that out if it needs to be anyway I think that the success of city staff and finding money for things like and you know energy audits and you know big projects is very impressive it's great to see see that happening it creates additional work and we just want to make sure we're on test that way anyway that was my only

James Featherthought I think you've been interesting comment we have a formal role in making recommendations City Council on items in the capital program. You're proposing, and I think it's a great idea, a more informal role, but looking at the overall implementation of the comp plan and advocating where necessary to make sure the resources change these objectives, not just in our area, but in others as well. I think it's an excellent point, Mr. Rice. Thank you. Mr. Cunningham.

Paul CunninghamThank you, Mr. Chair. observations I guess I have with regard to our annual report, some of these are historical. Some of them are current operations type things. My sense is that right now we have five brand new council members. We have one returning after two years. We have a mayor who's been there for two years. We have a report at this time that's what, 127 pages long of dense, technical material i'm going to go back a few years and say that i believe we had this discussion from the planning commission with staff a few years ago that many reports when you're dumping a lot of material on busy people include something called a staff summary sheet on the front that allows them to look through that put the rest of it on the shelf like most plans go until they need

to dig back in and find a detail or that to use for a particular purpose and I'm wondering with the way we have our report structured right now if it is fully usable to City Council to get the entire report dumped on them considering everything else they have going on right now trying to figure out what being a City Council member really means or whether this is just going to be the thicker it is the easier it is to put it in the pile to say I'll get to it which makes it less useful as a report for them and it's very useful as a report for us so it's an excellent piece of work that's been done I don't have disagreement with anything that's in it but when it comes to recognizing the audience we're sending it to is there some way we can put this into a staff

summary sheet the the things that are useful to them to tell them what we're doing our job we're on top of what we're supposed to be doing without giving them the full dump on all the data that we are involved in

Mr. NaptestaffI think something that could work that way would be the the bullet points in this Denny's presentation because for each chapter that identifies some of the major and changes again sometimes one project having forward momentum could impact five or six actions and so you're not reading every action is those bullet points kind of summarize these are the big things that are happening in this area right now so as I mentioned we're bringing this to the City Council on February 4th we had planned we hadn't planned I'm really going through any of that with them but perhaps we should and we can talk about that in more detail and if we don't because we want to kind of compress our time we could I think we

that presentation into a single summary page and send that to them as well if that's of interest to the planning commission.

Paul CunninghamOr two summary pages, whatever it takes to catch the essence of what we're trying to do, use their time efficiently, use our time efficiently, and move forward with that. I think that would be more useful than sending the entire report we have because I don't Think it will have the utility that would hope it would I think that's great for us to use going forward because here's our roadmap But I don't know that But they have the same attention span or focal point

James FeatherThank you So the draft annual report that we've received so far it's four pages plus the full implementation guide update if I look at it correctly the the four page report includes a link to the implementation guide updates will be in there, so that may be sufficient. I believe we offered to the council previously, we identified the link and offered to get them a whole copy of the thing if they wanted. I don't know how many took us up on that, but that could be a way to do it. But the four-page report itself included some bullet point high-level highlights. We should just make sure they're the right ones, as well as the summary table of how many actions there are, how many are in progress. It's good news. It's for the CDP group.

Now they may be interested in seeing that for some of the other departments as well. I'm not sure if other boards and commissions present annual reports of similar structure and content to them. But not every major area of activity in the city has a board or commission either. I suppose that becomes a stewardship item by the city manager and his department HEADS AS WELL SO MAYBE THAT COULD BE PART OF THE DISCUSSION TO SEE WHAT THE COUNCIL'S FURTHER INTERESTS ARE WE WE HAVE A GOOD STORY TO TELL I'LL BE HAPPY TO TELL IT AS WELL BUT WE CAN SEE WHAT ELSE THEY WANT TO KNOW BUT I THINK IT'S A GOOD FEEDBACK LET'S NOT INUNDATE THEM WITH 127 PAGES UNLESS THEY ASK FOR IT

Matthew RiceSO WOULD IT BE ENOUGH TO SPLIT THE DOCUMENT WE'VE GOT FOUR PAGES PLUS 123 the hundred twenty-three is the appendix and I think at least psychologically when I know I you know I've got four pages it's a good summary bullet points I can ingest that quickly and as needed crack open the appendix that's also attached I think just physically separating the two I think I recall maybe our 2020 report was delivered separately with pages or in a separate I could be wrong about that as well.

James FeatherAny other comments? Maybe it's in our presentation, not in our own report. Maybe we should include kind of a high-level overview of status of all the action items. We have a more detailed one for ourselves, but of the 330, you said 339, but there are SIX THAT HAVE SUB ACTIONS, I CALL IT 333, BUT WHATEVER, WE HAVE ACTION ALREADY PROGRESSING ON THIS MANY IN ALL THESE AREAS. AND IT'S A GOOD STORY OVERALL. I THINK KUDOS TO THE ENTIRE STAFF AND THE BOARDS THAT ARE DRIVING THE MORE APPROPRIATE FOR MAKING THE PROGRESS AND ESPECIALLY TO MR. HARDEN AND HIS STAFF FOR THE PROGRESS MADE IN CDP AREA. IT'S A PLEASURE. I'M PROUD TO WORK WITH YOU GUYS. So from the report that you've seen so far, is there a general consensus for the content?

You might tweak a few words or format just a little bit. We can just move forward that without further action. OK, I think we have agreement. That's sufficient for you? Ed's? OK, great. Thank you. next order of business is public hearings we have one public hearing this evening this is consideration of our recommendation to the City Council on the proposed capital improvement program for fiscal year 2026 to fiscal year 2030

Mr. NaptestaffThank you Chair Feather and members of the Planning Commission. The Planning Commission has been reviewing the capital improvement program since November 25 when the city manager prepared made an initial presentation and then had follow-up and January 13. And so the purpose of today's public hearing is to confirm the recommendations that were finalized during the January 13 discussion and then make any additional amendments as needed for the planning commission to take action. As mentioned, the planning commission will present these recommendations to city council at their work session on February 4, which is next Tuesday. day. This is the from the draft resolution these are the specific recommendations that

the Planning Commission provided. So before we ask you to take action I will quickly go through these to remind you what they were. First regarding feasibility studies. The first item was to prioritize completion of and follow the recommendations of ongoing and upcoming feasibility studies to ensure future funds are being used thoughtfully and efficiently. This includes feasibility studies such as the ongoing property yard, feasibility study that will determine what future needs are there or if a second or additional site should be necessary, the completed feasibility study for fire station three, and the school's condition assessments that has impacted the capital requests for those facilities.

Second item was to support projects that improve or expand existing public facilities. This is an example of those types of projects. Of course, there are many of these in the capital improvement program. Third is to protect previous investments by supporting projects that continue or implement previous planning and design efforts. This was a recommendation by the Planning Commission to continue to move forward on in developing what the plans should be for those rather than try to shift direction later in the game so some of these projects include things like the Willow Sherwood Community Center which is at the 50% design phase planning Commission has made previous recommendations in support of this

project as it has been going on for several years the Van Dyke Park master plan city city already put forth the effort of developing master plan for this park which included a lot of community engagement and the Planning has made previous recommendations of support and continue to support that going forward. This also includes a lot of transportation projects which as you know have a longer process in terms of developing designs and concepts and securing funding to make sure that we continue to move forward with those. Next recommendation was to continue to seek opportunities to utilize external funding sources including grants, partnerships, and foundations. And so a lot of the funding sources outside of the general fund in the capital improvement

program come through other efforts, particularly a lot of transportation projects receive outside funding through state grants and those types of things. The SPOT program is an example of an effort that the city applied for funds from outside sources and received them. The Tice Park improvement was funded through ARPA funds. This is not a permanent resource for us, but this is an example of the types of things we can use. But more specifically, the Planning Commission also recommended that we consider options for things like public-private partnerships, try to seek additional grants, and look at things such as the Parks Foundation, the newly formed Parks Foundation, as ways to secure funds outside of the general fund.

Next item was to identify funding timelines that coincide with project schedules. This was looking at balancing the overall CIP requests or impacts on the general fund the five-year period of the CIP and distributing those funds so that they make sense with when products can actually be completed and then looking at Van Dyke Park again the Planning Commission said that while the Planning Commission continues to fully support implementation of the Van Dyke Park master plan as we discussed on the previous slide redistribution of funds to a more manageable project schedule would be supported this is going back to funds over the course of the five-year period and a recommendation from the chief financial officer as he presented this to you when you last met about

redistributing some of those funds particularly later in the CIP cycle for many of these projects the Van Dyke Park master plan implementation was one of these and while the Planning Commission continues to support that project as you have in the past the Planning Commission generally supported the idea of moving these funds because we are not at a point we would be ready to spend those within the earlier timeframe. And then lastly, the planning commission expressed general support for investments in the following types of projects. This includes actually the order that is shown in the resolution is public safety, schools, parks, pedestrian and bicycle safety, and environmental projects. So again, that is a summary of what was discussed

at the last meeting on January 13. We are happy to make revisions to this before you send it to city council. Otherwise, we're happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

James FeatherCommissioners, any comments? Ms. Lockhart.

Kirsten LockhartWith my apologies for not getting these to you sooner, I have two typographical adjustments. In number six, the spelling of Van Dyke. And on the slide. And in number five, I appreciate the explanation of what that bullet is. getting it I think it could perhaps be worded a little bit more clearly to stand alone so suggest something along the lines of ensure project schedules and funding timelines are aligned or something to that effect something that gets at you know we're not front-loading for the sake of saying a project is funded because

Ms. Dennystaffthat's the goal of obviously what we're getting at

Mr. NaptestaffThe commissioner is okay with that language?

Kirsten LockhartYeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

James FeatherOthers?

Mr. Naptestaffit is not according to word but it is for us yeah

James Featherany other discussion comments Mr. Napty I appreciate the effort you put into making sense out of our discussions on where we would go this year it's challenging for us it will be a little interesting challenging presentation to city council it's a little different this year but I think for a good reason I do look forward to the discussion, and I hope some of you will be there with us, the two of you. Good. And others. Okay. Okay. If there's nothing else, we have a motion to present. Oh, it is a public hearing. I'm sorry. It's a public hearing. I will open the public hearing for comments from the public on our recommendations to Council on the CIP. Seeing no one wanting to speak, we will close the public hearing and take action.

Kirsten LockhartMr. Chair, I move that the Planning Commission adopt resolution number PC25-01 as shown in attachment 1, identifying that the Planning Commission recommends the City Council approve the Capital Improvement Program FY26 to FY2030 proposed subject to the delineated consideration and minor typographical changes discussed this evening.

James FeatherMoved and seconded. Any other comments or discussion? Okay. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstain. Passage unanimously. Thank you very much. Thank you, staff, for all your guidance on this, and thank you, commissioners, for the effort you put into revealing it. All right, we will move on. We will recess our regular meeting and go into our work session. We have two work session items this evening. The first is a pre-application briefing for proposed mixed-use development with approximately 257 multi-family units with amenities and structured parking, 7,395 square feet of retail uses, 26,391 square feet of office space, a proposed east-west road from University Drive to Chainbridge Road, and a north-south pedestrian pathway on approximately 2.52 acres, located

James Featherat 4085, 4101, and 4103 Chainbridge Road. Welcome, Mr. Frederick.

Mr. FrederickstaffAll right, try it again. Good evening, everyone. briefing for the Christopher at Fairfax City this is the pre-application briefing for a concept plan for three parcels at four zero eight five four one oh one and four one oh three Cambridge Road staff has met with a potential applicant to discuss the preliminary plans and have provided some initial feedback on the concept plan staff will provide a brief presentation the potential applicant is in the audience tonight the Old Town small area plan was adopted in June 2020 the plan recommends that the existing offices be renovated with new ground level engagement on Cambridge Road in the near term when speaking of near term over the next 15 years the plan also

identifies the site as a potential to consolidate properties and recommends commercial development at this location the site is located on the east side of Cambridge Road north of the former BB&T Bank south of Page Avenue and west of University Drive and south of 4084 University Drive the total acreage of approximately 2.5 acres the subject property is located in the activity center place type in the Old Town small area plan the current zoning is commercial office the proposed zoning would be for commercial urban the pictures in front of you show the existing buildings the photo on the left and shows the front of the buildings along chambers road the picture on the right looks towards the west and looking at the back of the buildings as a front on chambered

these the three buildings are approximately 84 000 square feet of office space and again it's approximately 2.5 acres in size so here's the concept layout with an aerial view of the surrounding properties the proposed development is primarily surrounded by non-residential uses to the north west and south and on the east side is a residential townhome separated by University Drive so the east side has a residential townhome subdivision the concept plan concept plan is a mixed-use development consisting of three buildings that includes approximately 7400 square feet of retail 26,000 square feet of office space and 257 apartments multifamily units with the many D space a plaza and two levels of structured parking along

with surface parking for a total of approximately 492 parking spaces the potential applicant proposes a private east-west street and a north-south pedestrian path so building one on your screen building one is it's located here building one is approximately has approximately 81 units and has the minute of space along the on the main floor building two is located off of University Drive has approximately 81 units within building two and building three is the true mixed-use building that has approximately 95 units and 7400 square feet of retail and the office space on the first and second floor so just to walk you through the building and the layout of the site this is the this is the first level of the parking garage the parking garage has

approximately 239 spaces and along University Drive is three they they're showing three townhomes at this location so the primary entrance to the parking garage is within what's building two so this is the upper level of the parking garage so the second level with approximately 235 parking spaces this is the uh this is the main floor of the three buildings it also has the amenity space for building one and with 10 units so again building one is fronting on chambered road building two fronts on University Drive that building two has approximately 13 units on this floor building three has the ground floor retail as it fronts on Chambers Road and 11 almost 12,000 square feet of office space on this level on this level of the site plan that also shows the north

south pedestrian connection in line with the green way that's recommended in the Old Town small area plan the greenway is also adjacent to the plaza with outdoor dining the applicant has proposed an east-west private street with four parallel spaces so here's the parallel street going east and west there's parallel spaces near building three and it also has a small surface parking lot to accommodate 14 vehicles near building three so here's the parking area that's separated from the plaza that would have outdoor seating opportunities there so the there's no mix of vehicle and pedestrian connect connections or residents or visitors coming on site that would enter enter into the office and be afforded the

opportunity to have outdoor dining with the retail and restaurant that's proposed along a chamber road

Paul Cunninghamso

Mr. Frederickstaffthis is the what is considered the second floor of the building so in each building you're looking at building one with 11 units 12 13 units in building two and again building three has office space so the applicant is providing a mix of uses on the site so on the third floor again there's more more residential units on the on the third floor on the third floor of each building and it also this is the Florida has a connection with the pedestrian bridge between

Paul Cunninghambuilding one

Mr. Frederickstaffand building two that goes over the greenway and also a connection over building three and building one so the applicant is providing connections over the east-west road and also over the greenway connecting the three buildings on the fourth the fourth through sixth floor in buildings one and three are they basically repeat they have a similar floor plan and building two is that's the last floor for residential uses so on the fourth fifth and sixth floor you're looking at basically the same floor plan so building on the seventh floor of the building the applicant is proposing 12 units on building one and 19 units in building two the last slide shows the roof plan for the proposed building so the applicant is is proposing you know a

mixed-use building with the additional height along Chambers Road and along University Drive the shorter building with with with larger step backs so as you look at the graphic here on on the height exhibit that's in your packet you'll see a seven-story building along Chambers Road with six plus stories with a step back on level one four and five along University Drive it should be noted that the proposed site has significant change in grade from Chambers Road to University Drive the smaller your plan recommends building heights of five stories on Chambers Road and four stories on University Drive the applicant has provided preliminary elevations for the concept plan are the view shows from Chambers Road illustrating the ground floor engagement

along Chambers Road that are allowed for retail and restaurant along Chambers Road and then the bottom view shows that the building elevations from the private alleyway or the private drive of course the application would require a major certificate of appropriateness for architecture and landscaping and here's a slide that shows the greenway that is in line with the small area plan and also it lines up with the application for the Davies site which is to the south of the property so so the applicant has shown that there's an alignment between the proposed Davies project and the concept plan so they're you know working working within the same plans and trying to align the project as best as possible and so the applicant has has made some coordination efforts

with the with the with the Davies property and any applicant in terms of the feedback that staff provided the smaller plan recommends building heights of five stories and four stories along University Drive of course as mentioned and incorporating the greenway into the project design the applicant has been informed of providing sustainable landscaping as with a mix of plant types and sizes in terms of meeting the comprehensive plan and streetscape design the applicant has been informed that street trees should be located on the street side not typically behind the sidewalk but actually along the along the right-of-way the sidewalks are important for internal connections so sidewalks on on the east-west private street and a minimum width of 26 feet is

required for for emergency vehicles and ladder trucks for to to be able to get the site the fire marshal has indicated a minimum of 26 feet is required i had previously mentioned that the slope on the site has a fairly significant grade change so when in terms of sidewalks and ladder trucks this may be a challenge but the applicants should be aware of of those issues going forward and they're I believe they mentioned that the slope is a roughly 20 a 20 foot grade difference from Chambers Road to University Drive the applicant will be required to submit a transportation impacts statement and In terms of vehicle access points, the minimum separation is 50 feet from From the street and that includes loading areas and garages

the applicant would be required to submit a water and sewer capacity study and and in terms of the existing offices would be in line with the small area plan to try to retain a number of of the existing offices or the office space and also provide retail and restaurant with a good visibility from chamber drode and I believe the applicant has tried to incorporate that design into the concept at this point showing extended height on the along the first floor for Chamber Road to allow for retail and restaurants at that location in terms of this of the potential land-use requests the applicant will be required a rezoning from commercial office to commercial urban special use permit for upper story residential mixed use and multifamily a couple of special

exceptions in terms of height and density and interpersonal connects connections of course the applicant would need to provide an audit as they submit their application in terms of the zoning ordinance and there any additional special exceptions or any other requests that would be required the applicant would be seeking approval of a general development plan as well as submitting a major certificate of appropriateness for architecture and landscaping and also since this project is within the old town small area plane it may actually be in a transition district if it's in a transition transition district the Planning Commission May have a purview over I'm sorry the Board of Architecture would have a purview over the special special exceptions

So that's something that we would need to need to follow up on to make sure that it's if it's in a TOD that we Provide that information to the Board of Architecture Along with their recommendation for the certificate of appropriateness In terms of next steps for the applicant, City Council pre-application meeting is set for February 11th, and then the applicant would provide land use submission, development review with staff, work sessions would follow, and public hearings. That's all I have for the pre-application briefing, and if you have any questions, I'll feel free to answer any of those questions.

James FeatherThank you, Mr. Frederick. So this is a pre-application briefly. We do not expect a presentation from the applicant. It's fairly high level at this point, so I'm sure there's a lot of things we don't know yet, but certainly we'll open this up for questions of staff. Who would like to start? Mr. Cunningham.

Paul CunninghamThank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Brother. Some questions that I guess I have or comments that I have would be couched in the following way. If we go back and look at as close to an overview of all of that area from essentially Sager Avenue down to Armstrong. In building the small area plan, a group worked to get the greenway coming down the center of the block. We have had two applications that have now talked to that. one question that i have comes with the vision of that greenway as being something more than just a path between buildings that it was supposed to be someplace that could come alive that could offer the opportunity for not every building facing the greenway but at least enough buildings that they would give people a reason to travel that greenway restaurants or other

commercial activities or things at ground level that would make this a a vital piece going down through that an amenity for all of the the buildings and landowners going up and down that area and and help with the redevelopment of that to be a vital addition between the university and the downtown. I am pleased to see that the Greenway, at least, aspect is being included. I think a second area where I would have comments come in the area of consolidation. And when I look at the slide that's on the screen right now, I see the project that we talked about last week the davies properly which is a fairly large brown area on the bottom left of the slide i see the area we're talking about in yellow just above that which is the current site

and then i see what is a small orphan property as i will describe it between those two what is the potential for consolidation what is the potential for development of that site if it remains an orphan site and part of the reason I say that is that you have just indicated that we need 50 feet between curb cuts right now if I look at the existing conditions it's not much of a curb cut but the driveway up to the davies property is along the north side of the property the project proposals we have had are to be run a 26-foot wide road from 123 over to university drive along the north side of the property right now i would be hard pressed to think that there's 50 feet between that driveway access and the two curb cuts that exist currently on the orphan

property. And if you're going to have a requirement that we have to go 50 feet from any curb cut if Davies were in there, if you go 50 feet north from there, the curb cut looks like it would only exist along the north side of this property. So you're now dictating how that property is going to be developed because if we're along side presuming it's a 26 foot wide road you would have a 26 foot wide road on one side of the property line and a 26 foot wide road on the other side of the property line so we'd have 52 feet of road in order to get the people out of both sides of that property without any real coordination between or sense of what is actually happening there and i think that constrains the development

property so that in the long run, if that property could be consolidated, I think there would be a tremendous benefit as we're moving north. I appreciate that the greenway is being included in there, but I would have concern with the orphan property being left and the challenges that would occur in the natural development that would be entailed with that. when I look at traffic and traffic considerations, I believe when we were talking Davies that we have been talking right in, right out on both University and Chambridge Road. And Davies was to have one garage entry point just in from University Drive that was going to accommodate all of the residential parking and any commercial and retail parking that was going to be included.

So that means that anybody coming out is going to be close to University Drive. If they go right, they're going to have to turn right on University and head down toward Armstrong Street. if they go the other way, now we're going to have traffic going up to build up on Chambridge Road going north. So when I look at the private road we're talking about going through the property from one side to the other, I'm reminded that Eaton Place, when it was constructed, was a private road. And it isn't now. So if this is a private road, what is the road structure going to be for this whole piece when we're done? I know we're going to or we have in the plan the intention to run South Street across the property and align it with the government center entrance.

But if people are coming out of Davies and turning right, is there going to be a propensity for them to want to turn and cut through this property if they had an intention to go the other way but have traffic issues with any of this? So when we get to how is traffic going to be handled with these several curb cuts and ways through on the number of properties we have, what is the major plan when this whole thing comes together as opposed to dealing with individual parcels and good thoughts that fit one parcel but may or may not fit the greater whole? and when I look at that and talk about parking with density I'm going to let go at the moment the fact that we have enough parking or not enough parking and how it goes but look at the

the structure of of how we're going because there's plenty of other work I think to be done I think you've got a good proposal in in the raw but when I look at the number of and variances and changing zoning and everything else to accommodate a parcel. Is that telling me that there's something wrong with our current ordinances because we can't accommodate anything that is happening with our vision? Or is that saying that people look at our vision and say, yeah, but I need to do these other things to make my project viable, And if you buy it, you'll change the rules enough to accommodate me. And that's a tough way, I think, to see what our vision is and how it's going to come into a project in the long run that's viable.

Now, from what we've had in the past, we have a vision at the moment for the north end, where the current bank building is, going across. And that vision we've been briefed on. gap between that and the other area coming south we haven't in terms of are all of these puzzle pieces going to fit together nicely to make a unified puzzle or are we working off a couple of different puzzles trying to push the pieces together to make something that will work in the long run those I think are my core comments at this point and that's what I would look at as we're going forward mr. chair or staff I don't know if you I want to make comment on that or just move on thank you

James Featherany comments at this point mr. Frederick we'll just continue to pull the Commission as well

Mr. FrederickstaffGo ahead and we'll continue with the comments and then we could.

Matthew RiceSo I'd like to reiterate the comments about the greenway in the center. And the vision of that was a place that would attract pedestrians and create a little vitality. And I think that's hard to do, and it's particularly hard to do without having some sort of amenity or attraction that will cause people to walk through here. And we really want people in the middle rather than navigating out to the street and then kind of wandering through it. It's the goal of that vision was to have an entire kind of progress through the center of the block with places to sit and things of attraction for people who would choose to kind of enjoy the trip from campus city hall all the way up to downtown. And it could be the most amazing stretch in the world.

Mr. Cunningham has pointed out is several parcels that are shaped the way they are, the curb cuts that exist, and the real difficulty in dealing with that as an issue without any consolidation. And it's not a requirement for us to demand consolidation before something looks good to us but i think it presents huge challenges with things as simple as you know curb cuts and their alignment and distances um we've gotten a little feedback from the neighborhood to the east about road alignment and um so we've uh we've got two roads now that are east-west neither of which align with breckenridge um and the notion of sort of building a street grid that would help bit to alleviate traffic further downtown would be a good goal I think we

do have some hope with you know South Street being extended through but we need to see more of that it's difficult if this does happen parcel by parcel by parcel with sort of designs that have you know a little whiff of kind of commonality between them generally the idea of mixed use is something that I can get right behind no problems whatsoever heights are a concern and I think that the more recent proposal from the Davies property had kind of some setbacks and some architectural ideas that made that more palatable than you know previously so I think echoing most of mr. Cunningham's comments is I think the main point of of my statement and that some of the issues that he raised should be continually discussed thank you

James Featherothers Mr.

Kirsten LockhartCunningham phrase it perhaps more kindly than I might have but my note was more for for staff and Planning Commission notes as we look towards the small area plan implementation plans, because almost every proposal that we receive for not just Old Town, but also for North Facts and for Camp Washington, the small area plans were carefully thought out in that these are areas where we may increase density up to a height. And almost every proposal takes that as like an opening bid and ups the ante. And perhaps the small area plans were naive in the economic assessments of what was viable on those sites. I also think that because we've been a little sparse on our true vision of how these things are going to be accomplished,

that we're opening ourselves up to these proposals that, to Mr. Cunningham's point, tell us rather than us telling sort of the world how we want these areas to look. We know from preliminary traffic studies that the intersections to the north and south of this plot are already failing in terms of peak area transit. We're looking at, most likely in the next year, a very large surge in return to office, which yields traffic such that 123 is virtually impassable between, I would say, 66 and Braddock Road during rush hour, morning and evening. And to take in aggregate the proposals that we've received so far, that we're going to receive, we're talking well over 1,000 cars coming and going just from those three new developments.

To the point about is the parking sufficient? proposal come in that's radically under-parked, that instead is offering shuttles to the metro, that is almost forcing residents to take alternate transportation methods rather than putting more cars on the road. Because I think to kind of kowtow to the fact that while we are a commuter town, it's going to make this area in particular, the small area plan, completely impassable, which becomes a safety hazard for things like the fire station being right there, school buses trying to get kids back and forth, the Q bus trying to get people back and forth. I think our metrics for estimating trips are woefully outdated. For example, the flats, way more students drive to and from campus from the flats than I think anyone would have anticipated.

I would venture to say it's the majority of residents of the flats still drive to campus, at least for some of their trips. We need to be realistic and sort of fatalistic about the fact that if people have cars, they're going to be driving them during peak hours. and how can we mitigate that in these areas that already are insufficient for the traffic that we have so that's my two cents

James Featherothers mr. Denton

Kevin Dentonthe height is a concern the the greenway and the ability to consolidate obviously has been mentioned it would be difficult to with the two proposals in front of this and with the Davies property it would be difficult to develop the other site to match the plan being such a narrow site so the ability to consolidate would be advantageous to either project. The Greenway I think it's nice that it has this fountain and right across plaza that transitions over into the retail i think that kind of what what i think our uh members of the commission kind of envision that greenway being there's like a um a little bit of uh you know the ability to go from retail walk and it's it's kind of a community benefit here. So I do like the way it's designed. However, the auto court, unless

I think it seemed like there was quite a few parking spots underground here, unless it's needed for some sort of emergency, you know, whether it be turnaround or the ability to fight fires that couldn't be done within the normal width of the roads there, I would rather see fewer parking spaces there, even if they're perpendicular to the road, but not kind of the peninsula of parking, if you will, the three-sided. I think it was 14 spots I saw somewhere earlier. I would much rather, if I'm walking on that greenway and I see a fountain and a plaza that transitions to a restaurant and maybe to a project south and north, I kind of don't want to look at 14 surface park cars there. I think it kind of defeats all that's good right just north of it.

is there a comparison of the current density I think it's 80,000 square feet of office and obviously surface parked to the density that's proposed I think it's 70,000 square feet approximately.

Mr. FrederickstaffCan you repeat your question?

Kevin DentonYes. The current density on site versus the proposed density, do you happen to have that anywhere?

Mr. Frederickstaffso the the existing office now the three buildings has 84 almost 85,000 square feet

Kevin Denton85 okay okay

Mr. Frederickstaffand so you have roughly 26,000 square feet proposed when and the concept of office space so and then you have 7 000 make sure that number is right 7 000 square feet of

Kevin Dentonof retail and then 4 000 in the amenities but the residential component i'm assuming maybe a thousand square feet per unit times the 200 and i just

Mr. Hardenstaffincluding corridors and

Kevin Dentonshared areas to get to the units I assume that

Mr. Frederickstaffit actually has each floor it actually has the square footage I think on it for each floor I

Kevin Dentondidn't add them up in terms

Mr. Frederickstaffof the corridors and looking at in terms of square footage for the building but the density isn't far off from most projects that we've that we've had come through for the activity centers and the other is around the

Kevin Dentontallest building on that site currently is it building one that's shown here the 4085 chain bridge the tallest

Paul Cunninghambuilding on the site is

Mr. FrederickstaffI think the same they're about five five or six stores

Paul Cunninghamat

Kevin Dentonthree and three and one are probably about the same height so the ones on chain bridge the I'm sorry all the buildings are on chambers right but the the height currently is five stories on those three or the tallest

Mr. Frederickstaffyeah

James Featherone is

Mr. Frederickstaffonly two stories in the middle and then you're looking at a product five-story building on for the one that's that's 4103 I think 40 40 85 is it's about the same height I think all right thank you

James Featherjust

Anthony Colemankind of like to echo some of the fellow commissioners comments so that it is good to see the greenway one thing that is a little disappointing in the The plan is to see, as Mr. Denton kind of noted, one, two, three, four parking space kind of encroach into that 40 feet that they're giving. I mean, similar to the Davies property when they mentioned that they could use the greenway as a trash pickup area. Absolutely willfully defeats the purpose of having a beautiful greenway where people can walk, meander, just enjoy the day. So it is definitely a little disappointing to see that. The height doesn't bother me. really need to kind of take a look at what we've kind of prescribed we'd like to see

and what actually is sometimes economically feasible. It's a give and a take with these developers because I see both sides of it. And I think we really do want to create this vibrant downtown area. And one of the ways we can do that is having these vibrant mixed-use communities. So I think one way that we possibly can do that is having the retail, having the office, having these mixed use, but sometimes we still don't even know exactly what's going to happen across the street at the judicial center. So they could pop up 10 stories. And the fact that they have done a step down to the university I think is fine because right across the street you've got, who knows, we've got 15 stories. I don't think it would happen, but what was the size building that came down over there?

It was at least 13,

James Feathersomething

Anthony Colemanlike that. Yeah. So I think while we do have a guide for it, I think that guide was good for then, and we really kind of have to really look inward now and see what are people really looking for at the moment. Because we've all known that we can really kind of – we really want to be guiding it more than prohibiting a lot of this stuff. I think this is a good start, and there's obviously plenty of tweaks to come.

Kirsten LockhartSo for sake of argument, is a seven-story commuter-oriented building going to drive economic vitality of the pedestrian-oriented sort that we envisioned for the area?

Anthony ColemanI think it really depends

Matthew Riceon what detail

Anthony Colemanthe office space is in there. because you could look at Mosaic, and I know Mosaic is often an area that a lot of people, we look at and we're like, we don't want that. But there are a lot of really good things that have come about in Mosaic. Go on a Sunday, you can see the farmer's market. They shut down District Avenue. You have that whole area is just flooded with pedestrians. It is a destination, but I think it is a place that a lot of people do like to work, live, and play. And I think if we can get to that place where people do want to live, we've checked a big box. Then we get to the part where they want to work. Let's create that area where they can walk. They can have the retail. They can have the office.

That enables them to do that. Really, the only way we can is to create an environment where you can actually sustainably have all three. Because if you only foster an environment where you can have one type of activity, living or working or retail, going to get that mixed-use community that you truly I think all of us really envision for these activity centers and small area plans

James Featherothers just

Paul Cunninghamone from the comment on additional height the bulk of this seems to be replacing office and retail since they seem to be going out of favor with residential so when I again, the aggregate, and I look at Davies with 300 units, and I look at this with 300 units, and I look at the part that's going to be developed between here and a hotel and a theater with 300 units, and I look at the orphan property with 100 units, and I look at the ins of court, which is grossly underutilized from an economic standpoint, with another or 300 units how many units have I just put in here and is that enough people to activate the Greenway because they want to get out of the apartment at night and go down to the bar go down to the restaurant go down to someplace where

they can hang and activate that Greenway as a vital economic area to say nothing of George Mason students going from campus to downtown wanting to just go and cut through there as opposed to going down the sterile street on either side. In the aggro, we're talking cumulatively with each one of these, and we're scaling them all down, but we're still talking a pretty significant number of units in this area when we're done. And that's just one thought that I have with how this area is going to morph as we go forward with all of our comments.

James FeatherMr. Knapp, do you have to recall from the small area plan the number of new residential units proposed for this area?

Mr. NaptestaffOff the top of my head, I believe it was 1,250 additional residential units in the entire activity center, including the north side.

James FeatherSo the numbers you came up with take a fair chunk of that. More.

Paul CunninghamNot so much.

James FeatherNo, they're close. Yep. Okay. My turn. I'm not sure where to start. I'll start on the auto court. If you recall our discussion at our prior meeting on the Davies property, one of the concerns we had was no place for pickups and drop-offs and Uber Eats and ride shares. This provides that place. So I think it's a great design to accommodate those kind of needs. So I certainly don't object maybe if they're temporary parking places for those purposes, they make a lot of sense. And I think would address the kind of concerns we had other proposal I do like that the restaurant more or less faces that area it does tie into the greenway as pointed out so it can help activate that space as long as that greenway is designed properly to the north of buildings one

and two it seems wide enough to to be of interest and usable as this narrower gap to the property to the south we don't have the same concerns all of you do about that kind of stranded property there not sure what the status of that is I also have concerns with the height smaller to plan was pretty clear on five stories and I get economics maybe six I think it depends what design is going to be like how it's going to appear at the curb I think that will come down to the architecture we leave that to Board of Architectural Review but to have a big seven-story slab-sided building right along the roadway is probably not going to be too appealing to the community so I think that ought to be on the table

from the start do we have any idea any discussions at this point with our economic development office as to the current occupancy of those offices we're losing we'd be losing 60% of the commercial space among those three parcels that's a concern again we've talked for a long time about the A GOOD BALANCE AND IN FACT THE SMALL AREA PLAN DISCOURAGES RESIDENTIAL HERE AND THIS IS COMPLETELY OPPOSITE TO THAT GUIDANCE BUT MR. FREDERICK YOU'RE FURIOUSLY POURING THROUGH PAPERS

Mr. FrederickstaffGIVE ME A MINUTE I HAVE IT

James FeatherOKAY I'LL THROW ANOTHER ONE OUT THERE MR. NATTY MAYBE YOU KNOW So the small area plan references the near-term prospects for this site. It said within 15 years that these buildings should be, you know, renovated or whatever. I don't recall seeing a longer-term vision for this site. Do you have any idea? Was there one and I missed it?

Mr. NaptestaffNo, and, you know, my recollection on this was that these office buildings, there's generally a concern as a small area plan was being developed that we would be displacing a lot of commercial space through redevelopment. and this particular area along this corridor was was flagged because the thought was that having the county courthouse complex across the street created kind of a micro economic climate where there would continue to be demand for office even as the region and the nation seems to be having issues with that because there's you know support uses lawyers and those types of things I always need to be somewhere around here so the the smaller your plan really saw this as a lower priority for redevelopment than other places. I think

that's where the near-term language came in, suggesting just to, you know, keep these going as office, but then recognizing at some point they would be subject to redevelopment and to reconsider that at that point.

James FeatherThank you.

Mr. FrederickstaffOkay, so the equity building, which is 4085 Cambridge, has a 10.5% vacancy.

James FeatherSeven and a half percent? percent so it's 90 percent occupied

Mr. Frederickstaff4101 25 percent and 4103 zero vacancy

James Featherdo you happen to know the property to the south it's not part of this proposal the orphan property

Mr. Frederickstaffthey

James FeatherWhoever? Former, is that empty, or largely? Okay. So we have got a fair level of occupancy. We're not preserving the amount that's occupied in this proposal. There clearly is an interest and need for it. Although I will make observation that I see a number of vacancy for spaces in the Inns even along judicial drives. So the office market is very fluid, I suppose. I don't quite understand staff's concern with the grade from University to Changebridge Road. I don't know that it's much different. It might even be less steep than the grade on Armstrong Street to get from the intersection of University, Armstrong, George Mason Boulevard up to Changebridge Road. So it's hard to imagine that that's a big concern

fire truck up that grade because it seems not much different from the slope and maybe a little bit less of a slope. Anyway, that's just a comment for staff. I made a comment about the loss of non-residential space, commercial space. Yeah, the uncertainty associated with the integration of the adjacent parcels is a concern as to who's going to be driving what, and will somebody be overly constrained to the extent that there can be more communication. I'm glad to see there has been some communication with the Davies parcel on the green space. It would be nice to know there was similar communication related to properties of the south and the north. But my sense is from what we've seen very high level early on

about properties to the north, there's a vision to incorporate It's the nature of the greenway that we're looking for. There's the uncertainty in the middle and the connectivity with roadways and things. I think all the other things that I was concerned about have been... Oh, one thing puzzled me. It's a very large apartment complex. There are three townhouses called for. I don't know what that is. Do we know if those are going to be rental townhouse type accommodations? units in this otherwise just things are incongruous I'm not sure if that's an appropriate integration but

Mr. FrederickstaffI believe it's it's all rental okay

James Featherso it's just the nature of the design it it would just be multi-floor apartment it perhaps it's not a concept we think about here but you think high-rise buildings in major cities have multi-floor apartments so okay

Mr. Frederickstaffand so the applicant has also perhaps that at that location they could have retail if that's something that was desired, but they're kind of being flexible on that side of university. They understand that there's sensitivity with the residential across the street, so they kind of wanted to mimic what was across the street.

James FeatherAnd there was some discussion at a previous meeting on the Davies property about whether it was desirable or not desirable to have a retail on university side, Greenway or along Cambridge Road. Yeah, I saw that. Yeah, this was a puzzle, but it says retail or townhouse, but I didn't know whether it was for sale townhouses, which don't seem to make sense. I could get part of the rental community. It makes a lot more sense. Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. Talked about the house. Very high-level visually, when I look at the sketches and the building coverage and the lot coverage on this site, there's a lot of coverage. in the proposal. When you look at the small area plan, to provide the sense and the real sense of open space

and greenway that we want, feels like much less building and lot coverage than what's being proposed. The small area plan didn't call for a particular amount of open space or whatever, but going with a commercial urban zoning district opens up the floodgates for huge amount of lot coverage not a lot of green space we're gonna be very carefully paying attention to tree canopy I don't see there's any way except exception to the minimal amount of trees it would be permitted we required in this in the commercial urban district anything less than that so when I look at the development here we'll have to keep an eye out for that and in your reviews I trust you will as well. Okay I think that's the major ones I wanted to cover as long as well as the comments of

everybody else. Are there others? Other comments at this point?

Matthew RiceMr. Rice. There are some good renderings of open space in the small area plan that kind of I turn back to periodically and with a sequence of proposals with huge amounts this it really is hard to imagine somebody coming forward that magically inserts green space into this corridor and it's we're potentially losing the largest contiguous section of green space in this part of the city with the Davies property and it's you know we've in our plan we inserted that as a goal that doesn't necessarily include that central walkway that would have greenery around it and it would be refreshing to see one of the proposals come through and acknowledge the need for that and how much that helps we have had

developers in the past sacrifice units that they could have constructed to preserve mature trees and it wasn't just about tree canopy it was about the look and I think there have been some impressive examples of that and it'll It'll be interesting to see if we have something like that emerge. But I think that's it for me. Thanks. Okay.

James FeatherAny questions for us? Do you have sufficient feedback, Mr. Frederick, Mr. Sutton? You think?

Mr. FrederickstaffYes, I

James Featherthink so. I think you've heard traffic mentioned a number of times, of course, the density and height. But good positive features with the greenway. this is going beyond the 15 years already so we're not going to make an intermediate stop if this comes forward concerns with consolidation and the contiguous adjacent properties okay thank you very much I have a change of staff here for the next presentation. We have a post-application work session, which is a discussion on a request for zoning map amendment, or rezoning that is, from commercial retail and residential medium to commercial retail and a comprehensive plan amendment to amend the future land use designation from commercial corridor to multifamily neighborhood for Gatewood Plaza, 10201 Fairfax Boulevard, and more particularly

James Featherdescribed as tax parcel 57-2-02-034. Ms. Schweiger, good to see you. I hope I pronounced that correctly.

Clara SchweigerstaffYes, hi. Yeah, I'm Clara Schweiger. for almost a year now, and I'm happy to finally be presenting in front of y'all tonight. So this is a work session to discuss the redevelopment proposal for Gatewood Plaza, and that's located at 10201 Fairfax Boulevard. We're in the post-submission phase of the development review process. the applicant has submitted a complete application and staff has provided comments on a second submission the applicant is requesting a zoning map amendment a comprehensive plan amendment a special use permit and nine special exceptions including density bulk building height bulk plane required yards transitional yards parking and resource protection area formal action and recommendation are not required by the Planning Commission for the special

use request and the nine special request special exceptions the subject site is located to the south of Fairfax Boulevard and to the north of the terminus of Stratford Avenue to the west of the subject site is a Toyota is Captain Pell's restaurant. The site is currently developed with approximately 93,114 square foot five-story office building that is 90% occupied. The subject site is currently split zoned and the majority of the property is zoned CR commercial retail and approximately 5,436 square feet of the subject site is zoned RM residential medium. The surrounding properties are zoned CR commercial retail and IL industrial light to the north, commercial retail to the west, and commercial

retail and residential medium to the east. Properties to the south are zoned residential medium. And the subject property and all properties directly abutting the subject property are within the architectural control overlay district. The subject site's future land use designation is commercial corridor. The future land use designation of the properties to the north and west is commercial corridor and properties to the east are designated as green network public and commercial corridor and properties to the south are designated as single family neighborhood. This slide shows the proposed general development plan for the subject site. The applicant is proposing a seven-story mixed-use building with underground parking.

The proposed tenant mix is 307 upper-story dwelling units, approximately 20,000 square feet of commercial retail and approximately 21,000 square feet of office space. the applicant is requesting a special exception for density to provide the 307 dwelling units. The maximum density in the CR zoning district is 24 units per acre, and the applicant is proposing a density of 111.5 dwelling units per acre. In addition to the special exception for density, the applicant is also requesting special exceptions side and rear yards. I've highlighted those required yards in yellow, so it's a 10-foot side setback and then the 25-foot rear setback. The proposal is a mixed-use development with retail and commercial uses located

on the first floor and this slide shows the layout of the first floor. The the upper six floors. A special use permit is required for upper story residential and mixed use in the CR commercial retail zoning district. Here are some elevations. On the left is the north elevation. So this would be looking at the site from Fairfax Boulevard. And then on the right is the east elevation. And this side of the site. On the left is the south elevation, and this would be looking at the site from the Stratford Avenue side of the site, and then to the right is the west elevation, and this would be looking at the site from the Toyota dealership side. The applicant is requesting a special exception to modify the non-residential district's

dimensional standards table to allow 85 feet or seven stories. The maximum height permitted by the zoning ordinance is five stories or 60 feet. In addition to the special exception for height, the applicant is also requesting a special exception to exceed the maximum bulk plane requirement. The zoning ordinance allows up to a 45-degree bulk plane, and the applicant is proposing a 60-degree bulk plane. The increase in height would cause stories 3 through 7 to encroach into the 45-degree bulk plane. Here are some renderings. On the left is looking at the northwest corner of the proposed building from Fairfax Boulevard. is looking at the northeast corner of the proposed building from Fairfax Boulevard.

And then on the left is looking at the southwest corner of the proposed building from the Stratford Avenue side of the site. And on the right is looking at the southeast corner of the proposed building from the Stratford Avenue side of the site. And I've included the renderings and elevations in my presentation, but a Board of Architectural Review application has not yet and a major certificate of appropriateness is required as part of this application. This slide shows the proposed landscape plan. The applicant is proposing a tree canopy of approximately 12%. The applicant is requesting a special exception to not provide transitional yards in accordance with the TY2 transitional yard specifications in the zoning ordinance.

The general area where this special exception is being requested is highlighted in yellow. Because the applicant is proposing to disturb the resource protection area, an RPA delineation and site-specific study is required. The RPA site-specific study is administratively approved by the zoning administrator, and the applicant has submitted the study, and this is currently under review. In addition to the site-specific study, the applicant is also requesting a special exception to encroach into the landward 50-foot buffer component of the RPA. Staff is not clear on what is being requested with this special exception, and I've asked the applicant to clarify with the last comment letter. In this slide, I'm just showing the RPA area in green,

and then that red line is indicating the limit of the impervious area. So everything, I guess, to the left of the red line is what is either existing impervious or proposed impervious. The subject property is served by the city's Q bus golden green routes. The applicant is providing sidewalks ranging from 5 to 10 feet wide along the southeast and north sides of the proposed building. The applicant is also providing a pedestrian connection at the terminus of Stratford Avenue. And 10-foot wide sidewalk is proposed along the Fairfax Boulevard street frontage. This slide shows the proposed circulation plan, and the blue dashed line shows the pedestrian path, and the red line is the vehicular path.

The proposed parking garage would be accessed from the east. Let's see if I can point out where that is. No I can't. But it's on the bottom left, the bottom right of the building is how the garage is accessed. the applicant is also providing vehicular inter-parcel access to the west and a stub to the east for future connection a total of 676 spaces are required for the proposed use uses on the subject site and the applicant is proposing 417 spaces the applicant is requesting submitted a parking study and this parking study is still under review. The applicant has submitted a special exception request for the 39% parking reduction. Parking is proposed in a below-ground parking structure with 20

bike parking spaces as required by the ordinance and these spaces are located in a bike room in the parking structure and then also outdoors in bike racks. The the one loading space required by the ordinance. The subject site is currently split zoned with the majority of the property zoned CR commercial retail and approximately 5,436 square feet zoned RM residential medium. The applicant is requesting a zoning map amendment to rezone the entire property to CR commercial retail to accommodate the proposed uses. the applicant is also requesting a comprehensive plan amendment to amend the future land use map to change the designation from commercial corridor to multifamily neighborhood the comprehensive

plans future land use map designates the subject property as commercial corridor and the commercial corridor includes a mix of retail restaurant service medical office and other commercial uses, but residential uses are not recommended in the commercial corridors. Because this proposal includes a request for a special use permit for upper story residential and mixed uses, and because the commercial corridor place type does not support residential uses, a comprehensive plan amendment is required. The multifamily neighborhood place type applies to neighborhoods that are primarily developed multifamily condominium housing. The multifamily neighborhood place type does not accommodate commercial retail or office uses. Multifamily development that is adjacent to single-family

detached neighborhoods within city limits should have a maximum of three floors and provide landscape setbacks for portions of the site that are adjacent to any single-family detached neighborhoods. The multifamily neighborhood place type supports up to 24 dwelling units per acre. the future land use map would look like if this application is proposed or is approved. And that concludes my presentation. I believe the applicant is here to present next.

James FeatherWelcome.

Sarah MariskaapplicantGood evening. I'm Sarah Mariska with Oden Feldman Pittleman here on behalf of the owner of the 10201 Fairfax Boulevard site. With me tonight is George Hong on behalf of the owner. We also have Ross Litkin House and Will Rich here with Calvary Real Estate Advisors who have been working on the fiscal impact analysis for this site. And I'm going to try and keep my comments brief. I want to provide a little bit of color on the proposal and what we're trying to achieve. But really, we would like to hear from you all to understand where we should go with this application. We are preliminary. Even though we have done a second submission, we are continuing to work to address staff comments, but also want to hear from this commission as well as the council to inform our next submission.

So with that, I think this group is very familiar with the site, but just to orient everyone, the site is developed with about a 93,000-square-foot, five-story office building, and just to it's at a signalized intersection on Fairfax Boulevard and just to thank you for the technical assistance thank you so just to give you a little bit of orientation the first view is really on from Fairfax Boulevard at the signal at the intersection The second street view is as you're moving eastbound along Fairfax Boulevard. And then the final one is showing that there really is already kind of a visibility of that existing building as well as a standalone parking structure from the adjacent single-family neighborhood behind the site.

So I know that staff have indicated that the site is about 90% occupied, but as it stands, it's about 84% of the site is leased. And many of the leases are expiring in the very near future. So the 84% is going to continue to decline over the very near term. I think this commission is very aware that the office market, and I think was alluded to earlier with all the applications, the office market has evolved significantly for a number of reasons, ranging from the building codes and more efficiently designed buildings to the increased teleworking, which even with a change of administration, I think will continue as the office world continues to think about use of space and allocation of resources.

Things are not physically stored in offices as much. People are using the cloud to store things. There's not the need for the same amount of space that once there was. And then similarly, the retail environment has dramatically changed given the online shopping and just the nature of uses has changed a lot since this building was constructed and since it was leased. The owner, in consideration of all of those market factors, as well as the decline in vacancy and continued anticipated decline in vacancy, is looking for flexibility for what this site could be in the future. I think that the commercial corridor designation from the entire corridor is not completely realistic. So thinking about what could happen on this site that takes advantage of the need for commercial and retail uses,

but also in a positive fiscal direction for the city for the future, we've been thinking about something that's different for the city. So this plan here is something different than I think was discussed by this commission when this was brought before you for a pre-application briefing. One of the things that we have heard is about the need to maintain that mix of uses, to maintain a commercial mix. So with this proposal, we are thinking about the entire first floor essentially being commercial use with the frontage of the building having a more active retail presence with about 20,000 square feet of retail along the property frontage. And then the second half of the building continuing to have

a more traditional office use so that we are proposing in total about 40,000 square feet of commercial uses or the entirety of the first floor to really carry forward some of the compatible mix of uses that I think the city is looking for and to try and carry forward some of that tax base that we understand is important to the city. So the other thing I think that's important is that the owner is looking at this site for something new and different both in the city and in Northern Virginia to be candid that these would be technology focused green kind of efficient units these would be units that are extremely efficiently designed such they would have a smaller average unit size than a traditional multifamily building they

would have some technology features that would be incorporated that I'll show you in some upcoming images and then there would also be a number of green features one of which we have looked at is solar-powered window film that actually produces electricity, as well as other standard green building features like EV chargers, and potentially looking at other features as well that would enhance this building. So just to give you a little bit of a visual for what we have thought about and have been looking at, these are providing some illustratives in terms of the quality of the building, But some of the other things, as I understand, that we'd be looking at that is available in other countries but really hasn't been brought to the United States is kind of these units could have integrated systems such that the smartphone could control everything from the TV to the refrigerator.

You could see inside of your fridge, as you might see in this lower right-hand corner image, without getting up from viewing a TV show. Or even if you were at the grocery store, you could look at the contents of your refrigerator, hopefully saving trips, and then also, of course, limiting the number of times you're opening your refrigerator. There's a thought that the closets could have integrated systems that could steam and clean your clothes with inside the units and this could all be controlled through your smartphone. And then we also are looking about at some flexible designs such that as you see on the left hand side the bed could drop down from the ceiling and could turn into some alternative

configurations such that these smaller units are something that could be accommodated because of that flexible design. The upper right-hand image here shows a potential retractable table, and then the right bottom image on the lower right side shows the integration, again, in terms of technology, such that a mirror in the bathroom could include the time, the date, the temperature, your calendar, all sorts of integrated systems that we think could really be a forward-looking opportunity for the city in this building and provides, you know, a large degree of accessibility efficiency and kind of a new product that we are really excited to explore. Some other images showing the kind of quality that we have looked at and thought about and

have talked to kind of these kinds of technology focused units. We've worked with other companies that have looked at this in other countries. Another image showing how this could come together in the unit. And then a little bit more detail that we could certainly provide, but really the thought is that the film of the windows would be producing energy, and it really provides an opportunity for this green building, which I think is forward-looking for the city. we have not provided a formal fiscal impact analysis but the applicant has retained Calvary real estate advisors they are here tonight and I think that the primary point we want to make is that the analysis demonstrates that this mixed-use commercial but predominantly residential

proposal is overwhelmingly a positive fiscal benefit for the city compared to the retention and as I mentioned we do have folks who are experts that could speak to this in greater detail and I'm you'll provide and then just in quick summary this we know is an exciting in our minds new housing type to increase housing stock overall in the city which I think we all have read there is a housing affordability crisis that could be helped with simply increasing housing stock but we also would be meeting the city's expectation in terms of affordable of the site being designated for affordable units. We would enhance the pedestrian connectivity both to the neighborhood, to the future trail across the street, which I think would be a real asset.

We are looking forward to that sustainable design while still providing the commercial component that I think is of interest to the city in terms of the mix of uses and activating the site and, of course, the positive fiscal impact we see as a significant benefit for the city in years to come. With that, we really want to hear from you all and hear the feedback that we might be able to incorporate as we work through the process, knowing that we have additional work to do. So thank you.

James FeatherThank you. Okay, Commission, questions, comments for staff and or the applicant?

Kirsten LockhartI'd like to start with a question. I think it's mostly for staff but potentially for the applicant. The proposed change to the land use type is to mixed use residential. Is there a reason why the multifamily resident? Yes. Is there a reason why commercial urban wasn't? Well, that's in the comprehensive plan. Mixed use place, yes. Is that because it didn't exist yet? so

Clara Schweigerstaffthe mixed-use place type is only for the parcel specific designated sites in the comprehensive plan

Kirsten Lockhartbut we don't rule out any sites in the comprehensive plan we suggested some but we didn't say those were the only sites where it could be used

Mr. Naptestaffthe language that was added in the conference plan specifically recommended that only those sites that we identified in the partial specific recommendations be considered for the mixed-use place type so yes i thought

Kirsten Lockhartit said those were the examples but that others might be considered no

Mr. Naptestaffthe final language was was was pretty strict it said that they should not be considered outside of those specifically designated sites

James Featherokay it would be a comp plan amendment to change that though yeah

Kirsten Lockhartwhich

James Featherwe're already asking for

Kirsten LockhartOkay. I appreciate the high-tech stuff. That's very cool and certainly a selling point once you get to the point of renting. But I just wanted to foot stomp. We would not want to see that at the expense of the affordable units. Obviously, that's priority. Sorry, I should have prefaced. Overall, I'm very much in favor of the proposal. I think it's a great use for the site. I think it's a real opportunity for this property owner and the future development to be good neighbors of the neighborhood immediately behind them. whereas I feel like perhaps some of the other commercial tenants along the street have not necessarily been, so there's really an opportunity to do some goodwill building there.

But to that end, I would say reconsidering the six-story versus seven-story for that bulk angle, especially in comparison to the neighborhood, and also the RPA exception, I understood that some of that is your hand is forced just by the existing lot coverage, to the point of being sustainable and, you know, technologically advanced, anything that the applicant can do to show what they're doing to mitigate the environmental impact of the redevelopment on the site, I think would be very important. And then, you know, to my previous comments on the last applicant, I think under-parking is awesome because we need to be really forcing the people's hand on finding alternate transportation. However, in this case, again, going back to being a good neighbor of the single-family neighborhood immediately behind,

perhaps, you know, working with the neighborhood to preserve their street parking the residential area, you know, helping them with permitting so that, you know, the neighbors on that street have priority or something to that effect or, you know, otherwise preventing just overflow cars flooding into the residential neighborhood. I think that would be an important talking point and concession, yeah, for the development. But those were just my quick notes.

James FeatherOthers? Mr. Coleman.

Anthony ColemanI will echo Ms. Lockhart. Thank you. I'll slightly contradict myself. I am a fan of height in this instance. It does give me some concern abutting directly up to the neighborhood, so I kind of echo the sentiment. Six is probably much more appropriate. Also kind of echoing the parking, just because I'm looking right across the street, you have crazy crap in that parking lot. It's crazy on the weekends, and with it being a signaled intersection, I wonder how much overflow from that would then spill over into a well-lit, well-organized parking area. So that is something, I think, to consider. But it is nice to see an applicant that is engaged, that is wanting to be a good neighbor and looking towards the future.

The affordable units are absolutely good to see on there. And I think a lot of us would echo just a non-negotiable. I mean, they have to be there. So it's good to see that on there. And, yeah. Okay.

Matthew RiceMr. Wright? Yeah, pedestrian connectivity, big thumbs up. The profile of the curb line kind of cramulates a little bit. but I assume there's drop-off or a bus stop or some place to move traffic off the roadway to the curb. Is that the reason for the shape?

Sarah MariskaapplicantThere's also some existing utilities, including the signal box in that area and some other things that we're working around that are existing constraints. We do have understood the need for there to be some short-term parking, which is some of the surface parking we've proposed along the eastern side of that building would hopefully serve that purpose.

Matthew RiceAll right. We need to preemptively suggest a residential parking district on Stratford. It doesn't exist yet, at least according to the current map. And it would, with proposals and development along that boulevard, especially since we're kind of encouraging connections between neighborhoods and walkability, we need to make sure that Stratford doesn't get flooded with overflow parking. and as Ms. Lockhart stated, generally I'm a favor of under parking and getting folks out on foot and encouraging pedestrian amenities and doing it the right way. But at the same time, for the folks back there on the street, we need to make sure they're well cared for in the context of everything that's changing.

And that's it. Thank you. To my left. Mr. Beckman, anything?

Kevin Dentonyeah I think heights of concern being under parked is of concern the I think of it this way a lot of times I like the ability to walk all the way around a building if I'm not mistaken the west side doesn't have sidewalk correct it does have a road for lack of a better word or a lane but there's no sidewalk is it just not able to fit or is it like all the entrances and exits are to the east and north side

Sarah Mariskaapplicantit's it's about trying to provide the safest route for pedestrians and that was the intent was that we would get them to the light get into the signal as efficiently as possible i mean but something we can certainly take into account as we look at the design

Kevin Dentonalthough you're still uh in the rpa you're less in the RPA with the redevelopment. So that's a positive impact. And it looks like it's all canopy over there once you... Okay, so that's good. I think that's it. Thank you.

James FeatherThank you. Mr. Cunningham.

Paul CunninghamThank you, Mr. Chair. I guess my first question is going to be rhetorical. maximum density building height bulk plane required yards transition yards parking resource protection area is there anything we got right in writing our ordinances or what we have laid out for what we want there and I will say that that's rhetorical so I'll suggest that you're chuckling there says you recognize some of this. Yes. I think it's a good proposal if it's placed in the Fairfax Circle small area, if it's placed in the Northfax small area, if it's placed in the Camp Washington small area, but I don't think it needs to supplant a five-story office building which which by its very design is invisible right now.

When you drive up and down Fairfax Boulevard, you never see that. And the fact that it's actually a six story office building because the road is at least one story if not two below the level of the office building masks it even further. But we're going up from there and we're taking all of the tree canopy and the screening out from in front of it. one question I have what are you doing with the existing sidewalk along Fairfax Boulevard is that being modified at all

Sarah Mariskaapplicantit would be modified slightly yes

Paul Cunninghamokay so does it have to be modified because it starts and then you've got an upslope in land and then you've got a street behind it so when we're talking major change to the site we're getting into that when we talk residential on the Boulevard I'm going to indicate that it's probably probably 10 50 it's probably 15 years ago now that we had a proposal right across the street and we strung a developer out for a couple of years and had them spend several million dollars in doing prep and planning and everything only to have the question of residential and built to burn because it was stick built and some other issues come up at the city council approval meeting and everybody was shocked when it got voted down at the last moment

we have since had the breezeway and the fairfax garden apartments as a project that came through displacing affordable housing a significant amount modifying the commercial space on the front because in the unit of the whole thing we had to have half of that space for open space in order to meet the requirements of the residential on the back and modified it and we went through the discussion of residential on the boulevard and never were able to resolve it so we have a hanging proposal out there we still and going through our comp plan process in fact have written in there that we really don't want residential on the boulevard outside of the small area plan areas this is a total contradiction to that desire if

these were going to be rental units by the day or the week or that and you called it a motel we have motels for residential on the boulevard but this is not that kind of housing so that to me is a major challenge it's the wrong kind of housing in the wrong place when there are opportunities to put it in what's considered the right places and that would be you know I guess a major concern of mine next seven stories next a single-family residential one-story seems like an encroachment that's too far. When you build over somebody, you're just asking the neighborhood to move away and not deal with it or have your neighbors be so different that there is no sense of neighborhood or community or anything that's going to be developed here.

And as long as it's on the other side and it's on Fairfax Boulevard, it can be commercial. whatever so from my sense there are a lot of major things to overcome before this project should move forward unless you want to place it in one of those places where it would be welcomed immediately and I think as I talked on the last point we were adding a thousand units where we've already got 480 and 80 bedrooms in that area. And we were talking 1,250 ballpark for the whole area and we're not done with that area yet. So when we look at adding population, how much density and where, and are we just going to pop it up and stack it wherever we find a piece of open space in the city, or are we going to move it into those areas

that we have designated and prepared and written plans for done it. I think this would be great in one of the three areas I talked about or it would be great at Pickett and Main. It might even be great on an orphan property in downtown because it fits sort of what we're talking about there. But where it is, I don't think it's the right place, right piece in the right place much as it may be an otherwise worthy project I guess that's the bulk of my statement on it and that's where I sit at the moment thank you

James Featherthank you mr. Cunningham um other commissioners have a redo Mr. Rice.

Matthew RiceWe talked about this once before, and we said is this close enough to North Facts to consider it sort of an amendment to that. I'm seeing about 1,100 feet. To me, that is a walkable distance. I would do it. There is a signalized intersection with a reasonably good crosswalk. and it is approaching what I think is a sort of a complementary situation on the edge of a small area. But I recognize a lot of folks don't think in terms of the same distance as I would think.

Paul CunninghamAre you adding Taco Bell to the crab place across the street? Besides this thing towering over Captain Pels, which is a historic crab house in town, I mean, the stuff we're starting to mix and do is talking about the future of the city. It's going to be way different.

James FeatherMr. Harden, did you have a comment?

Mr. HardenstaffIf

Kevin DentonI may,

Mr. HardenstaffMr.

Kevin DentonChair.

Mr. HardenstaffSo, the applicant before you this evening has not requested a comp plan amendment to the mixed use designation. The reason they haven't done that is because the comp plan is very clear that that's not a designation that is on the table for this property. So they've requested a comp plan amendment to multifamily, which also doesn't necessarily fit with what's being proposed the comp plan is clear that the mixed-use designation should be on locations where a parcel specific consideration has been identified and this is these are locations that the Planning Commission should be identifying these aren't locations that an applicant should come through the door and as part of a land use application make a request to be

considered within those areas Commission had extensive discussion this past fall about various sites including this one discussed things like size of site ability to create an environment that is commensurate with with that mixed-use designation and this and other sites were not included in that there there there were sites or there was a site that was included and so if this is a consideration of Planning Commission it shouldn't be part of this application if we need to go back and look at the policy that was just adopted the Planning Commission should take time retreat and and have that conversation apart from an because doing this you know in response an application that's been filed is not

the time or the place to be doing that it needs more thought and consideration the reason that we ended up where we are is because previous comp plans were less than direct about what the expectations were and so applications were being filed and the Planning Commission and City Council were being asked to consider development proposals that the plan was unclear about and were making decisions kind of ad hoc based on whatever the factors of the day were. The reason to have the conversation is because I think the Planning Commission realized we are going to have these types of proposals come forward, but we want to have some control over them. And so that was the reasoning behind creating the new mixed-use designation, taking the time to identify what parcels it makes sense.

And so, you know, the applicant before you this evening doesn't have a comp plan designation that is available to them that will support the application. The planning commission is going to be asked to rezone a property, and that rezoning should be responsive to the comprehensive plan. will be a challenge to do that with the options that are currently on the table. So we would certainly recommend, if this is something the Planning Commission wants to consider, take a moment, reevaluate what's been in the plan that was just adopted this fall, and make a change if that's what the desire is. But you don't have a policy at this point that supports what's being proposed here. So I just want to be very clear about that.

We've been very clear with this applicant from the get-go. From the moment they called us in the summer of 2023, this is not something that the city has policy to support. So this isn't news to them. They've heard it before they filed the application, and they've heard it since they filed the application. But we need to be very careful about this consideration moving forward to do something that is different than what the current policy is. So I want to make that clear, and I would suggest that the Planning Commission give that some consideration and perhaps have additional discussion about this if this is the direction that the Commission is desiring to move in. So with that.

Kirsten LockhartCould you point us towards the policy for adding a parcel to parcel specific list? Because, you know, I have the comp plan open in front of me, and it just says the list may be expanded in future modifications.

Mr. HardenstaffSo the mixed-use place type says that...

Kirsten LockhartNo, sorry, this is just for the parcel specific considerations. So adding a parcel to that list, how would we go about that?

Mr. HardenstaffThose have been, they were originally identified as part of the 2019 comp plan adoption, and then the Planning Commission modified them as part of the five-year review based upon what had transpired over that time. These are sites that I think the Commission has identified that additional discussion should occur. There's the notion that there may be some adjustment to what the uses are there over the long term. And we're identified individually by the commission. And so we would recommend that those be identified by the commission. They're very unique properties. we get applications that come in all the time and and those parcels i think are properties were identified specifically that they weren't like all of the parcels that otherwise are around

the city and so the notion that an applicant would come in identify their properties being something unique and different and should be a parcel specific property is not something that that the council or the Planning Commission absolve themselves of that is something that that the Planning Commission and the council should be identifying based on a review of all of the land uses in the city all the other parcel specific properties that have been identified because if not if there if there is no evaluation for that you know any applicant may come in and say I should be a parcel specific consideration so you know maybe maybe directly Commissioner there's not language that says only the Planning

Commission shall designate these but staff would strenuously recommend that only the Planning Commission designate those that they not be something that we open up for applicants to apply for we haven't in the past had text changes in the comp plan made at the recommendation of an applicant and that's what effectively this would be they have requested changes for for for map amendments but that's something that I wouldn't suggest the Planning Commission Because then what we will have is property owners, developers, etc. writing portions of our comp plan. And I'm not sure that's their job or what we would want as a policy process going forward.

James FeatherMr. Cunnihan.

Paul CunninghamThank you, Mr. Hardin. I think part of the genesis for this was the desire to avoid black swan surprises. What I'm going to define as a black swan surprise is the redevelopment of Paul VI. It had never been considered before, and all of a sudden, without any background, we were dealing with a major redevelopment on a site that was near and dear to a great many citizens hearts and something that while the neighborhood didn't like what was going on before that really didn't like what was happening and that led to the discussion on the planning commission to look at sites that potentially like that could come up for something that was unexpected but should not be unexpected in other words look at it and say look you know give a

positive identification of these kind of sites as opposed to letting them pop up and then floundering trying to figure out what to actually do with it

Mr. HardenstaffI agree. And that was something that previous plans had not done an adequate job in addressing, and that was the idea behind doing it in 2019.

James FeatherThank you. I'm glad you came in and read that because I had it open to read. This button is not behaving tonight. I appreciate the explanation. I'm not sure which came first, the chicken or the egg, but I will just remind the commission that the mixed-use place type that was added to the comprehensive plan as we changed it, the idea developed from a potential applicant coming to us with a development idea in a different area. There's a zone commercial, and that very well fit the concept that we were talking about. This is different, but I also understand the rock and the hard place that this applicant is between because of the language in the plan that discourages residential use on the commercial corridor

outside of the activity centers and that the multifamily place type is for neighborhoods primarily developed with multifamily apartment or multifamily condominium housing this area is not primarily that this is a this would be a standalone piece so this is the difficulty that this applicant is in so if this is a concept that we believe has merit and should warrant reconsideration of partial specific place types mr. Hardin has put the challenge before us to make that decision ourselves and not be responsive to an application. If I interpret it correctly, Mr. Harden, as to what you said. Right. Okay. So we can have that discussion. As far as this particular application is concerned, I similarly have concerns with the height

particularly facing Stratford Avenue. The picture that was shown in the presentation was very nice with the small house, single story, pickup truck in the driveway, big trees behind it. There are no leaves on the trees right now. It would be a monstrosity of a building two stories higher than what currently is there. We need to be concerned about what that facing the community is. Maybe seven stories is appropriate. Facing a neighborhood, if there's a willingness to accept the bulk plane problem, that's still pretty darn big right up against the boulevard. That's a special exception that the board of architectural review gets to formally weigh in i'll remind the commission that we're free to comment on any part of an application even though some of those things are not part of

our formal recommendation to council so we're making comments on these are appropriate and i would trust that they'd be conveyed to council is and if we get to the point of a public hearing and so forth we can make those comments but they're not part of any recommendation same would apply to any i think any of our reviews along the way uh that's concerning with the loss of commercial always debates between building owners and our economic development folks as to the demand for high quality office space talk about what this site could be I would argue this site could also become class a office space which is in short supply in the city of Fairfax that you know the applicant can choose to apply

to make do what he wants he or she wants to do with it but mm-hmm it seems that is the winner in terms of eyes of developers right now. But I don't know without having conversation and having that input that would be required by the way for a special parcel specific consideration is a full and complete economic analysis as well. So that would be required as part of any spartial specific consideration here. So most of the other comments have been made. I think I'm ambivalent about the under parking as to trying to drive people, no pun intended, out of their cars and into public transportation and so forth. But I'm glad to see that tree canopy requirements will be met, sparse as it is in the zoning district that's proposed.

But we have to preserve what we can and be a little over and above what's required at the minimum is a good thing. I know what the zoning ordinance says about loading spaces, although it baffles me with the mix of uses that one loading space is sufficient it's all that's required by the zoning ordinance so we can't ask for more but it just feels to me when you got commercial establishments along with residential establishments with deliveries that could be a challenge might meet the word of the ordinance I'm not sure from the practical standpoint if it's sufficient but well I'm not going to suggest doing anything more than the ordinance requires, I can't do that. But it just puzzles me a little bit.

Most of the other things I had concerns about have been expressed in the things that are supporting. The high tech, I mean, Fairfax City could become a model in something like this, but smart homes are, they're not new. We got a complicated system in our own house here that sometimes baffles me. It can do all kinds of things. But, you know, I'm slightly older, although pretty tech savvy. but I think it's kind of cool. I think the energy features that you're talking about are a real model for other development in the city and could be attractive to certain applicants. Ms. Lockhart pointed out the, I don't know if it's a concern, that the high-tech features shouldn't put at risk the affordable units.

I'll just remind you that the affordable units have to look and feel like all the other units, So you can't shortchange folks in the affordable units by backing out the tech. The ordinance would not permit that. So it's a fascinating proposal. It is. You presented with some challenges, and you can understand. We understand the position you're in between what a comprehensive plan gives us the latitude to do and what it constrains us from doing as well. So I think you have our feedback. Is it sufficient? Mr. Sutton nodding

Clara SchweigerstaffMr.

James FeatherArden are you okay I saw both your head go both ways it's a bobblehead okay thank you for bringing us this challenge you keep developers do keep bringing us opportunities to reconsider how we do our business so I think you've heard some positive comments as well as some concerns thank you All right. We shall reconvene our regular meeting and go to the staff report. Mr. Napke.

Mr. NaptestaffThank you again, Mr. Chair. Going back to the City Council meeting on January 14, which was the day after your last meeting, they received the same presentation you received to small area plans we had a few pieces of feedback mostly questions and we'll be back in front of both planning commission City Council in the next couple of months on the next phase of that project for tomorrow with the City Council I don't usually talk about a water contracts but they will be a wording a contract for construction of the government Center Parkway extension does that be interested to the Planning Commission because it has been in our comprehensive plan for quite some time and that project is finally moving

forward they will receive the presentation on the Davies proposal that you received on the 13th they will also receive the presentation on the second quarter financial review per the capital improvement program schedule and will be eventually receiving the introductory budget presentation in late February their following meeting on February 4 the work session meeting they will receive the presentation of the planning commission on the CIP as we We'll also take that time to give a brief overview of the annual report and implementation guides from staff. They will have a work session on a or pre-application briefing on a proposal called the Aux Block B. This is one I think we mentioned to you about across the street from the Aux Block

A is a mixed-use multifamily proposal. This requires a special use permit only so it's not subject to planning commission review. you've had on gatewood plaza and they'll receive an update on potential zoning text amendments for accessory dwelling units planning commission last discussed this over the summer i believe and this work session was scheduled just to brief the new city council on that project there is a little bit of new information but when we get to the next phase of that project we'll have our next conversation with the planning commission on that for upcoming meetings for the planning commission We're scheduled to have a work session on the proposed townhouses at Mantua Professional

Center. You may receive a pre-application briefing for proposal for a hotel and conference center at the Far House property. So that's it for our schedule. I did want to go over the email I sent to you all last week about two things. first about who will be able to attend on February 4th for the presentation to City Council on the CIP and then second about a potential meeting with the new City Council that would occur at 6 o'clock before one of your meetings in March so first of February 4th I heard from chair feather that he'll be coming councilmember rice said that he is a or sorry Commissioner rice said that he is available and I believe I just heard Commissioner Lockhart say you'll be coming okay so I just want to see if anyone else is coming in to confirm that

the three of you are interested in that

Paul Cunninghamit's a function of surviving the chocolate lovers festival I will be working Friday all day Saturday and all day Sunday on that as treasurer of IDCC okay so if I'm still vertical on the 4th as possible I will attend but if I'm still so done on chocolate overfill understood yeah

Mr. Naptestaffokay okay and then the other item was for a potential meeting with the new city council your two meeting dates in march are march 10 and march 24. i heard from commissioner briggs feather and rice that either of those dates are okay so i want to see if anyone is aware of any conflicts you might have on either march 10 or march 24. okay anyone else

Paul CunninghamFRHC meeting should be completed by the time that council meeting starts so it's possible I can be there on the 10th

Matthew Riceokay

Mr. Naptestaffokay well if anything comes up let me know I'll hold those for now before we request a specific date, but then we'll be reaching out to the City Clerk's Office to set that up. That's all I have for the staff report.

James FeatherThank you. Any questions for Mr. Denton? Okay, commission comments. Mr. Denton?

Kevin Dentonlet's see two went about a week and a half ago at the most recent BAR meeting there was an election of new chair and vice chair and then two items before us that night one was a medical building on Main Street I think it's 107 21 Main Street and it's I think when you're driving on Main Street, it's hidden behind a sister building, if you will. And I think both are red brick or maybe a brown brick. And there was a proposal to stain the building that you can't really see from the street, a white color. And that was approved. And one of the biggest desires was not necessarily the aesthetics, but to be able to have a distinction between the two buildings. created a lot of confusion with the clients of those buildings.

And then the other was, I think, just an extension request from, I think it was Fairfax Presbyterian, for the, you may be familiar with it, the 10 affordable townhomes, and that was approved as well.

James FeatherWho was elected chair and vice chair?

Kevin DentonMs. Way was vice chair and Mr. Pethela as chair.

James FeatherStill, again. Thank you. Mr. Connion.

Paul CunninghamThank you. I would like to remind everybody that this Saturday and this Sunday is the Chocolate Lovers Festival. It is all over downtown, but primarily in Old Town Hall. I would encourage you if you like to eat chocolate in the snow in the cold in February to attend It's free Valentine's and you can stock up so that you'll have your full supply I look forward to seeing as many of you there as possible. Thank you.

James FeatherThank you

Kirsten LockhartNothing for the Commission this evening. Thank you. It's

Matthew Ricerice as I mentioned last time we met the renovations told down all be ongoing this year and so that festival will be the last time in a while to attend a big city event in the building as it stands now and so the Parks and Recre Advisory Board that I represent the Planning Commission to has briefings on that periodically and it's gonna be a nice project downtown and nothing else we have a have had a proud meeting before previous Planning Commission business was handled there and I don't have anything else. Thank you. Mr. Coleman.

James FeatherOkay. From my perspective, we will need to have a conversation, I think, about parcel-specific considerations. I'll coordinate with Mr. Napty when we meet tomorrow to talk about how we might want to do that if that's of interest to the commission. Is there interest in the commission to open that discussion back up?

Matthew RiceI think so because there's some feeling of things being somewhat unresolved. And I think that that's not healthy. And I think understanding the pressure that staff faces when things are sort of potentially chaotic, feeling that they could make these, I understand the frustration in that. And I think there also needs to be an understanding that there was a concept at least that some of those parcel-specific recommendations were seems you know for some of the smaller ones maybe not clear and that if that was something we would certainly revisit and the similarities between this particular instance and another one that we discussed on Main Street is striking you know signalized crosswalk adjacent commercial

uses residential nearby it's there you know and so I think having a discussion is worthy and it does need to come from us it shouldn't be coming up every time someone walks through the door with plans and so I think if we at least have clarity in terms of what our role is and that we understand that that would be useful so I don't know how that would happen or what form would take well

Kirsten Lockhartweek or next session if we do hear the far house proposal because the the parcel specific designation for that is multifamily or single-family attached so we can't escape the question of how we address our adjudication of a parcel specific designation or not either way the

Mr. Naptestaffissue here is really specific about the mixed-use place type because that is that and activity center all the ones language that says they should not be considered in other locations so that proposal I don't know exactly what it's gonna look like but I don't think it could be residential uses it would be entirely commercial I believe I could be wrong so maybe that will come up but if it is entirely commercial they will go to simply request an amendment to the future land use map and go through the process without having a partial specific recommendation but

Kirsten Lockhartoh

Mr. NaptestaffI see yes okay that's a good point

James Featherand there may be other solutions to consider as well in the comp plan our restriction on presidential and commercial corridor for example could be on the table but okay so make sure we're on the same page of having that discussion I don't have much else to report I will say that I'm gonna participate in a meeting on Friday being organized by the chair of the Planning for Montgomery County. He's organized something called Breakfast with the Chairs. So some of the Planning Commission chairs from around the area will be gathering for conversation. So it'll be interesting to see what comes of that. I think I'll learn a fair bit about how other Planning Commissions operate, what their interests and concerns are for their particular jurisdictions,

and I'll be eager to attend that and report back to you on what the discussion feels like. Other than that, I have nothing else at this point. on our two work sessions today on the land use cases. It feels good to get our fingers back into land use as well after all the work on the comp plan and the CIP. So back to one of our other core businesses. With nothing else, I will declare this meeting adjourned. Thank you. Thank you.