Planning Commission Regular Meeting/Work Session

Kirsten Lockhartcould you speak to your professional opinion I on special use permits or special use considerations in zoning I see it referenced sort of offhand a couple times in the issues summaries but nothing is an outright recommendation I do feel like there's an overall tone towards consistency and standardization which I greatly appreciate and obviously is a weak point but that seems to be a very glaring black hole of differentiation that

Justin Wallaceis a great observation I think as we came into this project we heard special use permits, special exceptions, and frankly the negotiation process quite a bit. And I think that is something that we're going to try to mitigate as much as possible and to make sure that the zoning ordinance is clear enough in terms of the expectations so that if something can be by right, then we should allow it if it's possible to do And so we're going to be looking at ways to mitigate the applicants from having to go through the negotiations process as their only path. And I think that has been echoed in some of the technical meetings that we've had and with the community because there's a certain optics that's being presented to the community too.

and I think by allowing you know mitigating those special use permits and special exceptions would be a benefit to the community as well not just the developers so

Kirsten Lockhartreflecting sensitivity and then my final question is right now our special use permits um special exceptions kind of bifurcate our review processes and often we as the planning commission don't see a lot of those things they go directly to council despite the fact that they have a big impact on a small area plan or an activity center or even a comprehensive plan. So as part of your work on the zoning, is process part of that work or is it just the letter of the law?

Paul Nabtistaffamendments planning commission last had a work session on this over the summer there have been some updates but this is primarily to bring the new city council up to speed on that project they'll receive a pre-application work session on a proposal what they're calling the the ox B this is the former Enterprise Center on University Drive proposals for residential with ground floor retail and it looks like the application will be a special use permit only which is why plenty which is not receiving this presentation they will also receive a or scheduled to have a post application work session on the Gatewood Plaza proposal this is office building on Fairfax Boulevard City Planning Commission is scheduled to have that