Planning Commission Regular Meeting/Work Session

James FeatherGood evening, welcome to the regularly scheduled meeting of the City of Fairfax Planning Commission for Monday, December 9th, 2024. First order of business is Pledge of Allegiance, please join me.

Matthew RiceI pledge allegiance to

James Featherthe 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 prior to the meeting. Any comments on the agenda?

Paul CunninghamMr. Chairman, I move adoption of the agenda as presented.

James FeatherIs there a second?

Paul CunninghamSecond. Second.

James FeatherAll those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Next order of business is presentations by the public on any matter not calling for a public hearing. We have no public hearings this evening, so the floor is open. Seeing none, we will close this item and move on to consideration of the minutes the November 25th 2024 meeting Mr. Rice

Matthew RiceMr. Chair I move that we approve the meeting minutes from November 25 2024 as presented there

James Feathera second any discussion comments Corrections seeing none voice vote please all those in favor say aye aye opposed none passes unanimously we have no items not requiring a public public hearings so we will recess our regular meeting go to our work session we have one work session item this evening which is continued discussion on the FY 2026 FY 2030 capital improvement program Mr. Napdi will provide the staff provide the staff report.

Paul NabtistaffThank you Chair Feather and members of the Planning Commission. As I mentioned this is a continued discussion of the Capital Improvement Program. Looking back to November 25th the Planning Commission received a presentation from the City Manager summarizing the draft Capital Improvement Program to this point and per our typical schedule the Planning Commission will spend the next two months preparing recommendations to present to the city council on the capital improvement program which they will receive in february so for tonight's meeting this is our first meeting independent of the city manager's presentation for the planning commission to start to provide feedback and so we will try to summarize some of the key aspects of the cip to help you formulate

your recommendations we'll continue these conversations at your next meeting on january 13 and then by the end of that meeting, the goal is to have your recommendations formulated at the point where we can prepare a resolution that can be considered for adoption at the meeting on January 27. If the Planning Commission adopts the resolution, then they will designate representatives to attend the City Council meeting on February 4 to present the recommendations. Before we go through the key aspects of the CIP, I just wanted to go through a quick refresher on the format of the CIP and the purpose of the Plenty Commission's recommendations. This slide shows the four chapters or the four sections of the Capital Improvement Program.

It's divided into sections based on the types of projects proposed. includes capital projects, infrastructure repair and maintenance, technology and infrastructure, and vehicle and equipment replacement. Since the Planning Commission's purpose is to identify relationships between the CIP and the comprehensive plan, your recommendations will focus on the capital projects, which are those with the blue headers. This is an example of what each project page looks like where you can get more information. includes a description a brief description of the project its funding source at the bottom and then there are relationships to the comprehensive plan at the top I did want to note that the relationships of the comprehensive plan

still relate to the old comprehensive plan we hope to have those updated before this goes to City Council the timeframes are also referred to the old comprehensive plan or better yet the implementation guides that are associated with the comprehensive plan these will be updated as well but the Planning Commission will consider the new implementation guide at your second meeting in January and so these will likely not be updated before it goes to City Council the Commission's role in reviewing the capital improvement program is primarily to focus on these three points one to determine conformance proposed projects within the plan with the comprehensive plan this is what your but also to advise council on city priorities among proposed projects so as always a city council will

be forced to determine or decide between projects depending on the budget stipulations and financial constraints and so one of the goals of the planning commission resolution is to identify those projects that are most critical that should not be removed or reduced also anticipate future considerations so we'll be looking at some of the things in the comprehensive plan which may not be things that you notice that we've talked about that city council should be aware of and while this typically doesn't result in new projects being introduced into this year's CIP it's something that will help prepare for next year so for tonight's presentation there's a couple additions since the presentation was

sent to you in your packets last week chair feather asked for some additional information to be provided so we included that in here so in summary when When we look at the draft CIP as it is now, these are the things that we will go over, these five elements. I'll go through each of these in this presentation. First we will summarize the Planning Commission's previous recommendations from last year just to give you a benchmark on the types of things that we typically do. We will identify those projects that are in the CIP that are specifically identified in the smaller plans. This was already presented to you by the city manager at the last meeting and so we'll go We have also identified several other projects that are identified elsewhere in the comprehensive

plan that are specifically identified. As noted on the project page slide, every project in the comprehensive plan has some relationship to or and the CIP has some relationship to the comprehensive plan and those project pages identify that. However, there are some projects that are specifically mentioned in the comprehensive plan or discussed in the comprehensive plan and so we wanted to identify those as being more important. We will look at new applicable projects that are in the CIP. And so you might notice looking at the CIP that some projects were identified as being new that were not in previous CIPs. And so we will identify those, but focus on those that have some relationship to the Planning Commission's role.

There are a lot of new projects that have to do with maintenance and ongoing facilities. So we pulled those out, only identified those that are really, really new

Matthew Ricecapital projects, which is what the Planning Commission focuses on.

Paul NabtistaffAnd then lastly, considering that you just adopted a new comprehensive plan a couple of months ago that has some new actions and priorities that weren't in the previous comprehensive plan, we wanted to go through and identify what some of those new priorities are that relate to capital projects. And you'll notice that some of those do have projects that are related to them in this draft CIP and others do not. And so with that, we hope that will help you to formulate some discussions, some ideas about things that you want to highlight to city council that we can have later this night and continue into our next meeting in January. So starting off with the resolution that the Planning Commission provided to city council

last year. The resolution is included in your staff report so you can read it fully there. We wanted to break it down to summarize how the discussion went with the Planning Commission and essentially these recommendations were broken up into these four categories that So first, regarding transportation, the resolution discusses the importance of transportation projects, but specifically identified the Fern Street Connector Project as an important project identified in the Camp Washington Small Area Plan. The Northfax East-West Road Project is a critical component of the Northfax Small Area Plan. And then the Planning Commission included general support for trail projects such as the George Snyder Trail and the Chain Bridge Road Shared Use Pass,

while needing to have flexibility and designs generally supporting the goals for walkability and alternative modes of transportation as desired in the Comprehensive Plan. For Parks and Recreation, the Planning Commission specifically supported the Tice Park redevelopment and the Van Dyke Park Master Plan implementation, both of which are specifically identified in the comprehensive plan. Related to sustainability, the Planning Commission supported the Climate Adoption and Resiliency Plan and the LED Streetlights Program. And then related to natural environment, the Planning Commission supported the establishment of the Sprout Program, stewarding, planting, restoring our urban trees. This is a new program developed by our urban forester based on grant funds received last year.

So it was established last year and is now ongoing. Moving on to the smaller year plan CIP projects, I won't go through all of these because, as I said, the city manager presented these at your last meeting. But you'll notice here there are numerous projects that are identified or relate to the smaller year plans. Four in Camp Washington, three in Northfax, three in Old Town. None in Fairfax Circle, that smaller year plan was just recently adopted. However, as we get through later, we'll talk about some projects that are coming up in the two-year transportation program, not quite at the point of being in the CIP yet, and nothing in Pickett and Main. Looking throughout the rest of the comprehensive plan, as I mentioned, there are certain projects that are specifically identified,

so we wanted to call those out that are in the capital improvement program. This includes the West Drive property yard acquisition, the climate adaption and resiliency plan, as we mentioned, was supported by the Planning Commission on last year's resolution. The electric vehicle readiness plan. This is one of those, as we go down and start to talk about the new goals of the newer comprehensive plan. This is a new element to the comprehensive plan, which is not in the previous comprehensive plan. the solid waste management plan, the Tice Park redevelopment, and the Van Dyke Park master plan implementation, again, both specifically mentioned, the Blenheim Boulevard multimodal project, George Snyder Trail, and the George Snyder Trail extension.

For new projects that are in the capital improvement program, again, these are only those new projects that are basically new facilities or substantial improvements. There are a lot of new projects that deal with maintenance and other types of issues that are not necessarily related to the comprehensive plan. So these include the West Drive property yard acquisition, ADA assessment for citywide, the electric vehicle readiness plan, as I mentioned, is a new project, the property yard redevelopment. This was previously the property yard feasibility study, but additional funds are now being requested to support whatever comes out of that feasibility study and is considered a new project. Dwight Avenue improvements and the 1st and 2nd Street sidewalk projects.

And then looking at our the recently adopted comprehensive plan we wanted to call out some of the new actions in that plan that were not in the previous plan. And as we go through this list the items that are in bold are those that have some type of supporting project in the draft CIP those that are not involved do not have a supporting project and then the blue bubbles have a little more information about how they are supported so to start us off looking at the smaller plan public improvement plans and the smaller plan parking management plans the first two bullets these are new actions in the comprehensive plan that will likely result in future capital improvement projects but those that have not begun yet and so there is nothing to show for that the housing and homelessness

strategic plan this project is funded and this will primarily result in recommendations for policies and efforts to support housing and homelessness efforts however this may also result in recommendations for projects that may require capital funding such as new structures or contributing toward partnerships with other organizations and so there are possibilities for that to result in future capital projects the green infrastructure plan is not underway yet this is a new item in the comprehensive plan watershed management plans are ongoing we have developed several over the past couple of years and these result and recommendations for things like stream restoration projects there are no plan underway quite yet for

infrastructure resilience however the electric vehicle readiness plan is identified in the capital approval program so we hope that will begin soon and then the parks and recreation strategic master plan was funded in a previous CIP and I should have noted earlier on that this slide focuses on plans and future efforts and then we'll also look at projects and transportation efforts so projects these are new things that are coming forward based on completed study so one is the school's facilities condition assessment this was approved by voters for bond funding so that will be moving forward with more details to come as noted that that is not identified with the other projects in the capital improvement program we also have a completed performing arts

feasibility study that recommends specific types of venues for the city to explore there are no CIP requests for the next phase of this project at this And then moving on to transportation projects. First with looking at studies, there are several projects associated with the recently completed Main Street Safety Audit. While there are no projects in the CIP related to that effort, there is one project in the current two-year transportation program that is under consideration. and if that is approved and receives funding, that that will be in a future capital payment program. Also, the Fairfax Circle intersection analysis is also in our two-year transportation program. Again, if that is approved, that will likely appear in a future CIP.

Also related to Fairfax City, which is the city's bicycle master plan, that study is complete. However, there are three types of recommendations where rather than prepare specific recommendations, study that includes long-term improvements which primarily focus on bicycle improvements along major roadways such as Main Street Fairfax Boulevard spot improvements where the plan identified specific intersections throughout the city where pedestrian bicycle crossings could be improved but didn't supply specific recommendations so further study will be needed and then lastly neighbor ways which are essentially neighborhood streets where bicycle improvements could be implemented through things like striping and traffic calming investments.

One of the recent CIP items related to this was the Fairwoods Parkway project, which is coming to a close, which is serving as a pilot for this project. But there are currently no recommendations in the CIP for future neighborways. They will be upcoming. And then lastly, I wanted to go through the transportation projects list. This is pulled from the comprehensive plan. The transportation projects list is a requirement from the Code of Virginia to be included in the comprehensive plan. This goes alongside with our transportation projects map. And so you'll see the black letters here. I'm not sure this will work. Nope. The black letters under the project number page. that is for any project that is in a CIP identifies either the page number or

where it says 2YRPRG that means two-year program those are the projects which if they are approved for the two-year program they'll be coming in the CIP in the future and then lastly if it says funded that means as a project that received funding in a previous CIP so looking at this list you can see those projects which are in the current CIP or are likely to be in the CIP and those which there hasn't been any discussion of

Matthew Riceyet.

Paul NabtistaffAnd so those that are not included include the study on Main Street bicycle facilities, advocating for the study of a metro rail extension. This is a type of project that we don't think would need capital support since it's really advocating with other entities. Extending the Blenna Boulevard multimodal improvements into Old Town and through Fairfax Circle. this would extend the project that is currently funded to the north and the south and then the last three we won't get into because those are more about ongoing efforts so I will go on we did want to talk briefly about the public facilities reviews as I mentioned earlier on the city staff does not recommend any public facilities reviews this year so we just want to briefly

and then we can go back and answer any questions about the capital approval program. So a quick summary of public facilities reviews. These are reviews that are required by the Code of Virginia for any capital project that meets this definition here, whether it be a street or connection to an existing street, park or other public area, a new public building or public structure, or a new public utility facility. If that such project is not specifically identified in the comprehensive plan, then the Planning Commission must review it to determine its accordance with the comprehensive

Matthew Riceplan.

Paul NabtistaffAnd when determining the accordance, the three things that you would be looking for are the general location or approximate location, the character and the extent of that project. So, as I mentioned, there are no recommended reviews based on the CAP for FY2026. However, as we mentioned at the last meeting, staff recommends that we monitor the property yard redevelopment effort. We don't recommend conducting a public facilities review on that project at this time because we don't have enough information for you to make that determination. We don't know the character or the extent of that project, and we actually don't even know the location because the feasibility study is going to be looking at determining if there are other locations beyond the current property yard to have some of those facilities.

So that is the only new project in the CIP that meets that definition that is not specifically identified in the comprehensive plan. So we're open to discussion on this as well. But first, we're happy to answer any questions you might have about the CIP so far. Thank you.

James FeatherCommissioners, a lot to take in. I expect you have not read the CIP cover to cover, but I'm certainly open, at least at this point, any questions you may have for Mr. Napty, questions we might want him to pass along. He's the only one that's with us this evening. about things you may have questions on where we might want to invite specific staff leads or even have conversation with other boards and commissions as well. A couple years ago, for those of you who were here, you may recall we did have meetings with various boards and commissions to get their input independent of the staff. Not that they work independently, they don't. We work very well with our staff, but just to get some alternative perspectives.

So think of those kinds of things. to challenge you to do mr napty is you've done a fantastic job responding to my questions earlier today thank you very much that was going to put out to you folks is reviewing the cop plan goals from the updated comp plan and try to identify some areas where we may think capital funds may be required in the future whether if the future is next fiscal year or something out further out so we can flag those as well. Mr. Daphty's done a fantastic job of already feeding some of that to us, but I challenge you to also have a look on your own time and own reviews at that. Mr. Goldman.

Anthony ColemanI may have missed this. and we also have the property yard feasibility study for redevelopment is that an and or or and what

Paul Nabtistaffyes those are uh actually separate projects so the west drive property yard is a property that is currently owned by fairfax county that they use as a property yard so we refer to it as a west drive property yard even though it's not a city facility uh so the funds there is an agreement with the county that the city had the first opportunity to purchase um that site and actually i think that agreement has been formalized and so it is something that's moving forward so that is the property yard on west drive if you go back toward providence park yeah looking at

Anthony Colemanit on google maps and then one of the questions it seems fairly small compared to the existing property yard we had so my question would be that would probably be supplemental to what we already have

Paul Nabtistaffyes and actually in in looking at the description for that project it's not guaranteed that it would continue to be used for a property yard just that the city will be purchasing it and so that is a property that is being considered in the property yard feasibility study for potential expansion or supplemental use but there are also alternative uses that have been discussed including expanding Providence Park a future use for elementary school and those kind of things so still to be determined but the funds are in the CIP right now we're only about the acquisition of the site without knowing the full future use yet thank you

James Featheryeah the commitment to the county in terms of the purchase agreement that was struck was it be used for public purposes meaning we can't just turn it over to a developer to build you know homes or whatever so but all the things that mr. expect to be on the table as well but the first two talked about were expansion of Providence Park as well as potential future site for a new elementary school

Matthew Riceanything else mr. Coleman at this point mr.

James FeatherRice

Matthew Riceis the amount included in the CIP the four million dollars the purchase price is that does that represent its value to the county

Paul Nabtistaffthat I don't know I don't know how that that arrived at that was some negotiations that I think that was not a part of

Matthew Riceokay the school board would have sorry who in the city would have been part of that negotiation

Paul NabtistaffI believe it would have been a city manager at that time that was our previous city manager okay and probably other to support him I'm guessing somebody from our finance department and that type of thing okay

James Featherand the council would be informed in part of the discussion they frequently talk about details thereof so anything else

Matthew Riceum yeah I think it would be a high priority to acquire the county yards as they become available I think the one thing we lack is the one resource we have I should say is land and the controlling the use of land that's really fundamentally what we do and our mission is to make sure the city does that properly so I would very much like to see a proactive role from the city and looking at all of the county owned properties and figuring out a way to either develop them cooperatively as we're doing with Willard Sherwood or acquiring them and figuring out whether they can be used to be future property yards or schools or things like that so I think this is money well spent I don't have a keen sense for the value of that parcel nor

would I be appropriate to venture whether that's a good deal or not but it's um certainly in the city's advantage to control the land within the city boundaries and

James Featherthere is another property yard right over on which workstation Road and me near main Street as well is on our radar and that's in consideration

Paul Nabtistaffit is and and i don't know the current status of that one

James Featheroh that's right there's one on germantown road that's not currently

Paul Cunninghamit's not currently because the county

James Featherhas no

Paul Cunninghamplans to depart that area okay i

James Featherthink but mr knapney can confirm it for us that the price and terms have been negotiated it's a question of when the county is ready to to turn it back to turn it over

Paul Nabtistaffcorrect and they are they're building a new facility off of Fairfax County Parkway and I think we're we're waiting on them to be ready to move those resources out of the West Drive property yard.

James FeatherIn other respects we've talked about in previous years we've highlighted acquiring land in the city for for public uses as well this fits right into that.

Matthew RiceAnything

James Featherelse

Matthew RiceMr. Rice at this point? No thank you.

Paul CunninghamOthers? Mr. Cunningham. Do we have a sense that this property yard point has been on the horizon for a long time do we have a sense relatively immediate still long term I was thinking it was in the period of this comp plan before our next review next five years or do we have any sense at all For the

Paul Nabtistafftime frame for it to turn over to us?

Paul CunninghamTime frame for this to occur.

Paul NabtistaffI don't have a specific time frame, but I do believe it would be within the next five years since the new site is under construction. I heard recently there was a delay, but it wasn't significant. So I would think within the next five years would be a reasonable estimate.

Paul CunninghamSo within the next year, two, three, it's an item that we should probably look at a little more closely. as it becomes as it gets closer to actualization yes okay thank you additional question one question that I asked when we looked at the CIP and the city manager was briefing us the CIP has not been a smooth allocation of funds over a period of time it contracts significantly in periods of recession at the moment it appears that this year we are going to go through the roof on the other side with a huge amount of expenditure is that you know and I asked that question and I'm not sure what answer I really got from the city manager is that reasonable to expect that we would fund all 80 plus million

this year which would be a large diversion of funds to the CIP for this or is it reasonable to expect that this is going to be modified it has in the past and some of these items will be pushed back to out years

Paul NabtistaffI can't speculate on that I mean that's really up to the conversations between the city manager and City Council

Paul Cunninghamokay that that is something as we're moving forward I think that it would be worth getting a sense of and if we are going to be able to handle it all as he said are we doing it through outside bond funding or whatever in terms of our ability to to fund projects or not and what is the utility in trying to smooth out the CIP a little bit along with the overall as opposed to having it be a wild card for funding $80 million this year, but three years from now it's going to be $13 million, should have budget impacts that we should have a better understanding of as it affects the ability of other city programs to go forward and what are we spending our money on.

Paul NabtistaffI would say, though, at any rate, I mean, I don't think we're able to provide an answer to that question before the time that you had to present your recommendation to city council because they wouldn't have had their first conversations on it yet. I would say that the role of the planning commission is to identify what you think is most important. So I would assume that there is always a threat that some projects might have to be cut from the capital improvement program. And so I would take the approach of trying to provide a recommendation on what you think is most important and what should the

Paul Cunninghamcouncil be able to do. As that has always been the case from my experience, that's a reasonable thing to look at what functionally is still most important public safety public health maintenance of infrastructure those kinds of things and and that would be one of the things that we would we would want to look at in this as opposed to some projects that if if we weren't going to have enough you know if since this is such a big departure should we at this point consider what are our lower priorities and voice those or voice those or should we only stick with what are our top priorities i

Paul Nabtistaffthink that's up to the planning commission if if there are things that you think are are not as important and you know in the past couple of years we haven't necessarily called those kind of things out but i have been instances where the planning commission has voiced concern about some projects. So I think it's certainly within your purview to make those kind of recommendations.

Paul CunninghamI don't know that there are any items that are not important, but I think there may be some that are less important than others. And that's part of what we're wrestling with is looking at our recommendation from that standpoint and having an understand how the CIP works in the overall city budget from a planning standpoint. Thank you.

James FeatherThank you. Others? Mr. Denton? Mr. Briggs? Anything? Just a couple thoughts of my own. I have similar concerns, questions as to those raised by Mr. Cunningham. I think our recommendation may look a little different this year. There are a couple things that cross my mind. First, we have a very large increase. You talk about 80-some million. That's just the general fund projects. When you look at the total funding, it's up 60% of the prior year, but the general fund, we're expecting to pay out of the general fund, 156%. There are some serious decisions that will have to be made because, of course, obviously there's funding options and incurring further indebtedness. That's what the council's job is in consultation with the CFO and our financial advisors.

but I almost feel like we may need to be ourselves may have to do a little bit more in terms of recommendations this year related to the potential risks of not being able to do everything we'd like to do again similar to what mr. Cunningham raised and the variability in the program also was quite interesting as mr. Cunningham pointed out overall program up this year 60% next year is going to be down 35% the next year up six next year down eight and for next million general fund down 68% from the prior year it feels like it should be a difficult thing to manage if I were trying to plan this and try to maintain reasonable tax rates and so forth that's what the City Council is elected for they have some difficult decisions to make but if there's any place that we

feel we can make some recommendations to aid them I think we should be not be hesitant to bring those up

Matthew Riceso I think an important context is first The city's gone through assessments on their budget and the bond rating, and we still are AAA. And I think the most recent evaluation of that sort was just a month ago when the scope of some of these expenditures were known. And so I think the comment was from the city manager most recently was it's not so much the specifics of large projects related to schools and fire department and so forth that are needed. And certainly if we don't do those, we lose a little bit of competitiveness as a jurisdiction regionally. but the place where the city needs to be cautious is in the operational budget year after year and avoiding having that expand significantly and so I think at various times I've had some

sticker shock when presented with the sheer amounts of money that we're providing recommendations on but I do recognize that it's really critical that we support renovations to the schools that drive everything not just because I'm employed as an educator but I really think people choose the city for various reasons but if our schools were to take a dip we would instantly lose our competitiveness And so we need to keep up with all the neighboring jurisdictions, and we need to have first-class facilities. And so it's kind of frightening to think of money in the hundreds of millions of dollars, you know, in terms of outlays for that. I think our ability to retain and increase our property tax revenue and therefore have, you know,

People wanting to move in the city is based on making sure that we keep those facilities in top shape. My other kind of thoughts about this kind of longer term, this has been, shoot, this has been about four and a half years for me on planning commission. And we've always had a keen kind of interest in looking at safety issues. And I think that it would be tempting to, if we were to try to express things as lower priorities, it would be things like the Main Street safety audit. But that actually is the one thing I think that consistent thread through years of my participation that has been somewhat of a priority. I had a recent discussion with a city leader about the concept of 15-minute cities where the walkability of the environment around us is such that we choose to walk and that we can find the amenities that make the city attractive within a very short distance.

So the extent to which we support trails, including the George Snyder Trail, the George Snyder Trail extension, the other item on that list, the Country Club Hills extension, and that we support. The things that are associated with pedestrian activity, including the Main Street Safety Audit, I think those are very, very worthwhile. And at least from my perspective, increase the attractiveness of the city as a destination for people. so those are my thoughts.

James FeatherThank you. Others? Going through some of my notes I had a few specific questions about a few specific projects only Mr. Napti's here tonight so I'm not sure we have too much discussions about them. We talked about were there projects that we weren't that we have some question about for those of you who are here had questions a couple years ago under the prior chair about the project related to installing a traffic signal at Leighton Hall and University that was one example of that there's another one that seems to have bubbled up now just based on community feedback on the Country Club Connector Trail it seems like there's maybe Weaning interest on the part of some parts of the community and city council on supporting.

That's a $4 million investment. And that obviously the council will have to make the decision and listen to the community. But from what we're already hearing, that could be one that may be questionable. It's a small drop compared to the overall, in the bucket of the overall program. But there are things like that that we could certainly look at and think. The question is how the city will ultimately make its decisions about where the priorities lie. And there will be a limit to what they're willing to raise the tax rate to fund some of these things. When we look at a $51 million general fund increase, none of those are listed as financed, if you look at the current CIP proposal. I don't know if that's realistic or not, but $51 million spread onto the tax rates,

a pretty substantial tax rate increase. So some difficult decisions will have to be made and presented as how these may really be funded. I expect there has to be some financing involved. We're not seeing that yet. Maybe that makes the decision a little bit easier for the council. But ultimately, we still should focus on where we think the priorities are. Mr. Rice is correct about the schools. We don't see those programs yet, those projects yet in here, because they're still, I think, doing some scoping work. But at least the community is in support of them based on the referendum for the bond. my other comments i asked about that one again we're not going to focus much on infrastructure and the vehicles and so forth uh that's not typically our role or responsibility so i think

the ones that i was most questions and comments i had have sort of all been expressed at this point um others mr rice your fingers on the button yeah

Matthew Riceyeah i i i told you i'd be assertive tonight I just want to recognize the, I'm adding up numbers here in my head as I go, about $19 million in FY 2025 funding that was acquired by Public Works and specifically transportation staff. So these are people who are adding huge amounts of value to the city and who routinely are singled out from public speakers who are unhappy about issues. Transportation's the hot button in the region. I get it. If you're a transportation director, you're going to be the subject of attention. but the sheer value of the expertise of our staff and their ability to bring in massive amounts of money these are state funds federal funds you know shared NVTA 30 percent 70 percent funds there's just a huge amount of money flowing into the city because of really

good staff who were able to target funding for projects that we therefore don't have to fund We don't fund 100% of our transportation. We're funding a small fraction of it. And I think it can't be said enough that, you know, we should support and encourage this kind of activity. And I know it's quite difficult when funding is acquired for projects, projects are planned. And they go through most of the stages of deployment and planning, and then they're undercut because of, you know, a very small number but vocal number of people who oppose projects. And I think we should listen to everybody. Everybody should have a voice in governance. but I think at least ensuring that once we hit certain thresholds in terms of

planning and design and so forth that projects and things that we're planning on and have already spent a lot of money on that those should be respected as long-term priorities some so I think there will be decisions about how to spend money and what to prioritize and I I hope that extent to which city staff acquiring money to support projects that that is considered in the larger collection of issues and items that people choose to to consider when deciding to fund or not and does certainly what I'm seeing here and you know page three of the page five I should say of the of the CIP just the amount of funding that we're able to pull in is pretty amazing. So it's this year, you know, probably 19 million from those funding sources, and next year

it's 30 million. So it's the value of hiring staff and paying staff, you know, when they can chase down money like this that allows us to update our infrastructure without paying 100 percent of it is impressive. and we should, I think, respect that and support it as we discuss items. So that's all I have. Thanks.

James FeatherThank you. Others? So let's talk about a path forward. Mr. Napty, you laid out the timeline that we have. We'll have another opportunity for discussion at our first meeting in January. Second meeting will be our public hearing, so we need to have a recommendation in place. I think what I might ask each of you to do is go through this again, Mr. Hattonapney's presentation. Your updated one, I guess, is posted or will be made available to us.

Paul NabtistaffWe will send that to the

James Feathercommissioners. Okay. I know it's tedious. I spent five hours, not all five hours, on the plane today going through this. Some of us have a little more experience with others than others about some of the things in there. I caught one thing. I don't know if Mr. Napty had a chance to go back to staff about it. It was shown as a new item that I think was not a new item, the police station garage. It's been in before. I'm not quite sure if there are others like that. We can figure those out. It shouldn't necessarily affect us unless we think this is one of the top priorities we should recommend and put forward to city council. but the kind of things we've done in the past as you've seen are lay out some of the broad strategic areas

where we have priorities and then put together a specific list of projects that we think are particularly important. One of the questions I had in my own mind was with an almost entirely new council coming on, Should we spend a little more time making a longer list of things, kind of as a refresher for things that we've addressed in the past? Typically, we have not repeated things, but this may be an opportunity to do that, particularly if they may have some decisions coming up. I want you to think about that. I'd also like you to think about broad strategic areas you think are particularly important. I'll ask you to talk to us at our next meeting about what those are. projects that we can sort of lay out and have a discussion, come to some consensus on.

So is that helpful? And do you have any other suggestions? These are just my thoughts. And Mr. Napty, anything that you might suggest or ask of us, please feel free to do.

Paul NabtistaffJust based on one of the comments you made about looking at things that the Planning commission has supported or not in the past the staff report had last year's recommendations would it be helpful if we pulled together the past two or three years just so the commissioners can see some of those projects might still be in the CIP or might relate to some of

James Featherthat would be helpful particularly if they haven't quite hit the funding yet usually we pick things that are up for imminent funding I don't recall whether they all have or not but it would certainly be helpful and it may also provide some food for thought as to other things that look like those in the current plan that aren't the same items but you know conceptually similar as well so yeah that would be very helpful thank you Mr. Cunningham

Paul Cunninghamthe capital improvement program is designed to look five years in the future at things that are coming down the road and in the one of the discussion items has been looking at items that appear in year five and watching them move down through years four, three, two, and one to actually being accomplished. And that seems to be something that I think we have gotten away from looking at in the past number of years as funding has jumped around. I don't know that we have the bow wave as I have termed it in the past of projects that had to be deferred because We couldn't fund them in the current year as they moved up, but we've always had a bow wave leading or Following the adopted year so that we've had plenty of capital improvement

Programs that were available to fund that we didn't have the funding for so it was a prioritization moving on with this year looking at what we're talking about for the just the capital or the the city's capital program and that I don't know that we're out of that are we still tracking projects moving through the five-year process or are more projects jumping up into the current year along that line this 220 million dollar school bond program doesn't seem to be working its way through the five-year process we voted to fund it but we don't know what it is in terms of vetting it as it comes through five years having discussion between the Planning Commission and the school board about what's in there and

how we should support it the detail hasn't been there for us we have talked about fire stations both 33 when it was coming through the process and now fire station 3 and looking at that for for the detail coming through for some of the major projects like that for an understanding of how things fit but are we still at the point where we're looking at projects work their way through five years and stay in that process or are we starting to bounce around a lot more as funding is changing.

Paul NabtistaffI can't comment on a general pattern, but I will say the purpose and the way the CIP is designed is that ideally, yes, the project would appear in the out year and slowly work its way down. I know there have been projects that have popped up sooner rather than later based on some analysis that was done or some urgency or other types of things. I don't know how that compares to the way it was in the past, if that happened less in the past or more in the past. But certainly I would say the general goal is that we see things in that year, we plan for it, and it comes down the line. So by the time it gets into the upcoming fiscal year, we've been anticipating it. However, that is not always the case.

I just don't know I can't answer if that has changed over the past couple of years or not

Paul Cunninghamokay from what we used to defer the the following couple of years had more projects than we would be reasonably expected to be able to fund at this year when we're looking at this year's large capital improvement and as Mr. Feather has indicated we're bouncing around for the next $13 million. There are essentially no programs that are coming through in that point to be working through for five years coming forward. But I suspect when we get down four or five years from now that that year is going to change rather radically. So the idea that projects are being identified for the things we need in the city that keep us at a point where we've got more than we're able to fund, which I think is a healthy position

because it means that we do look for those that are most critical to fund now and then pick up the rest of it as we go along. Keeps the city doing the maximum that it can without saying that we don't need a capital improvement program this year. I mean, for $13 million, we're going to repave a couple of streets and do a little bit of safety work. as opposed to the $80-plus million we have in that portion of the budget this year, that doesn't seem realistic to me in terms of our general look at the CIP as projects are coming through, and I don't know if that should be of concern or not. I would like to see us with a bow wave of projects coming through that mean we really want to make the city a better place,

Rice said someplace that people want to come and move into so that their children can go to great schools Someplace where we can move into so that we can we can travel the city other than on motorized means Something that says we can come into the city and we can expect to be safe No matter which one of the the nodes we're going shopping in or which one of the small areas we're going shopping in because we've got great police resources and they've got all of the best equipment to keep us competitive with the region and, in fact, leading edge in that standpoint so that we make a name for ourselves as being on the leading edge rather than chasing things because our neighbors are doing them better.

And I think we've got that capability in the city but I recognize that when we talk capital improvements and then budget priorities if we're going to have a significant increase in the tax rate along with a significant increase in the assessments to me there are other priorities such as affordable housing that are challenged in that environment So the capital improvement program is core to keeping our facilities up and improving every year. But that means, I think, a longer-term program that has some focus to it as opposed to just a large shopping list of projects. You know, everybody took their project and threw it against the wall, and they all stuck this year. two years, only a couple of them are going to say that's not a reasonable way to run

a capital improvement program for a public function such as a city. And that's one of my concerns as we're looking at our CIP and why we need to prioritize and push to have more projects so that we're making a reasonable choice on what we're doing as opposed to saying we're funding everything. We don't have any better vision than that. That's all I got. Thank you.

James FeatherAppreciate the perspective and history you're able to bring as well, Mr. Cunningham. Thank you. Anything else? Mr. Napty, I'm not sure how much help we've been this evening yet, but I don't want to lose momentum either as we get into the holidays. I know it's easy to do, but we'll have our hands full early next year with this and some other things coming down the pipe. So we'll have to keep encouraging you to spend a little more time with this. Put your thinking caps on, as it were, and collect your thoughts so we can discuss anything that you want to bring up offline. line uh you engage mr napty and myself again uh no bulk emails the entire commission that's that's uh that's not the way we can do things but uh anyway think about it what else do you have for

us in this area thoughts other questions concerns no that's all i was addressing yet

Paul Nabtistaffwhat was that

James Featheranything that we haven't gotten to that you hope to hear from us this evening

Paul Nabtistaffno i think this is a good start and I appreciate you you all continuing to look at this we did get some feedback already so some things to start the conversation next time even if we don't get anything new but if as you read to the CIP or looking on the other information if you have any requests or information feel free as Jerry Feather said reach out to me copy that copy the chair and let us know what you need and we'll try to get you everything you need so that we can have a productive discussion on January 13th.

James FeatherAnd I will encourage our missing commission member this evening to watch the discussion tonight and I'll engage Ms. Lockhart offline as well. Satisfactory now? Yes. You're not just being polite right? Yeah, no. Okay. All right, thank you. Let's reconvene our regular meeting and move to Mr. Naphti's staff report.

Paul NabtistaffThank you again, Chair Feather, members of the Planning Commission. Looking back at the City Council's meeting on December 3rd, they received a presentation from the Environmental Sustainability Committee where the committee wanted to kind of reshare with them what their roles are and a couple of things to highlight their presentation, the way the presentation was structured as they broke it down by their areas of focus. directly relate to what is in the comprehensive plan. And those areas of focus are climate change, energy conservation and efficiency, food security and sustainability, stormwater, urban forestry, waste management. They also had what they called overarching and cross-cutting actions,

which listed a number of items, including both their participation in the comprehensive plan review and small area plans. At that meeting, the city council also received from the city major on the capital improvement program similar to what you received November 25th for tomorrow's meeting this will be the last meeting of the current City Council they have three public hearings regarding related to land use one is for for the public hearing on Taco Bell this project was recommended for approval by the Planning Commission on September 9 the other two are two products that did not have to come before the Planning Commission because they were both special use permits only one is for tommy's car wash at 9917 fairfax

boulevard the former site of espositos the other is for a project by pathway homes to develop 15 designated affordable residential units with support services with ground floor office at 4010 university drive this is at university drive in sacred avenue in what is known as a joshua gunnel

Anthony Colemanbuilding.

Paul NabtistaffLooking to your first meeting in January, Planning Commission will hold elections, so be thinking about how you want to serve on that. We will have an update from our consultant on the potential zoning ordinance amendments related to small area plans. We are still in the early phase of this where they're collecting background information, so they'll be looking for your input on your experience and dealing with things like land use cases that relate smaller your plans. We will continue our CIP discussion and you will receive a post submission work session on the project at the Davies site at 4131 Chainbridge Road. This is a new applicant. However, the project proposed has some differences from the previous proposal but there are also

a lot of similarities and they requested to go right into having a post submission work session with you as opposed to beginning with a pre-application briefing. And then lastly, I have some bullet points from Eric Foreman. He wanted me to share with you about the community meeting that was held on the accessory dwelling units, potential zoning ordinance amendments on November 21st. The meeting focused mostly on topics related to whether to permit detached accessory dwelling units in the city, in part because of out of July, we're access to city council as staff to examine other options for expanding property owners' ability to build ADUs, potential detached ADUs there are some discussions about things like height and

setback the purpose of this project is to focus on other items as well such as current requirements for relatives and people with disabilities and elderly to live in accessory drilling units that are now required to be attached but a big part of discussion will be about the possibility of detached accessory drilling units which is a major point of that discussion they will keep the new developments on this topic. They will have a work session with the new City Council in February. This will be similar to the work session that you had back in July but they want to brief the new City Council since they weren't there for that meeting. Also the presentation from last month's community meeting is

available on that project's engage page. So that's all we have for the staff report tonight

James Featherany questions for mr. napty oh you've mentioned the environmental sustainability committees work session with the City Council do we have something planned for the Planning Commission besides the presentation related to the CIP and perhaps our annual report reason I'm asking they did a wonderful job I watched this last year I watched it again this year they engaged many of the members in the meeting each person had a speaking part some some of the things that the committee was doing I'd like to see us do something more like that I think it's be important for the City Council to see more of you all and what you're doing and how you're engaged I don't know if anything's been scheduled or we've had joint work sessions in the past often they're topic

specific but not necessarily always so yeah

Paul Nabtistaffnothing is currently scheduled um we can reach out to see if that's something that can be scheduled in the first couple of months of of the new city council um and then we can work something out with you all i

James Featherhonestly don't know what that meeting would look like in its entirety we have a different sort of mission to what the environmental sustainability committee does uh just if you haven't watched it it might be worth doing they've made many references to the comprehensive plan and their engagement in the updated comp plan they're really connecting their work to the broader vision of the city you know we might have a way to take something like that and turn it back in a broader view and our other interactions Mr. Cunningham

Paul CunninghamWhen Mayor Reed assumed office and the elections were moved to November, shortly after that, we had a joint work session with the city council and the planning commission to talk about the roles and responsibilities and how we would fit together. And I think that was a relatively productive meeting for those who were here and remember it and something along that line. might be good for establishing a relationship

James Featheryeah I thought about that as well I'm certainly one of the things we could do I think a number of the new City Council members probably don't have a full handle on what the Planning Commission is what it does I don't know what they understand about the comp plan in any level of detail so or other things that we do so I think would be beneficial I may we could tie into some of these other things that we've talked about when you routinely do presenting staff or annual report or the CIP or some combination there are but I think it would be a good opportunity for us so great thank you comment some other commissioners Mr. Coleman

Anthony ColemanHappy New Year and looking forward to seeing everybody after the first of the year mr

James Featherrice yes

Matthew Riceparks

James Featherand recreation advisory

Matthew Riceboard is perhaps is going to have a joint meeting with the school board and that will be on Thursday and that'll be held at the Stacy Sherwood Community Center and it's a public meeting everyone's invited it'll primarily be a way for crab and the folks that deal with schools directly to interface over joint Issues and we do that once a year. So that'll be Thursday of this week and that'll begin at 7 p.m That's it

James FeatherThank you, what's going on?

Paul CunninghamI Would like to say thank you to the staff and to my fellow planning commissioners for the work done on the comprehensive plan over the last year in those Those update and review processes that I have been through. I think this has been the smoothest one not a major rewrite it was a minor rewrite in looking at it but i think the one year calendar that the staff set up and the planning commission's effort in working through it got the information we needed to do an excellent update which was approved by city council so i would commend the staff and the and my fellow commissioners for the work done over the past year in accomplishing that task that is a major task and I think you can be proud of the work that was put into it so

I would say thank you to that being thankful both what we've had in the last year then I'll like to echo Mr. Coleman's sentiments and wish everybody a happy holiday season and hope to see everybody in the new year happy healthy and ready to get back into the business thank you

James FeatherMr.

Paul CunninghamNetton?

Kevin DentonAt last week's Board of Architectural Review meeting, we received the Davies presentation for the Davies property, I should say. Did you say different applicant, correct?

Paul NabtistaffYes. The property owner is the same, and they are still involved. and then there was like a third party applicant who was also involved, but the primary applicant is different.

Kevin DentonSure. You could tell that there was a lot of positive changes based on the feedback that was given from the prior. Some things that stand out to me is the look of the property, maybe matching the downtown look better. Also, I think there was one elevation of the property that had no windows. longer. I think both courtyards were closed off before both are open to the north side now. I think it's less dense. I think there's less units now. So I think there's a lot of positive changes based on the feedback that was given at the prior presentation. And then of course there were concerns comments voiced I think the south side of 123 elevation of the property was was seen to be not as fitting as the rest architecturally and also mass wise and

blockiness wise so I think that was some of the key feedback that was given thank you

James Featherthank you miss brings happy

Anthony Colemanholidays to everybody thank

James Featheryou I read through the staff report on the Davies property. Definitely some nice improvements. I think we should be pleased. I think what we'll see next month, you'll get a good look at it yourself. But I think one of the key changes that was interesting was the architecture facing the residential area along the university has vastly improved. While it's still the changes on the Cambridge Road side, a little more in keeping with the commercial look of what's there. interesting hybrid design so it'd be interesting to see what your thoughts are as we see the presentation um i think i raised we already talked about my thoughts about meeting with the city council for a work session over and above you know what our normal interactions are related to the cip

talked about in the present our discussion earlier about what i'd challenge you to be thinking about with the cip and bring back to us in january perhaps your top strategic areas and your top individual program that we might want to discuss and come to consensus on what we'll focus on and your thoughts about how much more we should talk about present because of the very different and relatively new city council as well

Kevin Dentonum

James Feathertalked about that talked about that and I was going to ask you about the Davies thing if you didn't bring it up, so thank you for doing that. Otherwise, I also wish you all happy holidays, and especially healthy as we continue to face who knows what's out there and flu and whatever season. So be safe, be healthy, be careful, and enjoy it. Otherwise, best of all for the new year, and see you in January. We are adjourned. Thank you.