Planning Commission Regular Meeting/Work Session

Good evening. Welcome to the regularly scheduled meeting of the City of Fairfax Planning Commission for Monday, September 9th, 2024. I'd first like to welcome the Commission back. I hope you've had a good, relaxing August. And staff, thank you as well for being here and how you support us and hope you had a refreshing August as well. Our first order of business is the Pledge of Allegiance. Please rise as you are able and join me. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liturgy and justice for all. Thank you. First order of business is discussion and adoption of the agenda, which was sent out ahead of the meeting as required.

Mr. Cunningham. Mr. Chairman, I move the agenda be adopted as presented. Second. Second. Any discussion, changes, or amendments to the agenda? All those in favor of adopting agenda as presented, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Opposed? Passes unanimously. Next item on the agenda is presentations by the public on any matter not calling for a public hearing. We have two public hearings this evening, one concerning the Taco Bell application and one considering some changes to the zoning ordinance. But if there are public comments to be offered on other matters, you're welcome to speak at this time. Madam Clerk, do we have any sign-ups for this portion of the agenda? No. We do not. Okay. Seeing none, we'll move on to the next item of the agenda, which is consideration of the July 22nd, 2024 meeting minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I move the adoption of the meeting minutes from the July 22nd, 2024 meeting of the Planning Commission as presented. Second. I move to second to approve the minutes as presented. Are there corrections or changes required? If not, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Passes unanimously. Next item on the agenda is items not requiring a public hearing. We have no such items this evening, so we will move to the public hearing section of the agenda. First item is a request from ABTB Mid-Atlantic LLC applicant by Catherine Taylor, agent attorney, for consideration of an amendment to the zoning and general development plan for Boulevard Marketplace Shopping Center at the premises identified as 10140-10160 Fairfax Boulevard, tax map 47-4-23-000-A and 10120 Fairfax Boulevard, tax map 47-4-23-000-D.

In this commercial and retail district and architectural control overlay district and architectural control overlay district. A special use permit to allow a restaurant with a drive through facility and a special exception to provide an interior landscape island for every 10 parking spaces on the premises identified as 10120 Fairfax Boulevard, tax map 47-4-23-000-D. Staff report, Mr. Frederick, good to see you back. Good evening, everyone. This is a public hearing for Taco Bell. The applicant is ABTB Mid-Atlantic LLC. The site is located at 1040101060 and 10120 Fairfax Boulevard. The applicant submitted a formal application and plans on February 6, 2024. A work session was held on June 10, 2024 with the Planning Commission, followed by a work session with City Council on June 25, 2024.

On July 23, 2024, the applicant submitted revised plans for review by staff and these plans are under consideration for tonight's public hearing. On April 28, 2024, the Board of Architecture review recommended approval with conditions. The applicant has submitted the following land use applications. An amendment to the previously approved 2017 general development plan in the commercial retail district. A special use permit to allow a restaurant with drive-through facility. A special exception for number of consecutive parking spaces without a landscape island. And a major certificate of appropriateness for architecture and landscaping. In 2008, City Council approved a general development plan to allow a total of 17,300 square feet of commercial space, including a 3,500 square foot bank with a drive-through facility.

In 2011, the shopping center was subdivided into two parcels, creating parcel A and parcel B. In 2017, the City Council approved the general development plan amendment to allow approximately 5,100 square feet of retail building on parcel D to replace their previously approved bank with a drive-through facility. Tonight, this is an amendment to the previously approved 2017 general development plan in the CR district. The applicant is a contract leasee for parcel D, which is a vacant pad site within the shopping center. To date, parcel D remains a vacant pad site with the development design based on the 2008 approved plan for the bank or the drive-through. No changes to previously approved proffers and no changes to the existing conditions for the shopping center would occur with the proposed amendment.

The shopping center has 119 parking spaces. The subject property is located north of Fairfax Boulevard, approximately 250 feet west of the intersection with Fairwoods Parkway. The Boulevard Market Shopping Center is approximately 2.4 acres in size. Parcel D is approximately 0.66 acres located within the Marketplace Shopping Center. The future land use designation is commercial corridor with commercial retail zoning. The images before you shows pictures from around the shopping center along street frontage of Fairfax Boulevard. The applicant proposes a 2,000 square foot fast food restaurant with 20 seats and a drive-through, which requires a special use permit. The general development plan shows a drive-through facility that wraps around a one-story building and parking lot area.

The proposed drive-through facility has 13 stacking spaces from the drive-through window on the west side of the building, highlighted by the yellow dot on the screen. The applicant is required to provide 10 stacking spaces and it currently provides 13 stacking spaces. The applicant has provided 20 parking spaces, meeting the parking requirement. The parking requirement is 11 spaces for this retail building or for the commercial use. The applicant is seeking a special exception for the number of consecutive parking spaces without a landscape island. The ordinance requires 10 spaces be the maximum. The applicant has 11 spaces within the area on the screen that's in the box area. The applicant has proposed a 190 square foot outdoor patio seating area for up to 10 seats near the main entrance to the building.

Since the work session, the applicant has added a proposed walk-up window for mobile orders and delivery drivers. The applicant has provided a number of improvements for pedestrian access, interior and exterior to the site. The yellow line on the bottom of the image shows the improvements for the sidewalk along Fairfax Boulevard. The existing sidewalk is 6 feet in width. The applicant is proposing up to 10 feet, which is consistent with the multimodal plan. The applicant is proposing to provide a connection from Fairfax Boulevard to the existing trail on the west side of the property. Along the east-west driveway, the applicant is providing an internal connection across the front of the building that connects to the patient first property to the east and the larger shopping center to the west.

Again, the applicant is connecting to the George Steiner Trail on the west side of the property. The applicant is also proposing two bicycle parking spaces, which is the requirement for a building of this size. The applicant has met the tree canopy requirement, which is 10% in the CR district. The applicant is proposing 21%. The applicant proposes to retain the existing trees along Fairfax Boulevard and plant additional trees between the parking lot and the sidewalk on Fairfax Boulevard. To the north of the site, the applicant is providing, or to the north of the building, the applicant is providing native plantings within the RPA and the floodplain. The applicant is proposing to keep this area as a no-mow zone with native plantings.

In terms of vehicular access, the primary access point to the proposed restaurant is through the existing internal connections to the shopping center with multiple access points along Fairfax Boulevard. At the western end of the shopping center, there's a signalized intersection at Boulevard Marketplace and Fairfax Boulevard with full turning movements onto Fairfax Boulevard. A secondary access point to the shopping center is a right in and right out onto Fairfax Boulevard. The shopping center has a east-west parallel street interior to the site that provides patrons access through the shopping center to an interparcel connection to Patient First at the intersection of Fairfax Boulevard and Fairwoods Parkway.

Based on the TIS submitted, the level of service for adjacent streets will not experience any significant degradation of operating conditions with the construction of this proposed project. The image on the screen shows the subject property with a significant buffer in between the parcel and the adjacent single-family home to the north. It's roughly 400-500 feet to the north. There are 12 existing fast food restaurants with drive-thru windows. The map before you shows the location of the existing and proposed drive-thru facilities. And so there are eight restaurants with a residential lot closer than the nearest single-family home or residential lot compared to the proposed restaurant. So Taco Bell, as proposed, is between 450 to 500 feet from the nearest single-family home.

And as you can see on the map, there's a number of existing drive-thrus with homes that are closer. So, and for tonight, there's no action required on the special use permit, special exception, and a major certificate of appropriateness. Staff recommends approval of the amendment to the zoning and general development plan. The proposed land use application is scheduled for a public hearing with City Council on October 22, 2024. And I'll stand by for any questions you may have. Thank you, Mr. Frederick. Unless there are any pressing matters, we'll move on to a presentation by the applicant, if they so choose. Good evening. My name is Kathy Taylor from the law firm of Walsh Colucci. It's a pleasure to be here with you all this evening

to bring this proposal that we brought before you actually in June of this past year for a work session. While Mr. Frederick has provided a thorough presentation on the proposal, I do want to take this time to further elaborate briefly on several of the plan changes that we made since we last met back in June, and specifically to address some of the concerns that were raised by the commission. Before doing so, just wanted to let you know that we do have the representative of the applicant developer, as well as our civil engineer and the traffic engineer, should any additional questions arise. So just to begin, as Mr. Frederick had noted, just want to orient everyone. As mentioned, it's a vacant pad site that the applicant is looking to develop.

It's located at 10120 Fairfax Boulevard and is part of the larger Boulevard Marketplace Shopping Center. So the next slide is just another view of that vacant pad site. The thing I'll note here is you can see the landscaping and plantings along the Fairfax Boulevard frontage. That's there today. Those will remain, and in addition, as you heard, they will be supplemented with additional street trees. The next slide goes through the site history. Again, Mr. Frederick did a good amount of time explaining this, so I won't spend too much time on this. As you heard, the property is subject to a general development plan that includes the larger shopping center. The GDP has been amended several times, and most recently in 2017,

City Council approved the amendment that converted it from a drive-thru bank to an approximate 5,100-square-foot retail building. As you know, that approved retail building has not been constructed, and the property remains empty. So the next slide just illustrates the proposal. The applicant does propose to develop a new Taco Bell restaurant that will be an approximate 2,090-square-foot, one-story restaurant with a drive-thru window facility. To redevelop the subject property, the applicant, as you heard, will need to amend the existing GDP and request a special use permit to permit the drive-thru portion and a new walk-up window. So no modifications or improvements are proposed to the larger shopping center

nor its existing buildings. So if we go to the next slide, since the PC work session, the applicant has met with the community twice on this proposal, has had work sessions with the commission as well as the city council, and has worked with staff to revise and improve the site plan as you see it today. So I thought it may be worth spending a little bit of time highlighting these major revisions since we last met. So the first one, you can see the resource protection area behind the site, which will continue to remain undisturbed. In response to a community request to provide a buffer in the back near the George Snyder Trail, as well as staff's request to add more plantings in and around the RPA,

and also to address noise concerns, the applicant proposes to install a row of approximately 600 square feet of new plantings. That includes evergreen trees and various other native and non-invasive plantings directly adjacent the menu board and along the drive-thru lane. In doing so, this will provide additional visual screening, increase the plantings and green space on site, as well as to assist to absorb any noise pollution that may result from the menu board. Number two, in addition to the drive-thru component, as you heard, the applicant will integrate a walk-up window near the main entrance. So generally, the walk-up window will be open only when the dining room is closed. This will provide an additional option for customers

to obtain their orders and will effectively alleviate the drive-thru traffic. So as you heard, the walk-up window will serve mobile orders, Uber Eats, DoorDash, and the like. Users would park, pick up their orders without the need to utilize the drive-thru lane. So number three, in response to concerns heard related to parking, a fairly large change, if you may recall, is that the applicant has modified the building prototype. So previously, we were proposing a 40-seat restaurant, which was a larger building, and now we have reduced the size, and it is now a 20-seat restaurant. From a site design perspective, this modification will increase the open space at the front of the building with additional plantings.

It decreases the impervious area on site as well as will improve the site distance when you're exiting the drive-thru. However, more importantly, this change will reduce the parking demand for dining customers on a daily basis. So number four, to provide enhanced connectivity, you can see from Fairfax Boulevard to the George Snyder Trail, we have proposed a six-foot-wide pathway from Fairfax Boulevard that will ultimately link to the existing six-foot-wide trail along the western lot line. This will require slight enlargement of an existing island on the western side of the existing parking and a loss of one parking space. Number five, all new sidewalks on site will integrate ADA curb ramps with detectable warning strips.

Six, to continue to facilitate improved pedestrian circulation, and in accordance with the city's long-term planning for the Fairfax Boulevard commercial corridor, the applicant will widen the existing six-foot trail along Fairfax Boulevard up to 10 feet. And the intent is to widen it to the extent that it will not interfere with existing mature vegetation or utilities within that general area. Finally, the applicant intends to retain all of the existing mature street trees, but as mentioned, in coordination with the city arborist, there will be a number of new street trees that are being added. So in the end, the proposed development will result in an increased green open space and a decrease in impervious surface.

So in light of the city's long-term goals to promote places along the Route 50 corridor that can be accessed by foot, if we go to the next slide, you can see that the applicant has integrated a number of pedestrian infrastructure with this proposal to promote walkability. So despite its small 0.666 acre pad site, the applicant will be providing three new pedestrian routes. You can see in yellow, a connection to George Snyder Trail, in red and green, connections from Fairfax Boulevard, and in blue, the connection to the larger shopping center. So moving to the next slide, there were some concerns we heard previously about access specifically through the patient first site. So we thought it's important to note

that the main vehicular routes to the site were previously contemplated by the property owners of both the patient first site as well as the larger shopping center site. And this agreement was memorialized in a cross-access easement back in 2015. So you can see patient first is outlined in green, taco bells in blue, and the larger shopping center is in red. The inner parcel access is in yellow. And this agreement effectively permits a shared access between all three parcels, including pedestrian, vehicular access by owners, tenants, subtenants, successors, invitees, customers, contractors, employees, essentially any visitor that you would see on, over, and across any of the portions highlighted in yellow.

Thus, the access proposed by the applicant is consistent with the recorded access easement and was fully contemplated by all of the parties of both the patient first site as well as the larger shopping center. I will note that the applicant has reached out to patient first several times by letter on July 30th, or sorry, August 30th and July 16th. And most recently, in response to the safety concerns that were raised by Chairman Feather, specifically of vehicles that would be crossing the patient first site, the applicant has sent another letter on September 3rd. And specifically within this letter, we offer to install off-site wayfinding signage or pavement markings or some other kind of visual cue

on the patient first site to direct vehicles coming to the new restaurant site to utilize, if you can see on the map, the outermost drive aisle, which is highlighted in yellow, as opposed to the drive aisle that's closest to the patient first building, which is not subject to the cross-access easement. To date, the applicant has not yet received any response from patient first, but if they do, we are more than happy to have that conversation with them. So in terms of the next slide, again, I won't go too much into this because Mr. Frederick did explain how access will function. No changes are proposed to the existing access or on-site circulation conditions of the larger shopping center. I will note that access did appear to be an issue

that was raised during the PC work session and specifically how visitors coming eastbound, which is the yellow, would reach the site. So to alleviate congestion at the Fairwoods Parkway intersection, as well as reduce the number of vehicles having to cross that patient first site to reach the Taco Bell site, the applicant proposes is working with staff to integrate new wayfinding signage where you can see the star all the way on the left side in green. So the hope is to put signage in that general vicinity to inform drivers coming eastbound to turn at that first intersection and then you would cross the larger shopping center rather than driving to the second intersection when you've already passed the Taco Bell.

Oh, there it is. Then you would come around, take that intersection, and then would have to cross through patient first. So the hope is that with that new wayfinding signage, we would catch the traffic going eastbound so they would actually make that first left rather than going to the second. So the next slide, again, we heard many concerns about whether this new restaurant, not only from the Planning Commission, but from the community and the city council, about whether the drive-through component can officially integrate into an already busy shopping center and we do believe it can. One of the major changes that we made is we did modify the hours of operation. So previously we were proposing,

I think during the weekdays up to 1 a.m. and then on the weekends up to 2 a.m. and so we have now changed that so that the entire restaurant, including the drive-through, would close at midnight on a daily basis. Of those times, the peak hours, you can see the peak hours for the lunch and dinner. The small window during the dinner peak hours that may overlap with the main dinner rush of the various sit-down restaurants. Unlike other sit-down, the Taco Bell is not historically a sit-down restaurant, but rather generates a lot of the revenue from the drive-through. So, and you can see the drive-through is about 80 to 85% of their customers and as the majority are utilizing the drive-through, there are very few that are actually parking.

On average, a drive-through visit lasts only about 2.5 minutes and to break that down even further, when a customer places an order at the menu board, the order time is about 49 seconds, equating to about one vehicle passing the menu board every minute. So the quickness and speed at which people are receiving their food in the drive-through has two important implications. One was brought up during the PC hearing or work session specifically related to a bypass lane. So because patrons are simply not in the drive-through for a very long time, they are moving through the lane quickly between two to three minutes total. So we believe this assists to alleviate any concern related to there not being a bypass lane

within the drive-through. And secondly, patrons are moving quickly in and out of the drive-through and will not spend a significant amount of time attempting to circulate the shopping center or idling around the drive aisles as many do when they're attempting to locate a parking space. That being said, as shown, the proposed drive-through can accommodate 13 vehicles, which is a greater capacity than provided at other local or other similar locations. Based on market research, the applicant believes that there will be more than enough capacity to accommodate the forecasted number of cars queuing at this restaurant. So the last bullet point, as you can see, the applicant's traffic engineer conducted

a queuing analysis of the vehicle stacking associated with the drive-through use and concluded that the number of cars stacking at this location should not exceed an average of seven cars 95% of the time. So the next slide, I won't spend too much time on this. This was in the packet that I had provided to you all, but there is a difference between vehicle stacking and queuing. I'll just note that at the end of the day, even with the max number of vehicles queuing during the peak time, as you can see the yellow dots, there does remain about four open spaces within the stacking lane, again, just evidencing that the applicant does not anticipate that cars will spill into the existing drive-out or otherwise create any sort of traffic hazard

as a result of the drive-through. So the next slide, again, quickly just to go through, in terms of parking demand, I think the best way to illustrate how this use is appropriate and fits the site is to compare it to what could go here by right. So as we mentioned, the by right use is a 5,100 square foot retail, which is double the size of the proposed Taco Bell. In this scenario, as you can see, the parking demand for a comparable by right use would actually be much higher during the evening hours than the shopping center at its busiest when parking is more scarce. So in the by right scenario, all visitors coming to the site are, if you were coming in the by right scenario, you would definitely be parking.

There's no other option of what you would do when you come to the site. But in the scenario with the Taco Bell, most likely since many of the people are going through the drive-through, there's not as many people parking. And likely they're only staying 5 to 15 minutes, whereas if you are coming in the by right situation, you're staying for 30 minutes to 2 hours. So as you can see from the chart of the parking demand during peak evening hours, a Taco Bell restaurant will actually generate a much lower parking demand than any other approved by right use, where the parking demand for the approved retail would be much higher and more, in some instances double or more intense. And so we believe that this would be a better use

of the site integrating the Taco Bell restaurant. So the next slide just kind of graphically depicts, you can see the green is actually the drive-in bank, the orange is the Taco Bell, and the blue is the retail. So you can see how there would be a high peak during that lunchtime rush, but otherwise the parking demand would actually be much less. So the next few slides just looks at the proximity. I know this is a little bit hard to read, but you can see the yellow is the Taco Bell site, and we were just, you know, there was questions about how does this compare to other drive-throughs. I will note again that the applicant has changed the hours of the operation to be 12 midnight. And as you can see from this chart,

in reality there's other restaurants that are with drive-throughs that are open 24 hours or even later, and of those restaurants, they actually are closer to residential. So we're about 500 feet. These other drive-throughs that are open 24 hours or longer than midnight are as close as 100 feet or 180 feet. So I thought that was important to note that we do believe that this proposal would be less impactful than other similarly situated drive-throughs. So the next slide, again, just shows the proximity to the closest residential. If we go to the next slide, I'll note that the applicant's proposed drive-through system will adhere to the noise ordinance requirements of the city, which permits a max level of 60 DBA in a commercial setting.

So the applicant does plan to install a drive-through communication system that is equipped with what's called an automatic volume control technology, and that provides dampening controls that actually adjust the outbound sound pressure level based on ambient noise. So it effectively controls outdoor acoustic noise levels. So I highlighted in red, as you can see, at only 16 feet away from the menu board, that sound level when you activate the AVC is only 36 DBA. So as you saw, the farthest residential is 450 feet away. So as such, we believe that the sound being emitted from the site by the menu board and ultimately heard by any surrounding residential would be nominal and have little adverse effects.

And notwithstanding, we are still, to further mitigate any noise, we are planting supplemental plantings in that drive-through lane close to that menu board to even further buffer any noise and light. So the next slides just provide sort of a rendering of the new Taco Bell. You can see the plantings that we are now adding to the front of the building, and that just shows how we have reduced the building size. And you can also see the various new crosswalks and pedestrian circulation connections with the ADA sidewalk features. So the next slide just highlights, oh, that's another. The next slide just highlights some of the outreach we have done. As mentioned, we've had two community meetings.

The first was in person on April 24th with the Mosby Woods community. The second, because it was during the August recess and speaking with the HOA board president, we felt like a Zoom meeting would be more effective to reach a larger group. We did have that on August 22nd. And generally, there were questions. However, we felt that the proposal was received well, and we got positive feedback. I think a lot of the people that were at the first meeting and also attended the second acknowledged the changes that we had made and felt that they were moving in the right direction. So we felt very good about that meeting and thought it was positive. As mentioned, we've reached out to patient first. We've mailed them letters

on three different occasions, with the last being one where we've offered signage installation. So in the end, the applicant's proposal presents an opportunity that we believe can redevelop and activate an underutilized parcel with a vibrant, high-quality community-serving use that will enhance and positively contribute to the commercial activities along the Fairfax Boulevard commercial corridor consistent with the city's comprehensive plan. As such, you can see staff has recommended approval of this application, and I would also request your favorable consideration in this case. Thank you. Thank you. Before we go to the public hearing, are there questions from the commission to either staff or the applicant?

If I may, do you have an idea, excuse me, how many of those parking spaces would be occupied by staff working at the restaurant versus open for customers? Do we know how many staff, departing spaces would be staffed? This is Deke, who represents the, I'll let him introduce himself, but he represents the operations of Taco Bell. Deke Vonderhaar with ABTV Mid-Atlantic. Typically, on any given shift, the most employees we will have is eight. That would be at a dinner shift. Historically speaking, about half of our employees are either going to be minors that would be dropped off by their parents or riding a bus. So I would say safely about four. Also, typically, we would ask that all four of those

that are driving, that they would park in the spots that are facing the road so that the ones closest to the building with the ease of access into the restaurant would go to customers. And I also have a quick question for staff, if I may. Are the operating hours as presented as part of this proposal enforceable post-construction or post-approval? Not that I believe it's a bad faith offer. I'm just curious about what the longevity of those agreements are. Okay. So in terms of the hours that they propose, staff could add a condition to the SUP for those hours. We typically don't have hours that we restrict unless it's a part of a condition or since they've offered it up as limitations for the use,

we could add it as a condition. Thank you. Is there a precedent within the city for staff after the fact enforcing a restriction on hours of operation? There are a couple of examples. There's a drive-through to the east where staff has enforced on hours of operation. Most of the time, we're enforcing on different types of restaurants that have after, or I shouldn't say after hours, but later offerings. They offer dancing and entertainment, things of that nature. So there are instances for certain that we have monitored and enforced on hours of operation for restaurants. Yes. It seems that the one thing the city is quite ineffective about dealing with their noise complaints. I call and, you know,

the officers in the city are quick to admit there's not a hell of a lot we can do, you know. And I cite, you know, I'm in my basement with AirPods in my ears, you know, I head under a blanket, and I can still hear voices distinctly from a PA that's over the fence. And the response is usually, you know, tough luck. We can't do anything about it until the city changes the noise ordinance. And I cite, anyway, this wasn't a soapbox moment for me. But I really like the responsiveness and the changes that have been made and the extra screening, the volume control. All of those things are very good. But how does the city deal with noise issues like this? Is, in your opinion, Mr. Sutphin, is the city able to deal with

things that arise after approval that are problematic for residents or other people nearby? I do know that the city has the capability of noise monitoring at certain decibel thresholds. I am not as familiar with what that process, that enforcement process entails. I don't know if Mr. Harden has any more background on when it goes to that next step. Thankfully, I don't have to usually get involved in enforcement. We bring the fun stuff. Good evening. So, as noted in the earlier slide for the commercial districts, there's a 60 DBA maximum threshold. And so our zoning inspector does have calibrated equipment that he or she uses to measure noises. I think some of the challenge, Commissioner Rice,

that the city has, at least from the zoning side, in particular, is intermittent, periodic type of noises, not kind of ongoing noises that are typically coming from a commercial type establishment. Really, the way that the noise regs are written in the zoning ordinance are for those ongoing noises. And so for something coming from a business, typically those can be addressed. There are, you know, again, periodic things, trash being picked up and dumpsters, you know, closing, you know, loudly and those sorts of things that are difficult. But typically, yes, we do have a process. And yes, we do try to enforce on those. I will note as well, and the Planning Commission may be seeing something soon,

the noise regulations are under review. Our city attorney has been working on potential changes. The noise regulations are in the zoning ordinance and elsewhere in the city code. So I'm not exactly sure at this time whether those changes may affect the zoning ordinance or elsewhere in the code. But we have certainly heard those challenges, as you note, and are working on those. Yeah, and it may be unfair to conflate a residential noise issue with the noise generated by a business. The parties that I have to deal with living close to GMU are not paying tax revenue to the city. And so there's some differences. And anyway, I was writing on a comment from my colleague here who had some excellent questions.

But yeah. Oh, I just put a bow on it. I really do appreciate the changes from the previous presentation to today and also the public outreach. I think that's really important, especially for our neighborhood that sort of felt a bit maligned by the city lately. But my last question was just, have you received feedback from any of the other business owners on the property in terms of any concerns or, you know, they're gung-ho about having Taco Bell? We have been in touch with Sight. So Sight Centers is the company that owns the larger shopping center. So they have been aware of the application, but we have, since it's the tenants, we haven't done any specific or heard anything specific from the actual other tenants.

But we have been providing Sight Centers counsel with all of the application materials. So I suspect if there were any concerns from the other tenants, they would have heard of it and let us know. But they've been fully appraised from the very beginning of the application process of what we've been doing. Okay. Thanks very much. I will see the floor. Others? Mr. Cunningham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess sticking with the first issue, I will congratulate you in terms of the noise issue in locating immediately across the street from a fire station, which I know when emergency vehicles have to operate, don't tend to observe the hours of quiet or other things when they are in a hurry. So there probably

are many offenders in this area that we've had to live with for a fairly long time. Secondly, I guess I would like to congratulate Mr. Vanderhaar on having the most effective crew that he is ever going to have because I think what I heard him just say is that they're never going to make a mistake. They're never going to cause the line to back up in the stacking lane because of a mistake or an order or somebody fumbling with it because we're only going to have efficient clients come through at the details that I was just given so that everybody is going to work extremely efficiently in a very high traffic area when you're next to the ABC store, when you're next to a 7-11, when you're next to a patient.

Places that generate a lot of traffic, mistakes tend to magnify the problem so that when we talked about having a stacking lane, is there any procedure possible for dealing with a mistake so you can move somebody out of the way to continue to efficiently do business while you correct the situation and deal with it? Are there parking spaces potentially that could be designated for somebody to pull out and bring that order out to them or do we have to wait in the stacking lane until the mistake is fixed? In which case, the great time flow that we all like to think of in terms of moving things breaks down a little bit. Sure, and I will invite Deke to come back up to address that if they've had any experience,

but again, I just will note that unlike other drive-thrus, I think one thing that Taco Bell does pride themselves in is the fact that they truly are a quick service food restaurant, but I'll let him elaborate. So this store is going to have a digital, outdoor digital menu board so when folks place their order, they're going to be able to visually see what they've ordered and what modifications they've placed to their order. So for that, as an example, if you order a taco without cheese, that is going to be visible to them on the screen where they would be able to review that prior to leaving the speaker. Should they get an order that is not correct, historically speaking, the customers will pull into

the parking lot that is immediately adjacent to our buildings, get as close to a parking stall to the door as possible, and then they will go in and address that issue with whoever the manager on duty is in order to be able to correct it. So very rarely do they get back in line and wait in the drive-thru. With the walk-up window, that will also help alleviate that problem because they'll be able to go up to the walk-up window and bring attention to the manager on duty that there was an error to their order. Okay, so there are limitations on the time the walk-up window is going to be available, if I heard correctly? Yes. And or you have spaces you're going to ask employees to park in, the ones across the way.

Are some of those going to be designated for people to pull into to make it easier or are they all going to be available so it's a hunting situation? So the spots that are facing the four-lane highway, we are going to request that all of our employees that drive to work and park in those spots. The spots that are immediately adjacent the building inside of the .66 acre lot, those will be reserved for customers. There is signage that we put up that says a mobile order walk-up window. So typically there's two spots for that. So any customer that would be utilizing the walk-up window or have a mobile order would be pulling into those spots. A person who received an order that was incorrect in drive-through,

they would be entitled to be able to take one of those two spots. As of right now, we plan on the dining room being open from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. or sorry, 11 p.m. The restaurant is open until midnight so the walk-up window would only be open from 11 p.m. to 12 a.m. therefore, any of those customers that would have had an air would be able to enter the dining room and have the communication with the manager at that time. Okay. In looking at the site and studying it as you have done, have you talked with your neighbor to the west in terms of the number of people using that particular facility that park on your facility currently? I have not had the communication. I don't know if Kathy has. Are you just talking

about the larger? I'm talking about the big shopping center with several restaurants that at various times seems overrun and people now use your lot for overflow parking. Sure. Does that go away? With this proposal, I do not believe that will go away, but as I had mentioned in the previous slides, we do believe that just by nature of this use and the fact that majority of the customers that are coming are utilizing the drive-thru and yes, there are people parking but not to the extent that are parking similar to any of these other sit-down restaurants. We don't believe that the Taco Bell, because they are majority drive-thru, will necessarily aggravate the parking, what's already kind of a difficult

parking condition within this site. I do believe that generally the peak hours of this Taco Bell, while they do overlap slightly in that evening when it is likely the worst, generally the rest of the day they aren't really conflicting with the hours and the peak hours of maybe some of the other restaurants. I will note that we haven't had direct conversations with the larger shopping center related to parking and likely that's because there's already a parking agreement in place that was executed, gosh, I think it was back in 2012 or 2013 or roundabout and it specifically took into account the parking between parcel A, which is the larger shopping center and parcel D. So in reality, those two parcels

do have a shared parking wherein people in the larger shopping center could park on parcel D and vice versa, people from parcel D could park on parcel A. Patient first was not part of that agreement. It was only between those two parcels. So there is sort of this underlying agreement between the two that vehicles could park on either parcel. Okay. I think you're answering my question about the challenge of, one, a mistake is made. Does somebody find an easy parking space so they can walk in and get it fixed? But I recognize if that never happens so that the mistake is never made, that this isn't a beauty issue. I think park and traffic is my prime concern with the site and the ability to efficiently handle

the other aspects that come up with a really clean design that an engineer has said works perfectly on a time slot. And that's what we've tried to do is to kind of, you know, my whole spiel on talking about comparing the two uses, I mean, I think we all recognize that this site is not going to remain vacant. You know, it brings revenue to the city by developing this site. The purpose was always to develop this site, which is why you have these various agreements, the cross-access, the parking agreements. And we think that if it stays a 5,100-square-foot retail building, we actually think the parking would be much more aggravated and be a worse condition if parking truly is kind of a concern.

So although a drive-through historically seems like a very intense, vehicle-oriented use, we would actually argue that it is a less intense use when you compare it to what could go in this site by right. But, you know, that's just, you know, based on the numbers we're looking at, that's something. That seems to be a function of the staff and how efficiently they operate and perform. Sure. Understood. That's my question. Thank you. Thank you. Others? Ms. Briggs, anything from you? I was wondering, with the 20 inside seats and the 10 outside seats, if 30 seats were taken, how many parking spaces are supposed to be allotted for that? So, again, I'll let Deke speak to this, but I think historically

there wouldn't, there would never be a situation wherein they would see that the entire restaurant, I think, just generally, again, 80 to 85% is drive-through and we just don't see that many people. I think the question really pertains to our zoning ordinance and what parking is required for this size facility. With 30 seats. Right. So maybe that's a question for staff to answer. What's required? So the requirement is one space for 200 square feet. The previous ordinance we had did base things on seating capacity, but this ordinance, the way it's structured, is based on total square footage. There may be a question that Ms. Briggs brought up relating back to demand, which I think is what Ms. Taylor

may be getting at, but if that helps facilitate the conversation, please feel free to talk about their demand. But the available parking meets the requirements of the zoning ordinance. Yes, it does. Thank you. Okay. Others? Dr. Rice. A couple of questions. The fire department has given feedback on the turn-in, turn-out pulling in that parking lot won't allow them to turn inside the parking lot. Sorry, you said the fire marshal? Sorry, yeah, so this is assistant chief sites. Has he given feedback on the ability of the fire department to get equipment in and out quickly? Yes, we did meet with chief sites, I think, when we had provided our first submission and we worked with him to properly delineate

where the fire lanes would be and what would be appropriate and what would need to be striped. Our civil engineer is here and he can certainly answer or provide additional details if needed. Okay, any... Concerns? Any concerns about station 33 right across the road which has been noted and their ability to deal with additional traffic on Fairfax Boulevard? I don't believe that. Yeah, I don't believe that came up. Maybe not an issue? No. Okay. Just a comment. The loss of a parking space for an enhanced pedestrian infrastructure on the west side is always a good trade and I'm going to advocate for that every single time. If a business needs to reduce a parking space to provide a connection to a trail

or to increase the width of a sidewalk, we should always make that maybe not an official policy but I really think that's a great trade-off and frankly, good pedestrian infrastructure is good for business and good for revenue and so I always think that's great. the distance map provided by staff is super helpful. I don't know if there's an office pool to see whether I would comment on that but I'm a huge fan and that's going to prevent me from having to do the same measurements in real time here so thank you. Whomever did that. I assume that was Amy Lindeni and she gets a high five for that nice little bit of information. It's extremely useful to see that because the context of noise and traffic

and everything depends on the geographic context and seeing that on the maps is really, really useful. I really think that majority of the time drivers ignore 80% or some odd figure of drivers ignore signage while they're driving. They're looking for other queues. If there were additional pavement striping strategies to differentiate the drive aisle and patient first from their private side of that lot obviously if they agree it would be nice to have a sign there as people pull in to indicate Taco Bell turn left patient first go straight. For the drivers that ignore that having some additional striping on the parking lot surface would be super helpful. The one thing we don't want is Taco Bell

cycling through the parking lot adjacent to patient first that would be a bit of a mess. Finally, I just echo the comments of my colleagues. It's refreshing to see an applicant come in that's been responsive to comments. It's sort of distressing to see somebody come in with the very same plan and get more assertive and more aggressive about their plan without having made any accommodations. and most of the comments that we made last time are noted and corrected in this night. I really like that. It's a good example. Thanks. Thank you. Mr. Coleman, anything? Just a couple of clarifying questions for me before we open the public hearing. Make sure I understand correctly. There is in place today

a shared parking agreement between Parcel A and Parcel D. That's clear. Okay. The issue you raised that I raised about the traffic through the patient first site, I appreciate your comments on that. As the expression goes, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink. So I appreciate the outreach you've done to patient first. We'll see if and how they may respond. I sent a question to staff a couple weeks ago prior to the meeting. Do you have, is there any way to have estimated what the traffic through that site might have been and the previous uses versus the proposed current use? I don't know if there was such an analysis done. If there's a way for us to compare, fine. If not,

that's fine too. I'm seeing head shake. Okay. Thank you. That's all the questions I have. So if there are none others, we will open the public hearing. It's the opportunity for the public to comment on this application. for those of you who would like to speak, you'll have three minutes. Madam Clerk, do we have signups for this public hearing? Yes. The first is Chris Snyder. Chris Snyder. Thank you. My name is Chris Snyder. I live at 10129 Cardinal Road, basically right behind the facility. I'll be honest, I didn't know about this until my neighbor told me about it and then I got a letter in the mail, so I seem to have missed previous conversations about that. That's probably my fault. But I did want to give

some feedback on that. So I can get my phone working on it. So I've been having concerns with the shopping center since it was built. I've lived there since 2000 and I think that my concerns initially are coming to fruition that the parking lot sucks, is to put it bluntly. The parking has gotten worse and worse over the years. Right now, it is probably the worst that it's ever been and I think it's going to only get worse either with or without the Taco Bell. Mainly because if you go there Friday or Saturday afternoon starting about 5 o'clock going until about 11 o'clock, there is no parking. None. Everybody's at one of the restaurants, the pizza takeout, sushi, Korean bar, whatever, there's nowhere to go.

7-Eleven had to put up signs saying parking only for 7-Eleven. Where else do you see signs 7-Eleven has to have reserved parking? Getting through the patient first parking lot is a nightmare. I do this on a regular basis whether it's running up for something in the shopping center or unfortunately going to patient first. Driving through the patient first parking lot, I go slow because there's no telling where somebody's going to pop out. It's very hard to see. It's also tight so when you add the traffic in and out more traffic, it's just more asking for a problem. Getting getting in and out other ways is also difficult. Coming in from the west, turning in and then going in front of the parking,

the shopping center, that's almost impossible half the time because somebody's usually parked in front of the building for whatever reason. Somebody parked in one of the slots and did a bad job. There's a loading truck unloading into 7-Eleven or I believe how Taco Bell will do it as well. You can't move around. There's just nowhere to get in there and get around. I also have concerns if there's a fire and it's one of these peak times. How the heck is a fire truck or an ambulance supposed to get into these places to work? There's no place to move. There's no room for a fire lane half the time. It only takes one small thing for something to go wrong. They've done a beautiful job on the layout,

the drive-through, the landscaping. I can't fault any of that. The point is the overall shopping center just doesn't allow that to go. There's just no room for that much space. That made no sense. There's just no room to put that much traffic generation. I think we're already at a problem. I'm going to thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Have any other speakers signed up? Yes. Tammy Taman. Sorry, I don't go fast anymore. Hi, my name is Tammy Taman. I also live at 10129 Ranger Road. That's my husband. I am concerned, as is he, about the parking. Also about safety. I was volunteer fire and rescue for several years, many years, before I had to medically retire. they say that they are providing

20 parking spaces. Of those 20 parking spaces, 11 are pre-existing. I don't really credit them with those. They're part of the shopping center. They're already there. We drove through the shopping center on our way here this evening because I wanted to make sure I remembered it right. And I did. And about half of those spaces were taken up by people going to 7-Eleven, the pizza place, whatever, already. Not counting Taco Bell. By the way, I love Taco Bell. Really excited to have one, but this is making me nervous. the other nine spaces are over by the building and two of those are ADA compliant. Awesome. I may be needing them soon. But that leaves seven for the customers, the general people who want to go there,

of which there will be seating for 20 inside and 10 outside. and I'm thinking, those are some really full cars. People going through the drive-thru. Great. Decreases the need for parking. So they go through the driveway, they drive-thru, they get their taco, they start munching on it, go down to the light, light changes, they pull out and slam into that other car that was already there because they were eating their taco. Oops. I really think that there is a lot of problems involved in this. And like so many other places in the city and around the city that were engendered by the company that started the shopping center, there's just not enough parking. Sorry. Thank you. Thank you. Have there been

any other sign-ups? No. Is there anybody else present who would like to speak to the planning commission on this application? If not, we will close the public hearing and open up for any further discussion or questions from the commissioners. Ms. Lockhart. If I can pose sort of a question or an item of consideration to my fellow council members, I think we all recognize that the cross-parcel parking and movement issues inherent to this proposal, but the applicant has seemed to have done their due diligence in improving the flow on their parcel specifically. How much scrutiny should this proposal receive in light of issues that are not their problem to solve necessarily, which would be the parking situation

for the other tenants, other property owners downstream? I just want to make sure that we're being fair in evaluating what's in front of us and not denigrating it for things that are out of their control. Thank you. Ms. Cunningham. Thank you. In light of that comment, I guess I will refer to the law of unintended consequences. When this project came up originally, you had one long lot and then you had a gas station next to it. And in the redevelopment process, as outlined in our briefing before, the one long lot was set up for redevelopment. And there was a question whether the gas station next to it could be included. The gas station next to it has turned into patient first. But the one long lot

in its redevelopment process ended up with the development that you see there presently and then the orphan lot. The orphan lot was originally a part of that main process, but because it was designated as a bank pad and the bank wanted to own its own turf, that lot became an orphan and was broken off and given its own right and life, so to speak. So it was not included with the redevelopment of the one long lot. And I think that's left us today in long term from a planning standpoint with the fact that we have now got a very heavily trafficked and used commercial section to the west of this lot. But this lot is now on its third iteration of trying to be developed. And this is a viable use for that lot,

but in the context you've addressed with everything that's around it, it becomes questionable. If there were nothing else around it, it would be just fine with input and output and flow and everything else. But you're now trying to put something in that's going to add more traffic as has been described as an already very congested situation. And it's not going to get better. It will allow it to be economically used with the law of unintended consequences when you proceed with one thing and take steps and it doesn't happen tend to give you bad choices down the road. Not that anybody is opposed to the existing or the proposed use, but the proposed use is creating its own set of challenges. And that's, I think,

one of the problems that we've had with redevelopment of this lot all along. Yeah, I appreciate the context. I mean, I could see it business-wise shaking out where, oh yeah, I want to go to Taco Bell, but I'd only ever drive through. There's never any parking. So it becomes a facility that is quite literally only a drive-through. And in that way, it alleviates its pressure on its own business. But in terms of the ramifications or the impact to the applicant from the other users of the other part of the property, that's not insignificant. Others? Dr. Reyes? Other? Ms. Coleman? Ms. Priggs? By having the employees park in these spaces, I guess that would really help keep the overflow parking from using it

because they'd have to go up and park right up next to their front door to use their parking spaces. Right? I think by the nature of people, they will do it. They'll still do it. Please. You have the floor. I imagine a very busy drive-through business far west of here on the same road. And then I like to compare it to what's proposed here design-wise. On that service road, there's no parking on the other side. This has parking on the other side, which, of course, creates additional traffic coming in and out of that service, for lack of a better word, a service road that spans from east to west on this parcel. That, of course, creates that additional awareness and kind of head on a swivel that everyone will have

to have in that area. But the most congested drive-through I can imagine does not have that parking on the other side. It also doesn't have enough, it doesn't have 13 spots within the drive-through. Certainly, it doesn't. So when I think of this proposal and this design, and it is congested over there in that parking area, it already has parking on this site that isn't dedicated for any particular, I don't think it's dedicated for any particular business. I do see people park there. And just because, in my head, I'm comparing it against something that's more problematic doesn't mean that this is right. But it is, there's a parking standard, it exceeds the parking standard. 13 spots in the drive-through

seems like a lot. If I lived somewhere and there's a new drive-through coming that could potentially be open until 2 a.m. or midnight, I would have concerns. The one good thing is, it is, I mean, there is a, from what I think of, there's a tree buffer. It doesn't mean it'll always be there necessarily. But, and then there's, you know, 450 to 500 feet. So, when I compare this to other drive-throughs that are more, the more problematic ones in the city, this seems like a much better design. and, and, it seems like it has quite a few more spaces. Does it mean that it's not a hassle? I think all drive-throughs are hassles. But, you know, that's just personal. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Denton. Dr. Rice.

So, my colleague to my right and I were looking through the Google aerial imagery and just enjoying the business to the east that has a notoriously bad kind of design with 17 stack spaces isolated and then an additional 20 cars wrapping out the parking lot blocking egress by any other cars in the lot and then wrapping past the access road all the way onto Fairfax Boulevard. The imagery has been edited. You can see the cars parked in slots still present but the cars in their kind of process of attempting to access the drive-through have been slightly edited. You can still see them though and it's, you know, the city needs to avoid circumstances like this one and recognize some fairly good designs

like this one where they, you know, the drive-through is going to wrap around the parking which is a much better alternative. There are some other lots that are really difficult in the city. I think we all have our ones that we dislike and this may be a very bad one. I've actually been in this one and had issues long ago when there was a burger place on the west side that didn't stay for longer than about two years so there are challenges here. I really hope we get to a point where it's so easy to ride a bus or to walk or to bike that we have fewer issues. I just, the fact that my kids now take the Q bus downtown just to go to TJ Maxx or, you know, Starbucks, that's a huge success. They've kind of

figured out as teenagers that yeah, this is actually super easy. It's way easier than driving into that parking lot. You know, it's just, the easier it gets and the more we do to make it easy to not drive and to take other modes of transit when it's feasible we should do that. And anyway, those are all my comments. Thank you. Thank you. Others? Ms. Burgess? Could I ask just why the walk-up window is only going to be open from 11 to 12 at night? The walk-up window is only open when the dining room is closed. We encourage customers to come into the dining room. Typically, the walk-up window, you're exposed to the weather. This part of the country, you're going to have several months out of the year

where it's too cold, it could be raining, et cetera. So that's why we only have it open when the dining room is closed. So it's not really there for the Uber drivers and the DoorDash people because it's only open 11 to 12. So they're going to come in and pick up things they're delivering? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. I thought you were finished. So historically speaking, at our other 117 locations where we offer delivery, delivery, the delivery drivers will come into the building to pick up the order. We don't have walk-up windows at all of our locations. We only have it at a handful of them. And that's more of a safety and security thing where when we close the dining room, now the delivery drivers

and the mobile order customers still have an opportunity where they don't have to wait in the drive-through queue. It's worked out exceptionally well in those stores and we've also seen an uptick in the mobile ordering because they aren't having to wait in line and drive-through. So less idling cars, quicker in and out. So where does the mobile order person come in and pick up? They don't wait in line, so is there a counter inside for them to pick up? Yes, we have a shelf inside. In some stores, it's on the front counter. In some stores, it's just behind the counter. It just depends on the architectural design. This store in particular, it'll sit on the front counter to the far left side. If you were to face the counter

back toward the kitchen, it should be on the left side. Thank you. Thank you. Others? While my colleagues were looking at Google Maps, I was looking at the zoning ordinance for parking. It appears to me that every other use in that shopping center has the same parking requirement, one space per 200 square feet for retail, for restaurants. Does the parking as it exists today? Does it meet the requirements of the ordinance as far as you know? Have there been no changes? It does meet today's ordinance, and I'll also clarify that when this was approved under the old ordinance, 7-Eleven's parking rate was one to, don't quote me on this, I think it was 125. So from a zoning perspective, it not only satisfies,

but it sees what is required. Yes, as it reads today, a convenience store is also one space per 200 square feet. So if there's any parking issue, maybe it speaks to what our parking requirements are, but my colleague made a very cogent comment, thoughtful, and kind of related to your comment. If there's a problem, it's the success of the other businesses, not anything to do with this proposal in meeting and for exceeding the requirements. So just my observation. If there's nothing else, we'll close the discussion and put this in the matter of the commission. Is there a moment? Mr. Chair, based on the public convenience, welfare, and good zoning practice, I move that the planning commission recommend that the city council

adopt the attached resolution to approve the application of ABTV Mid-Atlantic LLC applicant for consideration of a general development plan amendment subject to the general development plan dated August 19, 2024, on the premises known as 10120 Fairfax Boulevard and 10140 to 10160 Fairfax Boulevard, and more particularly described as tax map parcels, 47-4-23-000-A, and 47-4-23-000-A, and 47-4-23-000-A. We've been moved and seconded to adopt the resolution. Are there any comments on the motion? If not, we'll have a voice vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Motion passes unanimously. Congratulations. Good luck with city council. Thank you. Take a moment for a, thank you Mr. Frederick,

Mr. Sutphin. Take a moment for stage reset for our next public hearing. This is the proposed amendments to the code of the city of Fairfax, Chapter 110, zoning. Proportions of the articles and sections contained therein, including zoning districts and regulations, site development standards, and definitions. Welcome, Mr. Foreman. Well, thank you very much. Good evening. So tonight's agenda item is a public hearing for this series of zoning text amendments that pertain to commercial urban agriculture establishments, specifically amendments to add this as a permitted use in the city zoning ordinance. The planning commission and the city council both held work sessions on this series of amendments

back in July and the planning commission formally initiated this series of amendments at the July 22nd meeting. Initially, city council held a general discussion about commercial urban agriculture back in June and at that meeting, council directed staff to draft amendments in order to permit urban agriculture in the city's commercial zones. The July work sessions focused on a draft set of amendments to do just that. Tonight's amendment package that we're discussing is similar to the material that we discussed back in July. There are a few points for further discussion and I'll talk about those during tonight's presentation. But the overall goal here is to allow a type of use that is currently not permitted.

As we discussed at our work session, this topic originated with the city's economic development office. Economic development staff has talked with some companies in this field that may be interested in locating in Fairfax City and this seems like a use that would be complementary to Fairfax. It also fits within the city's comprehensive plan goals of diversifying our commercial sectors and of supporting regionally grown food. As you may recall, this slide from our work session and I think some kind of an explanation is helpful here and especially for folks who may not have watched our previous meetings, urban agriculture as we're discussing it is basically the process of growing commercially agricultural products

in an indoor environment. Being indoors means that it's a controlled environment and among other things that means fewer negative externalities than traditional agriculture and that is why this is something that could be well suited for commercial areas. There's many types of indoor agriculture. A lot of these go by different names. The illustration down here at the bottom right, this is a very simplified diagram of hydroponics, which is one of the more common types of indoor agriculture. Hydroponics, this involves growing plants in a nutrient solution rather than in soil and when this is done on a commercial scale, it winds up looking something like the setting here on the top right. The reason for showing

this picture and showing the diagram is just to give the overall idea of what commercial urban agriculture could be. And again, this is a relatively new type of use. It's something that's not defined in our zoning ordinance right now. And other jurisdictions are in a similar position. Existing zoning ordinances typically need to be amended in some way to allow for this and that's why we're here. So as we had discussed again at our work session, a few local jurisdictions just right around here have modified their zoning ordinances recently regarding urban agriculture. Arlington County has done this. Fairfax County has done it. Vienna has added this recently to their ordinance. And looking at those ordinances

and other examples nationwide, this has shown us that urban agriculture ordinances really don't need to delve into a great amount of detail about the specifics of agriculture or directing the details of this use. It's really a better idea to give just some general guidance in the zoning ordinance which is what we're recommending here. And these are the elements right here. These are what's included in the ordinance in the amendments that we're looking at tonight and we'll take a look at each of these elements. And as always, everything that we're discussing tonight is in your packets as well. So the first element here is a definition proposed to be located in Article 9 of the zoning ordinance.

And this is obviously important because it describes just what this use is within the context of the zoning ordinance. Again, we don't need to get terribly detailed in the definition regarding specific items or specific operations. And instead, this is fairly general. It's really in two parts. The first part here, which you see in green, is a description of the use. And this reads that urban agriculture, and again, as it pertains to the zoning ordinance, is an establishment for the cultivation, retail sales, and distribution of agricultural products where such activity takes place within a fully enclosed structure or on the rooftop of a structure. The second part here is shown in blue, and this provides

some examples of urban agriculture methods. The examples here, so we see aeroponics, hydroponics, vertical farming, these are all common terms within the industry. Again, these are examples, so it wouldn't be limited to just these, but this serves as guidance, serves as an explanation. Now on to the principal use table. Principal use table is in the zoning ordinance. This is what lists what uses are allowed in which zoning districts. Since urban agriculture is proposed to be a separate use, it would have its own entry, its own line here in the principal use table. And since this use would really have very few negative externalities, it's reasonable to make this a widespread permitted use. The P indication here

indicates, it stands for permitted. Permitted means by right in the zoning ordinance. So in this table, we have urban agriculture listed really identically to general retail uses. That is that it's permitted in the CR zone. CR is the biggest of the commercial zones, as well as the CG and CU zones, and also permitted in the industrial zones. And this tracks identically with general retail uses. Now zoning ordinances that allow for urban agriculture tend to have some general use standards associated with the use. These standards are important. They limit whatever kind of negative potential effects of a specific use there could be. Things that could adversely affect neighboring properties or neighboring uses.

There are four standards here in this amendment package that you see. And since there's just four, I'll go over these. I'll explain their rationale. The first one here, I'll just read it. All growing and production activities shall be conducted wholly within a fully enclosed building or on the rooftop of a structure. Now most urban agriculture zoning ordinances, zoning amendments tend to have a standard like this. Even like in this case where there's similar wording in the definition, it's just an important point to reiterate that production activity needs to take place in specified areas because that's what distinguishes urban agriculture from what we think of as traditional agriculture. Number two here

involves the keeping of animals. And this is a topic that generated some discussion at both of the work sessions at Planning Commission and at City Council. It's an area where there's actually little consistency among other zoning ordinances that allow for urban agriculture. They tend to really be all over the place in this regard. Just for example, in our three local examples, the keeping of animals ranges really from a hard no, meaning no animals, no insects, anything like that, to some general permissiveness to a maybe. Maybes are terrifying in zoning ordinances because it means that the ordinance is silent and you just kind of have to guess about it. But that gives you an idea. There's really a wide range

of options. Now, the draft language here is that urban agriculture shall not include the keeping of animals except as accessory to the principal use and then list an example such as for aquaponics. So this permits animals as accessory to the urban agriculture use and that means that if there are insects or if there are worms or in the case of aquaponics, aquaponics is the process of cultivating fish and plants together kind of in an integrated system, that that would be allowed. But this language limits the principal use to being cultivation. So rather than the raising of animals, rather than animal husbandry. The reason for that is that many people consider the actual raising of animals as a principal use

to be more intensive than the growing of plants. Now, this was discussed both at the Planning Commission and at City Council work sessions and specifically about whether, for example, to permit aquaculture. Aquaculture is the growing of fish. And as principal use, colloquially think of it as fish farms. So permit aquaculture as a principal use. During Planning Commission's work session, the Commission seemed inclined to stick with the language that's here, reasoning that the raising of fish, again, as a principal use, could bring up issues such as water consumption or disposal of waste products that really suggest a more intensive use than what's contemplated under urban agriculture. City Council discussed this as well,

did not appear to have a consensus. Some council members expressed a preference to allow the raising of animals and particularly fish as part of commercial urban agriculture and reasoning that the water consumption and waste issues may not be significant enough to restrict this as a principal use. I expect this topic to come up again at City Council's public hearing, which is in two weeks from now. So it would be helpful at the end of tonight's hearing to have guidance on this issue for the Commission for us to take forward to City Council. Number three here, waste and odors. This tends to be a potential negative effect of any agricultural process. This use standard stipulates that urban agriculture operators

need to control odors that are discernible off-site. This language that you see here for number three, this is identical to a use standard for animal care facilities, animal care facilities or kennels or veterinarians. That's another use that's subject to potential off-site odor problems. It tends to work well in those instances, so this is identical language for this use. Finally, the last use standard here reads that in commercial districts for facilities, being urban agriculture facilities, located on the ground floor of a building, the 25% of the building frontage associated with the subject use must be dedicated to retail purposes. This is also something that's not uncommon for urban agriculture

in commercial areas. Both Arlington County and Fairfax County have some sort of retail requirement in their ordinances for urban agriculture. It's a way to ensure that there's a benefit to the public realm from this type of business in a commercial area. gives us the retail field that we would be looking for in a commercial area rather than a tenant that is purely cultivation and doesn't have any traffic coming or going. The last element of this proposed amendment package is that of a minimum parking ratio. All uses have a minimum required parking ratio in the zoning ordinance and in this case, what's proposed is one space per 300 square feet of floor area. So like it says here, that's less than

the retail parking ratio. One to 300 is equal to the general office parking ratio. And what that means is that this would be suitable for conforming sites, that this would be conforming for both retail settings and for office settings. So we were looking for a flexible situation. Back at our June work session, we discussed this a bit. The reason why the 1 to 300 ratio is in this draft is because it would ensure suitability for most commercial sites. There is no industry standard parking ratio for this use because it's extremely specialized and very new use. But even if a non-retail urban agriculture facility were to locate in, let's say, an office building with a 1 to 300 ratio, it would not trigger

a special exception due to the parking requirements. So that's the flexibility that we were looking for. So after the June work sessions, both Planning Commission and City Council were supportive of a commercial urban agriculture use. Now, as I mentioned, there are a few points for additional discussion. We talked about the topic of raising animals here. In case it helps, this is an image of what an indoor fish farm, aquaculture facility looks like. This is actually an eel farm, but it gives an indication of what it looks like. it is something that can be done inside. So just if that is of any help. Second bullet point here is wastewater. So back at our June work session, a question was asked here

at Planning Commission about how wastewater would be treated from urban agriculture facilities. Planning commissioners were interested in this because nutrients or other chemical or biological substances that are in the water that's used in a process like hydroponics, trying to figure out exactly what happens to that wastewater. I didn't know the answer to that question at the time, so we followed up with public works and with code administration about this. So after following up about this, my understanding is that those departments would work with urban agriculture firms to ensure that the city's existing wastewater discharge guidelines and limits are followed. So there are existing regulations

in city code regarding prohibition on certain discharges and limitations on certain pollutants. Public works said that urban agriculture firms would need to meet wastewater discharge guidelines first, so either to connect to sanitary sewer for a new structure or as part of a business license, you know, once it goes through code administration review. So they would need to meet those guidelines or find alternative disposal options. I think the main takeaway here is that staff, and this being public works and code administration, will ensure that the city code is followed in this regard. And the third item down here for further discussion tonight involves the potential cultivation of cannabis products.

Now, as the draft is written now, there's no limit on the type of agricultural products that could be cultivated under this use, under urban agriculture, and that could potentially include marijuana, assuming future state legality to do so, because right now the commercial cultivation of marijuana is not permitted in Virginia. At our work session, a few planning commissioners expressed some unease about potential marijuana cultivation under this urban agriculture use. There was not consensus about this from planning commission. I brought this up to city council as well, and there was similarly not consensus. There were sentiments on both sides, for sure, but not a firm direction about whether to change

or whether to keep the draft language regarding this. I think, generally speaking, folks who are uneasy about potential cannabis cultivation under urban agriculture are thinking that if commercial cannabis growing were legalized on the state level, that it's just not something that would necessarily be desirable for the city. So it's something similar to, and this is strictly from a zoning standpoint, similar to adult uses. So adult uses are regulated in the zoning ordinance more than their equivalent non-adult-oriented type of business. Now, on the other hand, folks who do not see a need to limit cannabis products for this particular amendment note that this is something that is not currently permitted

under state law. And also that the city currently has a marijuana, a medical marijuana retailer, and that retailer is treated from a zoning perspective just like other retail enterprises, and that any potential future marijuana grower would function like other urban agriculture businesses in this capacity as well. So like I mentioned, right now the amendment language does not have any limitation on cannabis or on any other product. But since this issue was discussed at Planning Commission and at City Council, I think again, like the animals issue, it would be helpful to have a Planning Commission recommendation to City Council on this issue. So that concludes our presentation for tonight from staff.

As for next steps, like it says here, City Council is scheduled to hold a public hearing on this series of amendments at its next, well not next, at its later hearing on September 24th. And with that, I'd be glad to answer any questions. Okay, questions from the Commission. Mr. Dettin. Oh, it's me. Mr. Dettin. I'm starting on that side. I had a question about Commercial L. What is that exactly? Commercial, I'm sorry? Or CL zoning. Commercial Limited. So there are two light-duty commercial zones, Commercial Limited and Commercial Office. They both function essentially as transition zones kind of between commercial areas and residential areas. Their uses are a lot more limited than other commercial zones

and specifically there's no retail permitted in those two zones. Typically, there are office condos or other kind of low-intensity commercial facilities that would typically abut residential. Going to the, I don't know if you were saying it was a standard that other jurisdictions are picking up and you mentioned the 25% on ground floors for retail. I'm just thinking of like let's say in one of the industrial zonings and you're selling a product that maybe is a wholesale more type item on a large scale. does that 25% retail on the ground floor apply there? I'm thinking like worm castings, you have a warehouse, you sell it to someone in California that buys all the product. Is it really necessary

to have a storefront for retail for locals for an item that you don't ever plan on selling on such a small scale? Right. And the answer is no, that that requirement would not apply to industrial zones. There's two situations where that requirement would not apply. Industrial zones and also urban agriculture businesses that are not on a ground floor. So it's written here that in commercial districts for facilities located on the ground floor, so that means if one of these were to locate in an industrial district that it could be 100% cultivation. And similarly, if an urban agriculture firm were to locate, let's say, on the third floor of an office building, it would not have to have a retail requirement

for that reason. There was one other, let's see. Oh, there was talk about maybe what the definition of urban agriculture is. It has to be indoors or on the roof. if it were some sort of, I'm trying to realize, is there non-urban agriculture in commercial? So for instance, if I have a building, can I grow corn out back and then sell it, but it doesn't meet the definition of the urban agriculture? So is it something that's already permitted in other uses? Agriculture, commercial agriculture on ground level would not, is not permitted in commercial zones. And that's really, again, because of the negative externalities that agriculture, being traditional agriculture, tends to have odors, tends to attract vermin.

And that's something that's limited either indoors or on the rooftop. If you're wondering what the deal is with the rooftop, the rooftop can have a few uses. It could be an amenity space, for example, for a multi-tenant office building that, you know, the version of community gardens, but on the roof of a building. It could also be the kind of thing where a restaurant operator sometimes would want to grow their own produce, but a rooftop is a good place to grow that. It's actually kind of a gray area right now about whether those uses would be permitted. But this takes that, makes it very clear that it would be permitted. And one last thing. Is there anything that you're aware of in our local

zoning that excludes things that are legal? So, for instance, if cannabis were legal for cultivation, is there anything you know of that's excluded now that's a legal item? So, what I'm really trying to figure out is, are we often excluding things that are legal? Is it typically, like, doesn't talk about if something's legal or illegal? I know there's dangerous, like, hazardous materials. materials. I'm sure there's ways to classify those things, if it's permitted or not. But I'm just wondering if you know of other instances where items are picked out that might still be legal or, I don't want to use the word safe, that aren't hazardous to the general public outside of that building. Yes, it's

not uncommon. There's probably about a dozen or so definitions in the zoning ordinance that exclude something specific. So, something might exclude, for example, dancing and entertainment because that elevates that whatever use it is to another level or excluding extended stay hotels would exclude certain stays and that kind of thing. So, it's not something, from a zoning perspective, it's not unusual to exclude one specific thing from a definition of a use. Thank you. Ms. Lockhart. Sure. My question is similar. I was going to ask if it wouldn't behoove the text amendment itself to change the, just add the word illegal in front of sales and distribution of illegal agricultural products. That doesn't,

you know, change down the road. Should cannabis growing become legal? Is it grandfathered in, yes or no? But, I mean, there are other things that you can grow that are hallucinogenic or otherwise inebriating. Like, you could, under the Virginia definition of an agricultural product, you could also turn the corn or potatoes you were growing into alcohol and still have it considered an agricultural product if you're doing it on site. So, you know, that's a lot of things to legislate if you decide that there are specific narrow categories that you want to use. But in the near term, perhaps just adding the word legal would alleviate some of those concerns. It's possible. I'm not sure it's necessary because

if something's illegal, it's illegal. So, for example, in, you know, in general retail sales, it's not legal to sell, you know, let's say, fireworks that are not permitted or that kind of thing and it doesn't necessarily specify that. Well, except that I think there are things that you can grow for personal use but that would be illegal to sell or that you could grow in and of themselves. Like, hallucinogenic mushrooms. I don't think anyone can tell you you can't grow a mushroom but you can't sell it to someone for the purpose of intoxicating them, right? You could grow opium poppies. You just would be strongly frowned upon to sell them for purposes of processing, right? Like, there are a lot of things that

you can grow that become dangerous or unpleasant substances. There's no harm in doing that from a zoning standpoint. You know, what might, if the commission is interested in adding something like that, adding a phrase, such as permitted under applicable law. You know, that kind of thing. Again, I don't think it's necessarily necessary but if the commission wants to do it, I don't think there's a problem. Yeah, because it says sales and distribution, perhaps that's, you know, there's a commerce statute inherent in that. And this is something that I've learned over the past little while. the word distribution is not used in marijuana. That's why they're called dispensaries because there's actually a different

definition when it comes to controlled substances. There's distribution is the illegal stuff. Dispensing is the legal way to go about it. So, that's... Who knew? Yeah, we learn something all the time. So... I think that's it. I'm struggling with the animal question again. where that line would be drawn appropriately. I know in Fairfax County that chickens have been a huge issue. You know, residential chickens and what's... And I believe it's codified by space, right? In the county and in the city, you have to have a certain amount of space and distance from your neighbors. Right. In the city, it is. In Fairfax... Fairfax County operates under a similar situation where there's essentially a special

use permit for chickens. It goes, I believe, in Fairfax County to the Board of Zoning Appeals. And I think they have the discretion to modify the number, but there is. They have something called a bird unit, which is by acreage. But this being commercial, it is different than residential keeping of chickens or having a fish pond or that sort of thing. It's a different level. Unless there were a square footage facility requirement associated with it. I don't think I've seen a space restriction or boundary in any of this language. Right. sorry, not so much to question. And the intent of having animals as being an accessory use was essentially to get to that. You know, delving down into how much square

footage of chicken raising would be appropriate is kind of detailed for this sort sort of ordinance. We thought that the accessory use might be better. I'm good. Okay. Dr. Rice? Certainly things that are neither plant nor animal that are maybe a part of the production chain that might be mushrooms, bacteria, yeast, things like that. There's a lot of super arcane little alleyways you can go down with things like this that are difficult. I know staff will do their best job to write language that reflects the sentiment and the need. I always like Ms. Lockhart to ask her questions first because they're always quite good and make me think. Yeah. Anyway, I have an audience member that's a botanist and a scientist

and we'll chat afterwards about the definitions and where we need to go with this, but it's fascinating stuff. I do hope we can do something to incentivize the Stanley Tucci restaurant plus garden on the top just that looks quaint and attractive and I think would be great if we had examples of that in the city. I don't think I have any useful comments otherwise. I kind of side with staff on kind of the language of not needing to add the legal distribution or however we want to put it because we already have laws, there's already state statutes, there's the commonwealth. I mean, the whole point of this is to encourage good business practice and quite frankly, it doesn't necessarily make good business

practice to open up a facility, grow opium poppies where you can't actually do anything with it, especially considering how expensive real estate is in this area. So, I don't think we need the extra language that is prohibitive because you already kind of have a business environment and laws on the books that would prohibit that in general. I mean, there's always going to be someone, I'm always of the mindset if you try and prohibit things, people are just going to find a creative way to get around them. So, I think it could be potentially a putting the cart in front of the horse situation by adding that extra language. I think this is an instance where less is more in the language. Ms. Cunningham.

Thank you. This one is one of those interesting subjects. We're going to talk about the comp plan in a minute and in there you're going to show us a map of where all the commercial property that this could be applied to is in the city. And it's not a whole lot and tends to be diminished because it's being encroached on by residential. When I look at something like this, I end up with questions because one, we're talking commercial, which means it has to have the critical mass to be economically viable on a commercial scale to be profitable for somebody to do this. And what I'm searching for are examples of the kind of products that can be done on a scale that is appropriate to being done in our commercial

area, which is what we're talking about rezoning, that makes sense to proceed in the city to do it. In other words, yes, I can agree that agriculture and that is on a given scale potentially profitable and can be done. But do we have the kind of space or the kind of facilities here in the city that lend themselves to doing this? Is, when I think of a nursery which was selling products not underground all in term, I go back to Frank's nursery. And what do we have there today? It wasn't viable enough that it wasn't replaced by two external pad sites, a bank and a Starbucks, and six or so commercial sites all on the original property of the nursery. Which one was more economically viable and which one did the city go

for? That's the kind of thing the city has gone for. What in urban agriculture is the kind of product that we're talking about producing on a commercial scale in a business environment that makes this a sensible thing to do? It tends to be high quality and therefore expensive greens. So, you know, and I understand what you're saying and on a certain level it seems implausible that you could grow lettuce in a building in northern Virginia and be able to pay your rent, but it's something because of the stacked nature of what's done and the fact that it grows, you know, that it sells more than the lettuce that you buy at Safeway. It supposedly is something that's economically viable. I'll take the industry's word for it.

There are examples of this in northern Virginia, so it may seem implausible. I didn't say it's not plausible. If I go to Fairfax County, I think I have enough space that I can do it on a scale that makes it viable. But I look for facilities in the city to make this viable and my sense is what kind of facilities in the city are we going to do? They tend to be small. Is this something that you could take one of the buildings out of Willowood Plaza and say, if one of those four buildings were all turned into agroponics, could it be productive? Yes. Would it be more productive than its current use so that this is likely to be something that's reasonable or feasible to do? I think it's important for us to focus on

zoning ordinance and not the business side of it, which is not our business. But the zoning ordinance is why are we doing so that if we're going to write something in the zoning ordinance, I think it should have a potential application. And we've already received input from the economic development office that there is interest. I think I heard you say that. Have we? Yeah. The economic development office has spoken to two urban agriculture firms who are in this type of business. They tend to, and these are firms that are located also elsewhere in northern Virginia, they tend to have relatively small footprints, so maybe 1,500 or 2,000 square feet of indoor space. What do they produce? Expensive greens.

Okay. So it is something that is feasible and viable. Supposedly so, like Chairman Feather said, it's the commercial viability isn't something that we're concerned with from a zoning ordinance standpoint. But I take the economic development folks' word at it that it is something that's in demand and that is commercially viable in this area. Okay. And we have potential spaces in the city that would accommodate this kind of activity. And that, I think, is useful information for the discussion of some of the rest of this, because I know you can grow pot at home in your basement, but that's not a commercial activity. So those kinds of things should not be germane to this kind of discussion. But in looking at this, I would think that some additional information from economic development would have been useful in my making a decision on who or how are we doing this.

As I said, the law of unintended consequences in the last project we just looked at tend to take strange turns in the future, which leave us with choices that are not as clear cut as we might have otherwise had. So that would be my question on this, is and can we frame this in and put the meat on the bone so that it's sold with something that is viable, as opposed to leaving a lot of unanswered questions about things that aren't really viable? And that's my question. Mr. Dappen? You mentioning, like, microgreens or whatever it is and the stackable nature of it made me think of, like you said, high-end products, small footprint. You're not growing a ton, but it's a desirable thing, ultra-premium product.

But that tends to be, like, organic when you think of agriculture. I don't really know the definition of animal, but you mentioned insects. Oftentimes in agriculture there's mites. And to stay organic, you have to introduce, like, a predator mite that eats that mite. And then they kind of die off once there's no more food versus using pesticide. So excluding animals from agriculture is something that would be very difficult to do unless you're an expert because to keep those organic ratings, they can't use a lot of chemicals that maybe we would go out and put on our one tomato plant in the backyard. And by excluding something too far could make it so that adding it into the zoning is now worthless because all those people with the high-end products that might seek out commercial space in the city know they can't keep an organic rating because they can never bring in whatever it is, insect-wise or whatever.

Right. Right. And that's part of the reason why we wanted the exception for animals as an accessory use because we didn't want to have this passed and then have to come back to the planning commission and city council and say, you know, we forgot about mites or worms. So that is part of the reason for that carve-out. Others? One last question. Does this use case in other examples that you've seen require some rather more proactive monitoring of compliance versus just, like, receiving complaints about possible issues with zoning? No. From a zoning standpoint, it tends to fit in with other zoning uses and doesn't stand out. As far as monitoring, I assume from a wastewater standpoint that that is something.

And there's other uses in the city that are heavy users or dischargers of wastewater, and this would be treated accordingly. But from a zoning standpoint, this is really a typical – becomes a typical use. And that's part of the reason why it's able to be permitted as opposed to a special use permit. Others? Others? One last thing. Mr. Denton. As it relates to utilities, do we restrict – not we. Is there anything zoning-wise that restricts, like, let's say you had a business that demands a huge amount of electricity, other than dealing with a utility company and having the infrastructure within your building to handle, you know, the electrical needs? Or I know there's maybe different chemicals that can't be, you know, dumped, things like that.

But is there anything that we ever exclude on a utility basis, like, oh, that's too much infrastructure drain for us? We don't have anything like that right now from a zoning perspective. We could – I mean, it's certainly something – and we hear in northern Virginia about data centers, for example, from exactly that kind of purpose, and that's something that a jurisdiction would have to create on its own. Right now, we do not have any exclusions like that on a utility basis from a zoning perspective. Thank you. I'm done. Thank you. Others? Mr. Formick, a follow-up on the wastewater. You said you've had a conversation with the director of public works and zoning. We don't operate our own water treatment plant.

Have conversations been held with the operators of the plant where our water goes? I do not know. I think that we do monitor wastewater discharge. But beyond that, as far as I know, it goes to the Nomen Cole facility in Lorton. But once it's out of the city's control, I don't know that we have – We don't want them shutting the valve because – something. I mean, fish waste – And I think that that's why we have discharge limits on individuals. Yeah, but those discharge limits anticipate urban agriculture of whatever form. Right. Right. I get nutrients for plant growth or something. We start talking about raising animals, and I'm a little concerned. But to me, that's a reason to defer any action related to animals of some sort.

And this would all operate – Until that's fully fleshed out, if you will. Right. From that standpoint, that would operate on a staff level, that when a business would come in for a business permit for this kind of use, that staff would notify public works that it's an urban agriculture type of use. It's a bit easier for a new connection, but for taking over an existing facility would operate on a staff level. Okay. Could you go to the slide where you're asking for input on three subjects? One of them was animals. One was cannabis. I guess the other was wastewater. Further. Didn't you have a list at the end, or was that – I think this might be the list that you're referring to. We have – You were looking for feedback.

Yeah. Okay. Feedback on animals. I guess wastewater isn't really a feedback issue. It's more of a – Right. Giving you all information, but animals and marijuana. And if – The current draft here, or the current proposal here, is the former draft. So if Planning Commission forwards this to City Council, as is that in and of itself, it is an indication that that is okay with Planning Commission. So it's not necessarily that we need a voice vote on each one of these things. Correct. No, no. That's right. I mean, as phrase, it doesn't address – well, if it addresses animals, it doesn't address cannabis cultivation. As you've reminded me many times in the past, predictions are difficult, especially about the future.

So if there were to be state legislation to permit that, they may or may not further restrict jurisdictions from restricting it as well. We just don't know. So I don't know if we really can comment yet because we don't know what may or may not come. So at this point, I'm not sure there's anything that would be appropriate to include in the current definition or uses or whatever. But I think it's something we just have to leave on the table to see if and when the Commonwealth does something different that we may have to come back and act on it, circle back on it. Dr. Rice. So we made some changes to the requirements of contractors who are grading regarding the water that leaves their site and the sediments or dissolved solids.

And it's quite specific. And I assume that there's an inspection procedure that runs from code enforcement that looks at things like that. So I'd imagine that there's something parallel that could be done by similarly trained staff to look at wastewater from places that may be generating lots of phosphorus or lots of nitrogen. So I think we should encourage thinking about that side and whether some sort of inspection or periodic sampling should be done just to check. I think in my past, at least, the places that had the biggest problem by far were places that dealt with things like mercury and the disposal of chemicals. And I can't think right off the top of my head if we have places in the city that do that.

Obviously, where I work, there's a lot of chemistry being done. But there are safeguards in place to prevent lab techs from emptying beakers into the sink. So I think we need to start figuring out what this looks like and what other jurisdictions are doing with regard to the wastewater stream because it could be a problem. Certainly, if the places that treat our waste come back with questions about why elevated levels of nitrogen or nitrates are showing up, we need to figure out where it's coming from. I agree. Not a lot we can do about cannabis right now. And I don't think we really have anything to do with that. And certainly, I think the fuzziness between animals versus things that are not animals but also not plants may present a challenge at some point for somebody.

And that may need to be dealt with case by case as they come up. I did want to address that. But the language in the definition does state the cultivation, retail sales, and distribution of agricultural products so it doesn't specifically limit it to plants. So, yeah. Anything else? Anything else? Okay. This is a public hearing. We will open the public hearing to comments from the public on this. Has anybody signed up to speak on this matter? Okay. Anybody in the audience present who would like to speak? Seeing none, we will close the public hearing and put this matter in the hands of the commission. Mr. Chair, I move that the Planning Commission recommend that the City Council approve the proposed ordinance of amending Chapter 110,

Zoning of the Code of the City of Fairfax, Virginia, to amend portions of articles and sections contained therein, including zoning districts and regulations, site development standards, and definitions. Second. Second. Moved and seconded. Second. Any discussion? Any proposed amendments to address the three items that Mr. Foreman has raised at this point? Mr. Cunningham, do you have a thought? I have a thought. In the past, we have dealt with subjects that were a little thorny or not fleshed out. We approved Fairfax County to dispose of their hazardous waste at a facility here in the city, which they currently do, but there was a lot of discussion that went into what was it, how was it, what potential contamination,

a lot of aspects of who and how to do that, and approving sites to deal with touchy issues, if you will, that neighbors might or might not be working with. I don't know that I am fully comfortable with the level of information I have in terms of where this agricultural process is going to be able to support it yet. So I will let you know that in advance of voting that I need to get more education on this in order to be able to fully understand what the ramifications are, to see what the implications are in the future as it develops in a 6.2-mile square area, the bulk of which is residential. So we're actually talking about a very small area within the city and this being a use. I don't know that this use is prohibited at the moment under the various business areas that we have.

So we're dealing with a specialized area, which to me raises the question, have you looked into what that specialized area is sufficiently to be comfortable with? So I'm not, and I will leave it at that. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Other comments on this? Okay, we'll take a voice vote. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Nay. Motion passes 6 to 1. I have the same concerns as you, but I do trust, particularly related to wastewater, that Public Works will work with our service provider. So anyway, thank you. Okay. Move on. Thank you, Mr. Corrin. Next item on the agenda. We will recess our regular meeting, go into work session for continued discussion on the City of Fairfax 2035 Comprehensive Plan 5-year review.

I'm pleased to say I think we're getting close to the end of this process. I thank everybody for their involvement and participation, both the commission and the staff and the boards and commissions. We're getting close. Thank you. Mr. Netty. Thank you, Chair Feather and members of the Planning Commission. And yes, we do hope we're getting closer to the end. We spent a good part of the spring and the early part of the summer working with the Planning Commission on finalizing the action plan that's in the comprehensive plan. That's really where the policy guidance comes from. That's where the real meat is. And so staff has spent the end of July and August taking that information and updating the supporting text, as well as preparing the first formatted draft of the plan.

All of that is included in your packet. And just to summarize where we are in the process, we began this back in the spring or summer of 2023 and went through the process of collecting information from appropriate entities, spent a lot of time with the Planning Commission working through each issue and developing the action plan, shared that with City Council and the general public in the spring, and spent July tying up some loose ends with the action plan. And now we are bringing the document together. That being said, there are a couple of items that are new that staff has put together since our last meeting that would result in policy changes. So as we go through this, we'll make sure that we stop at each of those and clarify that this is a new policy change.

Otherwise, what we'll be doing today is going through and summarizing the supporting text changes that will highlight some of the issues that we're making the changes in the action plan to. So we'll go ahead and get started. Before we start, I do want to just highlight those things that we do have changes to the actions to include adding a description for the Fairfax Circle Small Year plan that was adopted by City Council on July 23rd after we last met. There is one additional action in the housing section that we will describe to you. The final structure of the mixed-use place type, that is one of the major issues that we talked about with the Planning Commission over the course of several meetings.

So that has been put together. Also, we have some changes to the street types in the transportation section that we will summarize with you. And we have transportation project cost estimates that are required by state code. So as we go through this, I'll go through each chapter of the comprehensive plan and then stop. So if there's any questions or comments, we'll also stop at any of those points where we actually have a policy change. Just as a quick reminder on the structure of the comprehensive plan, there are five chapters, and within those five chapters, there are 14 guiding principles. Actually, six chapters. One is the introduction and then five chapters that make up the guiding principles.

There is also two appendices. One is the Chase Peak Bay Preservation Plan and one about transportation practices and policies. We don't have the updated versions of the two appendices yet. We're still working on those. But there will be no changes to the recommendations or any policy changes from those. The only thing we'll be updating is data that has changed since the previous comprehensive plan. What we'll be going over tonight, just to summarize what the structure is, each chapter has a chapter introduction. So we'll be going over any changes to that text. And then for each chapter, there are also a series of opportunities and challenges that help inform what the action plan is for the guiding principles within that chapter.

And so we'll be going over any changes to those as well. Then within each chapter, there are multiple guiding principles. In some cases, there's only one guiding principle, but for most, there are multiple ones. So each guiding principle also has its own introduction. And then each goal within each guiding principle also has text, and then it also has the outcomes and actions that go with it. So we have previously talked about all the outcomes and actions and the goals. And so all that information is the changes to those are summarized in your packet, but we won't be going over those tonight. However, we will be going over the supporting text for the goals. So while the goal statement itself, we aren't proposing any changes from when you last discussed this, we have updated the text to support any changes to the goal statement or the outcomes or the actions that fall under it.

Also, what we'll be going over tonight, you'll notice if you went through the text that has the markup on it, there are a lot of changes that are administrative. Almost every chart and graph in the comprehensive plan had to be updated. A lot of numeric references had to change. There are updates to photos where things might not exist anymore or we might have better examples of something that was there that did not exist five years ago. And then there's a lot of other minor and clerical changes. So to summarize what we'll be going over, we're only going over changes that resulted in content change. So this page is an example of what will be included in our presentation and what isn't. This is a sample page from the transportation section.

It has a chart that shows traffic volume changes over the course of time. So the chart itself, we will not be discussing that. That is just data that you can look at as you go through the document. And then for the supporting text, the paragraph that talks about traffic volumes and peak period congestion, this is an example of a change that we will go over with you. The reason for that is in this case, for example, if you look at the chart, you'll see our traffic volume is going across steadily and then there's a sudden dip. That's when COVID happened. And then things kind of are returning to normal, but they're a little bit messy because our traffic volumes have not been consistent in how they have returned to normal or not returned to normal.

So our observations of traffic patterns are very different than they were five years ago. There's a lot less predictability. There's a lot less certainty about the future. And the paragraph there explains that. The paragraph on the right about travel patterns, essentially the summary of this paragraph is that a significant amount of traffic travels through the city. It doesn't start or end in the city. And so we only have control over a certain amount of improvements that can be made to impact these. While the numbers in that chart have changed as a result of the chart below, the overall observation is the same. And so we won't be going over every number that changed the document. We'll just be telling you if something changed as a real result of the analysis.

So before we get started, are there any questions about the materials you have or what we'll be going over? If not, we'll start with the introduction. This chapter is a little bit different structure from the rest of the document. Essentially, it's just made up of the components that are shown on the bullets to the left. And through each of these, any paragraph or subheading that is just in the dark blue is not highlighted. There are no changes or no significant changes in those areas. And then those that are highlighted with white and have the red text are where we are proposing changes. So the first one, the general introduction, this piece basically explains what the comprehensive plan is.

It goes over a couple of the main issues that the city is facing. And the one text change that we are proposing in that section is that it removed a statement about newer in-demand housing existing in nearby localities. This was a major concern five years ago because it was felt that surrounding areas of the county in particular had higher value housing. While this might still be the case, we do have a lot of new housing products that have been built in the last five years. And as we all know, the housing market has changed significantly. And while our housing may be older on average and smaller in size, it is still very much in demand. And so we don't see that statement as being valid anymore.

In the background and history section, a statement was added where previously the history described the post-World War II suburban development patterns that were supported by federal housing programs. We wanted to acknowledge the inequalities in those programs because this was a significant period of growth for the city. And as part of the discussions that we're having about equity as a new principle for the city council, this is something that certainly affected that and who was able to live here and probably affects who lives here today. The structure of the comprehensive plan is then described. There are no changes to that. The definition of the comprehensive plan, also no changes. For the process, the current comprehensive plan has a very long description of the process that was undertaken for the previous comprehensive plan.

That was a several-year process as it was a complete rewrite. It also follows up with the community outreach section that lists nearly every public meeting that was held, every event that was attended. The process section we shortened a little bit to take out some of the detail that really isn't applicable anymore. And then we added a section that explains that the comprehensive plan is being updated through this five-year review that we're doing now. And we completely removed the community outreach section. We proposed including this as a separate document that will be on the comprehensive plan page so that people are interested, they can do that. But really, it seemed like an unnecessary use of space, considering it focused on what was done so long ago.

If people are interested in that, they can go find it. But it doesn't really affect the plan. The statutory requirements from the state have not changed and their authority also did not change. The last minor change in the introduction piece is on the paragraph that describes implementation. At the time the comprehensive plan was written, it was recommended that we develop an implementation process. We have since done that and we are using that process. So we changed the reference to continue with our implementation process. Any questions on the introduction, changes to the introduction chapter? Okay. We will then go into our first topic-based chapter. So in the land use chapter, there are no primary changes to the chapter introduction.

Also, for the opportunities and challenges section, the four opportunities and challenges are listed below. For residential improvements, there are no recommended changes. For housing affordability, there is currently a description of naturally occurring affordable housing. That has a couple of points in it that we didn't think were currently valid. First, it states that older apartments in the city aren't affordable to all income levels. And the purpose of this was to state that the older apartments in the city aren't necessarily satisfying the need for affordable housing. While this remains true, we felt it deemphasized the importance of maintaining those units. So while they might not meet certain standards of being affordable to, for example, families with an income that's 30% of AMI,

it's still affordable to different levels of income that aren't being produced with new housing units. And so we changed the description to really state that new housing is not providing the same level of affordability as existing and older housing, rather than trying to get into specifics of what that definition is. The piece about commercial market changes, we also made changes to it. We want to point out that there are currently low vacancy rates in the city. The condition of the commercial market is actually less of a concern now than it was five years ago, though in general it remains very volatile. And so it's still a concern just for different reasons. We also shortened description of county planning areas in the previous version of the comprehensive plan.

As that plan was being developed, there's a lot of concern about competition with places like Mosaic District and Fairfax Corner. While we think that still continues to be a concern, we still need to be competitive. That is not the primary issue facing our commercial markets. And so we didn't want to overly emphasize that. And so that language was modified. Under the land use chapter, the first guiding principle is a land use strategies guiding principle. There are no proposed changes to the general text here. The goal here for this one is only one goal, and it's kind of unique because it is very descriptive, whereas most of them are just a paragraph. This goal is what references the future land use map in the small area plan.

So we had quite a few changes here. Essentially, focusing on the small area plans, the language was changed because it previously suggested that we develop small area plans for each of the five activity centers. And now that most of them have been developed, it recommends that we focus on using the completed plans. Also, still within this goal, as I mentioned, this references the future land use map. This slide was not in the presentation in your packet. We added it because thank you to Chair Feather for noticing that the future land use map that's in the document that was sent to you was not updated with all of the changes that we previously discussed. So this shows the map that we previously discussed with all of the changes.

This included the changes to the American Legion property, Old Town Square, Camp Washington Water Tower, the Matthew property, and in several areas where we are changing publicly accessible green space to private green space. And then we also added the expanded Fairfax Circle Activity Center because the small area plan was adopted again on July 23rd. And that area is up there where the number six is in the northwest quadrant of the activity center. So that's now activity center. And this is what the future land use map will look like in the final document that is sent to you, assuming there are no changes. The mixed use place type. So as you may recall, we had several discussions about this earlier in the summer, and we just wanted to share this with you.

This is where the planning commission seemed to land during our last conversation. The new mixed use place type has been added, and the language is shown in the place type language that's in your packet. But to summarize how it is used, the language states that the place type can only be provided in locations that have a partial specific consideration that supports it. It is not proactively mapped anywhere on the future land use map. The only two locations, we'll go through those in a minute, only two locations are included in those partial specific considerations that recommend the mixed use place type. There's a third location that we can consider that we'll discuss with you in a moment. And then there are several design-based criteria for that, in addition to the descriptions for each individual site.

And on the right are some of those key design-based criteria. A residential density of no more than 48 dwelling units per acre. A height of no more than five stories. For ground floor commercial uses, no residential uses supported along commercial mains. And then parking being recommended as or preferred as on the side or rear of buildings and in structures. These are the two sites that were where we already have a partial specific consideration based on our earlier conversations with the planning commission. The first is the Fairfax Square site. Without going through the exact language, the key points for the language in the partial specific consideration are that on this site, the central building be retained as commercial.

That there be no net loss of commercial space as redevelopment occurs. That the redevelopment be cohesive with the community, particularly the surrounding apartments. And that additional usable open space be provided. The second site is the ANOVA site on Cambridge Road. This was already in the comprehensive plan, supporting a mix of uses, but not specifically supporting the mixed use place type. The language here supports commercial uses along Cambridge Road. And then multifamily or townhouse uses along the rest of the site. Provided that buffering and transitions with height be provided to surrounding residential uses. And then the third site, we do not have language for at this time. But the planning commission received a letter in early August from a property owner requesting it be considered.

The letter is also sent to the city council. And so we'll be sharing with them this with them. We'll meet with them tomorrow night as well. This is the site at 10655 Fairfax Boulevard, home of the Baskin Robbins. It's a two-story structure with commercial that is entirely allowed to use for commercial uses. And the property requests the ability to convert the upper floor to residential. So this is still under discussion. If the planning commission supports including this, then staff can draft language about that. So I'll stop there to see if there are any questions or thoughts on the land use guiding principle before continuing. Okay. The neighborhood's guiding principle. There are no recommended major edits to any of the text in that section.

The corridors and activity centers. The recommended changes to the general text for this section are to remove references to the Old Town and North Facts pages for interim guidance. These two pages were included in the comprehensive plan because we did not have small area plans yet. And we wanted immediate guidance for those two activity centers. So that has since been replaced by the adopted smaller area plans. The housing guiding principle. There are a number of changes here. In the general text, there is a statement about proportion of older adults in the city exceeding that of surrounding areas. That has since changed. And so we removed that statement. That is primarily a result of a higher proportion of older adults in surrounding areas as opposed to a change in that proportion in the city.

The first goal, the description for the goal to support a wide range of housing types, removed two statements. One is that most multifamily was built in the 1960s in the city. While that is still the majority of the housing in the city, it is changing with the recent construction of new multifamily units. Also, there is a statement that suggests that any new multifamily development comply with the zoning ordinance. And as the Planning Commission has experienced that any type of new development of this kind has had to go through modifications. We are also beginning the process of reviewing our zoning ordinance to make it more consistent with the smaller area plans. And so this didn't seem applicable.

For the goal to ensuring availability of housing that is affordable, there was a statement that suggested that the city developed programs that target households with incomes below area median income. So this would mean 100% of AMI. Based on the results of the housing assessment, it suggested that we try to address a range of incomes. While the majorities are for households below 100% of AMI, and specifically towards lower, even lower incomes of 60% and 30%, there were recommendations that we do look at programs that target households with up to 120% of AMI. And so this was no longer applicable. And then lastly, the goal three, provide housing for older adults and persons with disabilities. This had a similar statement about the proportion of older adults in the city versus surrounding areas.

So now we have the one new action that is proposed since we last met. And you'll notice in your packet the attachment that goes to all of the actions. We highlighted all the changes, and this is the only highlighted change that has occurred since July. The proposed new action is as follows. The reason we recommended adding this, this was based on conversations we had with city council. We met with them in June. And after going back and reviewing our notes, we realized that the changes that we previously discussed didn't fully address this. The concern from city council specifically focused on current software that multifamily developers or property managers use that helps essentially with price fixing.

This is a national concern. And so the thought was that by participating, the way that the city would address this would be by participating with other entities, whether it be regional bodies or with the state, to see if there are ways that laws should be changed to affect this. But this could also be expanded to look at things like working with the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments on the types of analysis that they do and developing housing targets and those types of things. And so there really wasn't anything in the comprehensive plan that talked about regional cooperation. And so we thought that this would make sense. The specific issue that was brought up by council is what triggered it, but we think it applies to a lot of areas.

And I'll stop there. This is a new item to see if there are any thoughts about this or any of the other amendments that we just talked about. Dr. Rice. This is just hitting the news. Maybe I'm an old fogey that hears things after my kids are already making memes about it. But the price fixing and software issue is it's impressive that we're adding this to a comp plan. This is a big issue, particularly in areas like this where rents are so high. Pushing the margin for rentals up 20% just because you can depend on all the other housing rentals moving with you because you're collaborating to artificially raise prices. That's a contemporary news story, and we're inserting it in our comp plan. So congratulations on hitting the target way before other jurisdictions.

I think it's a really good thing to insert. It's so difficult to recruit faculty at Mason because of housing issues, and it's hard for even the grad students to survive. And to think that large landlords are using the software to artificially boost prices 15%, 20% is just alarming. It's a problem, and it's refreshing to see us moving at this speed because, frankly, I didn't know about this until about a week ago. NPR had a story on it, but maybe it's my news selection that's the problem. But, anyway, I like this. I think it's a good idea to insert. Others? One question. Thanks for catching and showing the figure five on the future land use map. Figure eight is the existing land use map. Are we intending to show the version from when this plan was first issued in 2019?

No. Or is that going to be updated? We should update that as well. Okay. We'll love to do that. Thank you. Others? Okay. Thank you. Do you want to have a discussion currently about that other parcel-specific consideration, or do you want to wait on that? I think we should do it now because we'll probably lose sight of it by the end of the discussion. So are there comments, thoughts on that? We've received a letter or two. It's the site that's got the Baskin-Robbins and the lobster roll store. Yes. It's coming from Maine. Hard to think about saying that in Virginia. Yeah. Other thoughts? It's an odd shape. Mr. Coleman and I were looking at that. It's unusual. Just in that one. If this is still under discussion, I guess the only question would be whether a consensus is reached to include it or not.

I don't know. It's the first time I'm seeing it. I don't have any objection to upper floor residential. Woody's has the same thing downtown, from my understanding. It's not an issue. We have started entertaining the idea of mixed uses like this. So I don't have any objections to it. It's just real early in the discussion of this particular location. So I suspect if there's any pushback, we should set it aside. But, again, I don't have any issues with it. It's just new. Mr. Cunningham. Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is an orphan property. It is next to the old Paul the Sixth school site right on the corner. It shows not to be associated with the redevelopment of the entire Paul the Sixth property.

And if you will look immediately to the right of it on the slide that's up there, you can see seven units that are immediately adjacent to it. Those are the live over work units that we put into the Paul the Sixth site so that we would have commercial on the corridor. So that the only thing that makes it different is that it's not attached to those units. So I don't see that there's any issue really with making it different than the unit that's closest to it. And if you go across the street to the white building, that is about to be consolidated with an auto dealer and redeveloped as a separate property. So that is something that I think fits with the location and the function that is around it.

Just because it's an orphan, it doesn't have to be treated differently than the adjacent property. Other thoughts? Mr. Datton? I think maybe diagonally to that there's some brick duplexes, correct? That's correct. To the top left in the image. Yeah. Do we know what the history of this building was? Was it ever residential? Was it residential on the top and retail on the bottom? I believe it was initially all residential. Okay. Yeah, I almost feel like it's residentials. Oftentimes, like, not that this is downtown, but in downtown type properties where everything became much more commercial, even properties that had any sort of historic residential on the second floor were kind of grandfathered in.

So it seems appropriate that it's residential on top. Thank you. Mr. Coleman? I think it would be a phenomenal use. I mean, I frequent this building probably four times a week with my daughter, taking her in her wagon to get Baskin Robbins. I think right now they're just using it as storage up there. So, I mean, any availability that we have to potentially bring the residents into the city and potentially at an affordable rate, because this parcel has its challenges, parking will be one of them, kind of like Woody's. I think it's an underutilized space, so any chance we can to get it utilized would be good. Others? Others? Just one question. Again, I think this use makes complete sense, but is this what we would consider a parcel for the purpose of mixed use,

or is this a property mixed use? It doesn't matter. I mean, it's kind of one and the same in this case, but I don't want to throw it into the whole comp plan just for the sake of, like, having a third example when it's not a great example. Yeah. So, I mean, the question is whether or not it's included in the comp plan as one of the partial-specific considerations for the mixed use place type. Is that the question you're asking? Yeah. Does it rise so well when you're talking about that use case? It definitely doesn't compare to the other two examples in terms of size and scale. Any else? My comments. When we go back to our initial discussion about residential and commercial corridors, we had a fairly extensive discussion about what we thought might be appropriate properties.

Some were based on size that were seriously developable into real mixed use parcels or properties, and recognizing that in places like Oldtown, we'll use Woody's as an example, that's in an activity center where the activity center is intended to be mixed use. So it's not really comparable in that regard. I recognize that this is a small parcel that's kind of stranded now between a large mixed use development that was part of a planned development. This property is too small to be a planned development, and the area adjacent to it will remain commercial corridor. Again, we're talking about what's along the boulevard, the commercial corridor, not what's on the side street, which are residential.

Having said that, it makes sense for what's left now for it to be considered for using that space to some higher purpose than what it's currently used. Does it rise to the level of a mixed use place type, as we've been talking about, with the kind of criteria we've discussed? I think it's not, and I think that's where Ms. Lockhart was going. That doesn't preclude the property owner from applying for a special exception or whatever it takes. Is that correct? Special use permit. To a special use permit, to do just that. I think it's highly supportable, considering the case that it's in. Does it rise to the level of what we're considering from a broad land use perspective to be incorporated into the new mixed use place type?

I think not. It doesn't meet the other criteria we talked about. That doesn't mean it can't be used for that purpose. But, so, my thoughts. Mr. Denton. It's hard to tell the setbacks, especially since it's kind of has a triangle piece to the, I guess that would be the south side. Could there be by-ride expansion of this property? Like, for instance, could it have three floors? Not likely. We haven't dug into the zoning provisions yet, but our understanding is that there is a non-conforming status to it, which means you can't extend that non-conformity. And where exactly those limitations are, we don't exactly know. But chances are any expansion of footprint or size would probably increase the extent of

that non-conformity. So, I don't think it can do that. That's the, even if it were retail on the bottom? Correct. Okay. That answers what I was wondering. Thank you. Is there consensus? Do we have any kind of consensus? It feels like we agree that an upper story residential use is appropriate on this site. I don't know whether we agree it should be partial specific consideration for the mixed use place type. At least a couple of us think not. I think the special exception is all you really need. I think you need all of the open space you see there for parking for two commercial activities in there. So, you're not going to change it. And I'm not sure that the construction of the site makes it possible for use of that building

other than the adaptive use that's currently there. Other thoughts? I think that's... Do you think you have enough that we can go? I have a good message. When we go to the city council tomorrow evening. Yes. I can share what you sent. I think you summarized it well. I'll be there, of course. That's right. And it will be there. And so, I think we have enough direction to move forward. You did make an interesting comment. We're not clear about the... Look into the total zoning as to whether this change would be affected by the nonconformance that there may exist today. Well, the thought process for me is if you could expand the footprint, you know, if you're grandfathered in, we allow residential on top so you can fully utilize your property maybe

to the best extent. And that's different than, okay, I'm going to expand and have an apartment in the triangulated area in the back. But it seems like you spoke to that and an expansion of the floor print exacerbates kind of any nonconformity of the property and would be scrutinized. Thanks. Good. Thank you. Thank you for that. Okay. Still in the land use chapter onto the community design historic preservation guiding principle. Only the general text was amended here. And here we add a statement about the economic benefits of historic resources. This was to support the new action that was requested by historic resources, HFCI, and historic resources staff. Then moving on to the multimodal transportation chapter.

There is only one guiding principle here, so there is no chapter introduction really. Opportunities and challenges. The first, traffic volumes and peak period congestions. This is the example we showed at the beginning of the presentation. So the language is just adjusted to identify what the current trends are with changes in traffic volumes. Essentially that it's less certain than it used to be. And then changes to the opportunity and challenge regarding regional transportation demand. This is a statement about the amount of traffic that moves through the city. We previously had an analysis that was done by a consultant that looked at traffic that began and ended in the city as well as traffic that moved through the city.

We aren't able to update that data. And in fact, we check with the source of that data who had concerns about us using it. And so we've adjusted that. We've made it a little bit more general based on the data we have. We'll continue with the general statement that I think we're all aware of that traffic moving through the city is a significant component of what we have to deal with. Continuing with opportunities and challenges for multi-model transportation, a couple of minor changes here under opportunities and challenges related to transportation services. We added that the queue service is now free. This is part of a statement really that focuses on the challenges with queue service in terms

of frequency and coverage. This is one benefit now to the queue service. And for shared mobility, we now have scooters as an option that wasn't there before. For the goals under multimodal transportation, there are four goals. And the only change that is proposed for the goal text is under goal three, which is integrate transportation with land use. We shortened references to the street types. The previous version of the comprehensive plan had to go into a lot of background about what the street types are because it was a new thing. A lot of the language seemed unnecessary at this point because most people are much more familiar with it. And so we tried to make that more simple. But continuing on that topic, as I mentioned earlier on, we are proposing changes to the

street types. These are new changes that we did not previously discuss with the Planning Commission. So those changes are there are currently four street types. There are two types of neighborhood connectors and then or proposed four street types, two types of neighborhood streets as well as avenues and commercial mains. And then the fifth one is active streets for activity sitters. The changes that are proposed was that there was previously a street type called Boulevard, which is very similar to commercial mains as our main roads. The difference was that commercial mains are on activity centers and boulevards are outside of activity centers. But the street, the typical cross section in terms of the number of lanes, sidewalks, the

tree planting areas was all the same. The only difference is what the surrounding uses were. And we thought that it would be more simple to just combine those and rely on the future land use map and the smaller plans for surrounding uses. Transportation staff asked that we identify the cross sections, the examples shown on the right as examples as opposed to standards, because every street is always a little bit different. And so we always have to make changes to those. That we only provide one example of each as opposed to multiple options. We also updated the street tree zones per current policies that's shown as the letter T in the two examples shown there. That is the area between the street and the sidewalk or shared use path where trees would

be planted. This was changed to increase it from a minimum of five feet to a minimum of six feet per current VDOT standards. But then also referenced the recently developed tree preservation and planting guide that further expands this based on tree soil planting volume. And so this ensures that that document will be referenced. So six feet is the minimum, but just based on that document, it could be wider. And then lastly, the commercial mains and avenues cross sections have been changed to show 10 foot wide shared use paths on both sides, where previously a 10 foot shared use path was shown on one side with a six foot sidewalk on the other. It was always unclear on which was which. And so every project had to go through debates on that.

In addition, all of the adopted small area plans that have these types of streets in them have 10 foot shared use paths on both sides. So this makes those consistent. And to show how this changes the street types map, the map on the left is the from the previous comprehensive plan and the map on the right is what's proposed. As you can see, the green symbol goes away. That was the boulevards. And it was a little confusing because it went back and forth along the main roads. So now all of our main roads have consistent cross sections while the surrounding uses might change. Some other major changes. Based on the smaller plans, some of the street types change within activity centers. We also have new street networks shown for some of the streets.

The gray lines, which are the neighborhood circulators, these are kind of the major neighborhood roads. These were changed to match what are identified as neighborways in the bicycle master plan. These are neighborhood streets that would be used as bicycle routes and are proposed to have traffic calming improvements as well as street markings to identify use for bicycles. And then the last piece for transportation is for transportation projects. This is a transportation projects map. There are no proposed changes from what the Planning Commission previously discussed. However, we have developed cost estimates for the projects that are identified on that map. This is based on requirements from VDOT for this to be included in the comprehensive plan.

These cost estimates were developed by public works staff for any project that didn't already have one. One thing I did want to note out that you'll notice the total amount at the bottom right of $50 million, around $50 million for all of these projects, is significantly less than what we had in the previous comprehensive plan, which was over $150 million. The reason for that is the majority of the projects that were identified in the previous comprehensive plan were identified, were developed through the multimodal transportation plan process that had support from a consultant. And a lot of those were larger scale major projects. Most of those projects are underway or funded, so they're no longer in this list.

And they've been replaced by smaller scale projects that have come up through small area plans or other measures. As one of the recommendations in this comprehensive plan is to develop the Safe Streets for All plan, which will be getting very soon. That's the next major effort for transportation planning for the city. And I believe the result of that plan will be additional larger scale projects. And so in the future, we'll see this amount grow with new larger projects coming online. And so I'll stop there and see if there are any questions on the transportation chapter. Let's go on. The Environment and Sustainability Chapter has two guiding principles, natural environment and sustainability initiatives.

There are no proposed changes to the chapter introduction. For opportunities and challenges, changes include opportunities and challenges related to tree cover. This entire section was rewritten to focus on the general benefits and current conditions of tree cover rather than historic trends. At the time we developed the previous comprehensive plan, we had analysis of changes over time and going back to the 1930s. But we now have more information about things that we can be doing specifically to improve tree cover. And we wanted to focus the language more on that to support some of the new actions we have in this area. Green infrastructure and sustainable landscaping is a new opportunity and challenge.

We thought this should be added because this shows up in a lot of the new actions or revised actions. And it wasn't previously addressed. Also, local food access was added as that has come up in several new actions. And actually, it was referenced in some of the existing actions but didn't have any supporting data from the opportunities and challenges section. For the Natural Environment Guiding Principle, proposed amendments to the general text are to adjust the purpose to generally ensure a healthy environment. Rather than make it accessible, the language in the current comprehensive plan focuses more on having a natural environment that people can get to. But some of the types of environments that we're focusing on really don't require accessibility to function the way that the comprehensive plan wants them to function.

So we tweaked that language. To preserve and promote, goal one, to preserve and promote and enhance a healthy environment. Two changes are proposed under the text for this goal. This is based on input from the city engineer to change the discussion on flow volumes after stormwater. To focus on volumes as well as velocities as opposed to just velocities. Also, we added invasive species as a challenge in this section that wasn't previously mentioned. And discussion on invasive species comes up in several actions. Goal two, preparing for the impacts of natural and man-made hazards. The statement, excuse me, we added a statement that part of this goal is to increase infrastructure resiliency, which is a major component of the changes to the actions.

And resiliency as a whole was one of the major changes that was made to the actions in this guiding principle. For the sustainability initiatives guiding principle, general text changes are that we added detail on cost recovery for energy retrofits at city-owned facilities. We now have more detail on that that we didn't have five years ago. And so there's a specific estimate of recovering our costs by 2030 on that that we didn't have before. Goal one, increasing the use of sustainable practices, technology, design, and materials. We added a statement to support electric vehicle infrastructure. This is to support the new outcome that was added about EV infrastructure. Goal two, support healthy lifestyles and regionally grown food.

Language was changed here because we removed the actions related to physical activity. This was moved to the parks and recreation guiding principle and focused more on regionally grown food, which we have some enhanced actions for. So I'll stop there and see if there's any questions on the environment sustainability chapter. Anything? Thank you. For economic vitality, no changes are proposed to the chapter introduction. For opportunities and challenges, there are changes proposed to both of those that are in here. One related to the office market, the other to the retail market. As previously discussed, we wanted to highlight the currently low office vacancy rate to de-emphasize the need to replace office.

But then recognize a difference in regional and national trends from the city's current status. So we know that this is still a volatile issue and we'll continue to monitor it, even though we aren't trying to make any proactive changes at this time. Also, the previous comprehensive plan has language with specific concern about Class B office space, whereas we now see this as amenity. We believe this is helping us keep our vacancy rate low, and so we removed that language. For the retail market, we de-emphasize challenges of online shopping on the retail environment. While this is still an ongoing challenge, it seems to be less of a concern now than it was five years ago, as we've weathered through COVID, and we still seem to be going strong.

And so the goal is not to focus so much on that issue, as it seems to be something that is not as much of a concern as it was. Any questions on this chapter before we go to the next one? Oh, sorry. We're still in economic vitality. For the goal statements, the first one, maintain or increase the city's ratio of commercial to residential real estate. We changed this to, say, maintain or increase, as opposed to just increase. This is based on our previous goal statement. Supporting diversification of the retail service and office sectors, we removed a statement referencing commercial inventory primarily being developed in the 1960s and 70s. While this is still true, a lot of our commercial space has been redeveloped or renovated, and so we thought that this statement was misleading.

Goal three, transform the commercial corridors and activity centers. We replaced a statement that said the focus on downtown as the main opportunity for economic growth, whereas we now believe that this is on all the activity centers, not just downtown. And the last thing, goal for creating a single zip code for the city was removed based on our earlier discussions. Our last chapter, community services, there were no changes proposed for the chapter introduction or education, excuse me, or the education section of the introduction for parks and recreation. We removed a focus on four categories of parks that were previously referenced that are no longer used and now just have general references to park types.

We changed the language for the fire and emergency management sections based on recommendations from the appropriate staff on what their current practices are, as well as utilities on what the city owns in terms of dry utilities for traffic signals. That information has been updated from our previous version of the plan. There are no proposed changes to the opportunities and challenges section of this introduction. For each of these guiding principles, I'll step through them. There are no proposed changes for the text for the education guiding principle. For parks and recreation, the proposed changes for the general text are to add a statement committing to accessibility and preserving open and natural.

spaces based on changes to the actions and removing a reference to the 2014 parks and recreation strategic master plan. You'll note that we added an action referencing the master plan, but this is because that plan is coming to be updated. And there are no proposed changes to the goal text. Under cultural arts, the changes here for the general text and the goal to integrate cultural facilities into the city both focus on enhancing language around visual arts as opposed to just performing arts. And then there are no proposed changes to the text for the government and public safety guiding principle or infrastructure and utilities. So that summarizes the document. I did want to point out that we will be in front of city council tomorrow with the same presentation with a little more detail on what the planning commission already discussed this summer.

Depending on the outcome of that conversation, we could be back to you with the public hearing for this as soon as your next meeting on September 23rd. If we do need to make substantial changes before then, however, then we will revise that. We'll keep you posted on where we are with that. Chair Feather will be there with us tomorrow. Anyone else is welcome to attend as well. And so with that, I'll see if there are any other questions or thoughts. Bryce. So I know I attended several of the meetings with different boards and commissions with you and with some other staff. And it's satisfying to see some of the specific comments, particularly ones that showed up over and over again. Infrastructure, you know, sustainable energy infrastructure, things like that, that were commonly discussed even amongst very different commissions and boards.

But, you know, the fact that this is showing up now and that we're reviewing it and this form is satisfying. It's been a long process, 123 pages of material. But it feels satisfying to be at this point from where we began a year or more ago. So thank you for the hard work in getting this done. Thank you. Others? Just one observation. We didn't talk about the vision statement, but I think we agreed we would change it and switch, make the main thing the main thing. Yeah, and I realized that kind of late. I thought about flipping that into the end. If it's okay with the commission, we did previously discuss some options. Right. And we can share those. If we do have a public hearing next time. Right.

We can share those options and you can read to the motion of a preferred option or any other changes. And we can get those to you ahead of time so you can think about it. What got me thinking about it was your comment, Dr. Rice, about how this has all come together. One of the other things that came together and is incorporated in here, and to my mind, it does not warrant a change to the vision statement to add the word equity in there, which we discussed about because it's scattered throughout the plan. And that's the feedback we got. It shows up in various ways in the revisions to the plan in terms of equitable access to this or accessibility to something else. So at this point, the vision statement will shift a little bit using largely similar words,

but making the main part of the vision that it's a vibrant 21st century community supported by a strong, sustainable economy, instead of having the economy thing first. But anyway, I just wanted to mention that. And again, thank you and Steny and Mr. Harden and all of you for all the work getting us to this point. Hopeful for a positive meeting tomorrow evening with the council that we can bring this for public hearing later this month. But we will see. Thank you. Thank you. And I hope your voice recovers by then. Bring extra water. Yeah, by tomorrow. Okay, we'll reconvene a regular meeting and move to the staff report. Thank you. Going back to the July 23rd City Council meeting, a couple things of interest.

They adopted a resolution establishing the Housing and Healthy Communities Advisory Board. This was one of the recommendations of the Homelessness Task Force. They adopted the Fairfax Circle Small Area Plan by a vote of 4 to 2. Authorized the purchase of the GMU Commerce Center site, which is directly south of Fire Station 3. This site can be used for future expansion of the fire station. While that study has not fully been completed, it is known that the additional space will be needed. They had a discussion on the green building policy that initially focused on tax incentives. However, that option was not preferred. And staff is going to explore options looking at zoning incentives. And so this is a topic that will be coming back to the Planning Commission in the coming months to get your feedback on where that's going.

And lastly, they had a work session on accessory dwelling units, similar to what the Planning Commission had on July 22nd. On September 3rd, they had an update on the Willard-Shirtwood Health and Community Center project. And then tomorrow they will have the discussion on the comprehensive plan review. For upcoming meetings, the only tentative item for the agenda at your next meeting, September 23rd, is the comprehensive plan public hearing, assuming that happens. Otherwise, we'll have to see if anything else fills that space if that moves to a later date. Lastly, I wanted to let the Planning Commission know or remind you that there is a virtual option for the State Planning Commissioner training.

That begins actually this Thursday, September 12th, and ends on November 22nd. It's a two-day session now, two-day session in November. If you're interested, please let us know. We can still see if we can still get you signed up. The next virtual option will be in April of next year. And that's all we have for the staff report. Okay. Okay. Any questions for Mr. Napty? Okay. Commission comments. Ms. Briggs, anything? Nothing. Okay. Mr. Natton. Mr. Cunningham. No comment. Ms. Lockhart. Dr. Rice. We had a great urban heat collection field work session last year. It was about 10 days ago on a Wednesday. Insanely hot. And we worked, the Virginia Climate Center staff, which I'm a faculty fellow of the Climate Center,

worked with some of the city's sustainability staff to figure out where to go sample. And so we were, under very short notice, dispatched with sensors around the city and collected, you know, 15,000 to 16,000 different observations, point observations of temperature, pressure, humidity, and location. And it's been fun to kind of look through the data and see where the hot spots appear to be. We'll have a lot more to say about that in the upcoming months as we analyze the data. We tried to capture that hottest day, which was Wednesday, about 11 days ago. And it was quite an experience. And so we'll see what emerges from that, but we'll share that publicly in a report, but also perhaps in presentations.

Where was the hottest spot? So I brought the data back to campus. And rather than identify the hottest spot, let's just say that at first the scientists looked at the data and said, there's definitely a flaw here because this particular area, just to fully disclose, I was collecting on a bicycle. And so our goal was to do car-based collection, pedestrian-based collection, and bicycle-based collection to try to capture trails, roads, et cetera. There's one place where you can ride on the street, and then you dip into the Daniels Run woods. And instantly the temperatures, the sensors were picking up, dropped by at least 10 degrees Fahrenheit, if not more. So at first they were, and it continues to be cool all the way up to Army-Navy Country Club.

And they just looked at the data, and because they don't know the city well, just said, this has to be a mistake. We need to recalibrate the sensor. And I'm like, no, that's real. It's dramatic. You're in intensely hot kind of Main Street, full sun, and then all of a sudden you get into the woods, and it's just kind of magical. And so anyone who's ridden that transect on a bike can verify, yeah, this is real. It's dramatically cooler along that trail. And it's just I've known that for a long time because I enjoyed biking with my kids back there. But seeing it reflected in scientific data and then having other people see such that dramatic kind of change that they were skeptical that it was real.

And certainly it must be a flaw in your sensor system. But I said, no, this is real. This is a benefit of living in the city. We have a good in-tract tree canopy that cools the neighborhoods nearby. We have a lot of parks. We have bicycle infrastructure. And so it was just a lot of fun. But I worked a little bit with Stephanie Kupka and Chloe Ritter and some others to kind of try to identify some good places to sample. We sampled it a few bus stops, some that were full sun and some that were in shade. And those are also some places with some pretty strong contrasts that we'll highlight a little bit as we continue analyzing the data and figuring out ways to make it public. When the time is right and we're confident that everything is perfectly sound, we'll share the data directly with the city to use as they see fit.

That's it. Anything from the Parks and Rec Advisory Board? I was going to ask you about. Yeah. So we've been on recess for a full month. And the last meeting was early July, so I don't have anything. One of the bar had a special meeting during the recess month. Yeah, I wasn't there. All right. Thank you. Mr. Coleman. Good to be back and see everybody. I will add it's good to see everybody back. Two things. Since you mentioned Army, Navy, Country Club, just for the record, Mr. Cunningham and I had lunch at Army, Navy, Country Club with the city manager. They had a little introduction to the planning commission. Had some good conversations. So I think that was a good thing to enjoy that. So I don't think I had anything else.

Oh, you mentioned also the Willard Sherwood Center. It was a work session the city council had last week at their meeting. I had written a note to the mayor and council just expressing, from my perspective as a member of the planning commission, the chair, the importance of this and the connection that that facility has in many respects to our comprehensive plan goals. The planning commission doesn't get a role in decisions or recommendations related to that, but I thought it was a good thing to do. And it was apparently well received. I had a couple of notes back from council members and one actually quoted my note during the work session. But just so you know that I did that. And they agreed to move forward to the next phase.

It was kind of getting a consensus to move to the design documents phase, which is the next one. So just so you know about that. And I will look forward to being at the council meeting tomorrow night. Anything else? Okay. We are adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.