Planning Commission Regular Meeting/Work Session

James FeatherSecond. 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?

Mr. FrederickstaffGood evening, everyone. This is a public hearing for Taco Bell. the applicant is a b a b tb mid-atlantic llc the site is located at 104 101 1060 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 planning commission followed by a work session City Council on June 25th 2024 on July 23rd 2024 the applicant submitted revised plans for review by staff and these plans are in consideration for tonight's public hearing on April 28th 2024 the Board of Architecture review recommended approval with conditions the applicant has submitted the following land use applications a an amendment to the previously approved 2017 general

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 it operating conditions with the construction of this project the image on the screen shows the subject property with a significant buffer in between the 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-through windows the map before you show is the location of the existing and proposed drive-through facilities and so there are eight restaurants with a residential lot closer than than the nearest single or a residential lot compared to the proposed restaurant so taco bell as proposed is

Kathryn Taylorapplicantand most recently in 2017 City Council approved the amendment that converted it from a drive-through bank to an approximate 5100 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-through 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-through portion and a new walk-up window so no modifications or improvements are proposed to the shopping the larger shopping center nor

some concerns we heard previously about 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 this agreement was memorialized in a cross access easement back in 2015. So you can see patient first is outlined in green, Taco Bell's 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,

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 to cross, and then you would cross the larger shopping center rather than driving to the second intersection when you've already passed the Taco Bell.

on the weekends up to 2 a.m., and so we have now changed that so that the entire restaurant including the drive-thru 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-thru so and you can see the drive-thru is about 80 to 85 percent majority are utilizing the drive-thru there are very few that are actually parking on average a drive-thru visit lasts only about 2.5 minutes and to

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 5100 square foot retail which is double the size of the the proposed Taco Bell in this 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 center at its and when parking is more scarce. So in the buy-right scenario, all visitors coming to the site are, if you were coming in the buy-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, they wouldn't, there's not as many people parking. And likely they're only staying 30 minutes, or sorry, five to 15 minutes, situation you're saying for 30 minutes to two 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 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 the 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

and light so the next slides just provide sort of a rendering of the 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 circuit connections with the a da 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 zoo meeting would be more effective to reach a larger group we did

uh this is deke who represents the i'll let him introduce himself but he represents the operations of taco bell

Kirsten Lockharta 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?

Kathryn TaylorapplicantSure, 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. Thank you for asking.

with this 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-through and and are yes there are people parking but not to the extent that are parking similar to you know any of these other sit-down restaurants we don't believe that the the the taco bell because they are majority drive-through will necessarily aggravate the parking what's already kind of a difficult parking condition within this um within this site i do believe that generally the peak hours of this taco bell while they do overlap slightly um in that evening when it is likely the worst generally the rest of the day they aren't really conflicting with

Matthew RiceAnd 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 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 cues. 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.

Chris Snyderpublic commenteither with or without the Taco Bell. Mainly because if you go there Friday or Saturday afternoon, starting about 5 o'clock, 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 in and out other ways is also difficult. Coming in from the west, turning in, and then going in front of 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 um there's just nowhere to get 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

Tammy Taymanpublic commentsorry 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 were taken up by people going to 7-eleven the pizza place whatever already not counting taco bell by the way i love

Kirsten LockhartYeah, 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.