City Council Regular Meeting

Catherine ReadGood evening. I'd like to call the regular meeting of July 23rd, 2024 to order. I would like to welcome everyone here in the chamber and the people who are watching from home. We have a very full agenda tonight and it is always great to see people who show up to be engaged in our local government. So I would like to ask that if you are able and so choose to please rise for a moment of silence followed by the Pledge of Allegiance.

Marianna Fournierpublic commentI

Catherine Readpledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with

Vicki Kieschelliberty and justice for all.

Catherine Readso you may notice that we are short one councilmember that would be council member Tom Ross so I'd like to ask if we have a motion for remote participation councilmember Staley

Jon Stehle Jrthank you Mary read in accordance with City Council adopted policy and as permitted by Virginia code section 2.2 dash 3708.2 I move to approve councilmember Ross's request properly submitted in writing prior to tonight's meeting for remote participation subject to compliance with in the City Council adoptive policy and applicable law in all or portions of the City Council meeting of July 23rd 2024

Melissa Shinaberryclerkby voicesecond a

Catherine Readmotion has been made and seconded a roll call vote

Melissa Shinaberryclerkby voiceCouncilmember Greenfield councilmember Lim councilmember Staley councilmember Doyle Feingold councilmember Bates motion passed unanimously

Catherine Readokay councilmember Ross your colleagues stepped forward on your behalf thank you for joining us tonight from New England and I'll try to remember that you're there so that when it's time sure I call on you. He's on mute. Okay, I would now like to ask Chief John O'Neill to come forward and talk to us about a recent award that the Fire Department received. I want to make a point as we go forward to talk about the many awards and achievements that our staff make on a regular basis. The level of excellence that our staff engages in every day as part of their job but even more than that to be truly outstanding and to deliver the best possible services to our community is so important and when Chief O'Neill shared this with

myself and the City Council about this I wanted to make sure that the rest of our community understood what this achievement is all about Chief O'Neill

John O'Nealstaffthank you mayor and thank you City Council for inviting us to

Jeffrey Greenfieldstand up here and talk for a

John O'Nealstafffew minutes and recognizing the fine work our department does. I wanted to let you know that every 40 seconds, somewhere in the United States, someone has a heart attack or a stroke. Heart disease and strokes are the number one and number five causes of death in our country. Studies have shown that lives can be saved and patients can recover a shorter amount of time when EMS and hospital providers consistently follow research-based treatment guidelines and protocols. The American Heart Association's Mission Lifeline program recognizes EMS systems and hospitals for following research-based and industry-based best medical practices. The gold status that we received is the highest level of recognition provided by American Heart Association.

This marks our fifth year of receiving this prestigious award. I cannot speak highly enough of our EMS providers of being some of the best in the business and some of the best in the country. so very proud of our department and lastly I would like to thank the mayor and City Council our residents and the city leadership team for your continued support you know we can't do this alone and your support helps us accomplish our mission so thank you

Catherine Readon behalf of a grateful community thank you you are out there making sure that if any of us have an emergency that we will have the best care possible that is not a small thing thank you thank you we are now going to do a proclamation for disability pride month and I would like to ask anyone and everyone who is interested in joining me down here on the dais as we read that proclamation recognizing people with disabilities in our community You're doing great. I see Douglas. Welcome, Douglas. Hey, Douglas, the church family. Okay.

Speaker 21Do you want to turn around?

Catherine ReadAnyone else like to join us? Everyone is welcome. Let me just tell you, everyone is welcome. Thank you all for being here. Whereas, July has been an important month for the disability community as the Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA, was passed on July 26, 1990, to prohibit discrimination against people with disabilities. And whereas the ADA is an extension of the civil rights movement and a fundamental civil rights law in our history, leading to disability pride as a movement intended to celebrate the history of the disability rights movement and people with disabilities as positive contributors to society. And whereas people with disabilities make up 15% of the world's population and are the

largest and most diverse minority in the United States, making up approximately 27% of the population representing all ages, races, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, religions, and socioeconomic backgrounds. And whereas the experience of disabilities may differ, a sense of community can help people with disabilities to live their best possible lives, overcoming systemic barriers, physical barriers, and social stigma to make meaningful connections. And whereas disability justice movements continue to advocate for intersectional approaches to meeting the needs of people with disabilities which are connected to age, race, class, gender identification, sexual orientation, and culture. And whereas the City of Fairfax strives for inclusion and values the neurodiversity and

within the city, with our residents supported by organizations including the Arc of Northern Virginia, the Pozes Jewish Community Center, and small businesses such as Cameron's Coffee and Chocolates, and educational programs like the FCPS Davis Center and George Mason University's Mason Life Program. And whereas we value our community members with disabilities and the city celebrates its history, community, character, and cultural diversity, now therefore I, Catherine S. Reed, Mayor of the City of Fairfax on behalf of all residents of the City of Fairfax declares the month of July is Disability Pride Month in the City of Fairfax and urge all to honor and embrace our diverse community members and to

celebrate and build a culture of inclusiveness and support done this 23rd day of July 2024 because I'm going to trade and hand this to you to say it's words. Yes, thank you. Shay? All right.

Shea MegaleHi, everybody. My name is Shay. I want to thank you guys so much for this very gracious invitation, Mayor Reed, the council members, and the city. It's an honor to metaphorically stand with my colleagues here. I don't speak for them. They have their own voices, but I'll take a plunge and say that this gratitude is shared among them as well. I want to share a very quick story that is also funny, spirit of this proclamation. I went to the University of Virginia undergrad and they have the famous Jefferson wand in front of the rotunda, very beautiful. And for many years it was a big steep plunge down the wand that was not accessible to wheelchairs and I was very fortunate that during my time there they actually

adapted the wand and installed ramps so that I could proceed through the walking of the wand, a very prestigious honor at UVA. And they did a big story on this and They wanted to interview me and see what I thought about this adaptation on the lawn. They came to me and all these rapt ears were listening. They said, what's next for the university? How can we continue to improve it for people with disabilities? I'm sure they were thinking I was going to think of grand buildings, academic halls, places of prominence. I thought about it for a minute and I just said, you know, my life would be a lot more improved if I could get into the frat houses. would you consider

Speaker 20putting

Shea Megaleramps into the frat houses um and so you know this really represents to me anyway that uh the main pains in my life the main challenges in my life are not medical they're not physical they're social they're societal they're wanting to have a place among on the mainstream society. And I believe that mainstreaming saves lives. So if you would continue to think creatively about how to create spaces to mainstream people with disabilities, one last moment of your time, I'm working with Congressman Jerry Connolly on a bill right now that will be presented to Congress that envisions people with physical disabilities serving active duty in their armed forces. A very big change, historic change. but in roles that they can fulfill

we're talking cyber, we're talking drones we're talking aircraft recruitment is down it's what the military needs and it's what we need and so please continue in your careers and the concerned citizens here to think about places that we can be involved in and once again from the bottom of my heart thank you so much thank you Mayor Thank you Jay

Lucy BeadnellI'm Lucy Biednell Virginia we just wanted to give a huge thank you to the Fairfax City Council and Mayor Reed in particular for this we are sharing a little something that we made for you that has the message Mayor Reed inclusion matters and Fairfax includes thank you very very much as Shay so wisely said that is the number one thing anyone can do not only to make a live a difference in the lives of people with disabilities but in the rest of our community if we want inclusive teachers and firefighters and social workers and special educators we need who grow around, live around, work around, and see the talents of people with disabilities before they see anything else. We are very grateful.

Vicki KieschelThank you for recognizing the disability community. Inclusion matters. Thank you. Douglas,

Catherine Readwould you like to join

Speaker 21us for a photo? He's telling us he stood up.

Speaker 20Would you like to stand next to me, Douglas? Come a second. Come a second. Oh, you can sit down. Wait a

Jeffrey Greenfieldminute.

Speaker 20No. That's all right. We're standing down. Yeah, we can get down. You're going to sit over that way. Yeah. We're going to sit over that way.

Marianna Fournierpublic commentAll right. Well,

Speaker 20we're going to sit over this way. Sit over this way.

Marianna Fournierpublic commentSit over. A little bit closer to the line. You're going to have to. All right. All right.

Catherine ReadAll right. Take care. That was a picture. Can you look at Christian?

Speaker 20Look right up here. That would be awesome. picture in three two one awesome and one last picture and three two one very nice thank you guys

Catherine ReadAll right. This is another fun proclamation. It is for Shop Local Week. So all my economic development peeps and my OTFBA peeps and all the peeps that are involved in the shop local week. Yes, the chamber represented by Jennifer Rose. Come on, all my people, all my people, all my people.

Marianna Fournierpublic commentSharon Buttrum, Lucy Loves.

Catherine ReadCome on down.

Kate Doyle FeingoldLook at

Catherine Ready'all.

Kate Doyle FeingoldAll right, all right,

Catherine Readall

Kate Doyle Feingoldright. Everybody come on down, come on

Catherine Readdown.

Kate Doyle FeingoldGet in the picture, okay.

Catherine ReadOkay, I'm going to proclaim now. Whereas Fairfax City, centrally located in Northern Virginia, serves as a vibrant cultural and social hub for the region, and whereas our community is home to a diverse array of small and locally owned businesses that form the backbone of our local economy and contribute to the unique character and charm of our city, and whereas Fairfax City offers an exceptional shopping experience within its six square miles, where residents and visitors alike can find everything to satisfy their shopping needs. And whereas the City of Fairfax takes great pride in its entrepreneurial spirit, celebrating the innovative and dedicated business owners who make our city a wonderful place to shop, play, and gather.

And whereas supporting local businesses not only strengthens our local economy, but also fosters a sense of community, enhances local employment opportunities, and helps preserve the distinctive identity of Fairfax City. And whereas Fairfax City Shop Local Week is a time to encourage residents and visitors to discover and support the unique offerings of our local businesses, to appreciate their contributions, and to enjoy the vibrant atmosphere of our city. And whereas Fairfax City Economic Development, the Central Fairfax Chamber of Commerce, and the Old Town Fairfax Business Association remain committed to cultivating the strongest business community possible here in the city and have developed programming to support

the community of retailers and merchants. Now, therefore, I, Catherine S. Reed, Mayor of the City of Fairfax, do hereby proclaim July 25th to July 31st, 2024 as Fairfax City Shop Local Week. And call upon all residents and visitors to join in this celebration by shopping locally, supporting our small businesses, and recognizing their vital role in making Fairfax City a thriving and dynamic community. Done this 23rd day of July.

Vicki KieschelAll right. Team. Team. Are

Speaker 20you saying a few words? Say some

Stephanie Kupkastaffwords. Some

Tara Borwaystaffwords about shopping locally. Yeah, well,

Stephanie Kupkastaffyou know.

Tara BorwaystaffMy name is Tara Borway and I am Programs Manager for Fairfax City Economic Development. I am so thrilled to be here tonight with all of our amazing retailers who have proudly stood up and taken part of this inaugural program. we are again so lucky to be collaborating with the Central Fairfax Chamber of Commerce and the Old Town Fairfax Business Association on this program and bringing it to our retailers and merchants in the spirit of our other successful programs that you've seen come out of the city and I mean just tonight we're talking about a list of businesses that we were able to generate from doing these programs recommendations of places to go things to see people to meet and you know the same can be said for our awesome boutiques and fitness and wellness businesses

in the city and we are excited to shine a light on these businesses celebrate them this entire week coming up where you'll see several themed shopping days starting with community cares Thursday so our retailers are generously donating a portion of their proceeds to charities of their choice and you can visit them to find out more details at each individual retailer. We have things from, we'll see sidewalk sales happen throughout the weekend including at pop-ups at the Funky Flea which we know is a community favorite. We will also see Treat Yourself Tuesday and Wellness included and there are there's room for everyone there is a way to celebrate every single one of these retailers I have been so lucky to work with them not

only celebrating the opening of their businesses shopping there as well bringing my friends and family and I look forward to seeing you all this week and seeing you to continue to get media coverage and the recognition that you deserve for making Fairfax City an amazing place to visit shop dine stay And again, just one more thank you to our partners in programming, Central Fairfax Chamber of Commerce and the OTFBA.

Catherine ReadThank you, thank you. And now I'm going to turn this over to Jennifer Rose because there's something happening at 4.30 on Friday and I'm going to be there. So tell us where I'm going to be.

Jennifer RoseWell, it's no coincidence. This is Independent Retailers Week, so there's no small coincidence that Shop Local Week is coinciding. our Women Mean Business Committee is doing a little retail therapy session. It's kind of a crawl, like think of a pub crawl, but we're gonna crawl Friday afternoon from 430 to 630 to many of the fantastic retail businesses in Old Town Fairfax and we'll wrap it up just in time for Rock the Block. Thank

Catherine Readyou all. We're gonna squeeze in for a photo.

Speaker 20Come on, get in there, Chris. Come on, get in there, Chris. All right, awesome, you guys. In three, two, one. We'll do one more. In three, two, one. Perfect.

So LimThank you. Thank you.

Melissa Shinaberryclerkby voicewe move to the adoption agenda

Catherine Readyes indeed is there a motion to approve the agenda councilmember Staley

Jon Stehle Jrthank you may I read I move to approve the agenda as presented

Melissa Shinaberryclerkby voicethe

Catherine Readmotion has been made and seconded a roll call vote

Melissa Shinaberryclerkby voicecouncilmember Ross all right councilmember Greenfield

Eric Foremanstaffall right

Melissa Shinaberryclerkby voicecouncil member Lim I council member Staley I council member Doyle Feingold I council member Bates I motion passed unanimously we'll go to the initial general public comment I only had two speakers sign up by 5 o'clock p.m. today our first speaker is Marianna Fournier

Marianna Fournierpublic commentGood evening members of the City Council Madam Mayor I'm Marianna Fournier I live at 10134 Spring Lake Terrace on numerous occasions I have spoken out on the many reasons i'm firmly against the county the country club hills connector at this time i speak to you with great urgency i've been watching the crime reports for fairfax boulevard from january 1st to the last day of june yes there is a rising crime rate much of it is your usual crime such such as auto theft, drunken disorderly conduct and trespassing, etc. There were 63 reported cases of larceny. Of greater concern to me is the eight assaults that were reported. Now, on June 10th, the patch reported that a CVS employee was punched multiple times

by a man concealing items of merchandise. device this CVS is located at 10090 Fairfax Boulevard right across from where the Council wants to put the CCH connector it could have been a much bigger problem for the police if that man ran across a trail into our neighborhood and speaking to a friend about the trail he predicted it would become the designated getaway. So what are we to do? Let's finally lay this issue to rest. We don't need the connector. We don't want the connector. And in election year, it will be a major political liability if this council does not do right by our community. So now, let's work with our police force to lower the crime rate. This will help our beleaguered merchants.

The city must stand by our business community. How long can they stay in business if they keep losing money? Let's give back a sense of security to citizens who live on or near Fairfax Boulevard. We need to feel safe again. We can't just shrug this off by saying, well, there's a crime problem everywhere. Okay? In conclusion, I would like to publicly thank a member of your staff in this room who so kindly, recognizing that I'm hearing impaired and I had forgotten to put in my hearing aids, offered me a hearing device. This young woman exemplifies, in my humble opinion, the best public service has to offer. Thank you so much, Melissa. Good night.

Melissa Shinaberryclerkby voiceOur next speaker is Tom Sebelia.

Tom Sebeliapublic commentGood evening, Mayor Reed and members of council. I'm Tom Sebelia. I live at 10231 Tecumseh Lane here in Fairfax. I'm also the city treasurer. In about two or three weeks, we're going to be mailing personal property tax bills. And because I and my entire department hate having to assess late fees, I'm here to beg and implore members of council and a mayor, members of the audience, both virtual and in person, to please sign up for City Alerts. It's a great service. There are a bunch of different options to it. You don't have to be alerted every time there's a thunderstorm. You can select what you want to be alerted about. In fact, you can even select what taxes you want to be alerted about. In our office, 95% of the calls that we get asking for forgiveness of late fees,

which by the way, I'm unable to do, we follow state law, are for two reasons. I forgot and I didn't get a bill. City alerts will prevent you from forgetting. We'll send a text and we'll send an email. and several it will keep you from forgetting and it'll also prompt you to call us if you didn't get a bill it will also very importantly prompt everybody to make sure that we've received your payment which is a less common but it happens our collection rates our delinquency rates on the day of these things work on the day of for real estate have been down from 2020 to 2024 33 percent so this stuff works people it really does work 26 percent on personal property so please sign up for city alerts if you haven't already it really works thank you

Melissa Shinaberryclerkby voicewe can move on to the consent agenda

Catherine ReadIs there a motion to approve the consent agenda? Councilmember Staley.

Jon Stehle JrThank you Mayor Reed. I move adoption of a consent agenda. 4, agenda number 8A, consideration of the July 2nd, 2024 special meeting minutes. Agenda number 8B, consideration of the July 9th, 2024 special meeting minutes. Agenda number 8C, consideration of the July 9th, 2024 regular meeting minutes. Agenda item number 8D, consideration of a resolution establishing the Housing and Healthy Communities Advisory Board. E, consideration of a resolution approving the City's participation in the proposed settlement of opioid-related claims against Kroger and its related entities, and authorizing directing the execution of any documentation necessary to effectuate the City's participation in the settlements.

Agenda No. 8F, introduction of an ordinance amending Chapter 2, parentheses, administration, in parentheses, Article 3, Division 3, Section 2-96 of the Code of the City of Fairfax, Virginia, pertaining to the position of acting City Manager. approve the consent agenda items number 8 a through f and the motionee accompanying the consent agenda item as printed

So Limsecond

Catherine Reada motion's been made by councilmember Staley and seconded by councilmember Lim are there any items council would like pulled for additional discussion seeing none a roll call vote

Melissa Shinaberryclerkby voicecouncilmember Bates aye councilmember Doyle Feingold Aye except for the items related to July 9th Councilmember Staley Aye Councilmember Lim Aye Councilmember Greenfield Aye Councilmember Ross Aye Motion passed unanimously with abstention for 8B and 8C We will go to the public hearing our public hearing tonight is a public hearing and council action on adoption of the Fairfax Circle small area plan I'll recognize Paul Napty for the staff report

Paul Nabtistaffthank you mayor reed and members of council the fairfax circle smaller airplane has been in development since april of 2023 with support from city council planning commission other boards and commissions members of the public commercial property owners businesses and other stakeholders the last time we met with the city council about this was in april around that same time frame we Commission other boards of commissions and a public open house we've also been continuing to receive comments to our engage page so as a result of that there have been a number of changes that have occurred to the plan since then we've also prepared our draft report that's been posted since mid-June so the presentation tonight will be led by Cunningham Quill Architects our

consultant it will focus on the changes that have been made since April but we'll also go over the general concept of the plan so you might hear some repeated heard before but we'll be going through everything to make sure anybody who's hearing it tonight for the first time will be up to speed i did want to point out one thing for tonight uh you received a revised motion on a blue sheet the reason for this is that there was errors on three of the charts in the document these are relatively minor changes they were all charts that showed existing conditions so they did not change the recommendations or the outcome of the plan show the near-term uses, but that one only has some rounding errors.

So the reason for the change in the sample motion is to allow these changes to be made post-adoption if it is adopted tonight. While they are minor, they are considered content changes. And so if you have any questions about that, feel free to let me know. But otherwise, I'll turn it over to Lee Quill from Cunningham Quill to give the presentation. Thank you.

Lee Quillgood evening madam mayor members council it's good to be back before you again this evening on the Fairfax Circle small area plan we've gone through this drill many times so I'll go quickly it's like for those who are new to the area or don't know the location and this is the location of the fairfax circle small area plan and activity center one of the five activity centers identified in the comprehensive plan that's the area of our plan for those who are not sure the boundaries if you'll notice in the next plan this is the red line it's an area of our boundary that we studied next we're at the uh the end of the process now it's been about a year and four months moving through with many many meetings hearings etc so we believe we've had a

wonderful experience with the community and as you see it from the next slide we've had pretty extensive community engagement both digitally through the websites and sharing mechanisms of Florida City as well as our stakeholder interviews our large community meetings being town hall meetings charrettes community workshops our many staff and county meetings that we've held bi-weekly and many many stakeholder meetings including the public work sessions we've had with you and Planning Commission next we had a very good meeting with Planning Commission on the 8th of July there are a number of things that came out which paul's gone over with you but consideration of preservation of access to properties around the circle was an issue that came up i'm sure there probably a couple of

property owners will be here to speak tonight we can talk about that more and how there this was a conceptual idea of how to approach the circle and it's not the final plan so it definitely has capacity to further incorporate access in a different way around the edges implementation of the traffic study to analyze access to future intersection modifications and the analysis and possibility of increasing the walkways we had a number of comments that came in about are there ways to increase the width of the shared use path you know from eight to ten or whatever and there are a number of ways we can can look at this in the future and I think Paul is probably addressed that in his staff report finally there

are a couple elements in the language that asked us to strengthen a few things such as you know can you say prioritize instead of encourage the focus and prior toward prioritizing infrastructure improvements in the area and then the the this buffer that is between our shared youth path and a number a number of areas and then how that works with the main roadway those were minor elements that can be definitely picked up and were picked up as you remember from the goal when we started this thing in this effort with the community and with you all I have to say that I've been doing small area plans for a long time and I grew up in Fairfax County and Fairfax was part of my life both before after when I came and lived in Reston for a few years.

And Fairfax Circle, while it was an identifiable place, when you talk about the small area plan as an identity other than the circle, it did not bubble up immediately about what should Fairfax Circle be, what's the soul of this area telling us. By working with you all, with Planning Commission, with staff, many of the boards and particularly with the community those who live and interact and and participate in the shopping and the walking and biking etc through Fairfax circles in the area we were able to come up we felt with some very very strong elements or key goals that started speak to the identity of this area and the opportunities that could come forward number Number one was with the creek, the Akatink Creek, there's a real opportunity for a sustainable

neighborhood not like North Facts exactly, very different in the sense that the creek instead of being off to the side of North Facts, the creek is embedded in this area. So how do we link ourselves to the creek and actually make that one of the defining features? Also the circle itself. There's a lot of discussion still going on. We have ideas. There needs to be more studies that will happen, actual physical transportation studies. But there is a lot of concern about safety and how traffic gets through this area and pedestrians and bikes, especially on their way to metro and from metro. So how do we bring about a safer condition at the intersection but also not lose the memory of our circle?

There was an opportunity for creating actually a village and Main Street center. The Southwest Quadrant, the developers and owners of that property have been very interested in trying to reposition that property. And there were some real opportunities in that area of creating that kind of center where we could have a gathering space, a main street, the beginning of a main street, a shopping street. Right now when we get together in the city, we greet each other over the trunk of the car or with a shopping cart instead of along a main street or a restaurant many times and we see a real opportunity there and that came up increasingly in our discussions and finally the mobility and access through this area of the multiple pathways of the trails the bikeways the opportunities of

reinforcing those really making this much more pedestrian area right now it has a lot of cars going through it but we want to turn this into an area that has much more of a feel of a pedestrian precinct when you come into the small area plan of fairfax circle you're coming into pedestrian area just like downtown just like camp washington you're needing to slow down respect the pedestrians and the bicyclists and then you know you can get back on your way on uh fairfax boulevard to north facts but those are the opportunities when we came to the development plan uh the key revisions uh was we really reinforced the connections and the clarifications of connecting to the Creek there's a lot of discussion in that in our graphics we didn't really represent that as strongly as we

were talking about it in our plan when we met with you back in April so we have reinforced that to make it very clear in the plan going forward both in how buildings front it as well as we engage it clarifying building footprints and frontages throughout better activation of the creek as i talked about we'll get into that more clarification of spring street again is this opportunity for a retail main street and then adjusting the kind of service roads and connections right now there's a lot of dead-end streets a lot of lack of interconnection dead ends the cut off provide a potential network of streets that could fill in over time as well as a network of paths and finally just upgrading the graphics so that they clearly represent the plan so goal one was

a sustainable neighborhood linked to the akutink creek so when you go to this first diagram and we've showed this to you before we talked about the one on on the left of the impervious area that pink and light tan and depending on how your graphic shows up on your screen that is asphalt that is not a very green condition there are some areas where there's some white areas that had a little bit of green but you can see how much asphalt we had covering this area which is not untypical of suburban areas that are shopping center shopping center focus we also on the diagram to the This area, more than many of the areas in the city, is highly impacted by potential for flood. This is an area that catches a lot of the drainage from the rest of the city, higher up in the area of Old Town, as well as from the west.

And you can see from the light blue, the area that is the floodplain that is impacting large swaths of the area. So this became a major focus for our plan and how to work with water in the area as well as coming into the area. So one of the opportunities we saw was to really engage the creek and work with the creek in a number of ways of how to recollect water in this system as it comes into the area during floods as well as other times. But also how do we extend this infrastructure back into this area of impervious surfaces to soften and bring back and actually bring forth the idea that there is a creek. It's kind of like if you've been along a waterfront and there's a row of buildings and there's a waterfront or a river on the other side.

But unless you're opening that up for people to see, they don't know it's there. A number of people know it's here, but we want to bring the creek back in and the idea of extending these ideas of sustainable green fingers of low impact development infrastructure that collects and filters water throughout the area. And also then really kind of making some recommendations on improvements to the Gateway Park and a new water collection and gathering spot in the southwestern quadrant. uh is another area that we're approaching to try to capture some of the floodwaters when it when they come in when you go to the next slide you'll see that we did focus our graphics on how to clearly show how we want to activate the trail system and the akatink creek so we've shown how

there's a proposed trail along the north side of this area but also the building frontages there'll be some areas that don't have continuous frontage but we saw see a real opportunity for not only engaging the new Main Street which is Spring Street extended but also to Creek of having outdoor seating areas of engaging the park from eating opportunities to just a new park on the east and a new Plaza on the west also the idea of wayfinding lighting systems improving what kind of plants go in here non-invasive species etc how do we work with trail-oriented development and then improving the trail system and the interconnection for cycling are high priorities in this area and an amazing opportunity along this creek

we have a section that shows sort of how an opportunity could develop in the southwestern quadrant of how buildings when they're facing both the north and the south can actually interact with the creek uh re redefined creek uh as we've discussed in the plan and actually uh having buildings interconnect you know not only at the ground plane but also with balconies etc this is a beautiful resource we ought to take advantage of it and it becomes a real asset and value added to any development if we treat it correctly along the creek frontage the activation along the creek at the ground plane really opens up the opportunities for as i said for seating and engagement of sitting along a natural corridor that can have activity of a bike path and walking path

so you're engaging kind of like a boardwalk approach but also the creek itself it's a beautiful resource that's right now a lot of the businesses are just turning their back on or people don't are fronted by large parking lots which you really don't really strong stroll along so these are some of our major thoughts uh in this area and i'd like to turn it over to amy right now to talk about some of the more feature additional features including our new plaza

Speaker 21mayor reed members of the council um so as lee was saying the agatine creek is a great resource and we really want to be able to celebrate it and a key way of doing that is through these nodes that we we've established plan one of those being at Akatine Creek Plaza again as we had said this is in the southwest quadrant of the site you'll notice since the last time we spoke there's been a lot more design thought that has gone into this you'll see on the rendering on the left we have a pavilion space here we see gathering coming from you know the retail spaces where that's you know really flooding down towards the creek again as Leah has mentioned balconies with people being able to you know always be connected to that green space you might remember from

Springs reference, it's a wonderful project done in Portland, Oregon. This is a precedent where, again, in an urban environment, stormwater capture was celebrated and used as a public gathering space. In our office, we've been talking about this as being sort of the civic heart of the study area, so a place for all members of the community to come and gather and, again, use this Accutine Creek resource as a placemaking asset. At the other end of our site, so this, again, is down at the southeast quadrant of the site, have gateway expansion so Akatine Creek Plaza being our Civic heart this is what we sort of reference as our green heart obviously we have recognized the wonderful work being done by Nova Parks with Gateway Park as is so we really

just want this to be an expansion of that wonderful work that is being done so you'll notice here we have a pavilion space being called out you know maybe you know the Akatine Creek Plaza one is you know a place for public performance a place for bike as a bike shelter or a place to get shade. You'll also see we have some more eco-friendly parking situations where you have sort of a more permeable condition where, again, you're handling that stormwater issue but, again, creating a great space for residents to go to. Continuing on, breast practices throughout the study area. This goes in line with the green fingers that Lee was talking about as well as at these nodes. We want to make sure that all of the planters throughout the study area accommodate for the

proper soil volume. So again, as your trees are getting bigger, you want to make sure that the planters are adequately sized. Additionally, too, we want to make sure that we're incorporating native plantings throughout and again, pollinator species, but really trying to weave that green into the fabric of the study area. So even though we've turned our focus to the creek, we haven't turned on the circle. So goal two, reinventing Fairfax Circle. The main idea here is we really want to keep the integrity of Fairfax Circle, but we really want to make a more safe and efficient sort of means of transportation. So you'll see here, existing conditions and concerns. We've had a lot of comments come from community members.

Just to call out a couple, we have some isolated and unusable green spaces, confusing intersection design design overall multi-stage pedestrian crossings you'll look at the diagram to the right here and see that you know again that's we're looking at five crossings to get to one end of the intersection to the other and if you look at the total time to do so five out of those six minutes essentially is just waiting so we really would like to make sure that this is a more efficient means of travel for pedestrians and cyclists alike again going back to that left on the southern and northern leg which again is very isolating there's many driveways located close to the intersection which can be dangerous but

also very confusing as well so again our resolution it's a redesigned Fairfax circle you'll see here it's a more traditional intersection you might recall from our last meeting but again we're still keeping the integrity of that circle you'll see we have some suggestions of you know stormwater are reminiscent of that circular shape from before or maybe seating but again it's still an improved pedestrian and cycling crossing for again easier transit

Stephanie Kupkastaffacross the

Speaker 21other thought too is that you know this isn't just limited to the circle maybe these circular elements are something that is incorporated throughout the landscape you know through fun playful seating or through shade elements or through fountains but a way to really keep the identity of the circle So I'm now going to pass it over to Adam to talk about the economics.

Paul NabtistaffThank you.

AdamSo goal number three is to provide an economically vibrant mixed-use village to live, work, and play. This is not disconnected from the other two goals we just talked about. Providing adequate green space and amazing destination-worthy green spaces, as well as making a more vibrant Fairfax Circle itself is key to this economic mixed-use village network. looked back at the existing conditions, you know, one of the keys to resiliency and to economic success is having a mixed-use district. The amazing thing about Fairfax Circle is it already has an amazing array of multifamily housing. It has industrial uses. It has office uses. And the main goal and identified opportunity we found was to strengthen that. Let that

become strengthened and let those office uses become strengthened through better streets, better retail, and specifically honing in on Spring Street as one of the key new retail main streets that will be this economic mixed-use hub of the community. So as you can see in these precedent images, we're imagining and proposing a walkable retail mixed-use residential above that connects directly, you know, runs parallel but also has moments of connection directly to this amazing trail system along Akateek Creek. So in a sense this Spring Street is also part of that trail-oriented development that Lee spoke of. You can see since the last presentation we've included this rendering. If you look at the image from the right to the left you

capture and more wild storm capture system along Akatee Creek with a trail running alongside of it. Then you have paths and the main hub of Akatee Civic Plaza and Park. And then Spring Street itself starts to connect and stitch this moment throughout the study area as a main retail tree-lined spine that brings people to this amazing moment. We also added this section, which provides another sort of detail of how this street will work. You have a mixed-use ground floor with retail, adequate seating, balconies, and different ways to engage to that new public space. And we're also just illustratively showing some of those ideas that Amy was talking about, such as circle chairs and circular elements, such as signage,

really connect to that identity of Fairfax Circle. We also, since we last presented with you, started to clarify what these building frontages throughout the study area start to look like. As a reminder, we sort of divided this up between active frontages, which is that retail Main Street, something you might imagine you have now in Old Town, where the pedestrian walkability is prioritized, and you're imagining people walking from destination to destination. Then we also talk about flexible commercial frontages, and this is areas that still have major arterial roads perhaps running alongside them, but they also accommodate and balance pedestrian uses as well. And then we've added green frontages. We felt like to really emphasize

this trail-oriented development, emphasize the connection to the green space. We needed to articulate where those frontages are going to be and where the best views and connection points could be. We provided sections as well as precedent images of what this sort of experientially might be, indoor-outdoor spaces at the ground floor balconies or different sort of indoor-outdoor experiences if you have residential or office uses above, and then encouraging private development as it's starting to articulate these spaces to really bring in the green and bring in that connection to the trail system in details that are small and big. we also as a part of adding to this discussion we were looking at how transitional retail and

adaptive reuse of spaces might work throughout the study area early on we noted that there is a number of gas stations in the study area those are often don't change very often they're often difficult to adaptively reuse because of items like underground tanks and we felt like it was really important to provide precedent images as well as different concepts of how these spaces might change. Maybe some of them, the private ownership may want to retain them as gas stations, but they may also become things like community hubs. They may become retail uses, nurseries, urban agriculture, and more. And so we provided more details in the report explaining that. We also, because of the strong identity of the study area and at the encouragement of

Council, we wanted to reiterate the importance of urban agriculture and urban green spaces in these adaptive reuse spaces, but also throughout the project and provided images and descriptions detailing that. Goal number four, easy access by car, bike, bus, or on foot. Our core here changes. you'll see we started out with an existing condition and concern where you have this main very busy intersection in the center of the study area with very few connecting streets. This limited network makes it highly trafficked. It's difficult for people to walk on foot. And there's more informal side streets where people are cutting through to kind of make their way across parking lots. As a part of the long-term vision plan, we looked to stitch this together into a grid of streets.

This largely looks, in the next slide, this largely looks similar to what you may have seen before, but we've tweaked some of the green connections to the Occatee Creek, clarified connections like at Hume Street, and started to better articulate how that new grid of streets might work, including proposing some sort of potential connection at some point on the northern part of the study area. So we also provided additional guidelines on what these street sections might look like. This is also in some ways similar to what you've seen before, but giving much more clarity to what that shared use path might be, what the street widths realistically can work, and trying to fine-tune things like the

medians on the main roads. We also added a few more details to the urban design elements. These are the general kind of building blocks that make up this plan. We added a map and diagram called street character, and in this the main change really is showing those trail connections. Once again, we wanted to give as much clarity and detail as possible on how those networks might work. These are sidewalks, these are actual trails, but just the sort of pedestrian-oriented experience of how you could navigate the study area. We also in the last report, this actually hasn't changed much but is more here for a reference. We focused on having taller building heights around the center of the circle and then tapering

as we were adjacent to retail uses. And in large part, this on the next slide started to between the street character, between the building heights and between all of these different goals started to really articulate four character areas. So this map is a new one from what you've maybe seen before. We, in red, we've identified the creek and Spring Street. That's that main hub of buildings that can immediately touch or have a kind of experiential moment around Spring Street or the Akatee Creek. We largely recognize that Foxcroft colony will continue to be a vibrant multifamily use that really signifies and gives character to a lot of the study area. That is shown in purple and we're imagining that as having better connections and with

minimal development around it, but better connections to nearby uses. To the north, the scout will continue to be a dominant feature and we imagine a new mixed-use building bisecting the county line to expand upon that. And finally, you know, we recognize that there is a large number of production and repair uses just to the north of the small area. and we are understanding that this, just north of Fairfax Boulevard, is that face and the gateway to that moment. It may have a mix of uses. It has residential going in now, but it's going to be that special moment where the production uses sort of meet the rest of the study area. I'm going to turn this over to Lee, and he's going to talk through phasing the plan.

Lee QuillLast two slides. so when we got to development how do we think fairfax circle might start to evolve there's been a lot of discussion about this we are very excited about the opportunity once we've gotten into this and continue to talk with the landowners and the community we're actually very bullish on this area and very excited about this area and really think there's an opportunity here to create a new neighborhood a mixed-use neighborhood and center center for the city which is what was with the activity center, but also a new center that can be walkable, vibrant, and connected, and have a natural influence through the creek. In these first 10 years, there will be a lot of studies, a lot of focus on infrastructure.

The one thing that's a little bit different on this plan is there are a lot of infrastructure needs that will come toward you, such as what do we do with the circle. ultimately you know we've seen a lot of recommendations Wendy and staff have had a recommendation we've we've gone through this with the community generally not universally as you'll try here even tonight or you've seen some center letters not everybody is a hundred percent behind a traditional intersection but the cost and weight and looking at everything else plus the great changes etc have led to this being a very viable situation to take care of the issues that And to help in connectivity and through traffic but also Making it so pedestrians can get through also with the creek and the flooding

We've made a number of recommendations in the plan which you've been through which again We haven't shown everything here tonight But the idea of how we opened up potentially areas underneath the bridges which act dams a little bit right now and force water along picket or along Blenheim back into the areas to the west of that those all need to be studied further and shatoshi can talk to more of that and has in the past so these will be some studies and some infrastructure focuses that will need to be looked at to help us move the plan forward but we do believe that there will be areas such as the southwest corner where there have been a number of developers that have been interested and are actively looking at potential redevelopment of that area and working with

them and trying to help guide opportunities for spring street and along blenheim and improvements to the creek and the water system along there and the path system and they're also allowing for these green fingers to start to come into the area from there also they're bringing the idea of a mixed use infill to some of the area now where we have mixed use on a ground plane but not vertically and that can start to happen and mix in and then building in some of the new street and and walkway network that you see also there will be some improvements in the production and repair areas by the owners that have those properties up there, as well as the Lamb Center and the new housing that's going in for the transitional uses.

So some pretty exciting opportunities are coming. In the eastern areas and a little bit further north, those will probably be coming in a little bit later. So when we go to the next development window, which is the longer term, then you start to see potential improvements implementing the circle uh recommendations coming in extending the fingers and more mixed-use development potentially happening in areas such as around uh home depot what we're finding we're not recommending getting rid of home depot it's a it's a great resource for the region but what we're finding as a lot of those can move to a little bit more of an urban model where they present a facade to the street that's actually more walkable and still has pickup in the front

the side if you go to lakeland colorado i visited there a number of years ago they brought in a new target where the parking was underneath and then they raised the store up and it was right on an urban park system it was fantastic that really got me pretty excited because most of our targets are just on the ground so there are a lot of models that we can be looking at and this will be evaluated through discussions with the city but also as we start to really create an urban THIS AREA SO IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN OVERNIGHT BUT IT DEFINITELY YOU KNOW CAN BE HAPPENING IN THE NEXT YOU KNOW TEN TO 20 YEARS AS WE GO OUT THERE WE'LL BE LOOKING AT INFRASTRUCTURE HOW WE PROTECT THE FOXCROFT AND THE RESIDENTIAL AREAS AND THEN SOME PROBABLY EXPANSION OF THE GATEWAY PARK

YOU KNOW WE HAVE SOME INDUSTRIAL USES DOWN THERE AND WE HAD GREAT DISCUSSIONS WITH THOSE USERS DOWN THERE THEY WANT TO STAY AND CONTRIBUTE AS VIOLABLE BUSINESSES BUT THEY ALSO KNOW THAT THEY WANT TO BE SENSITIVE TO THE ENVIRONMENT AND BE GOOD NEIGHBORS THEY PARTICIPATED REALLY WELL BUT THEY'RE NOT INSTITUTE IN JUST BEING PUSHED OUT RIGHT AWAY SO WE THINK THAT'S GOING TO BECOME AN INCREMENTAL TRANSITION IN THAT PARTICULAR AREA THERE MAY BE SOME AREAS THAT THE PARK CAN EXPAND WEST A LITTLE BIT AND EVENTUALLY YOU KNOW WE'LL SEE WHERE THINGS GO BUT WE HAVE A PLAN THAT CAN SHOW WHAT CAN HAPPEN IN THAT AREA IN A VERY LONG POTENTIAL WINDOW SO AS YOU GO THROUGH THE PLAN WE'VE GONE INTO MORE DETAIL THIS IS JUST THE ABBREVIATED VERSION, BUT WE DO FEEL THAT

WORKING WITH YOU AND THE COMMUNITY AND THE BOARDS AND PLANNING COMMISSION THAT WE HAVE A VERY, VERY VIABLE AND WORKABLE PLAN THAT'S NOT, AGAIN, WE DON'T LIKE TO DO PLANS THAT SIT UP ON A SHELF THAT SAY, OH, YOU REMEMBER THAT PLAN BACK IN 24? THIS NEEDS TO BE AN IMPLEMENTABLE PLAN, AND EACH PLAN WE'VE WORKED WITH YOU GUYS ON IN THE CITY HERE HAS BEEN THAT AS A MODEL. This is our fourth plan with you, and it has been a true pleasure to work with you and the city. As I mentioned once before, this city is amazing. This city, when we've gone into plans, normally you'll have a fair amount of people that are like, I don't want anything, just leave it alone. Change is a scare. This city is amazing because even if they're concerned, they would come out.

Citizens would come out. The business would come out. Even the businesses that were like, you know, don't take my business away. They would come. They would talk. They would be civil. It was great. I mean, it's like what a model this city is for talking about where we can go together in the future together, talking about incremental change, but in a very positive way. Because we know that change is going to come. And the idea is always to get out ahead of it so you're shaping change rather than letting that change shape you. And this city has embraced that. and we thank you again for our fourth opportunity we now turn it over to you all for question and answer thank you

Catherine Readall right are there any questions for the consultants or staff from the dais councilmember doyle funko

Kate Doyle Feingoldthank you mayor so I guess looking at the plan as whole with the areas of nine stories, seven stories, four stories, what is the overall estimate of additional housing units that would be built if all of this were to come to fruition? Do we have numbers?

AdamYeah, we mostly did our analysis focused on the near term because that's where it was possible to understand. So we're anticipating approximately 950 units within the next 10 years, and that's study

Kate Doyle Feingoldarea-wide. So what about total? So sometimes that happens with plans, right? We say we want this to happen in 10 years, but developers here, let's do it right now. So the full plan, the blue section with nine stories and the seven stories and everything, what's the total?

Adamin our plans anticipated as any sort of use. It could be office, it could be residential, and it's unlikely that it would go the full height that is allowed because many of those lots are smaller or undevelopable probably in the near term without consolidation. So that was also part of our thinking with the near-term plan. So we didn't we didn't do as detailed analysis because you know So 10 years out, it will be a different sort of scenario for that. Also, you know, other uses, senior housing uses, there's a different model for that for predictive, you know,

Kate Doyle Feingoldnumber of units. And in terms of the – sorry, Mr. Napty, did you?

Paul NabtistaffYeah, I just want to make a quick statement about that. The system we set up with all of our smaller-rated plans, based on the concern that trying to project housing demand or any kind of demand beyond 10 years gets to be really fuzzy, is that each of these smaller plants has projected development capacity. Includes housing units, commercial, retail. And each of them has a statement that says when we reach that point, particularly for housing, because that's where we're seeing the most demand, that we'll open the plans and revisit them and see if we need to put a pause, see if we need to restructure them, and that type of thing. So the 950 that Adam gave you is not just what we're anticipating,

it's a benchmark for us to use and say, let's see if we're going in the right direction before we accept any more.

Kate Doyle FeingoldHow does development in other areas, when are we close to that point in other small area plans or the scout, how does that factor in? Because that's pretty recent. Is that bringing us to the 950, or is this 950 excluding the scout, or how does that work?

Paul NabtistaffThese numbers are only new units, so anything that's existing is not included. In our other activity centers, we're not close to any yet. only in North facts have we had any development approved since smaller plan was adopted and that was a project that was just recent so that was only a fraction of how far we are so we'll see where we are in a couple years

Kate Doyle Feingoldokay thanks my other question is about the green spaces which you know I think are great and important part of the plan you know we saw recently with Willowood there was a park area that that we wanted to see happen but it didn't happen because somebody else owned the land so looking at this plan I think it would be helpful if we could see who owns what land and how realistic it is and what are the financial costs so who is on the hook for creating those parks because they cost money and when people come to the table they may not necessarily want to create the park you know we have businesses what businesses will no longer exist with this plan because I think that's important we have you know great businesses that are contributing to the community and then I

guess also I'd like to see more fiscal analysis I think and I'd also like to see this presented in combination with the work we are we have going forward with our flood risk analysis our environmental risk in this area and the broadly what are the costs associated with taking the steps we need to take to make sure that this area isn't inundated with floods and what are the costs both privately that we're saying hey we want to see developers assume this cost what are those real costs and what are the costs that the city is gonna have to undertake because I think this is a very well this is the first small area plan that I've been a part of but I think that this is a unique area that it's facing a lot of different issues.

And so I'd like to see some of that, the fiscal analysis and the environmental analysis brought into this. I think it's also a transportation analysis would be helpful. How many housing units can this area support? Can the city support? We're looking at redoing Blenheim because Blenheim turns into a parking lot pretty regularly. and how will this impact? You know, when we often say we want to see mixed-use development, but then what developers want to create are housing units because I think those are easier to make money. And so we end up shrinking the percentage that we said we wanted to see for commercial, increasing the number of residential, and that has an impact to schools, police, fire.

And so I guess I'd like to see more of that information also, of realistically we'd like to see this much commercial but what do we actually think people are going to come forward with because it's always or has been in in the recent times different but thanks those are all the questions i have now

Lee Quillthe only thing i would say about traffic as this always comes up is that um do you want the city to benefit itself or do you want to accommodate coming through and part of it is that there's always going to be traffic that's coming through this area that will continue the key is are we going to grab the opportunity within our city to create a better place for our people and a better economic situation this is an activity center so as we look at it if if people you know there will be more traffic there will be slower traffic coming on route 50 through this area that will be both intentional because we want to slow DOWN, BUT ALSO BECAUSE OF INCREASED DEVELOPMENT FURTHER WEST FROM HERE THAT YOU HAVE NO CONTROL

OVER WHATSOEVER. SO THE KEY IS HOW DO WE SHAPE THIS AREA SO THAT YOU CAN MANAGE THAT TRAFFIC AS IT COMES THROUGH, BUT ALSO CREATE AN ENVIRONMENT THAT IS LIVEABLE AND WALKABLE, ET CETERA. SO IT'S NOT THAT YOU DON'T LOOK AT THESE THINGS, THAT'S NOT WHAT I'M SAYING, BUT I WOULD SAY THAT THIS COMES UP IN PRETTY MUCH EVERY SMALLERY PLAN WE DO BECAUSE PEOPLE SAY, WELL, AND I SAID, WELL, TRAFFIC, IF YOU'RE IN AN URBAN AREA OR IN AN INTERSUBURB LIKE WE ARE HERE, THERE WILL BE CONTINUED TRAFFIC GROWTH OVER THE YEARS BECAUSE THEY'RE GOING TO BE BUILDING FURTHER OUT, AS WELL AS HERE. BUT THE KEY IS, DOES THAT MEAN THAT WE DON'T BUILD SO THAT WE CAN MAKE IT EASIER AND A LITTLE LESS TRAFFIC, OR DO WE JUST MAKE IT SO THAT WHEN PEOPLE COME THROUGH, THEY MAY WANT TO TAKE A DIFFERENT ROUTE?

AND I TALKED ABOUT THIS AT PLANNING COMMISSION. IT'S LIKE WE KNOW THAT 66 IS A DIFFICULT ROUTE, BUT It would be a little bit faster than coming through Fairfax circle in the future because we're gonna slow them down So it's always a balanced and I just want to say that we're all working hard to try to get the Commercial in two respects retail as well as office back or stable We worked on the DC downtown plan also the public room plan and you know trying to get businesses back down there After COVID, we've got a real challenge, but Fairfax has a unique position in a sense of some of these typologies that we're seeing can have smaller office, not the big footprints, but smaller footprints where the more would have been home businesses or smaller business can set up or have incubator businesses on the second and third floors of above retail in a lower scale, you know, as opposed to a WeWork or co-working situation.

or that could be part of it also but you can capture more of the office that way so we're looking at a wide range of that and the idea of creating place a destination where people want to come and just hang out and be together which is typical of Fairfax anyway but giving them more that then gives the synergy of these businesses for retail and then you know obviously that reaps of business taxes so we think that can happen here we're not we're not asking for Tyson's Corner office buildings and things here we're asking for something that's appropriate and scaled to Fairfax and Fairfax Circle. So that's why we're a little more bullish on it.

Kate Doyle FeingoldYeah, I think also there's a middle ground between build and not build anything. I think nine stories and seven stories is closer to Tyson's.

Shea MegaleWhat

Kate Doyle Feingoldyou're talking about where you live above retail and it's two stories is something different I guess than what I see here so I think I do think there is a middle ground between don't build anything which you know I don't is not what's gonna happen right that's not reality but there is some somewhere in the middle that isn't nine stories and can we sustain that level of development is what I'm talking about

Lee QuillI just a last comment on nine stories we know there are some developers that have been looking at that or a developer that's been looking at nine stories most of the typologies of building that will come into this will be in the five four five six story because it will be a concrete podium retail below and and woods i

Kate Doyle Feingoldjust say nine because that's what's

Lee Quillin the plan there's been some people looking at it um but once you get into that you get into it build a different uh construction type and typology and cost so i Our analysis is showing that that's not going to be the prevalent use or height that's going to come in. We wanted to have some flexibility so you don't have just an aircraft carrier. But, yes, there could be a nine or a seven, but a majority are probably going to be lower than that, just if that helps you give any comfort level, just based on typologies that are being built in the region. Thank you.

AdamI just wanted to speak a little bit to your thoughts about green spaces. A big crux of the plan that Lee talked about this in the near-term development goals and long-term goals is infrastructure improvements. And these improvements, such as stormwater improvements along Akatee Creek, are to preserve the existing businesses that are there that are at risk of flooding, existing residences such as Foxcroft. And the goal of this plan is more to leverage the investment that will already likely have to happen to keep what you have now into something that could expand economically. Some of this will be city investment. Akateek Creek is not part of many of the local property owners. And some of it would have to happen from private development.

But plans such as in the near term, Akatik Plaza, were done with talking to private developers, talking to what they were envisioning in their spaces, and saying, hey, if you're going to be putting an open space for your retail, let's have it connect to what is stormwater and infrastructure improvements that will be happening nearby. Similarly, Fairfax Circle, when it is reconfigured, it's likely to happen at some point in the near future. will open up an opportunity for right-of-way on all four sides to be another kind of green capture performative space that could start to deal with some of the stormwater issues. But it could also be a beautification element that then could allow those businesses nearby,

such as the different parcels that many of them are smaller, to start to activate and to link into that to start to become more vibrant. And as Lee mentioned, not all these are going to be tall buildings. Some of the building heights are also in reaction to the context. Scout is nearby, which is a taller building within the study area. I believe seven stories, zoned right now at least. And just across the county line, Circle Towers is 15 stories. And to the north towards Vienna, it's taller than what is even proposed in the small area plan in many places. So it's not trying to be Tyson's. It's trying to be, you know, contextual to what's to what is is nearby. But like Lee said, a lot of these are smaller parcels. A lot of construction

methods, it's unlikely for a number of different reasons that every parcel would be tall. Many of them may stay, you know, just a couple of stories and just be adaptively reused or reinvented over time. So.

Catherine ReadOkay. Other questions for the dais before we open the public hearing? questions before we do that oh Tom councilmember Ross councilmember us yes

Thomas Rossthank you I'm still here I'm not on the dais I'm actively been following this and first of all I want to compliment our city staff but also our consultant for the work that's been done here I think again it's a it's a terrific opportunity for us to reimagine parts of our community I think the is incredibly valid here. This in many ways is similar to what we I think encountered with the Fairfax with Camp Washington and the area plan. A very auto-dominated region with a lot of lack of interconnections and I think this will go a long way toward addressing what we see as real deficiencies in this area as well as other areas in the city. And I also want to really say how pleased I was to see the bringing into focus two environmentally big issues. One is the issue of flood and flooding

that has occurred in this area has been in some cases pretty bad. In other cases, we've been able to make some steps to mitigate it, but this really focuses a lot on that. And also, secondarily, through the work of opening up the access to the Akatay Creek. I think it's really an excellent example of how you talked about both businesses, residential in that area, and also the green fingers that would allow access and opportunities to open up additional areas to the Akatay Creek. So I very favorably thought, think of this plan and its recommendations. There are a couple things I'd like to address. One is the issue of the heights. I think it's really important that we emphasize we're not talking about this area being inundated

with seven, nine-story buildings. As they pointed out, there are places where it may be appropriate. It doesn't mean every site on this area is going to be developed and redeveloped. It means there's an opportunity here to integrate a more urbanized kind of environment with in an activity center, which I think is really right on with this area. One question I had was, in fact, maybe I'll just run through my questions and then maybe or the staff could address these. One is I'm curious about, we didn't talk any about coordination with the county. This area borders, as we know, on Fairfax County, and I'm curious as to what kind of coordination has taken place or will be taking place with this and how

it is, whether it's compatible with what we're hearing from our county partners, both to the north and certainly to the east, because what we are proposing here would dramatically impact our surrounding jurisdiction and our borders to the east and to the north. Secondly is the issue of Fairfax Circle, and I think we're facing a dilemma, somewhat of a little bit of a dilemma on this, because for many of us, and we heard some written comments today which were excellent, including a person from my own neighborhood who talked about the historical significance of the circle and the identity that exists. I recognize the importance of not recreating a circle because of the cost and the impacts that could create in terms of traffic flow and movement.

I'm open to hearing the alternatives that have been proposed but I think as you've indicated it's important that we maintain and create that sense of place that the circle has been through the way it's built and through perhaps some identity in the area that reflects on the fact that this is Fairfax Circle I that's very important in the place making part of this um the other question i had was uh and i think it's important we keep this very much in mind as we proceed forward with places like gateway park and the trails that and and pedestrian access that will be a key part of this implementation is the vision that John Mason, our late mayor, had for this area. His vision for Gateway Park, which has never been realized,

is that it would be a central point for information for where the trails come together and where people can get information, where they can connect with other trail users, where they can have an opportunity to get information on connections to other trails in the area and the regional significance of this location. that we maintain that as we move forward with the implementation of this plan and looking at that as an important part of the early vision that John created for this area. And then finally I think it's important that we remember that and I'd like Paul to address this a little bit is in each of our area plans once they've been approved. I believe we have an interdepartmental implementation team that comes forward and looks

at once the plan is approved, how do we go about with some of the short-term and longer-term goals? What will that require? What will it necessitate? And I think part of that process is an ongoing dialogue back to council and to the community on once a plan is approved, what are the next steps that we take how do we do that and then coming back periodically reporting to the community and to the council on how progress is is moving ahead and i think it'd be helpful for briefly for paul or some of the staff to talk about that but those are my questions and thoughts thank you mayor

Catherine Readall right mr napty

Paul Nabtistaffthank you thank you for the questions council member ross um let's see going coordination with the county we had county staff members participate in our regular check-ins on this project throughout which is our bi-weekly calls it primarily consisted of staff from their planning departments and transportation departments so that's where the majority of our coordination was they did do some outreach to parks for some of the questions that came up and so that did have some impact on this plan one thing to note that they identified to us is that immediately outside is not any of their special planning districts. We have the Vienna Metro Station area, which is close by, but not directly adjacent.

So a lot of their feedback really focused on transportation. And really what that was about was their comprehensive plan intentions for Route 50 and Route 29 as they go east in the city, how those might be changing. They're now looking at widening those, but they may go back to keeping them as they are. And also about their trails and pedestrian plans and making sure that what we show lines up with what they're doing. So, for example, this plan shows the trail going up the west side of Blanton Boulevard as it goes outside of the city, and that's where the county plans on doing the same thing to continue to provide a more direct access to the metro. So that's the kind of coordination that we had throughout.

We also did some outreach to various districts, but that was on a more incremental level.

Thomas Rosslet me quickly ask one question on that regional coordination Paul that came to mind as you were talking some years ago there was discussion of the county park authority creating a large park and I think actually it was between regional park authority and maybe Nova on the land directly east of Fairfax circle on the south side where the old water pump or water station is located has there been any further discussion of that or any further thought given to how that property could be used

Paul Nabtistaffthat did not come up as part of this project so i'm familiar with that

Thomas Rossokay i i would just encourage as we go forward that we keep the dialogue open with the county on what will happen with that area

Paul Nabtistaffokay we'll do The next question was about the Fairfax circle intersection and one thing I wanted to bring up was the the Fairfax circle intersection study that was conducted as a precursor to this plan. We had a separate consultant come in this was managed by our transportation division that looked at several different options. I think there were nine or ten of them it included looking at a traditional circle as intersection also included many options that included establishing a new street grid, which was heavily impactful to surrounding property owners. But the result was three recommendations to, or recommendations for three different options to look at as we develop the small area plan. And as part of that process, we will hold that down to the plan, the option that's shown in this

plan. Those three options were the traditional intersection that is shown. A second option was a version of a traditional intersection that was dependent on additional connecting streets through adjacent properties to allow some of the turning lanes to be removed, and that would reduce the footprint of the intersection. We found that to be too impactful to private property owners, and there was too much uncertainty about how much that could actually relieve the main intersection. And then the third was a traditional circle with an underpass, and there were too many uncertainties with that in terms of cost, in terms of utilities that might be there, and that type of thing. So the traditional intersection is where we are now.

One thing to point out is that through our conversations with the transportation director, we're still not at a point where we're completely comfortable saying that the traditional four-way intersection is where we're going to go. We are recommending that we allocate funds to do a complete traffic analysis of the Fairfax Circle intersection that will help look at not just circulation for vehicles, but look at safety for pedestrians that can help confirm whether we move forward with this option or do something else which may be just sticking with the design that's there with some minor alterations the concern is that the traditional intersection while it is slightly better when what is there particularly from a pedestrian safety

perspective it might not be that much better and so we really need more information before we can settle on that on Gateway Park as getting to your last point about implementation as we talk about implementation for that we can certainly include discussions about bringing back the idea that being a trail information center and so we'll just continue to have those conversations and then the last piece about the implementation guide as part of all of our smaller your plans after they are adopted we go through the plan and we develop a list of implementation items that are the responsibility of the city not of private property owners or other entities we put that in a matrix that's entire comprehensive plan implementation guide and we review our progress on each

of the smaller your plans along with the comprehensive plan implementation guide twice a year the planning Commission and then once a year that's submitted to City Council we also have standing implementation meetings once a year for each smaller your plan and once a year for the comprehensive plan as a whole so this plan is adopted once we have the implementation guide we'll set up a time at some point in the year for every year we'll get together we'll talk about just so i hope uh councilmember ross does that explain the implementation section

Thomas Rossyes it does i thought it was very important for our current council members and our public to to understand that this is not a static process this once a area plan is approved it means it's set in concrete or whatever we're talking about but that it's a living breathing kind of thing And I would add to it, I was encouraged to hear the words you talked about with regard to the circle plan or the intersection. I'm comfortable with moving ahead with the recommended wording you have right now, understanding that there's going to be a need to be a lot more analysis. And thinking on this, who knows what we're going to be facing one, two, three, four, five, ten years down the road. important that this really be given a lot of serious consideration.

Again, understanding there's both an important need as this is a historic entryway into the city, but it's also a very critical intersection for transportation of all kinds there. So thank you. Thank you, Paul, for that. And Quinn and Cunningham and Quill, I'm really grateful for the work you've done on this. And thank you, Mayor, for giving me that opportunity to express that. Thank you.

Catherine ReadOkay, first our city manager and then Councilmember Lim.

Laszlo Palkostaffby voiceSure, just wanted to add some additional stuff that staff would be working on. So with EDO, with the future housing program manager, with the planning staff, we're gonna take some more tactical analyses in terms of economic data for what can be supported here from a retail perspective. So we have a more clear understanding of that. What can be supported from a housing perspective, a transportation perspective, parking, we wanna start looking at some of that tactical side. This is a great kind of overview. now we want to take the next steps to do a little bit more deep dives into those analytical frameworks and then once we understand that a little bit better we want to start doing some b2b marketing so business marketing right for who are

some good developers who can come in here and help implement some of the visions that we have as part of this plan kind of marketing to them through the through the EDO and bringing back you know prospective people to implement this vision

Catherine ReadCouncilmember Lim

So Limthank you mayor I just asked question about the Lotte Plaza that the application has been submitted I think second time so their proposal was 10 stories right I think like 300 homes units whatnot but what from what I remember the rendering doesn't look anything like this so can you talk about that application how that will work with

Paul NabtistaffYes, it's generally understood that the types of building footprints and those types of things that are shown in these plans are conceptual. So that won't look exactly like this. There will always be some discrepancies. and so when considering things like a building height if we think it's worth it for a certain project to to not meet some of the expectations of this plan or exceed it by a story or two it's really up to the the Planning Commission and the City Council and the staff who are reviewing it to determine if it's worth kind of the negotiation process of saying we get so many benefits from this we're willing to accept this and so it might look a little bit different there other aspects of that plan that are different from this for example this

plan wants to see retail along the south side i know there's some complications with that because uh it faces um a internal property that isn't theirs and so that's something that once this if this plan is adopted we'll work with our land use staff and try to work with the applicant to see if there's a way we can resolve that

So Limokay yeah so the um their second submission was in july just recently So I'm just wondering, is any of this kind of already been talked about with the applicant? So the applicant is aware that we're doing a small area plan and we have some of the wish list and if they're willing to meet our wish list?

Paul NabtistaffYes, from the time that application came in or even before that when they had their pre-application phase, we knew this small area plan was coming and we informed them of that. and essentially when the plan is adopted it becomes our new policy and that's what our reviewing principles are. We let them know of that, that there's some risk that things could change throughout the process and they're aware of that. They also have been involved in the process to some extent. They have been at some of our meetings and communicating with us. They haven't raised any major concerns yet so hopefully that means that they're willing to work with us to some extent. And

So Limthen for the road extensions, Spring and Campbell, I guess. So can you explain to us, as well as the residents that are watching, so how does that work? We're going through a private property, right, through shopping center parking lots. So can you kind of walk us through it?

Paul NabtistaffYes. One thing that this plan that none of the smaller plans clarify is when there are new streets, whether or not they will be developed by the city using public funds or whether they will be provided by developers. The idea here is that we're looking at things like giving private property owners new opportunities with things like additional height, additional uses, and those types of things. And in return, they should be providing something to the city or to the community. That might be open space. That might be a portion of a street network. amenity so the expectation in most places is that new streets would be provided by property owners as they redevelop in some cases the city might have to step in and invest to make connections when for example if there is

you know two properties that develop that are where there's a property in between and that connection just can't be made then the city might have to step in and go through our own process but for the most part the hope is that most of these items are provided by the private with public access easements or they could dedicate them to the city and that's determined on a case-by-case basis

So Limokay my final question is I watched the Planning Commission meeting so that was a public hearing so there was a gentleman that came and spoke about Fairfax circle the issues the business owners are dealing with as far as crime and homeless population. Basically his words were, you know, unless we clean it up, don't do anything, right? So, yeah, so you guys are professionals and you've done designs for different cities around the country, so can you kind of talk about, you know, address his question?

AdamYeah, so crime, you know, is a big issue. It's not just design, it's all sorts workers, policing. But in the realm of design, one of the big core principles is having eyes on the street. It's having view corridors, such as streets where people feel like there's lighting, it feels good to walk down. And a cornerstone of this plan, and you saw it in the sections and the renderings, is balconies, big windows, lighted streets. Also, instead of it being a dry vial, it being a formal street where people feel like it's being, people are using it, right? You know, it's the dark corners in a study area or in a neighborhood where people feel sometimes unsafe. So that was a driving design decision for this entire plan was to create this design

aesthetic as well as opportunities in the architecture itself as well as in the streetscape to start to give a sense of safety to the study area.

So Limall right thank you thank you mayor

Catherine Readother questions before we open the public hearing councilmember Greenfield

Jeffrey Greenfieldthank you I'll be quick I want to go back to the the street piece and perhaps even even broader than that I concur we need a lot more financial analysis here mr. Napty and we've got a number of businesses in in the fairfax circle area that contribute several pennies on the tax rate and so if we're going to put them out of business or tell them they need to redevelop their property and put something else there like a nine-story building that's proposed here on one of those lots i think this body needs to understand the analysis of what that's going to be because some of those are so significant that apartments would never begin to make up the revenue that we would lose secondly are the streets that you're envisioning whether built by the city well the city would be

different but built by a developer as part of a process is that going to be built to vdot standards or or that would be a private street

Paul Nabtistaffuh it depends on the street uh if if if a private property not dedicated to the city, only provides public access easements, it does not have to be developed to VDOT standards. Say that last piece again. It does not have to be developed to VDOT standards if it remains under private ownership. But what does the city want? In many cases, we prefer not to have it developed to VDOT standards, particularly because sometimes those standards conflict with the type of pedestrian environment that we're looking for. And so we've seen that in some existing developments around the city, such as the Moxley, that couldn't dedicate streets because of some of the issues they had with the design there. But some of the actual street sections that are shown in this plan could not be accepted by VDAT as a public road.

Okay,

Jeffrey Greenfieldthank you. and then the flood resiliency plan have you been coordinating with public works mr napty on on the portion south of fairfax boulevard that are either in the rpa or in the floodplain and and what we're going to do to take those properties out of the floodplain and then if we are doing that are we taking literally taking those properties from property owners um or or how is all of that

Paul NabtistaffThat plan is not underway yet, but Mr. Ito was heavily involved with this project, so he's very familiar with what the plan is proposing. Once that plan does get underway and we see what the impacts are to surrounding properties, it could be that it reduces the floodplain in some cases, in which case we could go back to this plan and look at what we're thinking and maybe change some things. Or it could mean that some properties have to be purchased by the city. We don't know where that's going yet. but as that proceeds we will participate in that and we are willing to open up this plan again when that's done and see what needs to change.

Jeffrey GreenfieldOkay and last question. Multifamily cyclical. So there's a period of time where you can get financing to do apartments and then there's a period of time where you can't but you can get financing to do condos. How will this plan be able to accommodate those shifts in the market because what we're seeing in different parts of the city is what the plan envisions in 20 years developers are trying to do in two and so i'm i'm concerned here that that we have the ability for for this to adapt it's a plan it's not set in stone it's it's no different than the comp plan right it's advisory some some ideas some concepts it's not saying that's what we're to happen but i think that that messaging has got to be very important um out there in the community

especially with with this plan that i appreciate some property owners have participated but there are some that have not or or went and just kind of shook their head so um i'm curious your um your thoughts thank you okay

Paul Nabtistaffso the first part of your question was about the difference between multi-family rentals and multi-family ownership and how that can be accommodated in the plan is that correct

Jeffrey Greenfieldyeah right when the market shifts right i mean there again there are times that we see developers come forward where they want to do multi-family rental but then they can't get financing for that so then you see a different segment of the development community shift and talk about doing condos and and we've had that happen here in the city of fairfax so So how does this plan envision and how will it accommodate the shifts in the market?

Paul NabtistaffOkay, I'll start off and then see if you guys have anything to add. But essentially, as you said, the plan is built to be flexible. We show building footprints, but those can change. While multi-family rentals and multi-family owner could be the same thing, a lot of times they have different priorities in how they design, so the buildings end up looking different. And so these plans are all built to be flexible enough to accommodate either. Condos can be a little more difficult when it comes to being mixed use and that type of thing. So one of the goals of our smaller plans is not to require ground floor commercial everywhere, really focus it on certain areas. So ideally, this would be able to adapt to that.

and and you know in support of that the recently completed housing assessment suggests that we've had really more multifamily rental development than our long-term demand which is moving toward that quicker than it is for multifamily homeownership and so on a number of levels we would like to see more homeownership development happen so we want to make sure that these plans can accommodate that and it's really going to be through some implementation steps about how we go about marketing that and I'll see if you guys

Lee QuillPaul just predominantly everything I would say except that what we would not like to see and the city should take a hard look at is single-use buildings throughout the mixed-use concept for this area is critical and if that is not followed as mixed-use you will have some issues because then it will become a one aspect goes down like downtown Washington is predominantly office with a little bit of retail and it's suffering right now and now we're talking about trying to convert office buildings which there are only a few that can really be converted into residential so whether it's home ownership or retail Paul has addressed it is a little bit more difficult to do retail in home ownership condos, but not impossible.

There are other ways you can activate your ground floor, too. So if you think about it as a ground floor activation and enough retail and what the use above can vary, if all of a sudden the world turned upside down, which it seems to be doing every week anyway, but not in uses and land uses, if we all of a sudden had the office market come back and that was predominant, this plan could accommodate and would embrace the idea of a lot more office above retail in this particular area but we have to as Paul said be flexible the key is activating your ground floor so you don't have uses that are dead blank spaces or things that are not contributing back to the street or providing that street life or the

opportunity throughout the whole area especially on Spring Street we've activated and said that's an area that should be focused on trying to bring retail and activity on the ground floor other places are a little bit less but There is a lot of flexibility, just keep a watch on the balance. And I know that Paul and Brooke and staff will be doing that and advising you on that as you go forward.

Thomas RossI was gonna go get the big fishnet.

Laszlo Palkostaffby voiceCan I just make one comment too on your earlier question about fiscal impact? So there's kind of two lenses to look at this. Don't

Thomas Rossyou jump up and grab it?

Catherine ReadCouncil member Ross, you might wanna mute. Got it, okay.

Laszlo Palkostaffby voiceSo there's land use considerations that have more to do kind of with placemaking, right? And that's kind of where planning and zoning largely live. And then there's economic development and fiscal impact. And that's where kind of we're working together as partnership in terms of cross-departmental analysis for transportation, for land use. But what I can assure you is when we talk about these things from an economic development perspective, the economic development department, city manager's office, other departments, and even coordinating with planning and zoning and commissioner revenue treasurer we we want to make sure that we're maximizing the economic benefits of every development and that's why we

we want to do more of the engagement going forward with developers to ensure that whatever's coming back actually is a profit for the city and not a negative fiscal in fact but that's not necessarily a consideration of land use but that is an economic development perspective that we want to make sure that we're emphasizing the staff

Jeffrey Greenfieldand I appreciate that I think while it's not land use it is part of what should be in the plan right this is a plan we're going out and saying this is what we're envisioning I can guarantee you there are people watching tonight that are gonna their takeaway is gonna be the city just said we can do ten stories down at Fairfax Circle that's what's gonna happen because that's what happened at Northfax that's we had a building where we well some on this dais approved a building on on eaton that called for a linear park the linear park is on another piece of property that they don't own so the linear park isn't going to happen where the apartment building was built right and by the way that that that plan

for that area said six to eight stories but you could get up to eight stories if you knocked it out of the ballpark and you did all these things that's not what we did the the proposal for a building down at fairfax boulevard and 123 same thing everybody is looking and saying here's what they said the maximum is eight that's what we're going for and that's mistake because then we lose so we i still believe size and scale matters we can have redevelopment but we can still maintain our sense of place without saying, well, we have a 15-story building just outside the city, so therefore we can do nine at Fairfax Circle. I don't agree with that. And I was going to save – I'll save the rest of my comments until we get to the public hearing.

I do appreciate where you're headed, and I do think that's the right direction. It's just which comes first. We get this done or we get a plan done, and then we go do more detail.

Laszlo Palkostaffby voiceYeah, so I guess three things to say. again we're not you all are gonna ultimately have to decide kind of what your preferences are in terms of of the plan itself and heights and all those things this is kind of more of a recommendation for land use considerations this is supposed to be kind of a guide this doesn't necessarily translate into reality because these aren't one consolidated parcel with one developer that with it that's an actual master plan right it's it's separate parcels so this is kind of more of a guide for developers for what to follow and thirdly this is a mixed-use plan that talks about retail but one of the limitations we have right now is we don't have the data when the developer

comes in and says hey I'm only building this amount of retail because I can't build more we don't have the data to call them out on that and say no actually the capacity is X you can do more that's what we want to get to as a city to arm you all with that information when we when we have these future land use considerations I concur

Catherine Readokay so it before we go to the public hearing out the observation I will make about the small area plans they've been very helpful to the city I think it has provided developers some guidance to understand what the city is looking for it is not something that is literally engraved in stone but for scale and experience I think if we look at Fairfax corner and we look at the mosaic and we look at what was done in both of those places over a number of years, starting with development and setting aside spaces for future development and the fact that the marketplace tends to dictate what is going to go there because people build things to make money. So we can project and we can theorize about what will go in these spaces.

the matter is we have watched the mosaic develop and fairfax corner develop and these are projects if i'm reading this correctly about a similar size to what we're talking about in fairfax fairfax circle and so as projects are built that meet the requirements of the of the small area plan it is going to impact and affect what a developer brings next and over a long period of time the marketplace tends to dictate what is going to make money for the person who brings the project but it needs to be in line with what we're saying the city wants to see and so i think this is a very good robust discussion i think a lot of work has gone into this plan and i think we would we would like to be able to say that we can read the future 10 years down the line but we can't

and so I'm now going to well I'm gonna ask I will open the public hearing Ms. Shinneberry has this public hearing been advertised yes

Melissa Shinaberryclerkby voiceit has no one has signed up prior to the start of the meeting to speak if there's anybody in the room that would like to speak tonight on this item please come forward okay

Catherine Readwell well all right I will now close the public hearing is there a motion council members daily thank

Jon Stehle Jryou mayor Reed I move that the City Council adopt the attached resolution approving and adopting the Fairfax circle small area plan in the draft dated July 11th 2024 together with any changes made to the report and plan through the meeting this evening

Catherine Readsecond a motion had been made by council members daily and seconded by councilmember Lim is there any discussion on the motion seeing none a roll call vote

Melissa Shinaberryclerkby voicecouncil member Ross aye councilmember Greenfield councilmember Lim aye councilmember Staley aye councilmember Doyle Feingold no councilmember Bates

Billy Batesaye

Melissa Shinaberryclerkby voicemotion passed 4 to 2

Catherine Readsecond public comment do we have anybody for our second general public comment

Melissa Shinaberryclerkby voiceI had nobody sign up prior to the meeting if anybody would like to come forward may do so all right we go to items not requiring a public hearing we have only one item is the consideration of a resolution proving an agreement of purchase of sale for the purchase by the city of certain real property together with improvements thereon owned by GMUF Commerce Buildings LLC located at 4085 4 0 8 7 University Drive and parents identified as tax map parcel numbers 5 7 4 0 2 4 0 8 5 a B and C and 5 7 4 0 2 4 0 8 7 a B C and D and authorizing the consummation of the transaction contemplated therein I will recognize Brian Lubcomen City Attorney to provide the staff report

Brian LubcomenstaffThank You mayor and council a very brief staff report we didn't put this item on consent since it is a large transaction and also a very important one for the city as you all are aware the city has determined that the existing fire station number three needs to be replaced city staff in consultation with professionals outside analyzed a number of properties and determined that this particular property, which is located immediately south of the existing fire station, the current location of the GMU Commerce Center was the ideal location. The city issued a letter of intent to the foundation. We went back and forth just a little bit, but they were very cooperative, and they signed a letter of intent.

We've now drafted an agreement of purchase and sale. It's been approved preliminarily by the foundation and their council. however the sequence that they require is for the city to approve and then they will consider approving it within the next week to ten days the staff report details the material terms the purchase price would be 5.77 million there'd be a short 90-day feasibility period the city would conduct a phase one environmental study as well as get a survey done of the property closing would occur approximately 30 days after and the city would then lease the Mason University it'll take a little bit of time for the University to vacate and move the programming back to campus or to other locations and as noted in the

staff report and the CFO can detail if you need any more information sufficient funds for the acquisition of this property have already been approved through the budget process and appropriated through the fire station 3 CIP account we don't anticipate any other City Council action with respect this transaction however the planning construction of replacement fire station will of course require a bunch of discussion consultation and opportunities for council and others to weigh in so with that we're happy to enter answer any questions but we would commend this to you for your consideration and approval thank you

Catherine Readare there any questions for staff on this all right I seeing none is there a motion councilmember Staley

Jon Stehle Jrthank you Mary I I move the City Council adopt the presented resolution, as attached to the staff report and considered at this meeting, approving an agreement of purchase and sale for the purchase by the City of certain real property, together with improvements thereon, located at 4085-4087 University Drive, parentheses, identified as tax map numbers 57-4-02-40-085 a b and c and 57-4-02-40-087 a b c and d end parentheses and authorizing and directing the execution of the agreement of purchase and sale by the consummation of the transactions completed thereby second

Catherine Reada motion has been made by council member Staley and seconded by councilmember Lim is there any discussion on the motion councilmember Staley

Jon Stehle Jrthank you Mary just a quick commending to everyone in this process creating parity on our two fire stations has been an effort of not only this council but previous councils and this transaction night paves the way for it it is an awesome group that we have we honor them earlier today and the fact that we've got a location now energizes me that will quickly get parity both 3 and 33 so very excited thank you mayor

Catherine Readany other comments seeing none a roll call vote

Melissa Shinaberryclerkby voicecouncilmember Bates

Catherine Readaye

Melissa Shinaberryclerkby voicecouncilmember Doyle Feingold aye councilmember Staley aye councilmember Lim aye councilmember Greenfield

Catherine Readaye

Melissa Shinaberryclerkby voicecouncilmember Ross aye motion passed unanimously all

Catherine Readrighty then I will now recess the regular meeting to go into a work session and we will stay in this room for the work session

Melissa Shinaberryclerkby voiceour first item is a discussion on the development of the city's green building policy staff presentation Stephanie Kupka the environmental sustainability coordinator

Stephanie KupkastaffGood evening Mayor City Council members it's a pleasure to be here with you tonight The purpose of tonight's work session is to discuss the development of a green building policy I'm here tonight with Vicki Kieschel who's with the Cadmus group we've hired the Cadmus group to help support the development of the green building policy I'm also joined here with David Summers and other staff members who have been part of our internal stakeholder team that we've been working with since the we've started working on this project for tonight's presentation we will be covering background information benefits of green buildings green building policies and provide examples of policies and within the region I will provide a project overview highlighting

the work we've completed so far we will review green building policy concepts for both the public sector and private sector and then we'll wrap up with a discussion to get your input and guidance on the policy and then finally discuss next steps The development of the green building policy began in July 2023 and with the goals for adoption at the end of this calendar year. The policy will establish green building standards for both public and private sectors. The public sector policy will include new construction and major renovations and also existing buildings. for the private sector the policy will include new construction and major renovations some of the key drivers for developing green policy is to help us

reach our commitments a few of our commitments that this will help reach is reducing our greenhouse gas emissions 80% by 2050 from 2005 baseline levels and also achieving 100% renewable electricity for city government operations by 2035 by 2050 i'll now hand it off to vicki

Vicki Kieschelthanks stephanie and thank you mayor reed and council members it's wonderful to be here i will go lightly over what is green building because i sense from the small area plan discussion which was fascinating that you already have a pretty good grounding in that but just to summarize of there there are many definitions of green building But certainly the reduction in impact of the built environment is a central one, and that will help align with your plans for GHG emissions reductions. We know that there have been many studies, including one by the American Institute of Architects 2030 commitment, that shows that 42% of our greenhouse gas emissions are due to buildings and infrastructure. And that's certainly true here in Northern Virginia and the region in general.

So all of this planned effort in the green building policy that we're presenting tonight should help you meet this goal. Stephanie, do you want to go ahead with the next slide? Thank you. You see here the triple bottom line, which is now a 30-year-old concept at least in response response to the bottom line, the idea that it's not just about economic benefits, but also environmental benefits and social and health benefits, certainly. And I won't read these, but certainly in our region, we have a number of jurisdictions that have green building incentive policies. Here in Northern Virginia, of course, among them are Arlington, Arlington County, and also the city of Alexandria. But certainly jurisdictions across the Potomac River,

Montgomery County does, District of Columbia. So this is a competitive advantage situation as well. And we're hoping that that also will distinguish the city of Fairfax, perhaps within its spot in Fairfax County. Just one other thing to point out here. When we're talking about social health, we've all been through the heat of the last two weeks. I mean, there's an important message there, I think, in terms of what we see in effects on human health of the built environment in heat. So pointing that out. Forward, please, Stephanie. Priorities, certainly to improve building performance. That's the gift that keeps on giving. This is in the private sector, really focused on new construction. But we do have a performance aspect to this, which you'll see later.

And that will add certainly value in many ways, economic, social, and environmental to buildings. It will help you meet your local vulnerability in terms stormwater management certainly and resilience and waste reduction etc as you see here and then of course encourage investments in energy efficiency and clean energy technologies onward green building rating systems there are many from which to choose you all are probably most familiar if you've lived here in the DC region for a while with LEED, which is the predominant one here. But you see this other list, Green Globes, which evolved around the same time that LEED began. Varanean Earthcraft, which is a multifamily and also like construction.

Living Building Challenge, a very stringent system. Enterprise Green Communities focusing on affordable housing. and then well which has to do primarily with certainly health energy star also very prominent in our region which is a performance based standard around energy use and passive house another stringent rating system and these are standards these are the standards from which we drew for this green building policy next please thank you Stephanie just a quick overview of green building policies in the region Fairfax County certainly Arlington County with its green building incentive policy and Alexandria note that city of Alexandria requires projects that have to go through a special use permit to

participate in their green building policy and that as you'll see is similar to what we're talking about here for the city of fairfax next please so uh timeline if you could advance one more here we are july 2024 um and this is the proposed this is where we've been where we're going um hoping to have policy adoption by the end of the year um with with public comment There's been, we've convened stakeholders, had stakeholder feedback, and then you'll see some of the fruits of that in the slides to come. So next, please, Stephanie. From earlier research, the literature review, certainly, you know, again, I will not read this in the interest of time, but certainly the relevant communities to the city of Fairfax,

private sector policies incentivize. They make use of incentives, particularly, as you probably know better than most people in the region, Virginia is a Dillon rule state. It's not a home rule state. So incentives really are the way to go for the private sector. We also found in our lit review certainly that building density, added density, which is sometimes catnip to developers, is a common incentive, easier permitting processes or more of rapid permitting processes. Tax incentives also, tax abatements. And then the relevant policies, and I want to draw your attention to House Bill, Virginia House Bill 2001 that was passed under previous governor Northam in 2021 and it is now in as of 2023 all jurisdictions in Virginia are subject to

public building compliance with the bill which we'll see in a minute and the act allows local governments to exceed the requirements set forth let's go on please here's a bit of the process of stakeholder input the internal stakeholder team and the external advisory committee and you see the multidisciplinary nature of both and that's a good thing of course and then happened in the working meetings in the internal stakeholder team to identify barriers and bring in policy alignment with other city initiatives and equity considerations etc and then with the external advisory committee we met with them last on Friday the very interesting conversation there many endorsements and also questions I think about you know how this would would play out let's go on to

the next if you would Stephanie thank you so much the key takeaways here should be flexible enough so it wouldn't disincentivize but would meet or help to meet the greenhouse gas emissions goals and sustainability goals I mentioned the Dillon rule earlier and incentives and their place in this note that incentives if you're a tenant paying your owner they as because they pay a portion of the properties taxes that the tax incentives could have an added benefit there a lot of mobilization around the idea of tax incentives as a as a simple and powerful tool and we'll see what that means in a few slides and then the standard operating procedures this is important because this is what needs to be implemented by the staff within the

city of Fairfax so that there's understanding and smooth and efficient operations the idea of having one cross-cutting multidisciplinary staff member overseeing the entire policy and being able to kind of direct questions to other staff as needed became quite a prominent point of discussion and one that I think is nicely clear. Next, please, Stephanie. And let's go on to the ideas themselves. We'll see first the public sector plan, and then we'll look at the private sector plan so the policy in the public sector these three sub bullets that you see here I just spoke about HB 2001 this actually comes from the language of that bill that requires Virginia jurisdictions to have their green building policies apply to existing buildings

or greater public new construction that's 5 000 square feet or greater and major renovations now we're defining major renovations as doing two of the following three actions and you'll see that it's either renovations to 50 or more of a gross floor area of a development or replacement of 50% of the major building systems or replacement of at least 50% of the envelope of the building the container of the building the walls roof floors etc so two of those three would qualify it as a major renovation shall we go on next next slide please existing public sector policy that that we propose for existing buildings these are again buildings on the greater than 1,000 square feet so the aspects of the policy we're proposing would be to

implement energy benchmarking and conduct energy assessments to have a look at how the building is using energy information being key to action and then identifying a plan to upgrade the existing building to achieve lead building operations and maintenance or O&M silver certification lead has four levels of certification there's basic level silver gold and platinum so silver is not nothing as it were it's 50 points out of a possible 110 and then also for for existing buildings to track and publicly disclose their energy use on an annual basis beginning next year. So that's the existing buildings part of public sector policy. For new construction in the public sector, we would propose that buildings again use

lead, that they achieve in for new construction lead gold. between silver and gold is really in new construction you can basically build in more easily these aspects of green building for new construction to have sufficient zero emission vehicle charging and fueling infrastructure this is a requirement of HB2001 as well and then as you see include these features that measure energy consumption and carbon and then resilience and energy features these are all part of this bill so that for new construction in the public sector to meet zero emission standards electrification ready standards demonstrate a 50% reduction in modeled energy use that's not actual energy use that is where you model it in design and then we would ask that

buildings earn the four lead credits one is a rainwater management credit this will address some of the local vulnerabilities of flooding sustainable sites credits for site development protect or restore habitat and open space that demands that sites actually achieve 30% coverage with natural areas native landscaping tree canopy and then outdoor water use reduction minimizing potable water use for irrigation which is actually the primary way that buildings use and waste water and then site another sustainable sites credit is light pollution reduction which in our area is actually quite a problem this is you know a migratory bird route and there are lots of habitat issues with light pollution as well as it's just not

wonderful to live around light pollution if you're a human being let alone in other species so for major interior renovations we'd ask that public sector buildings achieve lead interior design and construction gold again because those major renovations can more easily do that than if it's just a an existing space onward please stephanie let's look at now the private sector green building concepts that are proposed aligning with the public sector we are proposing that the policy would apply to developments that are 5,000 square feet or greater same idea for major renovations as in the public sector and that moreover this policy would apply to projects that are subject to special exception or variance rezoning or

special use review processes so not by right developments those have a pass but they're going for any of these special exceptions they would be subject to this and that is likely to be the majority of new construction in the city so even if you're by right you could elect to participate voluntarily and we'll see in a minute what those the tax abatement incentive would hopefully entice you into thinking that you should do so next please so for the the the private sector buildings that then must do this because they're going through the special exception process we would ask them to achieve silver level not gold silver level certification or its equivalent in these other rating systems so we expand

the bookshelf of rating systems here people can go for lead and indeed we'd anticipate based on what we're seeing in the region that most developers would choose to do lead they could do green globes two globes is equivalent to They could do Virini at Earthcraft, which is that rating system that has a track for multifamily and also for commercial. Or they could do enterprise green communities. That's an affordable housing one. And then they would also incorporate measures designed to address local vulnerabilities that I just talked about in the public sector. They would not have to achieve LEED to do this. it would be that they would provide documentation showing that they had done what the requirement in lead asked them to do and then for major interior

renovations we'd ask for new construction that must you know go through this because they're in special exception land that they would do ID D plus C gold. Onward.

Stephanie KupkastaffThe

Vicki Kiescheltax abatement program. So this is where private sector developments might think, well, you know, I've got to do this. I'm under a special exception. Or maybe they're a buy right development and they're thinking, hmm, tax abatement sounds good. If they would do lead some additional measures in any of these rating systems beyond silver level certification, either gold or platinum, they would achieve or be eligible for a reduced tax rate. so the qualification again is that the the they must be commercial that includes commercial multifamily multifamily being classified as a commercial building type and then it's this the building should be either new construction or a major renovation and that the gross floor area

that building should be a thousand square feet or greater for this onward please stephanie so this is the finer print here but the incentive pathway that would be offered with the achievement of a gold level or its equivalent in whatever rating system you're working in would be a 50 tax abatement It would be based on the property's assessed value in the first year after certification. So you're also seeing that there would be an energy use reduction requirement for modeled energy use, a 30% reduction. This is modeled, predicted energy use, not actual energy use. We'll see this in incentive pathway too in a minute, that we're also going to try to incentivize that. and then also part of this incentive pathway for the 50% tax abatement would

be to reduce the sites impervious surface by 10 to 20 percent and I found the mapping in the small area plan of the parking lots very interesting in this regard incorporating biophilia biophilic design bird friendly materials and strategies etc so those would be the additional requirements do All of that and the proposal here is to achieve a 50% tax abatement for one year. Now, in addition, if you are new construction and you go through this incentive pathway number one, you would be eligible for essentially what is a performance pathway, which is incentive pathway two. You could achieve the same tax abatement for an additional two years if your energy performance is verified. We would use for that Energy Star, which is a no cost program funded by our federal tax dollars.

and it requires that you have an on-site walkthrough and verification from an Energy Star licensed professional and that you demonstrate through your documented energy and and carbon scores in portfolio manager which is Energy Stars tool that you have achieved either a 30% reduction in actual annual energy performance over a median building of the same use type. Meaning that if you're thinking about the Energy Star score and you know anything about it, it's 1 to 100 or 0 to 100. 50 is median in any use type 30% reduction would be a score of 80 or above so you know that is the idea that you could achieve this for up to two additional years if you if you can demonstrate your superior performance

Onward. So we looked into what the cost implications of this would be. So to do that, we took recently built commercial properties and we used them as our straw men. So we found these through public records, we applied the city's commercial tax rate to each. we thought about time frames we thought about how many developments would be in this permit pipeline and might be eligible for tax abatement and so we assembled the spreadsheet budget summaries and here they are here you see the buildings that we use these are buildings of all different space use types and sizes and assessed values So we said, well, what would happen if, in fact, each of these did it? And then what would happen if all of them did it?

In thinking about this, we would not expect, especially in the early days of a program like this, that anything like 10 projects would actually do this. First of all, it wouldn't happen immediately. Construction takes time and certification takes time. So we're talking about even if this were approved and goes and becomes policy in 2025, the first buildings that would be eligible for a tax abatement, probably that would not occur until 2028. But here's the sampling. You see, you can go, well, you mentioned earlier the Moxley. you know this would have but if it were coming online now if it chose to go for you know gold and and fulfill these other requirements it would achieve a one-year tax abatement of as you see over eight hundred thousand dollars if it

were to be a top energy performer and document its performance that would be an additional two times that 860k figure as you see we would expect based on what we know of other jurisdictions for example arlington county has had a green building incentive program for about 25 years now very early program in the region first years of sort of one to three projects I think at its height and you know they they do incentives with added density not with tax abatement at its height I think they had right before the pandemic it was as perhaps eight or ten in one year but that now has reduced to about four or five so you're seeing if you look at the grand totals here if indeed all of these buildings are straw men with their assessed

value as we've calculated were to go through this and they all did tax abatement for one year three million dollars this is avoided tax revenue you don't pay it out you just don't collect it right and then you see you know over 9 million if all were to go through but again this is either the best or the worst case scenario depending on your point of view here so one word please the tax abatement program again I've mentioned this before very attractive to developers the idea might encourage developers and building owners to go above and beyond the basic requirements of the green building policy, I would bet that they would. I think it would be quite enticing. Upfront costs are in staff time. It's not, you know, the avoided tax revenue comes later.

And then the idea of it also is that if it really does encourage future development, future green development, this is not only a competitive advantage for the city of Fairfax, but it would have the power or the potential to increase overall city tax revenue. One word please. So these are next steps and I don't know, Stephanie, if you would prefer to sort of take on next steps or if you want me to do it. I mean, sure.

Stephanie KupkastaffSure, I'm happy to lead this slide. So over the next month, we'll be developing the standard operating procedures for implementing the green building policy in coordination with multiple departments within the city. And that will continue through August. we will then draft the green building policy report which then we bring back to the City Council in September with additional analysis on the resources needed to implement the policy and in September October we'll hold a community event and meet with various boards and commissions to present the draft green policy report to them and get additional feedback on the the policy and in November we'll incorporate the feedback that we got from the community

engagement efforts and in December we'd be back to the City Council to present the final green building policy report for City Council for considering for adoption thank

Vicki Kieschelyou and next slide just let's open the discussion up we have you know draft questions here happy to clarify anything but would very much welcome your feedback your recommendations your thoughts on challenges whether you're you're thinking you know this is a good thing or not please thank you and I invite your comments and questions thank you questions for the dice council

Catherine Readmember doyle feingold

Kate Doyle Feingolduh thank you mayor thanks for the presentation information um i have a couple questions um one is i'd like this to so in in looking at the timeline the policy report does that mean we receive the policy as you'd propose it to be enacted

Stephanie Kupkastaffcorrect plus all the research that we conducted the meeting minutes from all of our internal external stakeholder meetings the what am i missing the standard operating procedure so it'll be a big package of all the research and materials we put together for the report plus the policy proposed policy language

Kate Doyle Feingoldokay um and so you mentioned that arlington they're they incentivized by added density not the tax incentive so i guess as part of that report i'd like to understand what other you know arlington was an early innovator in this i'd like to their policy and why they went that route. You know, looking at the cost, I understand we, not everyone may decide to go this route, but we have to, when we implement, be prepared for everyone going this route. So I guess my question is, in looking at the possible $9 million tax income decrease, how do we ensure that the community is getting nine million dollars of environmental benefit so for example you can have the most amazing green building but it's built in the middle of the

rainforest and it tears down acres of the rainforest and thousands of cars drive in and out every day so the the community benefit is not there and so i want to make sure as part of this that we're looking more broadly, not just a building is green and that's great, but broadly it could actually be a net negative for the community, and we can't have a net environmental negative plus tax incentives. So just looking at that, in the list of partners and who's reviewing, I would like a review of this from our environmental sustainability committee. You know, then all looking at this and giving their feedback. We pick them because they have experience in this. And so I'd like to hear that. I think it's important.

And I guess I'm a detail person. So some of the language, to get the tax incentive, you strive to reduce impervious surface. What does that mean? And I understand we're not here yet for those details, but those details are important, I think. And the sufficient zero emission charging, what does that mean? And I think maybe it would be helpful for the community also. We talked about using an example, the Moxley. The Moxley has the opportunity to get $3 million in tax incentives. What would they have to do? If we can just walk that through for the community, what would they, is it windows? Is it solar panels? Is it three charging stations for vehicles? Are they free? Are they not? You know, things like that.

What does it actually mean so that we can sort of conceptualize the benefit and the impact for the community?

Vicki KieschelWhat it would look like, in other words. Right.

Kate Doyle FeingoldRight. In the real world. Right. So those are my initial thoughts. but thank you and i appreciate the information thank

Vicki Kieschelyou i think these are great points and we will have taken them in and will take them and act on them thank you other questions

Catherine Readcouncilmember bates thank

Billy Batesyou um yeah i also have concerns about uh making sure that we're getting something back for that loss in revenue i mean we've seen projects come forth that have um you know proposed increased tree canopy versus what was there before development or reduced impervious surface or were going for green globes or lead certifications on their own and you know in cases like that i I wouldn't want to give them a tax abatement when they would have, you know, pursued that on their own anyway. So another consideration that I and I'm not sure how feasible or realistic this would be or even legal this would be. but if there would be some way to sort of do it on more of a case-by-case basis and establish a baseline for, say, an individual project,

and then whatever that baseline might be that we might assume they might otherwise pursue on their own, and if there's some way to then incentivize something beyond that sort of, you know, tailor-made baseline for that project. I don't know. You know, there's maybe modeling methods out there that might be able to be used. I don't know. But I think that would be really the ideal, you know, version of this. um oh additionally the uh solar feasibility study um how does that uh relate to this

Stephanie Kupkastaffyeah so we have funding this year to do a solar feasibility study of all of our existing buildings so we will be assessing um for our properties uh rooftop solar ground mounted and solar parking canopies so assuming we install solar on buildings that will help get us points to meet the the lead certifications that we'd be striving for so that would help us get certifications down the line if we were to install solar on those buildings on city buildings

Billy Batesright and that includes all city buildings including schools is that it

Stephanie Kupkastaffdoes not include schools because fairfax county manages solar installations for their schools, not the city.

Billy BatesAll right. Well, yeah, I mean, certainly whatever can be done on that front. And, yeah, again, as a former high school liaison to the ESC, I agree. You know, I'd like to see them involved in this process as well. And, you know, as I said before, any other decisions with implications for the environment. But, yeah, I think that's about it for now. Thank you.

Catherine ReadThank you. Other questions? Councilmember Ross? Oh no, okay. So I guess my question is, it sounds like you want to make it mandatory that city-owned buildings become certified at some level. Is that correct? Correct. Do we have sort of an idea of how many buildings, how many square feet, and exactly what kinds of things? Because that seems to be a very big price tag when you say it's going to be mandatory. And is that within a certain period of time that we would make those upgrades and changes?

Stephanie KupkastaffSo we have not designated the timeline for this. however we do have an inventory of our all of our facilities and in the past we have conducted audits on our buildings this was a while ago so there this would trigger you know going back for you know proposing budget items for auditing our facilities to do a new audit to see where what improvements we need to take and then how much money those would cost and then we bring that back to the Council to present a strategy for how we would get our existing buildings up to those standards. However, we don't have a timeline prepared. However, another initiative we're working on this year is to develop a climate and energy action plan. So that will create a long-term strategy,

a 20-year strategy for how we're going to reach our climate and energy goals. So we can incorporate a strategy, we can build a strategy into that plan for how we then reach this target set in the green building policy but we don't have that plan in place but that's something we'd work on in the future and then bring back to council for your consideration and approval in

Catherine Readthe main this is great i mean i just had eight windows sliding glass doors replaced today on my house with solar panels so i'm all in but i also know that there's a significant cost to doing these things so i think we all need to just be cognizant that we want to do these things there's a benefit to the environment and to energy consumption, and there are many, many benefits. But with those benefits, there is a significant investment. I know this. So I say I'm all in favor of moving forward with this and exploring exactly what it's going to look like, exactly what it's going to cost, exactly what would the timelines be, and how, if we are going to say something like mandatory, what that means for the city's properties,

significant for us to consider

Vicki Kieschelon that point i i think uh what council member uh dole feingold said earlier that uh you know what would it look like in the case of the moxie maybe what would lead for existing buildings look like in the case of account city building absolutely and then you know that would be and it just i know this isn't much comfort there will be cost yes but the eb e and b o and m EBONM rating system and LEED is significantly different than new construction. It involves a lot more maintenance activities that you undertake, maybe new paradigms of maintenance and cleaning. It's incentivizing or somehow getting your employees to use public transport rather than driving. It's that kind of thing. It's really geared towards existing buildings.

So it tries to lessen the cost impact while making it impactful for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Catherine ReadAnd obviously setting the standard for new construction is the easiest way to go, right? Because people bake it in, build it in. It's part of their cost. They know these things. But, you know, my house was built in 1953, as were many houses in this city. And we have an inventory, obviously, of public buildings that run the gamut, including the one we're sitting in, run the gamut of when they were built and what those challenges might be. Absolutely. But this is a worthwhile investment. This is time, resources, well spent to set a standard to say that we are prioritizing this and that we want to move forward in seeing what we can do, when we can do it, and what it would cost to do it. Yes.

Laszlo Palkostaffby voiceSo Public Works this year is going to be working on developing a facilities condition assessment that will roll into a full asset management plan. So whatever we come up with here needs to kind of talk with that plan and that involves developing a capital predictor model where it gives you all different options about investments and timelines in the buildings and what the cost is going to be. So that will, I think, better inform us about what price tags are, how quickly we want to go for this, and also other general capital maintenance and replacement as well

Catherine Readasset management I get that I understand that excellent excellent all right anything else before we move on thank you very much for this presentation

Stephanie Kupkastaffgreatly appreciate it thank you very much all right

Melissa Shinaberryclerkby voiceour next item is discussion on the composting program assessment scope of work and that will be by Stephanie Kuka environmental sustainability coordinator

Stephanie Kupkastaffall right for this next work session item we are checking back in after the June 11th City Council meeting where the council directed staff to look into the feasibility of implementing a curbside composting program so the purpose of this work session is to provide the council with an update on staff's an assessment of our solid waste and recycling services including and making improvements to our composting program so our current composting operations includes the city's composting center which is located here at City Hall this is a very popular program which allows residents to drop off their food scraps at the composting center which are then collected by a third-party contractor compost group and taken to a commercial composting facility to be composted

because of the popularity of this program we've had to expand capacity multiple times to keep up with demand and we've had multiple education and outreach efforts one outreach effort that we do every year is to encourage people to drop off their pumpkins and this is a great way to get people aware of the composting center and to utilize it and then hopefully they keep coming back with dropping off their food scraps after that to date we've composted 525 tons of food waste from the composting center the city also encourages backyard and in-home composting at the 2024 history day we distributed 90 backyard composters to residents and in 2023 we held worm composting class to build your own worm composter which people could use in

their households and with these events we also provided education materials so people know how to use the composters effectively to create compost from the food scraps they collected in their households approximately 25% of our miserable solid waste is organic material that could be composted and diverted from our waste stream this is a significant amount of our waste composting it takes organic material and creates a nutrient-rich compost that can be used by local farmers and gardeners and creates a closed-loop system and really helps reduce waste and brings back that material back to our natural environment there's also economic benefits to composting the tipping fees for dropping off food scraps at a commercial

composting facility are 25 to 30 percent less than the tipping fees to dispose of it as trash so seeing these significant environmental and economic benefits to composting we plan to assess our composting program and look for options for ways we can improve things so as I mentioned we we have funding to hire a consultant to do an assessment of our solid waste and recycling services which includes looking at our composting program so we've drafted a scope of work so these are the options that we're proposing to include in the scope of work that we include in RFP looking for consultants that could do this assessment for us so the options that we we propose to evaluate as part of the assessment are here so I'll go over these first option is to conduct curbside

composting with our existing refuse and resangling services so how would this would work is residents would include their food scraps with their yard waste and we would collect the food scraps along with our existing yard waste collection resources so we'd use our yard waste trucks and collect that and then bring that to the commercial composting facility so it would be a merged yard waste and food scrap collection service option two is to bring in a third party contractor who would collect just food scraps from our community and this could be an opt-in service uh instead of providing it to all residents so there's options there we could scale it option three is to look at how we could help with multifamily complexes with their composting so look

into options for contracting it out with a third-party vendor potentially adding new composting centers or maybe having some kind of centrally located pickup at multifamily units an option four is to expand existing composting drop-off programs where they could help identify where there'd be the most demand to have another composting center or more within the city and for each of these options we will ask the consultant to evaluate feasibility so looking at our existing resources such as our trucks staff equipment what we could use that we already have and what equipment would we need would we need additional trucks staff containers etc each of these options will evaluate you know what is the the waste diversion impacts for these options we'd also look

at sustainability you know what are the greenhouse gas emissions of transporting the material also equity you know looking at how this would impact our residents if we're able to provide it to multifamily versus just single-family households and we do cost analysis so what are the fiscal impacts for each of these options so we know the cost associated with them and then we look into implementation planning so what kind of challenges we have what steps do we need would we need to implement this and what kind of education and outreach would be necessary to implement these types of programs so now I'd like to open it up for any questions from you guys if you have any thoughts on the proposed scope of work if this kind of captures what you guys were thinking at

the June meeting does this capture what you guys had intended is there anything else you'd like us to include the scope of work that the consultant could look at as part of this assessment

Catherine Readquestions councilmember Staley

Jon Stehle JrI think you may read I appreciate the chance to be thought think about there I think the more we go to composting over time makes a lot of sense. I'm very resident to move into multifamily. We do not currently process trash for multifamily. I think that is a bridge too far in the next phase of this looking. Gathering some information about what that might look like in the future is interesting, but I don't think is the right next phase to sort of to move into there. I would be much more interested in how we might do it at our schools and at all city buildings than family complexes as a stepping stone to figuring out what that next sort of evolution might look like. I just think that trying to head into that direction is a large leap. Having been president

of condo associations, having worked with trash organizations and seen where it is, I just think that's a door that maybe is not the right time to open in this particular analysis. I think our schools are a great one to look in there. You'll get a flavor for what that might look like in a in a building that really can impact the future with our children in there. I think about office complexes, et cetera, multi-use sunlight. I think that's just a bridge too far for this next phase in there. And then the other part I sort of think about as you go through all of this, you mentioned a little bit about the greenhouse gas emissions and transport. I think this is a really good opportunity, in particular for our legislative packet,

to take a look at where do we compost today. And if I understand correctly being involved in many of this, Where currently? Prince George's. And that is in what state?

Stephanie KupkastaffYeah, Maryland.

Jon Stehle JrIn Maryland. So it doesn't even stay in Virginia. So there's some pieces of this that I think we as policymakers should be advocating for, in particular in our area, to figure out. Because sending more waste to Maryland to be composted and then coming back in there seems to miss a little bit of the holistic closed-loop system we're looking in. And so I think highlighting that and advocating it again over time would make some sense. Thank you, Mayor.

Catherine ReadOkay.

Kate Doyle FeingoldThank

Catherine Readyou. Councilmember Doyle Fongold.

Kate Doyle FeingoldThank you, Mayor. Yeah, I think similar to what Councilmember Staley was saying, looking at the big picture, like the green building, it's great to compost, but what's actually the impact on the environment? We have an over 100-gallon compost container in our backyard, and we can never fill it. and we put all the scraps in that we can and it never gets filled. I guess one of my questions is, have we measured impact from the programs we've done? The picture on the worm composting is me with my nephews. It was great. Our worms died. Everybody else I know their worms died too. But it was a great learning experience. I'm glad we did it. But I think it might be good to try and track. out at the city event how are people in the city using it how successful is it

sometimes there is a big difference between the commercial pickup composting I've friends in Arlington who pay a third party and they put in they can put in fabric meat everything and so is that what the city is looking at I think also there is going to be a subset of the population that is just not going to do have possums and raccoons and you know so putting meat saving meat for a week for the once a week pickup may not be feasible and then also factoring in the fact that it's then getting driven to maryland would we all be better off if we had a robust backyard composting and so i guess also So have we seen any impact in our tipping fees for regular waste based on the composting steps we've already taken?

I don't know if we can measure that or if we have measured it. But those are my questions. I guess in looking at the options, option one and two, is it possible to look at a limited scope? I think if we're paying for compost pickup at every resident and then only 10% of residents want to participate, some of that might be important for the consultant to look at. But those are just my thoughts. But thank you.

Stephanie KupkastaffThank you very much. And just to clarify, there is actually a new commercial composting facility in Prince William County, the Balls Ford Road Complex. that recently opened so that will be one of the facilities we will be looking at for a drop-off which is a lot closer than Prince George's which is great and we don't have data on the backyard composting but we can make some assumptions to create some some figures there or figure out a way we could reach out to see if people can report back if they have been successful

Kate Doyle Feingoldto assess how many people are you know we bought our composter in the backyard there are probably other people who are composting without city involvement and what impact does that have and I guess resident interest and involvement before going forward with the project I think makes sense

Stephanie Kupkastaffthank you

Speaker 27after how many tons did we pick up did you say the composting

Stephanie Kupkastaff525 tons so

Speaker 27we pay $80 a ton in tipping fees so saved

John O'Nealstaff$42,000 with

Speaker 27the compost

Catherine Readyeah council member for Greenfield

Jeffrey GreenfieldThank You mayor I'd love for the consultant to look at the school perspective. I think there's a tremendous amount of plate waste that goes into a trash can. Unfortunately, some of that food, you know, once it's been served, right, you can't take it and do something with it, so it goes in the trash can. We have to work through we own the buildings, right? We don't control the curriculum, so how would that work for our schools if we collected it are we if if we had the devices that allowed us to collect it can the city you know be able to come in with our our trucks and pick it up so that's number one number two I'd love again another piece is is part of this assessment is going out to the community

and maybe we can get some additional feedback so to miss doyle feingold's point maybe we would be able to expand our backyard recycling if we had more of those um you know canisters that we what what is it um that we did the 90 of them that we gave out earlier the backyard composters um so you know what can we do to encourage more that way um so that's what we really want right for some places where some people where they don't have the ability they come to city hall and maybe there's maybe there's a location down at the property yard I you know I don't know right where where's it convenient for folks to be able to go but for our residents that have single family homes is there something they could be doing right there which keeps vehicles off the road and and

you know lessens the tipping fees so i'd love them to explore a number of those things and come back to us um versus just figuring out how we can do curbside maybe may work but i'd love to hear from our community what they would really support right because if they don't support curbside then that's not something we ought to be providing if there's only a small percentage that would participate.

Stephanie KupkastaffMakes sense. Thank you.

Jeffrey GreenfieldThank you. Thank you, Mayor.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Ross.

Thomas RossYes, thank you, Mayor, and thanks. This has been a very interesting and good discussion, I think. And I want to echo some of my colleagues' comments. It seems to me that long range, and I don't know what long range is, but it seems to me long range, when you look at what we need to be doing, we probably will need at some point curbside pickup. But that's way off, and I think there are a lot of questions we need to resolve before we get to that point. A couple thoughts. One is, I think my colleagues, Council Member Staley, hit it on the head with talking about school involvement. If we could energize and excite our schools about this being a kind of a project that they would undertake, both in terms of helping our students understand the importance of this,

and secondarily looking at this as an opportunity for sort of a contained environment in which we could try it out. Our young people are our future and this kind of thing certainly looks toward the future in terms of what kind of ways you want to change behavior, encourage the right kind of behavior, and that seems to be where it could start. It strikes me this could be, and I think one of the things to look for in a consultant might be, and my council colleague Greenfield touched on this a bit, but I think I'd like to take it one step further. Maybe there are some pilot programs we could try with several neighborhoods or several areas in the city, schools certainly being one, but maybe there are a couple of neighborhoods that would,

with some incentivizing or some outreach, could be excited about trying this. And maybe it involves a neighborhood location where people could drop off their compost materials and see what kind of response we get and really test whether or not we are at a point in our sort of community would respond positively to this before we move to the next steps of looking at city-wide composting pickup but let's try it in a couple locations and see what kind of reaction there is and whether there is a real opportunity here for people to get involved so that's only my thoughts but i think that's worthwhile exploring and i'd be very supportive of of looking at a couple of neighborhoods in our community where we could try this see if it works and what kind of response we get

so my thoughts thank you mayor thank

Catherine Readyou thank you council member doyle feingold

Kate Doyle Feingoldthanks mayor just one last comment so daniel's run in their cafeteria does have compost buckets on each table but they're very limited so it's more like what you could put in your backyard compost they don't allow citrus and oranges and things like that so maybe as part of this we look at if they could expand it to the type of compost you can put in a commercial type facility and and the benefit that could be there could be helpful but thanks yeah

Catherine ReadI think there is a great deal of interest in our community as evidenced by the purple can project too I don't know about anybody else but that thing is always full always full and so if people can go out return their glass because they don't want to put it in their trash I think we need to experiment with what are the places and situations that people go I can do that because the purple can thing has been astonishingly effective and I do think it's just finding the right solutions in the right places however that goes and then measuring it I mean we to councilmember Ross's point we can try something as a pilot and then if it's like it's spectacularly successful then we could we can justify rolling it out but there seems to be a tremendous interest in our community

about environmental issues about doing the right thing you know about centering best practices where composting and recycling and everything is concerned so I'm going to give our community the benefit of the doubt and and say that we do need to continue exploring what can we do and how can we measure the effectiveness before we make even larger investments in this particular composting initiative which I think is wonderful thank

Kate Doyle Feingoldyou

Laszlo Palkostaffby voiceand just ask one clarifying question so there's a lot of good ideas from around here even if we don't end up going some of these routes is it still okay for us to have a consultant look at these things so we understand the data behind it the costs behind it so we have that information in case we're asked well what would it cost for us to do curbside collection or whatever it is we would at least have those numbers is that

Catherine Readabsolutely I mean absolutely I mean we need to make an informed decision but again knowing what the costs are and knowing exactly how effective an initiative might be regardless of the cost are kind of two different things so yes I think we need to understand what all of this would cost but I also think if we can do if it's effective then we know what it was going to it's going to cost if we decide to do it on a much broader scale both things are important yes thank you

Melissa Shinaberryclerkby voicethank you very much our last work session item is a discussion on zoning for accessory dwelling units staff presentation presented by Eric Foreman city planner

Eric ForemanstaffWell, thank you very much. And we are talking tonight about a topic. This is a topic that's come up quite a bit recently. It's come up in various contexts and the topic is accessory dwelling units. But specifically, we're talking about how accessory dwelling units fit in to our zoning ordinance. And about potential options for expanding property owners ability to construct accessory dwelling units or ADUs on their properties. What we're doing tonight is really a high-level discussion, both to get the City Council's general impressions about this topic and also to see to what extent the Council may be interested in having staff investigate some potential alternatives, but at a deeper level. So tonight's discussion could be a part one of a broader discussion.

Now, the broader issue wouldn't necessarily be a quick thing. that could be done quickly, but others would be rather complex, and those complex topics would really require a good amount of public input. Now, before we start, it would probably be a good idea to explain just what is an accessory dwelling unit. There is an actual definition in the zoning ordinance, so to summarize that definition in everyday terms, The definition says that an accessory dwelling unit is a full dwelling unit, meaning that it has a kitchen and a bathroom, so an apartment basically. It is defined as being part of another residential dwelling, and it is subordinate or it is accessory to the main dwelling. So those points are important because this term of accessory dwelling units is frequently confused with other things.

So it's important to know what an accessory dwelling unit is and also what an accessory dwelling unit is not. So just a few quick things that are not considered accessory dwelling units, and sometimes there is overlap, so it's not necessarily clear cut. But renting a portion of a house to roommates or to housemates, for instance, that is not necessarily an accessory dwelling unit. The ADU focuses on the physical characteristics of that unit, not just the fact that it's rented to an individual or to a group of individuals. Another thing that is not quite accessory dwelling units is the topic of eliminating single-family zoning. that not just because that's a more intensive idea than permitting accessory dwelling units,

but because the types of units that that process seeks to create are fully separate units, so not subordinate to another house. And that is an important distinction, and especially when talking about zoning permissions and definitions. And another item that is separate from accessory dwelling units is short-term rentals. Short-term are adus but from a policy perspective these are completely different a jurisdiction can permit accessory dwelling units and not permit short-term rentals short-term rentals being airbnbs and and so on and vice versa that that short-term rentals can be permitted even if adus or not so i know that's a a long introduction but hopefully that that's a bit helpful uh for the larger discussion

may be aware a few recent city studies or ongoing studies have mentioned accessory dwelling units so both in the comprehensive plan process and in the city's recent housing assessment when both of those there have been some kind of mention of adus in the comprehensive plan there is a housing goal so it's Housing Goal Number One, which calls for the city to support a wide range of housing types. And one of the actions to support that goal is, like it says down here at the bottom, for the city to research changes to the zoning regulations, to expand opportunities for accessory dwelling units, while ensuring that they do not negatively impact the surrounding neighborhood. ADUs are mentioned elsewhere in the plan as well.

So for example, there's a section on providing housing options for seniors and for people with disabilities. Generally speaking, the comprehensive plan takes a favorable view towards expanding opportunities for homeowners to construct ADUs. So likewise in the housing assessment, one of the recurring recommendations in the assessment expand permissions for accessory dwelling units from the perspectives both of overall housing mix and also from the perspective of senior and accessible housing expanding adu options was recommended in the housing assessment the housing assessment noted that adus can increase available rental supply for instance and specifically it mentioned student focused housing or single

The assessment also noted that due to the fact that they're typically small in size, ADUs generally maintain their affordability, their relative affordability over time. If you recall, a community-wide survey was part of the housing assessment. If you read the full housing assessment, you'll see that it mentions that residents had really mixed opinions when asked about whether they support increased opportunities for ADUs. About half of the survey respondents said that they do support additional ADU opportunities in the city, the rest either opposing additional ADUs or being neutral on the topic. But that's part of the reason that we mentioned that ADU regulations really require a good deal of public input.

It's a topic that just necessitates careful scrutiny and careful planning if it's to be Now, I also mentioned earlier that we're discussing tonight potential options for expanding property owners' ability to construct ADUs, and the reason that we said expanding is because ADUs are currently allowed under certain conditions. So before Mr. Hardin takes us through some of the potential zoning changes, it's helpful, I think, to look at what the current standards actually are. go into all of these details tonight but just to summarize accessory dwelling units are permitted in single-family zoning districts as long as certain conditions are met now prior to 2016 this was a special use so this required

that ADUs come for a hearing before City Council since the 2016 zoning ordinance rewrite this has been permitted administratively and that is a But as of now, accessory dwelling units need to be within the home itself. So in the parlance of accessory dwelling units, that means attached units rather than detached units. There are size standards for accessory dwelling units, and this ensures that the units are accessory or are subordinate to the main dwelling. So, for example, an ADU has to stay under 35 percent of the size of the total house. has to have a maximum of two bedrooms. The property owner must currently live in either the house or the accessory dwelling unit and at least one of those units, either the house or the ADU, has to be occupied by

someone who's either age 55 or over or a person with a disability. So those are the main physical and main operational standards of ADUs. If you look through the zoning ordinance, and this is all in Section 355, you'll notice that it's seemingly long. There's about two pages of standards. Not completely surprising because it is a complex topic, but there are some additional standards besides those main physical and operational regulations. Some of them are listed here, and you can see from this summary that a lot of these additional regulations are really details of the primary standards. And again, this can get very complex. So ironing out details like what would happen to an ADU if the property transfers or stating that building and subdivision rules still apply or how inspections can take place, that kind of stuff is necessary from a policy perspective, even though it's not terribly exciting to read or to look at in the ordinance.

So we're glad to answer any questions about the current standards, but really the main reason that we're here tonight is to look at some potential zoning options for expanding opportunities for accessory dwelling units. So to that end, Mr. Harden will go over some of these potential alternatives. that this is not an exhaustive list. There's lots of potential variations, but hopefully this will provide a good introduction to some of the major concepts of ADU standards and hopefully can facilitate a good discussion.

HardenstaffThank you, Mr. Foreman. Appreciate it. And as shown on the slide, here are some items compiled for the council to consider, but as Mr. Foreman noted, certainly not an exhaustive list. looking for feedback and direction this evening and staff held a similar conversation with the Planning Commission at its meeting last night and received some feedback as well you'll also see as I step through this some areas of overlap in between these potential options to expand the provisions recognizing that impacts associated with expanding in any of the provisions may have similar resulting impacts on on the neighborhood or or the ability to deliver the unit so first on the list is expanding accessory dwelling units to

other residential or commercial zoning districts as noted on the previous slide currently accessory dwelling units are permitted in the RL RM and RH those are the single-family zoning districts some jurisdictions go as far as including Accessory dwelling units and single family attached or in townhouse Units and looking at at the pros of of potentially expanding into other types of units could increase housing variety obviously in looking at more denser More dense housing types often that's located closer to amenities shopping job opportunities healthcare services transit those sorts of things are our potential pros at the cons and this really applies with any expansion of accessory dwelling

units evaluating strain on utilities water sewer those sorts of things and that will need to be a part of the evaluation that the staff does as part of this discussion going forward

Catherine Readcouncilmember Staley has a

Jon Stehle Jrquick visual question so I'm tracking here just because it's a little bit late my brain was hiccuping a second it would be allowable right now if you had a townhome you would not be allowed to do anything with an accessory unit because you would not be in the rh rl or rm district that's correct and so a potential that you're talking about here of expansion again just so i got my order in there if i'm thinking about the assembly and i wanted to put an addition on the back of my house in the assembly there is a chance it could meet some of the existing requirements if we whole thought process of how big, how wide, all those pieces there, external entry versus internal entry, condo rules, all that stuff.

But right now, it's not allowed in those areas, so none of the existing application applies. And this is the first of a, what if you expanded where you could allow it to be?

HardenstaffCorrect.

Jon Stehle JrThank you very much. My brain is caught up with you now. I appreciate it, as always, Mr.

HardenstaffHerring. Okay. Thank you for the clarity. Moving on to the next item, expanding or eliminating the age or disability requirement. As was noted, one of the occupants of one of the units needs to be 55 years of age or greater or disabled. Those are underlying provisions as currently constructed in the ordinance. looking at potentially removing one or both of those requirements would obviously increase housing options for a greater variety of people, folks that don't meet those qualifications, may diversify neighborhoods, would certainly expand the marketability of those that are homeowners or the landlords for the ADUs to market those units to additional folks and potentially create additional income.

for that person, as well as different types of multi-generational

Lee Quillliving.

HardenstaffProviding options for seniors is certainly a goal of the city, but looking at those provisions may expand to others as well. On the con side, really, you know, does the program become too successful, so to speak, at that point? Is there increased density? as there are proliferation by removing those provisions that are in place. Now that may create concern in neighborhoods about changing character and increasing the density. The potential for overcrowding and trafficking and congestion, you'll see that repeated throughout here. That's certainly something that we would want to be mindful of as we evaluate this going forward and would seek council's guidance. overcrowding can be a situation with ADUs it can be a situation with non ADUs

it's it's it's a challenge that we've had over the years in various various contexts next item is regarding the family requirement and this is this is similar as mr. Foreman noted the combined occupancy of both units is required to currently to resemble a family and that can include some some unrelated folks but is more limiting than perhaps you see in other places again those by revisiting that may be more options for folks that may not qualify for an ADU at this point may change the income stream for the homeowner as well as may eliminate some of the administrative complexities that that staff often encounters and trying to sort through as council can imagine what constitutes a family because that is can be a little bit unclear at some in some situations

on the con side less oversight potentially by not having that provision maybe an opportunity for illegal short-term rentals mr. Foreman noted short-term rentals which are currently not permitted in the city under any case but certainly there are some that that pop up from time to time and city staff is is enforcing on those regularly again impacts on neighborhoods and utility services as well next item is increasing of the allowable square footage currently the provisions are capped at 35% of the total gross area of the principal dwelling as mr. Foreman noted creating a subordinate nature of the accessory dwelling unit compared to the principal there's certain practicality at 35% but it's certainly not a standard everywhere as as you think about you

know potentially a three-level home a basement level one one entire level could potentially be converted to an ADU remain under that that threshold allowing additional square footage may create more income opportunities for the homeowner larger spaces may be more livable for tenants may allow for better accommodations of a DA facilities with within those accessory dwelling units on the con side again impacts on on infrastructure potentially more impervious surfaces whether that's you know a detached unit or whether it's attached unit that causes an expansion of the principal building and neighborhood impacts and one item not not listed here but certainly in thinking through affordability that was mentioned

earlier larger units may also cost more and be more expensive to rent so those would would impact potentially affordability for those tenants next on the list is implementing performance And so some jurisdictions can regulate things such as materials that are used, architecture, or other types of features. One of the things we heard from the Planning Commission last night was thinking about what impacts may be in terms of noise and lighting and those sorts of things associated with potentially having an addition or a building somewhere that it might not otherwise be. having performance standards or design standards can help to integrate the units within the neighborhood can help the neighbors feel more comfortable that these are supportive of neighborhood

character on the con side the standards can become very complex you know going through the permitting and building process can be a complex endeavor otherwise adding additional standards can inhibit the construction that we're seeking to to potentially increase Standards may increase conduct construction cost as well as create a lengthier review process for staff in terms of reviewing assessing and monitoring compliance with those those standards The next item is potential incentives for construction, and incentives could range from financial to streamlined permitting to creating pre-approved design plans and templates that would ease the ability of a homeowner to be able to go through that permitting process.

that could increase construction you know in a more timely manner increase the number of units that are out there may reduce burden on homeowners and the land landlords on the con side it would be obviously a reduction and potentially reduction in fee revenue to the city any type of incentive is going to divert resources from one thing to another and it again looking at at what the proliferation may be perhaps incentivized too well and overwhelm neighborhoods and then last on the list certainly not least and this is one that we get probably have the most inquiries about is detached accessory dwelling units because again that's currently not permitted by the ordinance but one in terms of new new construction or even you know retrofitting existing

structures is something that we get questions about on the pro side sometimes standalone units can be easier to construct which may be a little bit contrary to what what one may think but the building code standards do vary and Building code for attached or internal ADU units treats that as a two-family dwelling, and there are building requirements related to having a two-family dwelling. If the unit is separate, then they're both single dwellings under building code. And primarily it relates to fire-related provisions in the fire code and measures that you have to take for a two-family building versus a one-family building. Also, obviously, a detached building would be more private. That may be preferable to tenants.

It may be preferable to the property owner. Also, in terms of metering and some of those more practical aspects, sometimes having a separate unit can be preferable. On the con side, obviously, it creates a new building, a new footprint on the lot. can appear denser can be perceived as is is leading more change to the neighborhood can be more expensive to build again that kind of depending on on the individual situation and it is a bit more complex in terms of staff and administration plan review looking at impervious coverages and stormwater and those those sorts of aspects so that certainly is complexity that that often you don't run into with with attached so again high-level list of items there

are others as as noted so just interested in in council's direction and feedback this evening

Catherine Readdo we have questions councilmember Bates

Billy Batesthank you just a few things I think that all of the potential modifications that you have on here are worth at least exploring and worth staff coming back to us with recommendations on a couple items I'd like to add to that first off is are whether or not to keep the owner occupancy requirement and then also the I saw something in there about the allowing no more than two cars to be utilized by the ADU residents now this is something I brought up with the previous a member of the previous council not sure if it was ever looked into or not but what I think would be ideal is looking at a way to limit the number of cars utilized by you know resident of any single-family lot like how we have a limit on the number of unrelated people

who can be you know in a single-family home that includes the ADU with the current policy and then just have something like that for a number of cars that are allowed to be used by the residents as well that applies to you know the entire house and adu if there is one sort of in that same way and i think that that could really address really more broadly the parking concerns that are out there even beyond adus being in the mix thank you

Hardenstaffjust for just for clarity if i may ask council member an overall limit on vehicles for dwellings that include an ADU or are we talking for dwellings in general for

Billy Batesdwellings in general whether or not they include an ADU okay

Hardenstaffthank you

Billy Batesthanks

Catherine Readcouncilmember Staley

Jon Stehle JrI think you may read I appreciate bringing this forward because I think the more we talk about it the more we'll kind of move in a direction I'm taking the approach very similar to the composting conversation You have limited time and resources. So for me, if I'm looking at slide five, which is the current regulations, I think I'm interested in looking at the two bullet points under owner occupied as if we were to remove the age requirement and handicap requirement, what might that do to this space going forward as a potential step? I don't think I'm interested in looking at accessory dwelling units that are built out, not attached to units at this point in time. I don't think I'm interested in trying to get my head around how you might do it in a townhome at this point.

I think those are things that we can work over time with various councils. But with limited time and energy, I think looking at that question of family-related age and disability, if those were to evolve and you were to keep everything else static, I think that would be a very useful place to have a continued conversation on, knowing you could go further over time. but I think getting clear on that and saying is that something that the community would be interested in opening the door of if we're not interested in opening the door and there I'm not sure we're ever going to get to you know unattached and so I think that's a good bellwether to sort of think about the next steps thank you mayor

Catherine Readyes councilmember Ross

Thomas Rossyes thank you and again thank you to our staff for a really thoughtful well laid out discussion of I agree with my council colleague Staley on this. I think if we try to go too far, we're going to open up Pandora's box. Not that that's necessarily bad, but I think we've got to look at small steps we can take initially to help look at ways we could move into this area in a positive way. And I think that if we try to go too far, we're going to run into community resentment and opposition. And I think it's better to try on a small step to see what are the things we can do to be reasonable and appropriate. And I think what John has suggested are right in line with that. The other thing that I think that would be helpful, and I'm not sure it was addressed tonight, but I think it would be helpful to look at, how are some of the other communities that are in Northern Virginia dealing with this?

Are they running into problems? Have they modified their existing requirements? And what are those leading to in terms of either success or concerns or whatever? so I think a small step is appropriate I don't think we need to go in right now and radically change everything we've had on the books but I think it would be helpful to look at a couple of small areas we could take and then evaluate how that's working thank you mayor

Catherine Readcouncilmember Lim thank

So Limyou mayor so So currently, how many, about how many ADUs do we have in the city?

HardenstaffI don't have that number offhand. It is a small, it is a fraction of our housing stock.

So LimSo currently for anyone to have an ADU, is it a by right or do they have to submit an application?

HardenstaffIt is. They file for a permit, but it is administratively approved.

So LimOkay.

HardenstaffBut staff goes through and looks at the criteria associated with and so things like the age, the family, staff looks at all that. The owner signs an affidavit that thou shalt comply with those regulations going forward but it is administrative.

So LimI'm glad that we're talking about this. so if we are going to create a some sort of a new policy about ADUs we could broaden the you know the possible owners or the residents I think like they don't have to be family doesn't have to be disability related but I also think that when you want to build a ADU currently they have to attach to their current unit so sometimes you know because of the way the house is built lack of land or whatever they couldn't possibly add another ADU to their existing homes so I think we should definitely take a consideration about having ADUs away from their current units and you know how we have guidelines for people that want to raise chickens in their homes we have like

quarter acres I forget exactly the guidelines you know that the home has to be a quarter acre or so many acres before they can have chickens so I think that you know we could consider having ADUs for homes that have a bigger lots I don't know what that would be and then have you know limitations as to how far the ADUs can be. They have tiny homes these days. Tiny homes come really nice. They're really pretty. And I think that this will really give housing choice for our young adults here in the city that can't possibly afford a new home or whatever, but they want to move out of their parents' home, but they really can't. But they can have an ADU in their parents' backyard. I think the options are kind of open.

Thank you. Thank you, Mayor.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Dolfine Gold.

Kate Doyle FeingoldThank you, Mayor. I agree with what Council Member Lim was saying. I think that we need to look at the lot size. I think that obviously townhouses are not good options for a detached ADU. I think a lot of those neighborhoods anyway have HOAs that would preclude it. but you know the city has very robust ordinances on sheds and how big your shed can be and where it can be located and depends on lot size and yard and everything so looking at that the type of neighborhood the space I think it's very important that the one of the units is owner occupied I think in the southeastern portion of the city there are a lot of issues with with homes that are rented to more people than are legally allowed.

They're rented by bedroom and we don't want to create a situation where those homes that are owned by LLCs are finding a way to have more tenants there and no owner lives there because there are already overcrowding issues that the city can't police. and so I think we want to make sure that we avoid that and concerns from residents that that doesn't happen but I think like councilmember Lim was saying it's an opportunity for a housing option for parents grandparents or young adult children with the right guardrails in place that I think it's worth exploring thanks thank you councilmember Greenfield

Jeffrey GreenfieldThank You mayor over the weekend when I was looking at this I pulled the current residential districts we have six for the current 80 use we we allow an attached ADU in three of those six so all single family but could be you you could theoretically have one in Farcroft for example if there was an outside entrance that somebody could come into and be able to have an ADU it was interesting because the the couple that that was the driving force back late 90s early 2000s in Mosby Woods wanted to switch they wanted to take the house that they raised their family in add an ADU next to it and then moved the daughter back in. They took over the main house and the couple took over the ADU. They've both since passed, call it divine intervention. On Sunday, I ran into the

daughter just grabbing something at Starbucks. I'm like, I can't believe you're standing here. I was just thinking about your mom and dad yesterday. But we've come a long way, right, and talking about what we can do. We've learned a lot with ADUs. I think you could take that same example and say the older couple still lived in the main house, but if we switch the age requirement or the disability requirement, the caregiver could actually be in the ADU, right? It could be somebody that the family requires full-time care, and you could allow that, correct? I think when we talk about detached, I think we're really only talking about two districts, residential low and residential medium. Low is minimum lot size of 20,000 square feet, and the minimum lot size for medium is 7,500 square feet.

So to Ms. Lim's point, you could size and scale that appropriately and not a whole lot different than saying I could put a shed back there, but it's a little bit bigger. I saw something on Amazon that, interestingly enough, has come back in stock, but it's a kit that's a tiny house that, you know, has everything you need and could be in somebody's backyard. So as we look more at multi-generational housing where you've got, you know, a lot of the family all living in one house, you see people building bigger houses. Well, what if we allowed a detached house where the mom and dad still want to be able to have their independence, they want to come and go as they want, but they want to be right there on the property with their family,

we could actually see smaller main single-family homes but then allowing a detached ADU out back. So I think there are a lot of different ways that you can get at that that protects the integrity of the community, that doesn't make them too large. You know, we've got a number of examples around the city where people have built a garage, for example, and they've done an apartment over top, but they can't use it for their parents because it's not allowed, right? And we've heard that over the years. I know even when I went off council, I still, you know, heard people venting, you know, on social media about, you know, hey, I have this, I'm not bothering anybody, but I can't do it. So I think we should look at it.

we can put all the right controls in and limit hopefully some of the burden on staff if we you know if we do this right I don't I'm not looking to go crazy here I think those are two pieces where we can see again how does it work right so those are my thoughts for tonight thank you

Lee Quillall

Catherine Readright I guess it's just me nope

Billy BatesYeah, I'd just like to add that I agree with what Council Member Lim mentioned. And I also stand by what I said earlier, but I would add that the modifications that Council Member Staley mentioned are definitely worth prioritizing before looking at any of the other modifications. Thank you.

Catherine ReadOkay. Okay. So, I think right up front, eliminating requirements about family, age, or disability, I don't see why they are in place. The idea of formed families had been around since the dawn of time. Who you decide is your family should not require some legal framework to say, this person that I have decided as a member of my family can only be that if I can show evidence of it. Formed families, especially in an urban environment, are very common. You know, we talk about the unhoused people in our city who don't have support networks. There are LGBTQ kids who get kicked out of their houses. Kids who age out of foster care have no one. There are plenty of people who are people no one wants, and they need houses too.

And if you decide that you want to have that person in your house, you should be able to have that person in your house. That's just me. We can't talk about how we deal with the fact that we don't have housing for people if we're talking about the fact we are going to police who you decide to have in your home in an accessory dwelling unit. So I think right off the top, we need to stop policing who people decide are members of their family or who live in their home. That's just me because there are people that need to be taken care of in a family situation. Detached dwelling units make sense. They've been doing it in California for many, many decades. My aunt built one in the 1990s for her 90-year-old in-laws, and it was a big deal in San Jose.

They didn't want to do it. No one had done it in the 90s. But she built this detached dwelling unit, and her father-in-law passed away before it was done. lived there but over the years lots of people ended up in there a lot of family friends going through divorces oddly enough because when you're going through a divorce guess what sometimes you need a place to stay and so she ended up being you know host to many people who are in a transitional point in their lives and in Culver City California one of my close high school friends built a guest house in the in his backyard and in both cases by the way you could not dwelling units from the street because of privacy fences. So you rolled up to Aunt Mary Jane's 1961 Rambler that they

bought in 1961 and there's just a privacy fence. No one saw what was in the backyard. In Culver City, Wayne and Mie built this lovely guest house in their backyard that was actually, according to Wayne, nicer than their 1920s bungalow that they bought. And mainly they have lots of Japanese foreign exchange students who come and stay there because Mie is Japanese. is that you know Virginia is a property rights state which kind of blows my mind too you know we are very focused on your property and what you can do with your property and your property is your property and you should be able to decide what you're gonna do with your property I mean that's one of the fundamental foundational things when we were when we were a colony and so it's

kind of interesting the idea that you know people shouldn't be able to build a dwelling unit on their property I think there needs to be restrictions Doyle Feingold said there's restrictions around the kind of shed you can build, how far away it has to be from your property line and all kinds of things. I think that's one of the ways you decide how you place limitations on what people can do, the size of it, the kind of inspections, and the kind of permits. I would also bring up that if you're building an accessory dwelling unit in your yard, this is taxable property. I can tell you when Aunt Mary Jane's estate was sold, it was a couple of million dollars that included that accessory dwelling unit and her 1961 Rambler.

So if people are building quality detached units or guest houses or whatever they want to call it in their yard, it seems to me that is taxable real property. And there has to be some assessment of the improvements you made in your yard, regardless of whether you rent it out or you just let people stay there. You're improving your property. You're building a dwelling. from the way I see it. There has to be some assessment for it because it adds value. In many cases, when you go to sell your property, if you've got this tiny house on your property, it's going to sell for a lot more. So these are all things to think about, and I think we do need to think about them. Back in the 90s, when Mary Jane

and her husband decided to do this, Silicon Valley wasn't nearly in the crunch that it ended up being for housing. So what was a battle for them ended up being something they were incentivizing people to do in San Jose because there wasn't enough housing. And this is true in our city. We have small houses on very big lots. And we don't have homeowners associations in these old neighborhoods. There is no HOA to tell you what color to make your shutters. We have small houses, three and a half Cape Cods, little Ramblers, on big pieces of property, and many of them do have privacy fences. or would put up a privacy fence if they had a detached accessory dwelling unit in their yard. So to me, they're doing it successfully and by necessity in other places in the country.

I don't know about other places in Virginia, but I think there's many reasons for us to really consider the many benefits of tackling this issue. but but from an immediate standpoint taking away the restrictions and policing who you decide to have live in your house is something that I think just is outdated I think especially in circumstances where we talk about the lack of housing and people who can't find housing people who live in tents and have a job because their pay does not cover a place for them to live you know we can't solve these problems unless we're willing to be more expansive thinking and again this is this is a piece of property somebody owns so I would encourage us to explore this and I'm not going crazy

Shea MegaleCouncilmember Ross it's not going

Melissa Shinaberryclerkby voicecrazy

Catherine Readbut I do think we just have to be more expansive in our thinking because there are real problems and people need housing and in in our community in many ways is set up for homeowners who decide they want to do this we should set parameters reasonable parameters for them to do it and there should be requirements for them to do it and it's an improvement to their property and I think it should be taxed so anything else from anyone else go forward and do good things

Hardenstaffthank you for the feedback appreciate it

Catherine ReadI will now reconvene the regular meeting and we will start with our city manager for his report out

Laszlo Palkostaffby voiceall right good evening mayor members of council I just want to go over a few events coming up here in July and August since we have the August recess this Friday is rock the block at 630 Friday August 9th at 8 p.m. is movies under the moon at Van Dyke Park they're showing the Incredibles part 2 Friday August 23rd 630 rock the block again Mondays at 1030 except Monday August 5th we'll have the fun day Monday kids activity at Old Town Hall and then Saturdays through August 17th at 1030 a.m. kids corner at Old Town Square so those are the upcoming events and then just a couple sad notes we have two key retirements coming up that I just want to recognize these employees for their great service. The first one is Sarah Greer, our HR director, is retiring. She

started with the city on June 5th of 2000. She'll be retiring on August 1st of 2024 after 24 years of great service to the city. She started off as a personnel analyst and worked her way up to HR director by February 9th of 2009. She's really dedicated the last 24 years of her life to public service and the employees of the City of Fairfax. She's been a positive partner for every and has dedicated her time to supporting city services and the well-being of our employees. She's been integral in managing several pay studies, helping develop our city's current strategic plan and championing employee health and wellness initiatives, and also managing educational assistance and professional development initiatives for our employees.

So she'll be missed by the city team, and we wish her the best in her next chapter in life, and we'll be recognizing her this week. another sad note major dan grimm the deputy chief of police will be retiring as well in september uh major dan grimm started with the city in 1998 as a patrol officer his dedication to our city led him to excel in various roles including detective on the northern virginia regional gang task force patrol sergeant and community services sergeant and moving the up the department as lieutenant captain and eventually deputy chief he managed multiple components of the department at the highest levels including the professional standards division and field operations division he played a pivotal role in crafting the

agency's three-year strategic plan ensuring a roadmap for future success and manage the agency's budget ensuring fiscal responsibility and transparency his accomplishments extend far beyond just the department he graduated from the prestigious FBI National Academy and he his membership in the Virginia Chiefs Association and International Association of Chiefs of Police positioned him to be a respected leader within the broader law enforcement community and that is a fact because I've heard great things about him even in Manassas Park so Major Grimm deserved our deserves our deepest gratitude for 26 years of unwavering service leadership dedication and commitment to our community we wish him all the best as well just like sarah for next chapter in their lives we hope they find happiness

and we will miss both of them but i want to make sure we recognize both of them for their great service to the city

Catherine Readthank you for council comments i'm going to start with council member ross

Thomas Rossthank you mayor and i just want to echo what our city manager just expressed um dan and sarah are both dedicated employees and more importantly they are incredible human beings and I think it's important that we recognize that as they move toward their retirement. They have served us incredibly well as well as many of our employees in the city. I would say most of our employees in is it and I'm very grateful for their service and other than that everybody wish them wish everybody well as we move into our August recess enjoy the break because I know September will be a very busy month and as we look forward to the next few months thank you

Catherine Readthank you councilmember Greenfield

Jeffrey Greenfieldthank you mayor and one additional data point on deputy chief Grimm he grew up in Green Acres so a longtime city resident before he became a police officer after he came back from college so always great to see you know a number of us that went to Fairfax high school that joined either the fire department the police department or other parts of

John O'Nealstaffof the city so We're very fortunate

Jeffrey Greenfieldto have great folks who are very committed to the city of Fairfax. On a sad note, Chief Joe Melander passed away earlier this week. I'm sure my colleagues will join me in wishing the family our sympathies. Chief Melander's son retired from the police department, another long family history of being involved in public safety. chief melinger joined the fairfax volunteer fire department 1952 when he was at fairfax high school while leaving the navy joined the city of alexandria is a firefighter but when the city of fairfax created and decided to have their own fire department he interviewed and was hired on as the battalion chief, retiring for medical reasons in 1993. Chief Melander continued to attend

membership meetings of the volunteer fire department right up until the day he died. Was president of the Fairfax Volunteer Fire Department from 2007 to 2015. So he will be missed. He was in our 4th of July parade and even though he was living in an assisted care facility was still active and wanted to come in with one of his family members driving him into the city of airfax as often as he could so he will be a a face that we will certainly miss around town the last item I would like to ask staff to explore during recess well we've got hopefully a break is is bringing back the use of reverse 9-1-1 I know that we have alerts we have other you know capabilities we do social media posting but occasionally and there's been an

occasion or two where we've used reverse 911 to let folks know either about something significant going on some significant storm going on in the city a jailbreak a prisoner escape from the adult detention center and what happened earlier this week I think with with the tactical teams and the helicopters looking for a murder suspect would have been one of those times that we could have done a targeted reverse 911 call into Cambridge Station and Mosby Woods to let folks know what was going on. So I would ask without objection that we – it's a technology that's still out there that we look at bringing that back and having some criteria around when it would be used just to ensure that folks who aren't on social media you know don't have a data

plan on their cell phone are are contacted and they know what's going on so with that I want to thank staff for their hard work in getting us up to the summer break enjoy the month off I'm sure the fall will be a busy time so thank you all very much enjoy summer

Catherine Readthank you councilmember Lim

So Limno comments Thank you.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Staley.

Jon Stehle JrThank you, Mayor. Just a quick shout out to my better half. It's been a pleasure getting to be married to you for 19 years today. I'll be home soon. Thank you.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Doyle Feingold.

Kate Doyle FeingoldThank you, Mayor. I just want to say thanks to Sarah and Major Grimm for their service to the city. They'll definitely be missed. Council Member Bates.

Billy BatesThank you. I just want to add my condolences for the individual that Councilmember Greenfield mentioned has passed. And, you know, I don't know the individual personally, but death is certainly something to always be mourned. And also my thanks and well wishes for Sarah Greer and Deputy Chief Grimm and their retirements. and Chief Grimm for having put his life on the line for the city over many, many years. And also to add an additional event to the list for August, we have a Cops and Cones event, the Back to School Ice Cream Social, to meet the school resource officers on Friday, August 16th, from 4.30 to 6.30 at Woody's Ice Cream. So I hope to see some of you there. Thank you.

Catherine ReadThat's a great reminder, Council Member Bates, that National Night Out is August the 6th, from 6 to 9 all over the city. Yes, yes, we want to get out and meet our law enforcement officers and our first responders, and I wish Sarah Grimm and Dan Grimm all the best in their retirement. They have served the city well, and we should always, you can never say thank you enough for what people have done for this city. I'm going to wish everybody a great break. We're going to be back on September 3rd for a work session, but there will be lots going on in this city in the month of August, even if we're not having meetings. So I hope you at home understand that we are working here every day, even through the summer, and I expect that it's going to be a tremendous fall.

We have a lot to do between now and the end of December with this council. And I hope everybody's pumped up and ready to come back with their best energy and their best ideas in September. So with that, I'm going to adjourn the meeting at 11 p.m. Thank you.