Planning Commission Regular Meeting/Work Session

¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ Good evening, and welcome to the City of Fairfax, Virginia Planning Commission's regular meeting and work session for Monday, July 27, 2026. Our first item of business will be the Pledge of Allegiance. Please stand as you are able. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. ¶¶ We have a consideration for remote participation by Chair James Feather, pursuant to Cota, Virginia, Section 2.2-3708-3. Do we have a motion to admit? So moved. Second. Second. Second. All right. All right. Okay. That's fine. I move that in accordance with the Planning Commission adopted policy that is permitted by Cota, Virginia, Section 2.2-3708.3 to approve the request from Planning Commissioner James Feather,

properly submitted in writing prior to tonight's meeting for remote participation subject to the requirements outlined in the Planning Commission adopted policy and applicable in all portions of the Planning Commission meeting of July 27, 2026. So moved. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? The movement passes unanimously. Mr. Feather, Chair Feather, thank you for joining us. As discussed. Thank you and thank you for taking over the chair for me this evening. Appreciate it. Yes. I will manage the chaos in the room. As you can see, it's quite a bit. All right. Next item, discussion and adoption of the agenda as presented. Madam Chair, I move that the agenda be adopted by the agenda. All right. All right.

Next item, discussion and adoption of the agenda as presented. Madam Chair, I move that the agenda be adopted by the agenda. May the agenda be adopted as presented. Second. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Movement pass. Moment. Motion passes unanimously. Next, we have presentations by the public on any matter not calling for a public hearing, keeping in mind that we do have a public hearing later today. Is there any presentations by the public on any matter not on the public hearing agenda today? Any things submitted? Okay. Seeing none, we'll move on to consideration of the July 13, 2026 meeting minutes. Mr. Chair, I propose that we approve the meeting minutes of July 13, 2026 as publicly posted.

We have a motion to approve. Second. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. And I will abstain. Anyone opposed? All right. Motion passes. Four to one. Four, four, one abstain. All right. Moving on to items not requiring a public hearing. We have none of those this evening. So we will move on to our public hearing. Starting with Highlands at Mantua presentation. This is a public hearing for RJL Associates Incorporated with Bean, Kenny Corman representing the applicant. This is the public hearing for RJL or Cannon or Cannon or Cannon or Cannon or hearing we have none of those this evening so we will move on to our public hearing starting with Highlands at Mantua presentation good evening this is a public hearing for our JL Associates incorporated with being Kenny Corman

representing the applicant the plans before each night as part of the public hearing was submitted on June 15 2026 the applicant is requesting an amendment to the existing general development plan a comprehensive plan amendment from commercial corridor place type to townhouse single-family attached neighborhood place type and a rezoning from PDC plan development commercial to PDR plan development residential and the architectural control overlay district the the Mantua professional center was originally approved in 1975 there's an amendment in 1985 the plan was amended to allow an additional 40,000 square feet of office space and 2020 and 2004 the general development plan was amended again to

accommodate an expansion to the new school of Northern Virginia and 2015 the general development plan was amended to develop 80 residential multifamily units and two four-story for story buildings this that product is known as the enclaves condominium the public hearing tonight the applicant is seeking to replace approximately 21,000 five hundred sixty six square feet of office space with 14 front-loaded townhomes on 2.2 acres the density is approximately 6.6 acres the total area for the general development plan is 9.3 acres with the density of 10.2 dwelling units per acre the the current land use is commercial corridor place type the applicant is requesting a comp plan amendment to townhouse

single-family attached neighborhood place type the current zoning district is PDC the applicant is requesting a rezoning to PDR in the architectural control overlay district the master development plan that's and before you on your screen on the screen the applicant is proposing to replace the existing offices with 14 front-loaded townhomes 20 that's 24 feet and width by 40 feet in depth 62 parking spaces include 32 shared spaces maximum building height of 38 feet the density again is 6.6 units per acre the applicant is proposing a 23 foot private one-way street to open space areas with large setbacks a mix of existing mature trees and and and new shrubs understories of canopy trees how the applicant has retaining walls along the southern and eastern side of the property and a fence along the southern eastern

southern eastern side of the property as well the applicant is required to provide ten year tree canopy of twenty percent the applicant is provided thirty three point four percent the applicant is required to provide a transitional yard the applicant has provided in the GDP plan for a ten foot wide transitional yard with existing vegetation and proposed trees as well as seeking an alternative compliance request to eliminate the six foot fence by providing providing providing additional plantings along Silver King Court the applicant is proposing to install street trees seven street trees along the northern side northern and western side of the private drive on the south side the applicants requested modification for street trees

the picket road street trees the applicant is seeking to preserve four existing trees and adding one canopy tree the applicant is seeking a modification as well the applicant has provided open space for this general development plan for the master development plan the requirement is twenty percent the applicant has provided twenty three percent that meets the fifty five fifty uh requirement the applicant is also providing pedestrian access and vehicular access the applicant has submitted a trip generation memo showing a reduction in overall trips a.m. p.m. and total trips there's a reduction the applicant has provided two stormwater management facilities the first one is located on the north side of the property on the northwest corner of the site adjacent to the parking and

the open space area and the open space area and the second open space or the second stormwater management facility is located between the two six of townhomes with a passive recreation area um area what you're looking at before you is images from the certificate of appropriateness the certificate the board of architectural review held a public hearing on july 16th uh 20 25 with a recommendation of approval and forwarded to uh city council uh staff recommends uh approval of the comprehensive plan uh map amendment from commercial corridor place type to townhomes uh single family attached neighborhood place type staff recommends approval of the zoning map amendment from pdc plan development commercial to plan development residential and the architectural control overlay district and staff recommends approval of the general development planning amendment uh the public hearing is set for city council on september 22nd 2026

uh stand by for any questions that you may have thank you thank you thank you mr fredericks we we're hearing from the applicant we're hearing from the applicant we're hearing from the applicant now uh yeah are there any comments for or questions for mr frederick before we move on to the applicant i think there are a lot of questions but i think having the applicant first would be a good practice thank you so i would invite the representative from rjl associates if you could please state your name for the record good evening madam chairman members of the board madam chair may interrupt for a second um i'm not sure that the meeting clerk is sharing a presentation screen on the zoom so i can't see what's being presented to you something needs to be shared with me sorry brief hold for technical difficulties

thank you thank you all right thank you all right madam chairman uh members of commission thank you very much for your time tonight uh i'm mark behind with being kenny and corman with me is the development team we're sitting over there with uh i'm a consultants and uh clark and janet uh architect uh let's talk a little bit about this project you've been seeing this a couple times the last time you saw this was probably a work session back in early 2025 uh there have been some changes there i'll keep i will keep this short can we go to the next slide real quick yeah you know as staff noted you know this is the product these are fairly dated buildings the office buildings were constructed in 1980

uh they are essentially obsolete you know you're probably confronting this very frequently as you see out northern virginia there's been a significant change in the office market you know when this was first being considered these properties were about 30 percent vacant right now they're about 58 percent vacant you know and you know this is a the reality is the market is there's a lot more better properties that are available and that's just where tenants are going and you know there's a pretty obvious trajectory you know with what this building is they are functionally obsolete it's time to redevelop it at the same time we do have a need for new housing and as and as the staff has noted there particularly for townhouses you know so if you think about on this same street you have just down thing is barrister's reserve i believe and then you have a yes

you have a you know sutton heights you have townhouses right next to that basically almost the exact same configuration as these i'll get into that right as a single family house there is a need this isn't a lot of housing but it is it is you know 14 new townhouses it provides new options and opportunities for residents within the city so let's go to the next slide that's what you have for existing improvements this is you know what we're proposing to do you know replace right where that building was replace this with new 14 new townhouses and let's talk a little bit about the architecture on them you know front load garage you know keeping silver king court large in the same configuration that it is right now you know three stories of occupied first story garage occupied second story third story occupied and this the top level is a front facing outdoor patio you know rooftop deck with the back of it basically being used just for storage so you have essentially it's a three story townhouse you know and let's go to the next slide

this is what it would look like if you're coming up on picket street you're kind of heading north on picket street this is you can see again you got a little retaining wall you know three stories of uh houses three stories of the house you know blending right into the parking lot there uh next slide and this is as if if you removed all the trees and there was no vegetated buffer this is what it would look like if it was coming from the the uh the picket the the project immediately to the south of us you know it's just a classic kind of three-story townhouse project uh but you know obviously we're going to have the vegetated buffer there and we're going to be enhancing the vegetated buffer i'll talk a little bit about tree removal as we get further in here and about the new planning those are coming in

next slide and again this is what it would look like coming from mantua on glenbrook you know the same thing this is if there was no existing vegetation there and we weren't proposing any vegetation but again what you're looking at is kind of your classic three-story townhouse you know occupied first floor second floor third floor you know in this case it would have a front facing rooftop deck you know that you would have access out there but that does not count as a floor and these these buildings would be 38 feet tall as a way the city measures them next slide you know we have when the project came forward initially the thought was to put the buildings all together in one alignment particularly as you're looking at the

property the development of the south you know in reaction to some of the some of the concerns that we had about you know looming and getting too close three units that are closest the residential property have been moved further into the property provide for some additional buffer but basically the buildings are the red blocks are essentially the exist the footprints of the existing structures and you can see the footprints of our proposed structures our goal has been to try to keep the same distance where the existing structures are to you know in relation to the project the property south next slide you know let's talk a little bit about the trees you know 105 trees are proposed to be removed

all right of those nine are dead 32 were in poor condition 110 more trees are proposed to be installed those will be native trees you know what I want to point out here is what we're not doing you know we are removing a couple trees right near the uh the near the buffer area that's just part of and if we can preserve them when we get through site plan we will preserve them when we get through site plan that's not a that's not a set thing yet but we are going to be keeping most of the trees that are on the buffer there and we're going to be putting substantial new plant tree plantings in there and so you know you will have the townhouses on their townhouse lots and then the development itself is surrounded by on the

periphery by a common land common tree to open space that provide a vegetative buffer both for the communities immediately to the east and the community immediately to the south right and then as you know staff noted you know ultimately the goal is to have at least 20 percent you know tree coverage you know we're going to be doing 33.4 percent and then for open space 20 percent requirement i think will be around 43 percent provided you know so a little more than double you know those are things that are important to consider as we're moving forward and trying our efforts to try to provide a buffer and a suitable transition between us and the single family communities immediately to the east and immediately to the south next slide so kind of in summary you know 43 for 14 new townhouses

being proposed where the dying office building is right now all right a perimeter of a perimeter buffer two parklets in the center of the project and robust parking you know right now the zoning ordinance requires two spaces for every site we're going to be doing 62 spaces and that's allow our us to have guests and visitors over there also you know this is part of an integrated development with the new school next door and with the enclave as well so just to provide additional parking for everybody the way it had been provided when it was the office building as well environmental benefits well modern stormwater management controls again these office buildings built in 1980 so we're going to have to come in with the new modern stormwater management controls

and those will be modern stormwater management controls that are in that are required at the time of building permit you know so obviously if this takes a year or two you know whatever the results are whatever the requirements are then they'll probably be stricter we'll have to abide by those net gain in trees you know robust open space community community compatibility this has been reduced from four stories to three stories you know we've got a increased setback particularly where you see those three houses immediately to the far the far west have been pushed back all right uh traffic reduction if you look at the staff report this is going to be a net reduction about 18 18 trips in the morning about 19 trips at night

141 trips during the course of the week versus the existing improvements preserved enhanced buffer we're going to keep that what we've got there we're going to enhance it remove the dead trees remove the sick trees put new trees in environment economic benefits you know there's a lot to be said for removing vacant office space office space off the market you know that that helps with the city's economics that helps competitor properties be able to afford there's a lot to be said for providing new housing where you need it right now particularly in this kind of you know classification the city needs townhouses this is going to provide a good market for that um you know you saw the staff analysis there will be a fiscal economic benefit to this um you have

a contribution for the city's parks you have a contribution to the schools so with that we'd ask for your favorable consideration i know the bulk of what this this time i tell up here is me taking questions so with that i'm happy to take any questions you have thank you would anyone like to start go for it uh yeah thank you um um my best calculations are that in between the closest parcel corner on the south side and the closest parcel corner on the on your development um that distance is about 30 feet minimum um so depending on where the measurement starts um whether it's the corner of the building or the corner of the parcel um the distance between those townhouses and pickets reserve is not enough to

to not worry about tree removal um and encroachment into that area between um between the existing buildings and pickets reserve so um could you or mr frederick provide information about or a summary perhaps of work that has been done within that buffer between pickets reserve and this development and any encroachments that have happened over the past few months so you are asking if there's been any work being done um between the subject property and the the backs of the units and in the um in the subdivision to the south that's right the context for this in our last discussion was um work on utilities and so looking at overhead power lines there's a required easement uh the utility company could come in and cut everything

down i've unfortunately had a utility easement across the back of my property they don't even warn you they just show up and they start cutting trees and um it's alarming when it happens so the sensitivity level in between these properties given the fact that there are utilities there is is pretty high i think all of us that have watched things happen on the w and od trail and in other places are very very wary uh when workers show up so um i guess what i'm looking for is a commitment from the developer to minimize as far as they possibly can any disturbance at all that would cause any negative repercussions for the residents uh on that north side and we're happy to make that commitment that's absolutely part of what we want to

do you know and if you part of this conversation if you remember from the last time of the work session was a conversation about you know utility relocation and like and part of one of the reasons it wasn't going to be done was because there was a utility easement there in order to underground those utilities you would have to redisturb that easement you would have to take out the existing trees that are already right along picket street pretty much for no benefit whatsoever except that it would harm both our future residents would harm the folks next to us immediately to the south as well you know that's the goal that's the reason why we've not done we've done the utility pole the line location relocation from one

pole to the other but not done underground utilities on picket street itself because we didn't want to disturb those trees you know as i showed right there our goal is to take that existing buffer clear out the dead trees clear out the sick trees unfortunately have to clear out some of the trees that are going to be needed for construction but to put more trees in that we're taking out and to maintain that and you know there's one of the conditions is a requirement for us to have an easement or some sort of legally binding agreement with the city to maintain that there will be an hoa as part of this to do that so you know a whether it's on picket street you know we're committed to trying to preserve all the trees we won't be

taking trees down if we can avoid it you know and we're certainly not messing with the utilities not inviting them to come in there and then with regard to the uh on the buffer itself you know clearing it out making it healthier putting new trees in there and providing a suitable buffer between what should be two very nice communities right next to each other okay i um i thought that was responsive or not maybe i didn't it was it was acceptable i i appreciate you know the good faith that most of the developers in the city have regarding um issues related to construction minimizing impacts um last time we discussed the utility line on picket um i was looking at my street view imagery there is a power pole at the very back

corner this is the far southwestern corner of the development does that pull also feed electricity across the south boundary or is that pull just there to satisfy the requirements of the line running north south on picket i i don't know that question i mean uh john you want to come up there's a pull on picket very close to the southwest corner if i could correct so yeah along the the uh sidewalk itself that's correct yes that that pole is where the power the power will be coming down coming into the right of way buried sorry buried along yep the the sidewalk along picket and then comes around into our property so everything will be undergrounded there won't be any overhead poles that have utilities or need to come through and start to come to the

or need to come through and start cutting down trees within our project yeah okay are there any existing easements on the south side of the property that would require a utility no because everything is going to be done in the right of way okay there's no there's no disturbance on the that property everything will be coming down on that pole into the right of way and then around to to the development okay there was an email asserting some sort of disturbance on the south side in between pickets reserve and this do you have any knowledge of what that's all that's all been revised for this last submission okay good um all right so the trees that would be replaced what is the size and the trunk diameter of those trees are

they mature trees or will they be young trees that will take a decade or more to uh mature yeah why don't come up here if you could please introduce yourself for the record as well hi my name is yana morgan i'm with imeg and i'm the planner so the supplement the trees along pickets reserve they are mainly evergreen trees and they will be six feet high some of the trees are also deciduous trees and they will be two inch caliper so there is a combination of deciduous trees and evergreens so not not saplings but not two inch caliper yes they are a 10 year canopy trees okay and six foot evergreens yeah all right the base elevation difference i had to look at the contour lines to see pickets reserve is actually

can be put in this yeah fred can we pull up uh go beyond this slide on my question slide we actually have a but i think might be helpful for everybody this is perspective all right yeah so i want to stay up here in my mind if i had to reconstruct this diagram it would have been the reverse i would have thought okay i'm heading uphill i'm heading uphill i don't start down the hill toward picket until i get a little further but um so so the purpose in thinking through this difference in elevations is that if some of the trees are removed uh you know there's going to be impacts on your residents because they're going to be right you know they'll have homes that are at the base level between 8 and 16

feet above their base elevation level so you're going to have a significant difference in impacts on your new residents if you do remove those trees i would just suggest two inch you know some developers come in with more aggressive plantings that are larger six foot evergreen is going to take years to screen out uh pickets reserve and your residents would certainly be willing to pay during that first exposure to a townhome a nice townhome that they're going to buy they uh as much screening as you could possibly provide through plannings um that's going to immediately pay off in the prices you're going to command with this i do appreciate the fact that the that the height has been dropped a bit um like i mentioned just thinking naively about this i would have put

the elevation of your development at a higher point in picket pickets reserve so um the elevation difference on the other side is probably more problematic all of the thinking that we've done so far in our last hearing this hearing has been about the impact on city residents and pickets reserve the the elevation drop in mantua is uh less you're between four and ten feet in terms of base elevation from the homes in picket you're below and so i guess a similar issue exists there what's the plan for plantings along that east side the same thing if we could go back to there and i would also by way i think there was when when at the february 2005 that one of the mandates was go out and meet with folks

even though that city residents like that yeah so first of all a we did meet with the supervisor for the district and that that person's chief of staff who then introduced us with the hoa president over at mantua so there was a walk around there and then in anticipation of this thing there was letters sent to the you know there's really only two property owners that are directly adjacent to and i wish almost wish i could have a powerpoint thing or a little thing but you know there's a home there's this glenbrook drive and there's a house on what north side and a house on the south side yeah letters were sent to everybody there and that thing not just those most probably we haven't heard anything back

you know that fact notwithstanding if we could go back to the aerial you know the tree you know there that's good enough you know the new trees obviously there's going to be trees that are taken down primarily from these people are going to be looking at it's going to be from where that kind of that central area is that open space between the two sticks of townhouses that's where the bulk of they're coming down and then kind of you know where that northernmost stick of townhouses are because remember that's kind of behind the existing house buildings that are right there you know so what what we're planning on doing is you know frankly just that perimeter buffer area just putting a whole lot of new trees right in there and you can see that if we can go to the next the slide that

had the tree plantings in there no that's yeah there you go so we can see in green and where everything's being proposed here that's you know just basically trying to look at the gaps that are going to be created with the existing trees trying to fill that in as much as we can you know with some places it will be six foot trees and two inch calipers other areas will be different types of trees but the goal basically to kind of just do what we can to buffer that you know i can't promise there won't be an individual impact to those folks there will be but we have gone out and met with them we have reached out you know this is we haven't gotten any feedback beyond please take care of that so that's what we've added i get it um the city's also

remodeling a recreation field to the north um with impacts on the very same neighborhood and so i think sensitivity yeah and just uh recognizing that the city's impacts are much more than just your development there's been you know an ongoing multi-million dollar field renovation that's causing issues as well um they're good neighbors uh you know 30 years ago we were accidentally pushing chemicals underground their direction i think the history of that and the more recent context of um misunderstandings and so forth uh would just merit the most careful interaction with pickets reserve and mantua as possible just to make this work i agree and i remember my what my parents were all the army folks were back when the whole mobile thing was going on we had

friends there we lived on mount vernon area but remember that and then i have friends who live in the area too you know you want to you know there's a way to do this compassionately responsibly and i think that's kind of the washboard for doing so and that's what we've tried to do and that's the commitment as we go forward as well you know when we talk about you look at the prop not the proverbs but the commitments we've made you know one is going to be a construction management plan and setting up a committee liaison like that and so that's kind of you know it you know if this moves forward you know tonight and to the mayor and city council you know there's still going to be you know ongoing

dialogues with this community because ultimately we're all going to be neighbors and we got to work together well yep i think there have been some great examples of uh developers the one over my back fence specifically uh who had a site manager that was just in contact almost every day just very very friendly and just this is what we're going to be doing this is you know the extra vehicles we're going to have on the roadway um you just can't do too much of that and it's an ounce of prevention or ounce of cure whatever analogy you want to use it just creates you know what people don't like feeling particularly when it comes to their side yard or their neck or their neighborhood and stuff like

i'm just being surprised you know right and not having a voice you know and that's the only group that we that does not care are the utility companies that just have legal can go do the work whenever they want um we have one of those trees courtesy of dominion in my neighborhood which yeah we just don't want lost looking at a stroke just and we don't want any of our developers to have that poor of communication we need to make sure all the way through uh that whoever is on site is informing all the neighborhoods if if this were to be approved and certainly the good president is developers that do listen to feedback and do modify their plans based on feedback um we do appreciate that a lot and so i think with that i'm just gonna gonna close my questions and turn it over to my colleagues

thank you thank you commissioner rice uh chair feather would you like to weigh in i want to make sure we're acknowledging your oh that's quite all right thank you um um a couple questions we've received comments from pickets reserve if you're all aware on a number of different subjects i'd like to understand a little bit more from the staff perspective and the zoning perspective uh some of the concerns um one of the comments pertains to what they call encroachment in the referencing uh section of the zoning ordinance i'm not sure is applicable i wonder if you could comment on that specifically bulk plane which is one is a 1.5.6 or 1.6.5 in the zoning ordinance um my understanding is that's applicable

for residential developments adjacent to non-residential or multi-family uh development but that's not what this is is my understanding correct that the multi-plane standard is not applicable here that's correct okay um another a couple other concerns that have been raised and this comes up these kind of modifications come up actually with some regularity one is sidewalks on one side of a private drive a recollection is we've accepted of modification in that regard on a number of relatively recent projects um is that the case yes sir we call it precedent i'm not sure we call it precedent setting but it's not uncommon that's correct to accommodate okay to accommodate various various things from development to development

um so we wouldn't be stepping out of or setting a kind of new precedent um if we move forward with this some of these modifications of course are um under the purview of the city council for making decisions they're not really in the purview of the planning commission um we're about more about the land use and the rezoning and not so much the special exceptions um that's not really totally within our purview although i understand that we're free to comment on them um other things that have come up have been about the parking in the driveways my recollection is when we were some years ago now talking about parking standards for townhouse communities um we looked at all the kinds of parking that's that's done in these townhouse communities including um townhouses that don't have

a driveway i think that's relatively common a place i used to live in the city had a number of townhouses that didn't have full-length driveways i don't know that there's anything that requires those kind of driveways as a matter of course as long as we meet the parking standards which generally are met here with garage parking with excess being provided either some driveways or on street so i believe it's correct to say that nothing requires a full-length 18 foot driveway is that correct the um if the applicant is going to have driveways they would have to meet the requirement of uh typically 18 on the minimum um and the length is 18 enough to park two two spaces but there's no nothing that doesn't preclude um units one two and three to

be designed the way that it is so but and then the overall parking here is um they clearly have met the requirement for two units one concern yeah one one thing that i think about and i'm surprised mr rice didn't bring it up because he frequently brings up uh concerns and questions about fire access with a 23 foot private street are our emergency services folks okay with that many many of the private streets we see in recent developments have gotten down to about 26 feet but uh i'm not sure i've heard a 23 foot we have confirmation that they're comfortable with this arrangement yes chair feather the fire marshals reviewed this 23 feet is a standard drive aisle length uh width sorry uh for parking areas similar to city

hall the fire station itself and far exceeds that of what other jurisdictions around us actually require right okay now so another question about the height concerns have been raised about that and i get that um the comments we've received refer to uh height to the ridge which is not how we measure height but the height that's um it proposes 38 feet the zoning ordinance talks about three feet or three stories and 35 feet um um so there's there's a slight a slight discrepancy between the 35 feet and the 38 feet is the intent of our ordinance to require three feet and or three stories and 35 feet or is it or or is there a little bit of flexibility in that i'm pretty confident we've uh we've accepted slight deviations from the strict numerical height value i think building practices have

changed somewhat so we get a little bit more uh feet a little more height per floor perhaps and maybe when the zoning ordinance was last revised but i'd like to understand staff's perspective on height numbers so in terms of the height for this proposal it's um it's the arabicans requesting pdr so the comp plan talks about um townhouse developments being three stories uh the pdr district and zoning ordinance has uh some flexibility and so um in terms of the height it's um whether or not if it's compatible with the surrounding um uses and so three stories measured out of 38 feet um it's you know it's compatible with a single family when the other uh townhomes that were built in this area it's basically similar in style and similar in

height so there's no it's not inconsistent with the uh with the surrounding neighborhood uh the three stories and 35 feet is um if you look at the rt district the um the resident's townhome district that's a you know 35 feet so when you start comparing uh rt and the pdr district uh there's some flexibility with pdr but if you look at what the applicants proposing they've actually they exceed um um you know provide a greater benefit for uh for the development and the community so um in terms of if the if the applicant would have applied for for rt the actual density for this project could have been a lot greater um and so to start comparing those things you the the applicant actually has um provided more um more benefits than what the rt

would provide uh so on um um the the the pr district is is appropriate in terms of height and density and setbacks and those things so i think they've actually um exceeded what um what our typical townhome um zoning district would allow okay thank you yeah in fact i was thinking about just down the road the the sutton heights development adjacent to barristers keep i think they have similar heights i'm not sure if they're even four stories or not but uh um this doesn't seem don't seem out of line for other things that have developed well and and performed well in the city okay thank you um thank you don't let me look at my other i don't think i have anything else at this point thank you very much thank you chair father

thank you madam chair yes i have a number of questions i guess i'll start with is the intention of these townhouses is to be property ownership yes rather than rental yes sir okay from my perspective that is a tremendous plus with the volume of housing issues that we're dealing with in the city so that is a plus uh when we talk height and we look at the side view and note that if you're going to call it a fourth story uh essentially you indicated it's static but it does have a porch area on part of it one observation i will make is that the porch area is facing north not facing the residential area to the south which it could be so from that standpoint the area to the south will not have people at an elevation looking in their back windows but you have provided

storage then so they've got roof line and we're looking at midpoint of roof line and then the question is whether that's a a story or not and my sense would be if that is storage and merely some deck area that that probably is not an impediment but is an amenity provided to the owners of the property right and i think that that's exactly how it would operate you know when we we well as you can see right there there's the front bend there's the front portion of it with the north facing out deck you know the rear portion of that if we can go to the next not this slide but two slides from here yeah this is if there wasn't any vegetation there wasn't any trees this is what you would see it would appear as a

as a completely normal three-story townhouse you know you're right there will be the ability to walk up to that fourth level to go out to the deck the other half of that is basically just seasons change you drag your chairs and your table inside and you lock it up and that's about it it's not intended to be occupied it's not intended to be you know a fourth floor it's just you know storage and you know it operates the same way as if this was a three-story townhouse with an attic you think of it that way you know if you were to go up there and put some storage up on your attic or something like that it's the same thing or a rooftop deck or rooftop deck or rooftop deck with an attic okay that's that

answers my question on that and it it does make the point then that from the from the residential area closest to it uh you're providing screening yes sir with with the house as well as the vegetation that that will come to looking at that uh when we look at trees i would ask to look at the easement thing again the easement slide because i believe the easement is along uh picket road is that correct is there an easement that runs along the property line from picket road to the county line that runs between the two developments that would that would cause an easement to allow utility work to be done any place except along picket road so the there's a parcel i think it's identified as parcel b for pickets reserve

and there is an easement um within that parcel b whether it's just utilities or a utility easement or a or preservation easement i think is what it's actually identified as uh on on the plans do you have it yeah it's a bit of a piece of a piece of a piece of a piece of a piece of a piece of a piece of a piece all right okay so the engineer has identified what's called a bepco easement to be vacated along the southern and western property line along picket um on the applicant's property but the area that i was referring to is actually um identified as parcel b on if you look at the at the plaque for um pickets reserve um there there's also an easement there as well do we have a slide for a slide for

that can you show us exactly where that easement is uh let me see if i have one in the um in my presentation or or or It's kind of difficult to see, so you're probably not going to be able to see it. If you have available the Master Development Plan sheet for notes, MAPCO easements, C&P easement, sanitary easement, one additional sanitary easement, and it looks like one additional BAPCO easement in that buffered area ought to be vacated. Okay, they're all to be vacated, so they will not have a future impact as an easement once this plan moves forward. Okay, this... Okay, this... I presume from what we're looking at, that we're looking at this portion that is on the property, then that this is the existing easement, conservation easement, with the orientation being north,

so that it's behind the existing building and goes up, and this, I presume, is the property line. So the easement's here, but this is all to be vacated behind the existing office building? No. What you have in your hand right there is that's the... That is a parcel that surrounds the single-family homes in Pickett's Reserve, so it's identified as a conservation easement. That's actually owned by the HOA. That's owned by the... That's owned by the Pickett's Reserve HOA. Yes, and so I'm going to bring this up to you so you can actually see the easements that's referred to as a BEBCO easement and the additional easements that Mr. Suffern was referring to. Okay. Thank you. Does that easement impact this property?

Is the easement on this plat solely on the Pickett's Reserve property, or does it cross property lines? It's solely on Pickett's Reserve. Is it solely on Pickett's Reserve? Okay. So that should not be an impact on this property if it is solely on the Pickett's Reserve property? That's correct. Thank you. That's it. So there is no easement on this property running east and west from Pickett Road to the city line with the county. Is that correct? That's correct. There's no encumbrance on... There is a small easement going from Pickett Road. It looks to me probably 20, 30 feet into the area behind the existing building. That's a BEBCO easement. And that provides... That's where runs the power that goes into the building itself.

And when that building is redeveloped, that power line and that BEBCO easement is going to be vacated. Right. Okay. So there will be no easement... There will be no... Except the easements along Pickett Road that utilities have naturally. Yes, sir. Okay. So easements then... The new power lines will come in... The new power will come in underground from the pole up on Silver King Court. Up and down and around. Okay. So my concern then with a utility coming in to do work in an easement that would be affected by this homeowners association is misplaced. In other words, there is no concern that way. Exactly. Pickett's Reserve definitely has a concern if that easement is on their property, but this property does not.

This will eliminate the existing easement and there will be no more utility easements in that area. Okay. Thank you. Trees. I know trees have been an issue for as long as I've been on the Planning Commission, which is starting to be past the lifespan of some trees. One of those trees was on the property immediately south where there was a state record tulip poplar that impacted the design of the entire development. And if I wanted to see that tree today or for the last almost 20 years, I couldn't because trees come and go. And within five years after that development was completed, the state record tree was gone because it didn't survive the construction process. So I understand that we're going to lose some trees in this development process.

Do we have any assurance that the fewest trees possible will be lost in the process to maintain maximum screening? In other words, the stuff that we don't have to tear down to put in the footing in that to keep that. And I'm sure that the new trees will be planted. But can we get some kind of assurance that the buffer will be maintained to its maximum extent possible? I remember your story for the February about the poplar. And to be fair, my community, you know, and we don't have an HOA, but we have big trees down in Mount Vernon area. And we had a lot more before the derecho. You know, and we thought those trees were big. They were awesome big trees like that. Then the windstorm came through and a lot of the trees that we thought were big and strong apparently have been rotting and stuff like that.

So they just have a natural lifespan. You know, I think our commitment would be, A, we are going to, and as we were doing, you know, you know, Cam and I were out there this afternoon looking out there. You know, right now we have trees that are planned to be taken down. Is there a way to kind of preserve those trees as we can go forward? You know, everybody, every tree you save just makes the community look better if you can do so reasonably. We will obviously, as we go through site plan, have to work with staff, you know, and probably work with our neighbors. As we can minimize the amount of trees lost, we'll do that. If there's some trees that frankly need to come down, either because they're dead or they're diseased or they're possibly dangerous, those will come down.

But then those will be replaced by new trees as we've gotten here. And as the poplar, the Tula poplar story shows, you know, they have a lifespan. You know, you've got to have an entity that's responsible for as things die, as one tree falls and unfortunately takes out three other trees or damages three other trees. Is there an entity that can come in and replace that thing or are you just going to have, you know, kind of a dead little vegetated area? Which, you know, that's the requirement we have, you know, for an HOA on that. So that's the way we're planning on handling it. And that's commonly the way these things are handled in most communities. It's probably how it's handled on their communities for the east and the south.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, sir. That answers that. If we could go back to the slide of just the general plat. Traffic. We've talked about trip reductions and things along that line. We've talked about parking in garages and we have parking spaces. When we look at the new school being on this property and is going to remain there, can you outline the general traffic pattern that traffic for the new school will follow that is safest or that offers the best handling of that kind of traffic for the community? Well, right now the new school basically just uses Silver King because, I mean, it's like any other school. You've got stacking. My youngest just graduated Penn State, so fortunately I'm waiting around for the next phase.

But, you know, we went through this ourselves where, you know, you've got to wait, you know, open up the door, get people in, little kids in, little kids out, stuff like that. Silver King lends itself naturally to that. And it will continue to do so. So, you know, yes, there will be conflicting movements sometimes with residents leaving and coming out in the morning. But, you know, that's just something communities grow in there. And that's no different that you have right now except there will be less trips with an office building the way it would have operated at one point throughout the history of this. You know, I think one of the major changes we're having here is, you know, the goal to making this unidirectional.

You know, just one direction as it comes in. You know, that kind of eliminates the opportunity for, you know, mishaps, people, you know, not paying attention, dinging a car, hopefully not hitting someone. But, you know, it is going to be a little bit of a busy area. It will be less busy because of less traffic. It will be a little better organized because you'll have unidirectional traffic flow there. But, you know, that's the goal of how we're planning on working with it. And we have been in contact with the new schools through this process. And the goal, as we've talked about, you know, the HOA will have to continue to work with the new school. You know, we have a shared parking regime. You know, if you look, right now the zoning ordinance only requires us to have two parking spaces per townhouse.

Each of those townhouses equally easily meet their criteria there. And then you're going to have on 11 of those townhouses two additional parking spaces on their driveway. All right? The three that don't have that driveway have been moved north to eliminate that driveway as a concession to our neighbors to the south. You know, so you're going to have enough parking there. That fact notwithstanding, we've got adequate parking on additional parking on the other side of Silver King. You know, and that, the reason we're doing that is, you know, to provide parking for our visitors. But we also, it's going to be, it's going to be used by the school. Be used by the school for after school events. We're dropping kids off.

You know, sometimes you're, you know, anybody's had to do with a science experiment or anybody's had to do with any kind of, you know, large form board thing like that. Sometimes, you know, that's not getting shoved in the door when you're getting with a kid, you know, while you're holding the car door. You've got to do some loading and stuff like that. And the goal is to have that in place, allow that work with the community in the school the same way it has, you know, since the 80s, you know. Okay. Is there an expectation that traffic will come in off of Pickett Road and use the road in front of the townhouses to get to one story building, 9455 that appears to have two handicapped spaces out in front of it as part of the circulation?

Or do you think they will come in and use Silver King Road primarily to get down to the other drop-off places? I think they'll use Silver King Road primarily just because that's a little more direct route. I mean, it's kind of, you know, realistically, even Silver King Court is not as direct, you know, for the new school, but it just provides a stacking space. And so I think there's a difference between how those two properties would operate there. It doesn't make much sense to kind of come around that way. Okay. But they could do it, yes. It could be used, but it... These will be, although it's a private road, this will be full public access. Yeah. As it is now. Okay. The odd part with your bump out to the north side with the additional parking spaces is that it appears that two of those parking spaces aren't on your property but belong to the building.

Mm-hmm. The one-story building that I presume will remain that's part of the new school in their administration. Yes, sir. So that's just an oddity that bears discussion but probably does not impact the approval of the process. It's just what we'll have to work with the same way we've worked together for 40 years, you know. They'll construct it. They'll end up having new parking spaces. We're going to have to reconstruct those parking spaces as part of the new project, you know, but that's how it'll work. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Those are my questions. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. My colleagues have touched on most of what I wanted to ask about. I do have just a couple questions about as we look at what's currently on this site and what's proposed, do we have a comparison of site coverage between existing and proposed, especially in terms of impermeable surface?

So in terms of lot coverage? Mm-hmm. Mr. Steffin is going to get the GDP up for me so I can give you the numbers. Okay. And then my next question is for the applicant. Given the history of this location and its proximity to the tank farm, do you anticipate any environmental remediation to be necessary as part of the construction process for? We don't. I mean, if you're talking about, like, in terms of, like, underground storage tanks or stuff like that, hazardous materials, no. Any groundwater contamination? Yeah. We don't anticipate that. At the end of the day, once you start breaking ground, you know, you're responsible for what happens. So if we run into something, you know, you've got to let the staff know.

You've got to let, you know, Virginia Department of Health know. You know, I've sat here before and said, yeah, no problem. And then you found out, oh, it actually had been owned by the U.S. Army in 1917. And, you know, there was all kinds of matter. Back when the idea was we would just bulldoze stuff and cover it up. And, you know, 80 years went by. So, you know, kind of you break it, you bought it. Once we break ground, we're responsible for it. For whatever it turns out. We're responsible for doing it within the confines of the law. Okay. While I wait for Mr. Sutphin, then my other question is, obviously, Chair Feather brought up the sidewalks only on one piece. Can you speak to a little bit about any consideration that was given to connection onto the county side adjacent to this property?

We did receive a question about connectivity to trails, connectivity to the Mantua neighborhood. And I was wondering if that was considered in terms of the layout of any sidewalks. It was not considered. It did not come from someone in Mantua. We did walk the site with Mantua. I think Mantua, to do something like that would require clearing trees and creating a space, you know, that would, frankly, put a hole in the buffer. You know, if we got a request like that from Mantua and, you know, that's something we might want to consider. But, you know, I mean, the goal, we just spent the last 20 minutes talking about how to buffer and protect adjacent communities and being good neighbors. You know, that kind of right now, absent that coming from them, is kind of diametrically opposed to the goal we're trying.

Yeah. And, you know, we are providing pedestrian connections on Pickett. You know, we're maintaining all that. You know, and we are committed to, you know, being good neighbors and supporting the plans. But, you know, part of that in this case, I think that's not what the folks in Mantua would want. Do we have a coverage answer? Not yet. Okay. All right. Any other follow-up questions while we wait for the? Yeah. There's, on the easement diagrams, obviously, and you've communicated, many of them are going to be dropped at some point. I haven't had a power line over my back fence for 12 years, but Dominion still has an easement. Utilities are very reluctant to release easements given the drama in our neighboring county with high voltage utility lines.

The utility companies are very reluctant. Has there been a legal agreement or some signed commitment by them? There's been discussion with the utilities. In this case, you're absolutely right. You know, they don't like to give it for transmission or distribution. They don't like to give it. In this case, it's not that. It's literally just going, you know, and what I'm saying, I'm going to make a distinction. They are not giving up their easements along Pickett. The easement we're talking about giving up is just from that pole in Pickett to about 30 feet into the property on there just to go to the transformer that goes right into the building. And that's a very common thing when we redevelop properties.

You know, the localized electrical infrastructure just gets reconfigured. And, you know, so what we'll do is they'll vacate that and they're going to get a new one, you know, that'll show where the new line's coming in. Because the new lines will come in through Silver King Court, you know, and then, you know, so you're right. That's exactly how it would work. Thank you. Okay. Ms. Lockhart. So the existing impervious acreage is 0.98. And with post-development, the impervious cover would be 1.01. So there's a slight increase in impervious. Thank you for those numbers. That was going to be my question is, does the change in impervious surface, is it roughly commensurate with the proposed increase in tree coverage?

And it seems like that is about, right, about a 1%, or excuse me, 5% change in tree cover, in number of trees. It is. And impervious is, obviously, it's an important calculation because impervious equals impact on stormwater like that, you know. And I would say, yes, it's a slight increase, but it's a slight increase of existing conditions, which functionally does not have stormwater management protections. You know, and this would be required to have the most modern stormwater management protections. And otherwise, we're not getting a building permit. So. Okay. Any other comments from commissioners before we open this for the public hearing? No. I believe we have preregistrants. Yes, we have one sign up for a speaker.

It's John Cho. And with that, we'll open the public hearing. Speakers, you have. I'll be available for more comments. Thank you. You have three minutes on the clock. Please identify your name and address for the record when you approach the podium. Mr. Cho. Good evening, commissioners. My name is John Cho. I am the president of the Pickett Reserve HOA, citizen of Fairfax for the last two years, lived in the county for over 10. I'm a retired general officer, West Point grad, and we just love this area. My wife's a UVA, so we ended up here. So I sent a document to you today, 33 pages, which identified 24 areas where we are in disagreement with the staff. We know they work hard. And for that reason, we are not recommending approval of this application as is.

There's been significant progress made. But the way we look at it is there has been not substantial improvements in the comprehensive plan. And when you take a look at the 13 considerations, because utilities are being requested now to be buried, it's actually 10 of 13 demonstrate significant shortfalls. And so when you take a look at where did that 3 feet, 35, 3 level, 35 foot max height and level come from, it's actually page 29 of the comprehensive plan. So we're not talking about the RT6. It actually talks about adequate buffering. And so they're saying it's actually four levels and 43 feet. Thank you, counselor, for verifying it's a 43 foot high townhouse. That is very important. So when we talk about adequate buffering, right, and so there's a case that was being adjudicated in the county that you take a look at a three-story building that was built next to another house, missed by a couple feet.

That is 156. When you take a look at the picture, it is a home. So, you know, that's where one of the 23 other disagreements that we have, you know, we know that everyone works hard. I would say that for us, what do we see? You saw that picture of that bungalow. It is 22 feet high. The buffering currently is 29 feet. Per the comprehensive plan, you have to account for the existing community on a proportion basis for a 43-foot high townhome that is 56 feet of buffering. So all we're asking is for 43, right? And so when you look at that, you go, well, if we could get every rear townhouse cornerstone 43 feet away from our property line, we'd be good to go. We placed a fence, a four-foot fence there two weeks ago.

And interestingly, we measured from our fence line to the curb. That's 86 feet. So we know this townhouse is 40 feet in depth, 43 feet of buffering, and for an 86-foot curb puts that townhouse, number one, three feet from the curb. If you take a look at the pictures, it looks like it's set back. That's why the devil's in the details. You've got to go through all nine. And what you're going to see, there's another regulation, 351. Thank you very much. Any other comments? Follow-up comments from commissioners or questions? Close the public hearing. All right. We'll close the public hearing. And if commissioners agree, we'll move on to a motion. All right. That's fine. Excuse me. So we did receive a comment for the record via email prior to this meeting from a Mr. Daniel Gray of Fairfax City.

It was the comment that I alluded to previously about consideration of connection in the neighborhood to the Pickett Road Connector Trail as well as to Mantua on the Fairfax County side. So I do want to acknowledge that that was a direct comment from a resident contributing to the dialogue this evening. All right. Thank you. With that said, I'd like to go ahead and make a motion. The first motion is for the comprehensive plan amendment pertaining to this application. I move that the planning commission adopt the attached resolution recommending amendment of the comprehensive plan of the city of Fairfax, Virginia, from commercial corridor place type to townhouse single-family attached neighborhood place type on the future land use map property identified as city of Fairfax tax map parcel 58-2-10-001-A1.

So any discussion of the motion? I second. Thank you. Any discussion of the motion? Seeing none, I will call for a roll call vote. Mr. McCarthy. Aye. Mr. Cunningham. Aye. Mr. Rice. Aye. Mr. Feather. Aye. And I vote aye as well. Motion passes unanimously. Moving on to the rezoning amendment. Based on the public convenience, welfare, and good zoning practice with respect to rezoning application Z-24-00236, which has been filed for the land known as 94-95 Silver King Court, and more particularly described as tax map parcel 58-2-10-001-A1-1, I move that the planning commission recommend approval of rezoning application Z-24-00236 to rezone the subject property from PDC, planned and development commercial, to PDR, planned and development residential, while retaining the architectural control overlay district to allow the development of the subject property in compliance with the master development plan and commitments, which have been prepared and submitted by the applicant.

I further move that the planning commission recommend to approve the application of RJL Associates, Inc. by Bean, Kinney, and Corman for a general development plan amendment subject to the master development plan with commitments revised June 15, 2026, on the land known as 94-95 Silver King Court, and more particularly described as tax map parcel 58-2-10-001-A1.1. Second. Any discussion of the motion? Any discussion? We'll move to a roll call. Vote. Mr. McCarthy? Aye. Mr. Cunningham? Aye. Mr. Rice? Aye. Mr. Feather? Aye. And I vote aye as well. Thank you, applicants. Mr. Frederick. Thank you. All right. With that, we adjourn our regular meeting and move on to our work session. Next topic is Northfax Concept Phase 4 briefing.

Thank you. Madam Chair, I would offer an aside while we're moving on, and that's with another recent development along Pickett Road, where houses were moved from one side to another for the convenience of the neighborhood. I've been told by several people who are occupants since then, with the completion of that project, that that move isn't what they thought it might be, because they have discovered that by putting residential next to industrial, industrial works all night. And so at 2 o'clock in the morning, they have noise, they have light, they have other opportunities. So sometimes just moving for convenience doesn't work out as planned. All right. All right. All right. Mr. Frederick's again.

Good evening. This is a pre-application briefing on a potential development proposal for 3570 Chambered Road. The potential applicant is MCRT Investments, LLC, represented by Catherine Taylor. This is the first step in the current land use review procedure adopted in 2020, intended to advise planning commission and council of interest in developing property in the site. At this point, the potential applicant has met with staff and received very high-level feedback. The site is located at 3570 Chambered Road on the west side of Chambered Road, south of Fairfax Street, east of Far Avenue, and Brightview North, back senior living, and north of Fairfax Boulevard. The proposal would be the final phase.

I'm sorry. Is there a presentation being shared? I'm not, I'm seeing the old. You're not seeing it? I'm seeing the tickets reserved or the, into a presentation. We're going to stop sharing and then share again. Let's try it again. Do you see it now? Thank you. Yes, thank you. Okay. Just to be clear, can you see it now? Yes, thank you. Okay. Okay. Great. All right. The site is located at 3570 Chambered Road on the west side of Chambered Road, south of North Fact Street, east of Far Avenue, and the senior living building, and north of Fairfax Boulevard. The proposal would be the final phase of the final phase of the final phase of the plan. The plan of development mixed use that was approved in 2020.

The existing townhome development, which is phase two, has a density of 11.3 dwelling units an acre. The senior living parcel, which is phase three, has a density of 50.8 dwelling units per acre. The existing master development plan did not approve any permanent uses for phase four, which requires the filing of an amendment to the master development plan in order to develop phase four. The existing master plan identified office, retail, restaurant, residential, and hotel as possible uses. The phase four currently has a stormwater drainage culvert on site and associated a 45-foot easement that bisects the property. So, the property is within the activity center place type. The property is currently zoned PDM with architectural control overlay.

The surrounding area has a mixture of non-residential zoning districts. So, the smaller area plan was adopted in June 23, 2020. So, the smaller area plan, just to kind of walk you through the slide at the top left corner, shows the site with the residential street frontage along Northback Street. Moving to the right, the residential uses shown. So, for the site, it shows residential in the grade area. And then the orange is a mixed use. The bottom left corner is commercial. It shows mixed use. Again, it kind of replicates the retail frontage and also the residential component. So, you would have a mixed use along Fairfax, along Chambers Road and Northback Street. And then the building height shows a seven-story building at this location.

The site also fronts along what's considered a linear park for the Norfax small area plan. So, the conceptual plan shows how this proposed Phase 4 would line up with the approved plans from 2020. So, the applicant is looking to propose a one seven-story multifamily building and one upper-story mixed use building connected by a seven-story parking garage and has service parking. Up to 350 multifamily units resulting in an overall density of approximately 49 drilling units per acre for the 10-acre plan development. And the applicant is proposing commercial along the ground floor at the corner of Chambers Road and Northback Street. The applicant is proposing residential amenities for the residents that may include courthouse, pools, club rooms, and fitness center, as well as a dog park.

The applicant has provided garage parking and service parking with approximately 450 spaces with two access points for ingress and egress to the parking garage. A full turning movement from Northback Street and a right-only entrance from Chamber Road. Along with the mixed use on the corner of Chambers Road and Northback Street, the applicant is proposing a linear park feature fronting with planting and sidewalk and a seating area as shown along Northback Street, which is fairly consistent with the small area plan. So, in your packet, there's the items that staff discuss with the applicant. I just want to mention a few of the larger items, kind of the high-level items. The smaller plan actually shows one shared street between the senior living building and the proposed phase four.

And the applicant is showing two streets that are roughly 50 feet apart. So, that's something that staff pointed out is consistent with the small area plan. Another item that the applicant has done a fairly good job of identifying and working with the covert that runs through the property. The covert area, I want to try to trace it with my cursor, runs in this direction. And it's largely underneath the parking facility and the surface parking area. So, one of the large challenges for the site is that there's a covert, existing covert, that runs through the middle of the property. And in terms of the additional high-level feedback, the applicant provided 15% open space during the approval process for phase one through phase three back in 2020.

So, the applicant would need to make up the difference for this phase. So, when you're looking at the overall size of the PD, the applicant has roughly 5% of the 10 acres to make up to reach the 20%. So, those are kind of the big-ticket items in terms of high-level feedback. We'd like to share. There's more in the packet if you want to go through those items. And the applicant has one other item. The applicant has provided some renderings to kind of give an idea of what some previous projects that they've done in the area. And the next step would be for a September 1st briefing with City Council. The potential land uses would basically be an amendment with modifications and commitments to the previously approved Master Development Plan.

And they would need to seek a major certificate of appropriateness for architecture and landscaping. The applicant is here to answer any questions you may have. Staff is available for questions as well. And thank you for your time. Thank you. Commissioner, any questions? Mr. McCarthy, would you like to? Okay. Mr. Rice. So, does the underground infrastructure that's already under the parcel, will that cause any problems for the parking that's intended to be there or the site prep? Mr.利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利利

occur on top of the culvert so but their engineers here as well to answer questions so if you have any additional questions there i'm sure they'd love to to to address it okay it certainly will be an unusual build for the developer and not every day that you put multiple stories up above a culvert and certainly if the culvert if something were to happen to it it would just be a disaster for the city and for the builder so um we'll cross our fingers it'll be a challenge but i'm sure they're um you know willing to address it okay great i'm eli goldman civil engineer at land design um so to answer that and also so the engineer for the actual culvert design before so well aware of the whole site um but yeah we are designing around

it and kind of when you have a building or parking garage near the culvert we have to send those foundations deep enough to avoid any kind of structural implications to the culvert um and then also the large span across the whole easement is being taken account so we'll have big girders in the parking garage to account for that so kind of planning for it early on to not have any impacts the culvert all right some critique of the original culvert um since all since you were involved i'll ask open up the can of worms by admitting that um there's criticism about the north facts development happening based on the speed at which uh the sorry let me say this in the technically correct way it was posed uh

the storm water that moves through that area used to move pretty slowly but with the uh increased impervious surface and with the culvert itself it's moving through quickly and so what was suggested years ago was that this created some danger and that um the sort of unexpected nature of big storms that the culvert may not be sufficient for its original purposes and anything built above or around it may need you know extreme caution it you don't seem to have an extremely cautious uh kind of stance on this and you were involved so um anything else you can say to give me a little confidence and reassurance that this will not be problematic yeah so everything with the culvert kind of that was designed for the for fema and did the

whole clomar and lomar process to correctly document and model the storms so kind of it's all modeled to stay within the culvert and kind of for our site now here kind of we're going to follow all city and state requirements for storm water management so that kind of everything kind of on this area will be able to convey the storms that we designed for yeah so i'd like to ask the parking garage and it is covered by the building and my understanding is it's seven stories as well but it's big nonetheless and that area that's that's open to the public do you have any like design strategy to ensure that that isn't like a defining feature like the garage just kind of sticking out there or is that is that the intent that you'll just have open garage into that space

or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or are open I guess to the west and to the east, the intent would be to integrate some sort

of architectural feature so that it would be minimized, the structure itself. But I don't know if the architect wants to provide but I know that's sort of the architectural intent in terms of designing that garage. Yes, I'm Vinay Ganeshan from PVEDI, really architects. So I want to go back also to talk about the easement and the parking garage in the first place. You know this project would be pretty easy if the easement wasn't there. So one of the biggest challenges we had to deal with was trying to figure out how to span it because it's 45 feet. And one of the probably the only strategy that we could use was to sort of use the parking garage which is a precast parking garage and with that garage you do get larger spans. If we were to do it

with a conventional garage it just wouldn't work. I mean your spans would be, I mean your depth would be about six feet. So that's where the garage is where it is. And then one of the strategies that we would use architecturally is, as you can see, we sort of set the garage back from Chainbridge to kind of minimize its impact on the street skip. And obviously we're still in the planning stage but once we get into you know more of a design development stage, that's one of our biggest challenge, you know objectives to make sure that visually you know we can deal with it architecturally. Same thing with the facade facing Brightview also. That would be the goal also. I mean we haven't gotten there yet but I think you can look at the examples that we provided of projects that we've done with Mill Creek.

We did Mosaic with Mill Creek. We've also done a couple of projects in the wharf. You know the emphasis has always been providing you know quality architecture visually so that it's a benefit to the community. Okay thank you. And then I don't know who this question would go to. So 7,000 square feet of retail. What kind of you know footprints are we talking about there? What are we envisioning there? And I ask thinking about you know the linear park and I fear you know kind of with the great wall of Chainbridge Road right there that we're kind of alienating that last little leg there. And I'm just trying to think what are we doing to create connectivity between the two? Why are people drawn to this area?

Good evening. My name is Peter Brown. I'm with Mill Creek Residential the applicant. There's a lot of planning going on and frankly I think that the planning staff could answer this better than I can but in terms of connectivity between the west side of 123 and the east side of 123 I believe they're planning a pedestrian crosswalk. at the north facts intersection. So I don't know exactly what the timing of that proposed infrastructure work is but my understanding is that's going to happen in the near term. Hopefully before our project is constructed that would provide a direct connection from a pedestrian perspective across the other side of 123. Can I add a quick point to that? Thanks Peter.

And I think if you look at the image there as Peter mentioned because there is an intended crosswalk or pedestrian crossing that will go over Chainbridge. We have been intentional in terms of where we place that retail so you can kind of see it. It is right at that corner understanding that there is limited visibility of any type of retail along that frontage on what is now Northlack Street. I think in the comp plan it's calling it Orchard Street. So again trying to be very intentional in terms of where we can place any type of and really we're calling it non residential commercial. It doesn't have to be your token retail and token retail might not even work at that corner because of its lack of visibility.

And so we've been already having conversations with the economic director with county with city staff in terms of what would be appropriate in terms of really meeting that spirit of the comprehensive plans retail frontage. So in another I think one of the other I don't know if it's one of the images that we have provided to you Mr. Frederick but showing kind of what we intended in our original concept it might be in the staff report. So in addition to that 7,000 square feet commercial spaces we were also that's really the prime location where we can put those residential amenities. So as Mr. Frederick mentioned the lobby area courtyard area fitness area mail room and in doing so that would obviously also there you can see it right there.

That would also allow for activation really again meeting that spirit and intent of creating a retail frontage. It would also be fronting that linear park really inviting pedestrians to maintain that walkability and connection as Mr. McCarthy mentioned ultimately when that crosswalk pedestrian crossing is created on one, two, three kind of inviting people to this area. And then as you keep going if you go back to the slide with the context of the entire site and my firm actually handled I was one of the attorneys that did the original North Facts West project that linear park continues along the west and ultimately goes to kind of that open green space that you see in that northwest corner. So really allowing for that connection all the way through I know a lot a large part of that North Facts linear park is to create connections to nature.

So we just wanted to allow for that extension of the linear park and really that connectivity that you've asked about. So hopefully that provides a little bit of clarity at least with our thought process of how we wanted to activate that North Facts frontage. It does. Thank you. And then lastly, outside of the retail that's going there, has there been any consideration or thought given to like public space as opposed to I assume the gym and all those areas are for residents only? And that's a discussion we're continuing to have. I know that Mill Creek has had products in the past where they've made opportunities if people wanted gym memberships that were outside of that community that that could be a possibility.

So again, this is a continuing discussion that we're having with city staff as well as with you all, you know, what would be appropriate in terms of what type of non-residential commercial retail uses could we put along that area. So open to those types of ideas. We're happy to take it. And as we go back and kind of think through what would be most appropriate, those are great, great feedback that we will certainly take into consideration. Thank you. I have a number of, I guess, observations or questions that will bear on some additional thought. One comes to the northeast corner, as you said. There's a street, I think it's 29 or 30 that it may come in that will connect along the south side of the Marriott.

Is there thought to what kind of intersection you have on the northeast portion of the corner? Because I presume that's a right in right out. And you've got a left turn modified left turn lane now. But in past discussions we've had at the planning commission with that intersection and pedestrians crossing from one side of North facts to the other. There's been a lot of spirited discussion and in the past decade and more over how you do that. Can you do that at surface level and give adequate time for traffic to move through there efficiently, but still give some of us slower people time to cross from one side of the street to the other when you're crossing six or seven lanes and this kind of traffic area.

So fly over or underground tunnel or other ways other than surface travel have been talked about in the past, but none of that has appeared to show. And if you're going to have your linear park, how do we get the west side of the linear park to integrate with the east side? And that intersection is going to be key to how that is done. And that's the part of your traffic. When I look at the traffic pattern right now, there is no left in on what was formerly Orchard Street is now North fact street. On the slide, there is right in coming south and you have right into the parking garage. When I look at the parking garage and the other slide you had through it. Is that a drive through on the surface level where you enter or is that just into the garage and you've got to navigate the garage in order to get out the other side?

And if so, I see a little bump out on the west side of the south residential building. And I'm wondering what that's purpose is. Is that loading dock for the building? Is that an entrance extra to some underground parking or or what is that? And how does traffic work through that whole area? And I'm going to let our architect talk about what is happening when you enter and it would be right in or it would be. Entrance only in terms of coming off Cambridge Road and that entry into the garage. I will say briefly my understanding you can see on this image that you I think it's trash utilities bike parking so that you do see that on the on the west side of this the north building. And there would be visitor parking along what we've added on that kind of portion that goes up towards North back street.

There has been discussion about inter parcel access with Brightview. That's another comment we've heard multiple times. And I think Mr. Frederick brought that up. So that's something we are also continuing to consider. And I think that location would likely. But you can also see where the culvert kind of bisects that diagonal line that goes through. So that really is what limits what we can do in that area. Yep. You can kind of follow that cursor. You can see that dotted line. So that really does. We've tried to really work around that. But I'm going to turn it over to the architect to answer your question about what happens when you come into the garage. Yeah. The. The access lane as you come in from Cambridge Road is actually continuous all the way through the garage.

So it's actually sort of like a far lane based on some initial talks we had with the fire marshal. We're actually providing that as a through lane basically connecting sort of north facts back to chain bridge. So that's the intent behind the. Okay. So you can go straight through. So there will be something inside the garage then. Yeah. So I presume you're going to have inter level multi-level access. Yes. Working your way up and down the garage. So what is not showing you. Obviously we know we're just showing the roof level. Right. But what happens with the south building is there is a ramp that sort of takes you up to that first level of the precast parking garage. And then once you get there you do the typical loop that takes you pretty much up and down the garage.

So we're essentially using that first level of the garage to sort of navigate the height limit that you need for the. I think it's 14 feet or 13 feet that you need and also the easement. So once you get to the first floor then it becomes your typical precast garage. Okay. And that that's tall enough to get any future vehicles the bigger fire trucks. Yes. That are coming through. Yes. The bigger utility vehicles. If you ever had to go down through the floor to get to that. Culvert that's underneath it. For that kind of work. Those kinds of things would be accommodated. I presume without having to tear down the garage in the building. Yeah. That was the intent. Yeah. That was the intent. Yes. And you know what is also not seen here is that there's also a great difference from change change sort of coming up to the bright view property.

Right. So the height that we established also works to deal with that height or the great difference. Okay. There is a. On the west side of the garage. There looks like either an entrance or a bay for loading or something along that line. Is that the entrance to something or is that just to pull in and offload at a particular point to enter the building for moving in moving out anything along that line. Oh you mean at the bottom. Um. No I mean on the road that goes through the garage. Once I've gone through the garage as I'm going through I've got parking spaces on the right. I've got parking spaces on the left. Right. And then I've got an entrance it looks like. Yep. Which would be standard for going to underground parking.

Yeah that is actually sort of the ramp that takes you up. So there's a two story ramp that's sort of hidden behind the residential. That take you up to the parking garage. Yes. Yep. It's actually like a jump ramp. Okay. And it will have residential then on either side of it and above it. Yeah. Okay. It will actually have residential on top. And on top of it. Okay. I presume with traffic flow then if you can come right in. Uh. It's essentially what in the garage you turn into two-way traffic. Yes. And so everything to the west and the northwest of it is two-way traffic in and out of the site. Yep. So that's the bulk of handling the traffic and then. If you were going to exit the site is turning right on Northfax the only way to get out of the site.

Or is it planned that you'll be able to go left on Northfax and then south on that connector road on the other side of right view. You want to. How do you get around. Yeah that's correct. You have the option of you have to come to Northfax street then turn right or left. Um. So I believe the new far avenue extension has been opened up and it's public right away. Fred I'm not sure if you know. Um. Oh. So I probably believe it's open. Yeah. I believe it. Yeah. It's it's open now and it will certainly be open by the time. Yeah. You're complete with construction. Uh. So. So that traffic will have more traffic. I know originally there was discussion of potentially running a road jointly with Brightview or this property.

down to the south to Cambridge Road which would give you an exit then there. But you've got a challenge with properties to the south. Where three businesses are essentially single owned. at this point one of which is a historic building. And then you've got a small piece of property on the corner that used to be the former Dick Keller Autos. That is owned by the city. Is that the buffer. That keeps that south building from being considered residential on the boulevard. Because one of the challenges we've had. Uh. In talking with the comprehensive plan and things like that is that we had an intention not to build. residential on the boulevard. So are you. Is that the buffer that keeps this from being residential on the boulevard.

Uh. I don't think we've discussed with staff whether that was the official buffer. But um. Kind of we're focused just on our own property here. And um. There's no. None of the properties south are going to be added as part of this application. So. The small area plan shows it all as one. Project potentially but. We don't own. Control that. Property the south. So. Or those three properties south. So we have to stay within our own property. Okay. I guess that. That's part of my question then. And looking at this and saying. If we're not going to have residential on the boulevard. Is there something for buffering or something else that we can do. When I look at the commercial portion of the property.

It's in the northeast corner of. The north building. That looks like it's about as far from any parking as you could have on this site. What. What does that do for increasing. The volume of commercial potentially in the building. Or to. Making it viable. If people have to either park in the garage or park as far away and. And walk around the buildings to get to it. How does that make that functional. For the location of something that would be usable for people to park and access it and. And have good flow. Sure. I think. I think the next slide might show the diagram a little bit better. Yeah. So what we did with the retail was. You know you're absolutely right. You know we need to connect the retail back to the parking garage.

So. We're still sort of working on it. It's a little bit preliminary. So the area of retail that we're showing. Starts off on North Facts. Kind of turns the corner on Chain Bridge. Because that's out of your prime retail site. And. Comes back and links you back to the. And. The area of retail. And. The area of retail. That's a little bit preliminary. So the area of retail that we're showing. Starts off on North Facts. Kind of turns the corner on Chain Bridge. And. It comes back and links you. Back to the precast garage. You know. So there are going to be some spaces. I'm assuming. Allotted for retail. And that was the plan. Because you know what. Retail. You're also going to need. Support facilities.

That we can provide adjacent to the garage. So that actually makes it. Even more critical. That. You know we. Add in some retail. Like. We're showing. On Chain Bridge. Also. Just because all the parking. Is going to be on. In the garage. Other than any street parking. That we could get. On. Not facts. Does it make any sense. To put retail. On. Chain Bridge. And Fairfax Boulevard. On the first floor. On that south building then. Where you're right next to the parking garage. And would have better access. For people who are going to be. Coming and going. And using that. Type of facility. I mean ideally yes. But you know. We were actually trying to work. With the master plan. The small area plan.

That showed. Retail along. North facts. And you know. We do have to talk about it though. Because when you look at the plan. No matter how you do a residential here. North facts. Is the frontage is very limited. And even for you know. Even for the residential to work. We do need. You know the frontage for. Lobby. And you know. Other uses. So yeah. I mean if. You know. If. If that's one of the recommendations. We can definitely. Take a look at that. Because you know. It might also link. The retail. Back to what's happening. I think it's 50. Down below. You know. So that's something. We could take a look at also. Would it be possible. To work with the city. Who owns. The corner. If you had retail along.

Chain. And you know. If you had retail along. Chain. And you know. You know. You know. The corner. If you had retail along. Chain Bridge. And that. To get some kind of. Park. Or open space. Access. That would give you. Better pedestrian. Mobility. In that. Southern exposure. And. And make it viable. Or more viable. To have. Retail along the south side. And around the corner. There. If you had a park out in front of it. And something like that. To make it. Much more attractive. Yeah. I think. I think we can definitely. You know. Take a look at that also. Okay. And I know. Talking with the city. Hopefully would be. A productive exercise. Yeah. But I don't know. The swimming pool. Is it going to be on the first floor.

The seventh floor. It's going to be on the first floor. First floor. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So you've got. You've got. Six stories. Of residential. Around it. On four sides. Which means. It's not going to get a lot of sunlight. So. Is this going to be a covered. Amenity. That people can use. Year round. Or is this going to be something. That's good in June. July and August. When it's really hot. As a place to go. Hang out. Well. You know. I think. Right now. It's planned. As a. I mean. You're right. Right now. It's planned. It's shielded all around. It's not going to get sunshine. It's going to get warm. Right now. It's planned. As an upgrade pool. But you know. Depending on how we do the podium.

You know. It could go one level above. But it is an outdoor pool. I think. We've done a couple of projects. With Mill Creek. That are very similar. And. You know. And. Yes. I mean. They do function. Pretty well. But. You know. Depending on the lighting. Yes. Is there anything. That could make it. A year round. Amenity. That would be. As attractive. To. To residents. Or. To whoever was allowed. To use it. Well. The other option. Is. You know. We show the pool. Just because. You know. We show a pool. But. I don't think. We worked out. All the. Landskipping. And design options. You know. They could. Probably end up. Just being. Two landscape courtyards. Also. You know. So. We would have to work that out.

Could have an indoor restaurant. Or an outdoor restaurant. And. And. The center. Unless it's just a total amenity. For the residents. That. These are just thoughts. That I'm throwing out. To try to. To try to say. What can we do. To add. Value. To. Make it just not a residential place. Right. But a place that is valuable. To the city. And its residents as well. Yeah. You know. One of the things. I think. Catherine sort of talked about it. Both along Northfax. And also along. Chain. Chain. Chain. Bridge. Specifically along. Northfax. You know. Mill Creek has done a lot of projects. Where. You know. It's using. You know. Live work units. Or something. That's other than residential. But part of residential.

That sort of gives you that. Street frontage. And those are things that. I think. Would definitely look at. I think. Brightview also has a lot of. Walk up. You know. Features. Brightview also has a lot of. Walk up features. That. We're also going to. Take a look at. Just to activate the street. Okay. That. That I think. Would be useful. In. In looking at it. And I think those are. My primary. Can. To. To. To. To. To. To. To. 々 or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or or the city and connectivity for the rest of what we're trying to do and getting the best project to fill it in. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Feather. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Several things. Recently, we've had a significant discussion about another development south of Old Town.

We talked about property consolidation, and there was a small parcel that was an orphan at one time, and with the discussion with our developer, they actually took some initiative, acquired a parcel, and developed a much more complete redevelopment proposal south of Old Town. I think you have that same opportunity here to look at those properties to the south of the property that you own, including the city property on the corner and the property that includes an old car lot and historic diner, which could still be preserved as part of the historic vision district. It would provide the opportunity then for the road that the small area plan envisions coming out to Fairfax Boulevard. I think that's where you're putting some attention to and really thinking hard about a more complete development that more fully realizes the vision of the small area plan for this area.

The staff report mentioned a remnant property associated with an adjacent Safford-Brown Mazda. It should be considered also for consolidation. I'm not sure what that is. Is that something you could describe, perhaps, Mr. Frederick, for us? That's the old bridge. I'm thinking about this consolidation concept. So can you see that question? Yes. That's the piece right there. Oh, that little corner there. Okay. Yes, sir. All right. All right. Easily understood and could, in fact, be considered as part of a consolidation as well. So staff also in the report, the report made a comment about Chainbridge Road. I understand that there's going to be no exit from the parking garage onto Chainbridge Road, but staff is okay with the entrance that's shown.

Is that correct? That's correct. That's correct. Okay. Just want to make sure I understood that. We talk about this frequently, and we think about the commercial space, 7,000 square feet on a little corner of it, as Mr. Cunningham pointed out. It seems fairly far from the parking. More development that goes on in this area, more skeptical I am that we can't support more commercial use on the ground floor of these facilities. 200 senior residences. Brightview, 330 or 50 in this development. 56 townhouses here. Across the way at the bottom is another couple hundred units. Continue to be disappointed at the pushback we get from bringing in more modern and interesting commercial uses. Continue to have conversations with the Economic Development Office.

And folks are looking for good quality retail commercial restaurant space in the city. But we still keep getting pushback on what an applicant will provide. So we still have concerns about that. In many other respects, it's doing a pretty decent job at fulfilling the vision for the small area plan. I think a serious effort at consolidation and really more fully realizing what we think this corner should look like or could look like would be a good activity on your part. Something good effort for you. If you haven't already approached the property owners themselves. One piece of which, as I said, is the stays. I'm not sure of any other questions. Those are mostly comments and feedback at this point.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Feather. I just have a few questions that may be still preemptive. I know this is pre-application. But the parking strategy, I see 350 units, 450 parking spaces. And I assume that also includes parking for retail in that number? Yes. Yes. Okay. So that's slightly under what we would consider the parking standard for that number of units. I'm never opposed to under-parking a property because I think we can encourage public transportation and other options. But is that a consideration when you look at this is how does this tie into public transit options or what you might offer as a kind of a bone to future residents that may find themselves short on parking? I think it's a great question.

It plays to the balance between the number of residential units we end up designing balanced with the amount of commercial space. It's something we have to keep in mind because you're right. We have to kind of pinpoint it. We don't want to under-park it. It can really just provide a lot of issues for the surrounding streets and also for the residents. At the same time, over-parking, you know, can also be costly and drag down the project. So it's about finding that sweet spot. We haven't quite pinned that down yet. Okay. And then also I assume that right now we're looking at the standard affordable unit commitment per the city ordinance. I would ask you to consider that as you further plan out your unit types, considering that we do have a fairly large workforce supporting the new Brightview Senior Living Facility.

And anything that developers can do as a good neighbor to these places that are sort of workforce centers on a, you know, per hour or lower income workforce would be extremely well received and helpful to the city. So I would urge you to consider that as you kind of finalize your unit size mix and also your offers to the city. And then, of course, with the parking, you know, what is the tie-in with any public transit that you can support? I would echo the comments about adding additional commercial. I do think this site can support it. I think the visibility is great on Cambridge Road. I will take Mr. Cunningham's place in providing some history on this site. There used to be, way back in the day, a sort of diner.

And then, of course, the 29 Diner on the other corner, which are both much beloved and much missed. So if you're looking for some branding or some, you know, nostalgic tie-in, it was also the home of one of the first Indian restaurants in the region that was highly successful for a really long time and really highly critically regarded as sort of like one of the first places to try that cuisine. So in terms of tying into history of the site, it might be another fun point to consider outreach to make for commercial tenants. But those are my comments and questions. I really appreciate the application. Any other questions or items to bring up? No? Okay. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Yeah.

Any other questions or comments fall up for us? Either staff or the applicants or anything else you wanted from us? We could. I think we're good. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you so much. That was very helpful. Thank you. All right. We now have the pre-application briefing for the Mosby building at 10-560 Main Street. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, commissioners. Tonight, we will discuss a potential residential conversion of the Mosby building located at 10560 Main Street. Mr. Feather, are you seeing what we're seeing? Yes, I am. Thank you. We are currently in the pre-application phase of the development review process. The potential applicant has had initial discussions with city staff, and staff have provided the potential applicant with initial feedback.

A formal application has not yet been submitted. Here's an aerial of the site. The site is located to the north of Main Street, west of Chambridge Road, east of Railroad Avenue, and south of Meadow Bridge Lane. The future land use, as designated by the Comprehensive Plan, is Commercial Corridor and Green Network Public. And the site is zoned CR Commercial Retail with existing proffers in the Transition Overlay District. So, the Mosby building is a seven-story building built in 1964 and originally constructed as a multifamily residential building. Over the years, the uses have changed, and in 2014, City Council approved a proffer amendment to allow office, as well as some non-office uses, on all floors of the building.

Today, there are office, personal service, and non-residential uses within the building. There's also a restaurant on the first floor. The building sits on 3.2 acres, and there are 212 parking spaces on the site. Here's the concept plan. The potential applicant is proposing to convert the office building to mixed use with 107 multifamily units on upper floors and ground floor non-residential uses, and what the potential applicant is calling live-work units. The concept shows a 7,000-square-foot open space area along Main Street with landscaping, pavers, and a seating area. And the potential applicant would also remove the circular drop-off at the front of the building. Here is the basement and first floor layout.

The basement-level concept shows building amenities like a lounge, community space, and gym that would be accessible to both the residential and non-residential tenants. Live-work units and co-working spaces are shown in the basement and on the first floor. And this is the layout for the upper floors. The upper floors would house 107 multifamily units, including 46 studios, 33 one-bedroom units, 10 one-bedroom with den units, and 18 two-bedroom units. Here are potential renderings, and the potential applicant is proposing to repaint and repair the existing facade. This impact has been part of the impact or the impact or the impact or the impact or the impact or the impact or the impact or the impact or the impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or impact or

density and for 75 of the ground floor to be residential uses a general development plan and a major certificate of appropriateness next steps are pre-application briefing with the City Council that's scheduled for a September 1st formal submission of the land use application staff review work sessions and finally public hearings and that concludes my presentation I'm here to answer any questions you have and also I believe the applicants yes they're here to also answer questions thank you mr. here hi can you can you elaborate a little bit on what you're envisioning for the live work units thanks Commissioner McCarthy Bob Brandt for the record with the wall from a Walsh Colucci on behalf of the applicant this evening I'm joined by a couple gentlemen

Holden Sabato and Sam Smith with the Silverman Group which is the current owner of the building thanks for your question Commissioner McCarthy so these live work units they would be exactly exactly that it would be an opportunity for a resident of one of these units to also operate their their business out of it so think you know small independent independent proprietors or small businesses small offices perhaps medical offices things like things of that nature they are relatively rare unit type but they do exist and they do exist in areas where where there's a you know a demand for small businesses small business owners and things like that people who want to live where they work exactly so you know we've

proposed those as an option here on some of the lower levels of the building one of the things that that that I think kind of intuitively makes sense is that the building as it exists today is is almost designed like a live work building because these units as miss Schwieger alluded to were originally residential units this building was built in the 1960s it was manifestly designed and constructed to be a multi-family building and so if you walk through the building if you walk up and down the halls today some of the some of the commercial uses in the building today have transparent doors you can poke your head in and see something that looks like a living room with smaller smaller rooms in the back that could be bedrooms

things like that and so it kind of already lends itself to those types of units but it's something that we're interested in exploring here understanding that it would be a relatively unique unit type for the city understood I'm sure we'll hear a lot more on that the public plaza happy to see that can you talk a little bit about that and like what what your intention is to truly make that be like a public space as opposed to just an amenity for the residents yeah absolutely and that's that's a great point and that's actually I got to give credit to staff because when we first approached them with this concept they had suggested that we look at opportunities to improve that area so if you walk up and down Main Street today and I don't know if you've ever walked up and down this segment of Main Street there exists that area today it's about 7000 square feet give or take it's it's not

exactly the most immediately accessible from the public realm today you can get there and back from Main Street but staff had encouraged us to look at opportunities to enhance that experience enhance the open space make it publicly accessible today it's private property today there are no public access easements or anything like that on it and so this is an early concept I think this will can and will necessarily be refined as we go through this process but staff has suggested that we look at the look at opportunities to improve those pedestrian connections in and out of that space this is just our first pass at it but that's something that that that the applicant is very much very much committed to doing as we go through here we think that could be a pretty significant benefit to your point not only to these residents but also to members of the public at large understood and then lastly did you guys ever explore this as a redevelopment site and if not like why

do you think this adaptive reuse is a better planning outcome for the city yeah the answer is no we haven't looked at this as a redevelopment play and it's interesting you know yes this is adaptive reuse but it's almost a it's almost a misnomer to call this a residential conversion because of what I said earlier it's it's it was originally a multifamily building and so the infrastructure that's inside the building today the way it's laid out you've got these double loaded corridors there was a photo of it and one of the corridors there was a photo of it and one of the one with this speaker's slides earlier you really don't need to do that much to the inside of the building to convert it back to the residential use and for that reason

we haven't explored it as a redevelopment play frankly we think that's a benefit you know this this won't have the same types of impacts on the surrounding area as a new development might we think that preserving the building intact for the most part is is a more sustainable approach it's a lighter touch approach to this as you might find in redevelopment redevelopment scenarios so a long winded way perhaps of saying that you know we really haven't considered that because we have a because the bones of this building are solid and it really presents an opportunity to convert it back to its original use got you and then lastly and if we could go back there was like a basement the first floor so you know thinking about this as you know Main Street activated the you're planning on leaving the existing restaurant how are we how are we bringing residents into this area

you know I think of the live work you mentioned I think a dentist what what kind of retail or what are you imagining here to make this an attraction in the city yeah I think we're open right at this point and we've had some preliminary conversations with economic development we'll be certainly continuing those conversations as we move forward but I think maintaining the existing restaurant that's that's Patriot's Pub I don't know if you're familiar with it in my opinion the best chicken wings you can get around here is the best chicken wings you can get around here so I think that that's a very well known institution here and so I think keeping keeping them there keeping that restaurant use is certainly one way to do that you know we're open to exploring other other types of uses for these spaces what we've shown here is in addition to the restaurant on the left side of the screen there's an office space there I think I think the applicant is open to kind of continuing the conversation as I said about finding the right mix of uses to keep that ground floor activated

keep it keep keep keep that ground floor of the building is someplace that the public wants to wants to come and see got it and just one more in this design is this primarily focusing on the interior was it or is there any consideration to like a reskin or are you just imagining leaving the existing facade as is we are contemplating kind of a touch up a glow up if you will of the exterior of the building again it's in pretty good shape it needs a little updating and so what we're going to do is we're going to do this or go to go to the right or go to the right or go to the right or go to the right or go to the right or go to the right or go to the right or go to the right or go to the right or go to the right or go to the right or go to the right or go to the right or go to the right or go to the right or go to the right or go to the right or go to the right or go to the right or go to the right or go to the right or go to the right or go to the right or go to the right or go to the right or go to the right or go to the right or go to the right or go to the right or go to the right or go to the right or go to the right or go or go or go or go or go or go or go or go or go or go or go or go or go or go or go or go or go or go or go or go or go or go or go or go or go or go or go or go or go or

brick to give it a little bit more pop it's it's a little bit dated looking today as you would expect from a building built in the mid 1960s but the image on the kind of the right hand side kind of highlights the the touch-ups that the applicant would be interested in exploring so again we're we're early stages here i think we would we would necessarily refine that vision as we move through the uh the application process and the certificate of appropriateness process but there is an intent to brush up the building touch up the building to make it look a little bit nicer all right thank you thank you uh one would like to explore live work and ask staff to to give some more thought to that we put i don't know 10 12 live live work units uh as townhouse type buildings on the front of paul

the sixth i don't know that any of them are work units i think they may all be live without exercising the option to work we had discussion about live work units at the breezeway redevelopment project and determined at the time that that may not be uh the best use of that site uh even though open space is not the best use either so live work has has a questionable history and i think i would like more data on live work and looking at that have you thought about leaving some of the first floor buildings as just straight small offices as they are now and having it just a mixed use building where you have the restaurant but you also leave some of the tenants in there on the first floor uh to get access in and out that would be another thought i would think

if you're keeping some of the commercial tenants and and making the upper floors residential in a process like this uh there is no underground parking that i'm aware of so my sense is that 100 of the parking need for all this residential is going to be the surface parking that's around the existing building is that correct that that is correct commissioner cunningham and unfortunately this this property is located within the transitional overlay district and so the existing parking supply that's out there today um is is more than enough to meet the the requirements um i think we've had some conversations with staff who's explored us to look at that park look at those parking areas and see if there's any opportunities to

do additional open space things like that i think we'll we'll work on that as we go through the process but the very good news and in addition to the building itself having good bones is that there's a very adequate supply of parking today okay there is access to the residential units that are behind this building through the parking lots on either side of this building and so how how will how will those two projects interface in the future since you'll have residential at both uh will the parking overlap or will there be any issues with with any other interface between the two projects yeah i i would expect those these these two projects you're referring to the condominiums that are behind the building today they were

developed around the same time as the mosby building was originally and so i think it'll function very much like it was originally intended to function with uh both buildings both both residential buildings sharing access points they do today you know the front building the mosby building has a different traffic pattern than the than the condominium buildings given that over time it's converted to commercial use but we don't anticipate any major issues given that the site the buildings were always designed to contemplate residential uses in both and so certainly we'll work through that as we go through the process to make sure that there's adequate parking there's adequate infrastructure to serve both of

the uses but we have every expectation that it'll continue to run smoothly okay as you indicated condominium that is ownership housing in the back this i presume from what i'm looking at is going to be leased housing so it's all going to be rental space that's correct is there any any working arrangement that needs to be made between the management of the the leased housing and the ownership housing for for common aspects i i think that the answer is yes and i think that there already is to some degree coordination between the two we'll call them uses uh the mosby building and the residential building but i think that the property management established for this building where if it were to convert uh would certainly continue to

the condominium association to the rear okay one in reading through the notes uh i indicate i saw a note that indicated that we would have no residential on commercial and i believe that may pertain to the uh fairfax boulevard corridor between camp washington and fairfax circle because if my memory serves me right if i go to the corner of judicial and vain i have townhouses so i have residential there if i go down to uh workstation road and main street uh at the van meter property i believe we have residential on main street there and we have residential on both sides of main street on the eastern part of the city so that residential on main street is probably not the same issue as no residential on the boulevard on fairfax boulevard so that that is an

issue i think is one that would not concern me as much in terms of this being residential yeah i i appreciate you sharing that that that perspective commissioner and i would agree with that and i would agree with that argument i would argue that again i think as i said at the beginning that this property itself is is unique it's got a unique enough background that i think you can distinguish it from some of the other redevelopment proposals that the city has has seen come forward over the years along fairfax boulevard the the true commercial corridor of the city i think the fact that this building again is and always was intended to be or was originally intended to be multi-family residential given what's

immediately behind it a residentially zoned and a residentially planned property i think there's enough uniqueness there to set this one apart and so we believe very strongly that it's still an appropriate location for residential and so um that's what that's what brings us here this evening okay i guess from my thoughts then if you could maintain more commercial on the first floor the basement in the first floor and do something along that line and have residential above it that might be a plus uh from my perspective at least uh uh and those i think are my comments and questions on this thank you thank you mr reyce uh mr feather uh thank you uh a couple of things i had a similar train of thought to uh what mr cunningham discussed

regarding um a restriction on residential and commercial corridor um i'm not sure that anything explicitly suggested that that restriction in the comp plan was just to fairfax boulevard but in this case uh this section of main street is actually very interesting as he pointed out and i observed as well not far to the west is the main street residences and um it's kind of surrounded by some commercial corridor properties that was rezoned to i think planned development mixed use at one point um just behind this site is in fact this multi-family uh development to its east is a split zone property that's got a church on it and the split zoning is residential and commercial retail um uh and interestingly just a little bit down the street and across the street is a cemetery um interestingly and perhaps kind of funnily zone residential high there are a lot of residences packed in there i guess

um and right just across the way we had the city center west redevelopment that we looked at uh that was approved for rezoning uh which is expired now to commercial urban in order to put upper story residential in the same corridor so to me that supports the case for doing something like what you're proposing here um i agree with mr cunningham that maintaining ground floor uh non-residential uses would be uh desirable uh and um one of the things you may or may not be aware of mr brant is as we are considering zoning changes to better align our small area plans with the zoning ordinance we are looking at restricting upper story residential uses to the commercial urban zoning district so you might want to keep that on your radar

uh perhaps rezoning uh down the road to that to keep the property conforming if we if we in fact go that direction uh might be something you'd want to consider uh it's still a commercial uh resident you know it's a commercial zoning district but the commercial urban would still allow upper story residential and you could start off in a conforming way if we do change the zoning ordinance um the other thoughts i think i had were expressed by others concerns and questions but i just want to kind of wanted to re-emphasize what mr cunningham said and in fact i'm a little less concerned in this case for going partial residential in this corridor considering we've already got it and the zoning is all kind of mixed up here anyway so um i think that's the extent of my comments at this point

thank you mr feather all right i just have one last follow-up question do we know the current um vacancy rate or utilization rate of the property sure great great question because that has also come up in our early conversations with staff and economic development so um the best way to describe it is approximately 65 percent of the units in the building are either vacant or uh are on month-to-month leases or leases that will expire before the end of 2027 um and and and frankly that's threat that the reason for that is you know the my client the current potential applicant acquired this property at the end of 2025 with the intention of bringing this forward um and so the prior owner at the time even prior to my my

client's involvement in this started to establish a strategy to not extend and not enter into new leases longer term leases uh for the existing building and so like i said that number 65 represents the number of lease or the amount of floor area in the building that's either vacant or soon to be vacant within the the near the near term and so again that's why we think now is the right time to come forward with this application um you know give the mosby building which probably will have a new name in the future at some point but give this building the next chapter of its life so is the new owner or the applicant conducting outreach to those existing businesses or are yeah users of the property and is

there anyone that's interested in staying sure so it might be a good opportunity to have mr sabato come up and he's a representative of the ownership group here sure and i'll let him maybe speak to speak to that for sure thank you holden sabato with the silverman group again the the applicant appreciate you guys having us tonight um in regards to communication with the existing tenants obviously we are in a daily uh communicating with them on a daily basis i would say so bob mentioned by the end of 2027 it's going to be 65 percent vacant per the current leases by the end of 2028 it's going to be about 95 percent uh vacant as well and then most of the tenants have i would say the vast majority of

the tenants have a one-time one-year renewal which say the majority of those are happening either later this year or already were exercised um but yes i mean honestly our goal here is to keep as much of the existing tenant base as possible and then through the you know the mixed use redevelopment with the new amenity spaces with kind of modernizing the building we're hoping to bring in new commercial tenant base to the ground levels and then obviously filling the vacancies in the upper uh stories above with residential okay thank you i think it's been a stated priority of this body to make sure that we're cognizant of right sizing our office and commercial and spaces um everyone likes new and

modern but we also like our small businesses and being able to incubate those small businesses and keep them here in the city many of them are owned by city residents so i feel like it's really important that we are aware when we consider modernization or consider build outs that potentially displace current small businesses that we own that as applicants um and we understand that's a choice that we're making in some of these projects and where it's possible for developments like this one that's a creative reuse to preserve some of that affordable lower cost space or just smaller space that supports smaller businesses that we do so and we and we champion that as something that that's valuable both for the

comp plan and for the you know extended old town area in general um other than that i think all my other questions have been covered unless we can pull some data on the usage of those live work units in the boulevard development that would be helpful um and then in terms of sidewalk connectivity i think it would be really great to improve the walkability on that stretch so anything that can be done for sidewalks and buffering against what can be a very tricky precarious place to both walk and drive would be very valuable for this applicant yep great any other commissioner comments or questions all right thank you very much thank you so much for the feedback appreciate it do you have what you

need from us yeah other than a recommendation of approval but we're not quite there yet so we'll we'll leave that for another day but yes i think we did all right thank you all very much thanks mr we here yeah i'm fine um just wanted to say that i'll look into the little work units for you and then next time we're here or i don't know how it works maybe we send an email or something with that information so awesome yeah thank you very much yep thank you all all right with that we will reconvene our regular meeting and move to the staff report from mr napty thank you vice chair lockhart and members of the planning commission uh going back to the july 14 city council meeting the council had a work session on

the smaller your plan zoning ordinance amendments uh same work session that you all had the night before uh receive feedback from that and our consultant is working on updating the draft and we'll plan on being back to you uh on that in the next couple of months uh the same meeting the city council supported a ballot measure for the one percent sales tax now authorized by city code uh to go on the ballot on november if approved uh initially that those funds would be used for city school improvements in the long term they could be used for transit as well for tomorrow night's meeting they'll be having a public hearing on the accessory dwelling units component of the zoning ordinance also have a work session on the

courthouse plaza proposal and pre-application briefing on 3541 chain bridge road all three of those items the planning commission uh held discussions on on june 22nd uh lastly regarding city council uh beginning in september they will be uh doing a pilot of um holding work sessions beginning at 4 p.m the first uh tuesday of each month with the goal of encouraging uh all work sessions or as many works as possible to occur on those days and freeing up time on the other uh regular meeting nights uh to hopefully make those shorter meetings i'm not sure at this point how if or how this will affect planning commission's schedule um but as we start to work through some of these items then we'll get a better handle on that again

this is just a pilot i believe it's just to the end of the year so that might change as well um and then let's see september one the first one of these meetings you'll be having pre-application briefings for the two items you heard tonight as well as the circle gateway proposal that you had at your last meeting last thing i wanted to mention on september 2nd we'll be holding a community meeting on the smaller plan zoning ordinance amendments this will be from 5 to 8 p.m at the sherwood center and it's an open house so you can come at any time that's all we have for the staff report tonight have a good august recess thank you very much all right commission comments mr grotty um thank you mr cunningham no comments thank you mr race um nothing for me thanks okay chair father

nothing for me bar still has not met wish you all a good august recess and nothing else for me as well so with that we are adjourned thank you thank you so Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.