Planning Commission Regular Meeting/Work Session

Kirsten LockhartGood 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 Code of Virginia, Section 2.2-3708-3. Do we have a motion to admit?

Paul CunninghamSo moved. Second. All right.

Speaker 2Okay.

Kirsten LockhartI move that in accordance with the Planning Commission adopted policy that is permitted by Code of 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 or portions of the Planning Commission meeting of July 27, 2026.

Paul CunninghamSo moved.

Kirsten LockhartAll in favor?

Paul CunninghamAye.

Kirsten LockhartAll opposed? Movement passes unanimously. Mr. Feather, Chair Feather, thank you for joining us. As discussed... Thank you,

James Featherand thank you for taking over the chair for me this evening. Appreciate it. Yes,

Kirsten LockhartI 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.

Paul CunninghamMadam Chair, I move that the agenda be adopted as presented. Second.

Kirsten LockhartAll in favor?

Paul CunninghamAye.

Kirsten LockhartAll opposed? Movement. 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 one? on any matter not on the public hearing agenda today.

Peter BrownlerapplicantAny things submitted?

Kirsten LockhartOkay. Seeing none, we'll move on to consideration of the July 13, 2026 meeting minutes.

Matthew RiceMr. Chair, I propose that we approve the meeting minutes of July 13, 2026, as publicly posted.

Kirsten LockhartWe have a motion to approve.

Paul CunninghamSecond. Second.

Kirsten LockhartAll in favor?

Paul CunninghamAye. Aye.

Kirsten LockhartAnd I will abstain. Anyone opposed?

Speaker 2Motion passes. Four to one.

Kirsten LockhartFour, 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.

Mr. Frederickstaffgood 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 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 in 1985 the plan was a minute 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 project is known as Dominion the public hearing tonight the applicant is seeking to replace approximately 21,566 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 applicants proposing to replace the existing offices with 14 front-loaded townhomes 20 that's 24 feet and with 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 new shrubs under stories of canopy trees how the African has retaining walls along the southern and eastern side of the property and a fence

along the southern eastern side of the property as well the applicant is required to provide 10-year tree canopy of 20% the applicant is provided 33.4 percent the applicant is required to provide a transitional yard the applicant has provided in the GDP plan for a 10-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 and providing additional plantings along Silver King Court the applicant is proposing to install street trees seven street trees along the northern side northern the western side of the private Drive on the south side the applicants requested modification for street trees picket road street trees the applicant

is seeking to preserve for existing trees and adding one canopy tree the applicant significant modification as well the applicant has provided open space for this general development plan for the master development plan the requirement is 20% the applicant has provided 23% that meets the 5550 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 to stormwater management facilities the first one is located on the north side of the property on the northwest corner of the site open space area and the second open space are the second stone mortar

management facility is located between the two six of townhomes with a passive recreation 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 2025 with a recommendation of approval and forwarded to City Council staff recommends approval of the comprehensive plan map amendment from commercial corridor place type to town homes 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 architecture control over the district and staff recommends approval of the general development planning amendment

the public hearing is set for City Council on September 22nd 2026 I'll stand by for any questions that you may have thank you

Kirsten Lockhartthank you mr. Fredericks

Speaker 2Are there

Kirsten Lockhartany comments or questions for Mr. Frederick before we move on to the applicant?

Matthew RiceI think there are a lot of questions, but I think having the applicant first would be a good practice.

Kirsten LockhartThank you. So I would invite the representative from RJL Associates. If you could please state your name for

James Featherthe record.

Paul CunninghamGood evening, Madam Chairman, members of the Board.

James FeatherMadam Chair, may I interrupt for a second? 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.

Speaker 2Sorry.

Kirsten LockhartBrief hold for technical difficulties. Thank you.

Mark VianapplicantThank you.

Kirsten LockhartAll right. Thank you.

Mark VianapplicantAll right. Madam Chairman, members of the Commission, thank you very much for your time tonight. I'm Mark Vian with Bean, Kenny, and Corman. With me is the development team sitting over there with IMED consultants and Clark and Janet Architect. I want to 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. There have been some changes there. I will keep this short. Can we go to the next slide real quick? As staff noted, these are fairly dated buildings. Office buildings were constructed in 1980. They are essentially obsolete. You're probably confronting this very frequently as you see out in Northern Virginia there's

been a significant change in the office market. When this was first being considered, these properties were about 30% vacant. Right now they're about 58% vacant. The reality is the market is there's a lot more better properties that are available 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 a new housing and as the staff is noted there particularly for townhouses. So if you think about on this same street you have just down thing is Barristers Reserve I believe and then you have Sutton Heights. You have townhouses right next to that basically almost the exact same configuration as these.

I'll get into that. Right, it's a single family house. There is a need. This isn't a lot of housing, but 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. So 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, you know, 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 largely in the same configuration that it is right now. You know, three stories of occupied, four-story garage, occupied second story, third story occupied.

And 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 on Pickett Street you're kind of heading north on Pickett Street you can see again you've got a little retaining wall three stories of houses three stories of the house blending right into the parking lot there 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 project immediately to the south of us. You know, it's just a classic kind of three-story townhouse project.

But, you know, obviously we're going to have the vegetative buffer there and we're going to be enhancing the vegetative buffer. I'll talk a little bit about tree removal as we get further in here and about the new planning that are coming in. Next slide. And again, this is what it would look like coming from Mantua and 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. second floor, third floor. In this case, it would have a front facing rooftop deck that you would have access out there, but that does not count as a floor. And these buildings would be 38 feet tall

as the way the city measures them.

John Chopublic commentNext slide.

Mark VianapplicantWe 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 development of the south. In reaction to some of the concerns that we had close three units that are closest to 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 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 in relation to the project and 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 near the buffer area that's just part of and if we can preserve them we get through site plan we will preserve them when we get through site plan. That's not a set thing yet. But we are gonna be keeping most of the trees that are on the buffer there and we're gonna be putting substantial new plant tree plantings in there. And so you will have the townhouses on their townhouse lots. And then the development itself is surrounded on the periphery by a 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% you know tree coverage. We're going to be doing 33.4% and then for open space 20% requirement I think will be around 43% provided. You know so little more than double. You know those are things are important to consider as we're moving forward and try to 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, 14 new townhouses being proposed where the dying office building is right now.

All right. A perimeter buffer, two parklets in the center of the project, and robust parking. Right now, the zoning ordinance requires two spaces for every site. We're going to be doing 62 spaces. And that's allowed us to have guests and visitors over there. 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 will modern stormwater management controls again these office buildings built in 1980 so we're gonna 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 what character, we'll have to abide by those. Net gain in trees, robust open space, community compatibility, this has been reduced from four stories to three stories. We've got an increased setback particularly where you see those three houses immediately to the far west have been pushed back. Traffic reduction, if you look at the staff report, this is going to be a net reduction about 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 what we've got there and we're going to enhance it,

remove the dead trees, remove the sick trees, put new trees in. Environment and economic benefits. There's a lot to be said for removing vacant office space off the market. That helps with the city's economics. competitor properties, be able to move forward. There's a lot to be said for providing new housing where you need it right now, particularly in this kind of classification. The city needs townhouses. This is going to provide a good market for that. You saw the staff analysis. There will be a fiscal economic benefit to this. 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 time I tell you is going to be taking questions.

So with that, I'm happy to take any questions you have.

Kirsten LockhartThank you. Would anyone like to start? Go for it.

Matthew RiceYeah, thank you. My best calculations are that in between the closest parcel corner on the south side and the closest parcel corner on your development, that distance is about 30 feet minimum. So depending on where the measurement starts, whether it's the corner of the building or the corner of the parcel, the distance between those townhouses and Pickett's Reserve is not enough to not worry about tree removal and encroachment into that area between the existing buildings and Pickett's Reserve. So could you or Mr. Frederick provide information about or a summary perhaps of work that has been done within that buffer between Pickett's Reserve and this development and any encroachments that have happened over the past few months.

Mr. FrederickstaffSo you're asking if there's been any work being done between the subject property and the backs of the units in the subdivision to the south?

Matthew RiceThat's right. The context for this in our last discussion was work on utilities. And so looking at overhead power lines, there's a required easement. 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 it's alarming when it happens. So the sensitivity level in between these properties, given the fact that there are utilities there, is pretty high. I think all of us that have watched things happen on the W&OD Trail and in other places are very, very wary when workers show up. So 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 on that north side.

And we're happy to

Mark Vianapplicantmake 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 there was a work session, it 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 Pickett Street, pretty much for no benefit whatsoever, except that it would harm both our future residents, it would harm the folks next to us immediately to the south as well. That's the reason we've not done, we've done the utility pole, the line relocation from one pole to the other,

but not done underground utilities on Pickett 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, we 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 Pickett 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 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

Matthew Riceokay I'd also

Mark Vianapplicantthat was responsive or not maybe I did it

Matthew Ricewas it was acceptable I appreciate you know the good faith that most of the developers in the city have regarding issues related to construction minimizing impacts last time we discussed the utility line on picket I was looking at my street view imagery there is a power pole at the very 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

Mark Vianapplicanti i don't know that question i mean uh john which you want to come up here there's

Matthew Ricea pull on picket very close to the southwest corner if

Speaker 18i could correct so yeah along the the uh sidewalk itself that's

Matthew Ricecorrect

Speaker 18yes 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 cutting down trees within our project yeah

Matthew Riceokay are there any existing easements on the south side of the property that would require a utility no

Speaker 18because everything is going to be done in the right of way

Matthew Riceokay

Speaker 18there'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

Matthew Riceokay 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

Speaker 18that's all that's all been revised for this last submission

Matthew Riceokay good 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 mature.

Mark VianapplicantYeah, why don't you come up here?

Kirsten LockhartIf you could please introduce yourself for the record as well.

Jana MorganapplicantHi, my name is Jana Morgan. I am with iMeg and I'm the planner. So the supplemented trees along Pickett's 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.

Mark VianapplicantSo not saplings, but not fully- Two-inch caliper?

Jana MorganapplicantYes. They are 10-year canopy trees. Okay,

Matthew Riceand six-foot evergreens. Yeah. All right. The base elevation difference, I had to look at the contour lines to see. Pickett's Reserve is actually- Can we put it

Mark Vianapplicantin this? Yeah. Fred, can we pull up- Go beyond this slide, beyond my question slide. We actually have a- They might be helpful for everybody. All right.

Matthew RiceYeah,

Mark Vianapplicantso in my

Matthew Ricemind, 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 Pickett until I get a little further. But so the purpose in thinking through this difference in elevations is that if some of the trees are removed, you know, there's going to be impacts on your residents because they're going to be, you know, 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 and 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 evergreens going to take years to screen out Pickett's 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 the As much screening as you could possibly provide through plannings That's going to immediately pay off in the prices you're going to command with this I do appreciate the fact that the height has been dropped a bit. Like I mentioned, just thinking naively about this, I would have put the elevation of your development at a higher point in Pickett's Reserve. So 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 and 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

Mark Vianapplicantthe same thing if we could go back to there and i would also by way i think there was when at the february 2005 that one of the mandates was go out and meet with folks like that you know so first of all a we did meet with the supervisor for the district and the that person's chief of staff yeah who then introduced us with the hoa president over at mantua so there was a walk around there and then 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 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

Mr. Nabtestaffthat

Mark Vianapplicantkind

Mr. Nabtestaffof

Mark Vianapplicantthat central area is that open space between the two sticks of townhouses that's where the bulk of their coming down and then kind of you know where that northernmost stick of townhouses that's kind of behind the existing house buildings that are right there you know so 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

John Chopublic commentproposed here that's you know just basically trying to

Mark Vianapplicantlook at the gaps that are 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 a visual 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.

Matthew RiceI get it. But the city is also remodeling a recreation field to the north with impacts on the very same neighborhood. And so I think sensitivity and just recognizing that the city's impacts are much more than just your development. There's been an ongoing multimillion-dollar field renovation that's causing issues as well. They're good neighbors. 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 misunderstandings and so forth would just merit the most careful interaction with Pickett's Reserve and Mantua as possible just to make this work.

Mark VianapplicantI agree, and I remember my parents, Army folks, back when the whole mobile thing was going on, we had friends there. down in Mount Vernon area, but remember that. area too you know you want to you know there's a way to do this for 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 of them 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 they're all we're all gonna be neighbors and we got to work well

Matthew Riceyep i think there have been some great examples of developers the one over my back fence specifically uh

Speaker 8who

Matthew Ricehad 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

Mark Vianapplicanttoo

Matthew Ricemuch of that

Mark Vianapplicantand it's an ounce of prevention or ounce of cure whatever analogy you want to use it just creates you know but people don't like feeling particularly when it comes to their side yard or their neck yard or their being surprised you know right and not having a voice you know and the

Matthew Ricethe 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

Mark Vianapplicantwe have one of those trees courtesy of dominion in my neighborhood which

Matthew Riceyeah we just don't want

Mark Vianapplicantlost looking at a stroke just

Matthew Riceand 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 this were to be approved. And certainly the good precedent is developers that do listen to feedback and do modify their plans based on feedback. We do appreciate that a lot. And so I think with that, I'm just going to close my questions and turn it over to my colleagues. Thank you.

Kirsten LockhartThank you, Commissioner Rice. Chair Feather, would you like to weigh in?

James Featheryour oh that's quite all right thank you 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 some of the concerns one of the comments pertains to what they call encroachment in the referencing 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 my understanding is that's applicable for residential developments adjacent to non-residential or multifamily development, but that's not what this is. Is my understanding correct that multi-plane standard is not applicable here?

Mr. FrederickstaffThat's correct. Okay.

James FeatherA 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 a modification in that regard on a number of relatively recent projects. Is that the case?

Mr. FrederickstaffYes, sir. I'm not sure we call

James Featherit precedent setting, but it's not uncommon.

Mr. FrederickstaffThat's correct.

James Featheraccommodate various things from development to development. So we wouldn't be stepping out of or setting a kind of new precedent if we move forward with this. Some of these modifications, of course, are under the purview of the city council for making decisions. They're not really in the purview of the planning commission. We're more about the land use and the rezoning and not so much the special exceptions. That's not really totally within our purview, although I understand that we're free to comment on them. Other things that have come up have been about the parking and the driveways. My recollection is when we were some years ago now talking about parking standards for townhouse communities,

We looked at all the kinds of parking that's done in these townhouse communities, including 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?

Mr. Frederickstaffthe if the applicant is going to have driveways they would have to meet the requirement of typically 18 the minimum and the length is 18 enough to park to two spaces but there's no nothing that doesn't preclude units one two and three to be designed the way that it is So, but, and the overall parking here is, they clearly have met the requirement for two units.

James FeatherOne concern, one thing that I think about, and I'm surprised Mr. Rice didn't bring it up because he frequently brings up concerns and questions about fire access. With a 23-foot private street, are emergency services folks okay with that? Many of the private streets we see in recent developments have gotten down to about 26 feet. But I'm not sure I've heard a 23 foot. We have confirmation that they're comfortable with this arrangement?

Speaker 8Yes, Chair Feather. The fire marshals reviewed this. 23 feet is a standard drive aisle width for parking areas, similar to City Hall, the fire station itself, and far exceeds that of what other jurisdictions around us actually require.

James FeatherRight. Okay. Also, another question about the height. Concerns have been raised about that. And I get that the comments we've received refer to height to the ridge, which is not how we measure height. But the height that's been proposed is 38 feet. The zoning ordinance talks about three stories and 35 feet. So there's a slight discrepancy between the 35 feet and the 38 feet. Is the intent of our ordinance to require 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 accepted slight deviations from the strict numerical height value. I think building practices have changed somewhat. So we get a little bit more feet, a little more height per floor, perhaps,

than maybe when the zoning ordinance was last revised. But I'd like to understand staff's perspective on height numbers.

Mr. Frederickstaffso in terms of the height for this proposal it's it's near applicants requesting PDR so the comp plan talks about townhouse developments being three stories the PDR district and zoning ordinance has some flexibility and so in terms of the height it's whether or not if it's compatible with the surrounding uses and so three stories measured out 38 feet is you know it's compatible with a single family when the other 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 with the surrounding neighborhood the three stories and 35 feet is if you look at the RT district there the residents townhome district that's a you know 35 feet so when you start comparing RT and

the PDR district there's some flexibility with PDR but if you look at what the applicants proposing they've actually they exceed you know provide a greater benefit for for the development and the community so in terms of if this if the applicant would have applied for for RT the actual density for this project could have been a lot greater and so to start comparing those things you the applicant actually has provided more more benefits than what the RT would provide so on is that the the PR district is appropriate in terms of height and density and setbacks in those things so I think they've actually exceeded what our typical townhome zoning district would allow.

James FeatherOkay, thank you. Yeah, in fact, I was thinking about just down the road, the Sutton Heights development adjacent to Barrister's Keep. I think they have similar heights. I'm not sure if they're even four stories or not, but it doesn't seem out of line for other things that have developed well and performed well in the city. Okay, thank you.

Mr. FrederickstaffThank you.

James FeatherLet me look at my other... I don't think I have anything else at this point. Thank you very much.

Kirsten LockhartThank you, Chair Feather.

Paul CunninghamThank you, Madam Chair. Yes, I have a number of questions, I guess. The first one I'll start with is the intention of these townhouses is to be property ownership rather than rental. Yes, sir.

Mr. FrederickstaffOkay.

Paul CunninghamFrom 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. when we talk height and we look at the side view and note that if you're going to call it a fourth story 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 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

Mark VianapplicantI think that's exactly how it would operate. You know, when 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. The rear portion of that, if we can go to the next, not this slide, but two slides from here.

John Chopublic commentYeah.

Mark VianapplicantThis is, if there wasn't any vegetation, there wasn't any trees, this is what you would see. It would appear 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. 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.

Paul CunninghamOr a rooftop deck.

Mark VianapplicantRooftop deck. Or a rooftop deck with an attic.

Paul CunninghamOkay. That answers my question on that, and it does make the point then that from the residential area closest to it, you're providing screening with the house as well as the vegetation 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 anyplace except along picket Road

Mr. Frederickstaffso the there's a parcel I think it's identified as parcel B for pickets reserve and there is an easement within that parcel B whether it's just easement or a or preservation easement I think is what is actually identified as on on

Paul Cunninghamthe plans do

Mr. Frederickstaffyou have it

Mr. Nabtestaffall right okay

Mr. Frederickstaffso the engineer has identified what's called a VEPCO easement to be vacated along the southern and western property line along picket on the applicants property but the area that I was referring to is actually identified as parcel B on if you look at the at the plaque for pickets reserve there there's also an easement there as well

Paul Cunninghamdo we have a slide for that? Can you show us exactly where that easement is?

Mr. FrederickstaffLet me see if I have one in my presentation. It's kind of difficult to see, so you're probably not going to be able to see it.

Speaker 8If you have available

James Featherthe master development plan sheet for BAPCO

Speaker 8easement, C&P easement, sanitary easement, one additional sanitary easement, and it looks like one additional about co-easement in that buffered area ought to be vacated.

Paul CunninghamOkay, they're all to be vacated, so they will not have a future impact as an easement once this plan moves forward. 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 easements here but this is all to be vacated behind the existing office building

Mr. Frederickstaffno

Paul Cunninghamwhat you're what you what you have in your

Mr. Frederickstaffhand right there is that's the that is a parcel that surrounds the single-family homes in Pickett's Reserve so and it's identified as a conservation easing that's actually owned by the HOA that's owned by Pickett's Reserve HOA

Paul Cunninghamyes

Mr. Frederickstaffand so I'm gonna bring this up to you to use you can actually see the easement that's referred to as a BEBCO easement and the additional easements

Paul Cunninghamthat

Mr. FrederickstaffMr. Suffern was referring to

Paul Cunninghamokay thank you does that does that easement impact this property is is Is the easement on this plat solely on the Pickett's Reserve property or does it cross property lines? So that should not be an impact on this property if it is solely on the Pickett Reserve property. Thank you. so there is no easement on the picket on the on this property running east and west from from picket road to the city line with the county is that correct there's no

Mark Vianapplicantencumbrance on there there is a small easement going from picket road it looks to me probably 20 30 feet into the area behind the existing building that's a vepco easement and that provides that's where that's where runs the power that goes into the building itself and when that building is redeveloped that power line and that vepco isn't going to be going to be vacated

Paul Cunninghamokay so there will be no there

Mark Vianapplicantwill be no except

Paul Cunninghamexcept the easements along picket road that's great utilities have naturally

Mark Vianapplicantyes

Paul CunninghamOkay. So easements then.

Mark VianapplicantThe new power lines will come in. The new power will come in underground from the pole up on Silver King.

Paul CunninghamUp 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.

Mark VianapplicantExactly.

Paul Cunninghamdefinitely has a concern if that easement is on their property but this property does not

Mark Vianapplicantthis this will eliminate the existing easement and there'll be no more utility easements in that area

Paul Cunninghamokay thank you uh trees i know trees have been an issue for as long as i've been on the planning commission butch is starting to be past the lifespan of some trees uh one of those trees was on the property big poplar 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 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?

Mark VianapplicantI remember your story for the February about the poplar. And to be fair, my community, you know, 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. They were awesome big trees like that. Then the wind storm 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 life span. I think our commitment would be A, we are going to, and as we were doing, Cam and I were out there this afternoon looking out there. 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? 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 and 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 tulip poplar story shows, you know, they have a lifespan. You've got to have an entity that's responsible for as things die, as one tree falls and unfortunately or damages through other trees, is there any 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.

Paul CunninghamOkay.

Mark VianapplicantThank you. Thank you, sir.

Paul CunninghamThat answers that. If we could go back to the slide of just the general Platt. 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 that is safest or that that offers the the best handling of that kind of traffic for the community well

Mark Vianapplicantright now the new school basically just uses silver king because i mean today it's like any other school you got stacking i 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 got to wait you know open up the door get people in little kids in little kids out and stuff like that silver king lends itself naturally to that and it will continue to do so you know 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 grunted or then that's no different that you have right now except it'll 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. That kind of eliminates the opportunity for mishaps, people not paying attention, dinging a car, hopefully not hitting someone. But it is going to be a little bit of a busy area. It will be less busy because less traffic. It will be a little better organized because you'll have unidirectional traffic flow there. But that's the goal of how we're planning on working with it. And we have been in contact with the new school through this process. And the goal, as we talked about, the HOA will have to continue to work with

the new school you know we have a shared parking regime if you look right now the zoning order only requires us to have two parking spaces per townhouse each of those townhouses equally easily meet their their criteria there and then you're gonna have on not on 11 of those townhouses two additional parking spaces on their driveway all right the three how 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 gonna have enough parking there that fact notwithstanding we've got adequate parking on additional parking on the other side of Silver King. The reason we're doing that is to provide parking for our visitors,

but it's going to be used by the school. It's going to be used for after school events for propping kids off. Sometimes anybody's had to do with a science experiment or anybody's had to do with any kind of large form board thing like that, sometimes that's not getting shoved in the door when you're getting with a kid 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 since the 80s.

Paul CunninghamOkay. 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

Mark Vianapplicantprimarily 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.

Paul CunninghamOkay. But

Mark Vianapplicantthey could do it, yes. It could be used. road, this will be full public access. Yeah, as the same as it is now.

Paul CunninghamOkay. The the odd part with 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. The one story building that I presume will remain that's part of the new school and their administration. So that's just an oddity that bears discussion but probably does not impact the approval of the process.

Mark VianapplicantMr. It is what we'll have to work with the same way we've worked together for 40 years. They'll construct it. They'll end up having new parking spaces. We're going to have to reconstruct those parking spaces apart from the new project. But that's how it'll work.

Paul CunninghamThank you. Those are my questions. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir.

Kirsten LockhartThank 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?

Mr. FrederickstaffSo in terms of lot coverage?

Paul CunninghamMm

Mr. Frederickstaff-hmm. Mr. Steffin is going to get the GDP up for me so I can give you the numbers.

Kirsten LockhartOkay. 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

Mark Vianapplicantfor? 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

Kirsten Lockhartgroundwater contamination?

Mark VianapplicantYeah, we don't anticipate that. At the end of the day, once you start breaking ground, you know, you're responsible for what happens. If we run into something, you know, you got to let the staff know. You got to let, you know, Virginia Department of Health know. You know, I 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 in the confines of the law.

Speaker 2Okay.

Kirsten LockhartWhile I wait for Mr. Slepfin, then my other question is, obviously, Chair Feather brought up the sidewalks only on Wednesday. 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 and

Mark Vianapplicantit 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. And, you know, we are providing pedestrian connections on picket 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 manhood want

Speaker 2do we have a coverage

Kirsten Lockhartanswer not yet okay all right any other follow-up questions while we wait for the

Matthew RiceYeah, 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?

Mark VianapplicantThere's been discussion with the utilities. In this case, you're absolutely right. 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. going you know and I'm what I'm saying I'll make a distinction they are not giving up their easements along picket the easement we're talking about giving up is just for that little from that pole and picket to about 30 feet into the property yeah on there to 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 we'll move that 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 lines coming in because the new the fruit through silver king court you know and then you know so you're right that's exactly how it would work thank you

Mr. Frederickstaffokay miss lockhart so the existing impervious acreage is 0.98 and with post development uh the impervious cover um would be one 1.01 so there's a slight increase in impervious.

Kirsten LockhartThank you for those numbers. That was going to be my question. 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 number of trees. It

Mark Vianapplicantis. And impervious is obviously an important calculation because impervious equals impact on stormwater like that. 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 and this would be required to have the most modern stormwater management protections and otherwise we're not getting a building permit.

Kirsten LockhartAny other comments from Commissioners before we open this for the public hearing? I believe we have preregistered.

Speaker 1Yes, we have one sign up for a speaker. It's John

Kirsten LockhartCho. And with that, we'll open the public hearing. speakers you have I'll

Mark Vianapplicantbe available for more comment

Kirsten Lockhartthank you you have three minutes on the clock please identify your name and address for the record when you approach the podium mr. Joe good

John Chopublic commentevening commissioners my name is John Cho I am the president of the Pickett Reserve HOA citizen of Fairfax the last two years lived in the in the county for over 10 I'm a retired general officer West Point grad and we just love this area my wife's 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 improvement in the comprehensive plan. 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, of 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 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 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 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.

Kirsten LockhartAny other comments? Follow-up comments from commissioners or questions?

Paul CunninghamClose the public hearing.

Kirsten LockhartAll right. We'll close the public hearing. And if commissioners agree, we'll move on to a motion.

James Featherall

Speaker 2right that's fine

Speaker 1excuse me

Kirsten Lockhartso 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 connector trail as well as to Mantua on the Fairfax County side so I do want to acknowledge 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 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 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

Speaker 2so any discussion of the motion all

James Featherright second thank

Kirsten Lockhartyou any discussion of the motion Seeing none, I will call for a roll call vote.

Speaker 2Mr. McCarthy?

Kirsten LockhartAye. Mr. Cunningham?

Paul CunninghamAye.

Kirsten LockhartMr. 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 Development Commercial, to PDR, Planned 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 15th 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

Paul Cunninghamsecond

Kirsten Lockhartany discussion of the motion we'll move to a roll call vote mr mccarthy

Tassos McCarthyaye mr

Kirsten Lockhartcunningham aye mr rice aye mr feather aye and i vote aye as well

Mr. FrederickstaffThank you.

Kirsten LockhartAll right. With that, we adjourn our regular meeting and move on to our work session. Next topic is Northfax concept phase four briefing.

Paul CunninghamMadam 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. 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 two o'clock in the morning, they have noise, they have light, they have other opportunities. So sometimes just moving for convenience out as planned all

Kirsten Lockhartright mr. Fredericks again

Mr. Frederickstaffgood evening this is a pre application briefing on a potential development proposal for 3570 Chamber Drude the potential applicant is MCR T investments LLC represented by Catherine Taylor this is the first step in the current land use to 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 receive very high-level feedback the site is located at 3570 Chamber Drone on the west side of Chambers Road south of Fairfax Street east of Barr Avenue and Brightview North Back senior living and north of Fairfax Boulevard the proposal would be a presentation

James Featherbeing shared I'm not I'm seeing the old

Mr. Frederickstaffnot seeing it

James FeatherI'm seeing the Pickets reserve Or they into a presentation

Mr. FrederickstaffLet's try it again. Do you see it now?

James FeatherThank you. Yes, thank you. Thank you.

Mr. FrederickstaffOkay, just to be clear, can you see it now? Yes,

Eli Goldmanapplicantthank you.

Mr. FrederickstaffOkay, 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 planned 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 phase four the 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 uh 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 plan was adopted in june 23 of 2020 so the smaller plan just kind of walk you through the the slide at the top left corner shows the uh the 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 on the grade area and then the orange was a mixed-use the bottom left corner is

commercial shows mixed-use again it kind of replicates the retail frontage and also the residential component so you'd 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 the how the how this proposed phase four 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 multi-family units resulting in an overall density of approximately 49

dwelling units per acre for the 10-acre planned development and the applicant is proposing commercial along the ground floor at the corner of Chambers Road and Northback Street the applicants proposing residential amenities for the for the residents that may include courthouse pools club 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 to the parking garage a full attorney movement from North back Street and a right only interest from a chamber droid along with the the mixed use on the corner of Cambridge and North back Street the applicants proposing a linear park feature fronting with planting and sidewalk and a seating area as shown

Along North back Street, which is a fairly consistent with the small area plan So in your packet there's The items that staff discussed with with the applicant I just want to mention a few of the Of the larger items kind of the high-level items area plan actually shows uh one a shared uh shared street between the senior living uh building and the proposed phase four and the applicant is is showing uh two streets that are roughly uh 50 feet apart so that's something that uh staff pointed out is uh it's consistent with the small area plan the another item that's a 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 some in the surface parking area so those are one of the large challenges for the site is that there's a culvert existing culvert 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 for phase one through phase three during and back in 2020 so the applicant would need to make up the difference for for this phase so when you're looking at the overall size of of the PD the applicant has roughly 5% of the 10 acres to make up to to reach the 20 percent 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 in the packet if you want to go through those items and

the applicant has uh one other item let's try 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 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

Kirsten LockhartThank you. Commissioner, any questions? Mr. McCarthy, would you like to? Okay. Mr. Rice.

Matthew RiceSo 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. FrederickstaffThe the applicant will well will continue to Staff will continue to review Their proposal once plans come forward Typically the public works would review it as well to make sure they're earning the impacts to the existing culvert, but they basically designed the site to accommodate development to To to 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.

Matthew RiceOkay. 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 we'll cross our fingers.

Mr. FrederickstaffIt'll be a challenge, but I'm sure they're willing to address it.

Matthew RiceOkay, great.

Eli GoldmanapplicantI'm Eli Goldman, civil engineer at Land Design. To answer that, and I was also the engineer for the actual culvert design before, so well aware of the whole site. We are designing around it and when you have a building or parking garage near the culvert, we have to send those foundations deep enough implications to the culvert 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 early on to not have any impacts the culvert

Matthew Riceall right some critique of the original culvert since all since you were involved Alaska open up the can of worms by admitting that there's criticism about the north facts development happening based on the speed at which the sorry let me say this in the technically correct way it was posed the stormwater that moves through that area used to move pretty slowly but with the 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 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 extreme caution.

You don't seem to have an extremely cautious kind of stance on this 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

Eli Goldmanapplicantso 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 stormwater management so everything kind of on this area will be able to convey the storms that we designed for

Tassos McCarthyyeah 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 any design strategy to ensure that that isn't a defining feature, like the garage just kind of sticking out there, or is that the intent that you'll just have open garage into that space?

Kathy TaylorapplicantGood evening. I'm Kathy Taylor from the law firm of Walsh Colucci representing the applicant. We do also have our architect here, so he could probably come up and provide more details. garage. The intent would be, as you can see on the image here, you have the two buildings that surround the garage. So really it would, the structures would wrap around that would reduce the visibility of that garage. And then on the portions that do, that 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, the architectural intent in terms of designing that garage.

Vinay GaneshanapplicantI'm Vinay Ganeshan from PVDI, we are the 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 to kind of minimize its impact on the streetscape. And obviously we're still in the planning stage, but once we get into more of a design development stage, that's one of our biggest objectives, to make sure that visually 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 with Mill Creek. We did mosaic with

Peter BrownlerapplicantMill

Vinay GaneshanapplicantCreek. 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.

Tassos McCarthyAnd 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?

Peter BrownlerapplicantGood evening. My name is Peter Brownler 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 Fax 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.

Kirsten LockhartCan I add a quick point to that? Thanks, Peter.

Kathy TaylorapplicantAnd 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 is right at that corner. Understanding that there is limited visibility of any type of retail along that frontage on what is now Northak 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 city staff in terms of what would be appropriate in terms of really meeting that spirit of the comprehensive plans retail frontage. I think one of the other, I don't know if it's one of the images that we had provided to you, Mr. Frederick, but showing kind of what we intended in our original concept. It might be in the staff report. Because 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 large part of that North Facts linear park is to create connections to nature so we just wanted to allow for that that extension of the linear park and really that connectivity that 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 Northfax frontage

Tassos McCarthyit does thank you and then lastly outside of the 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

Kathy Taylorapplicantand 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.

Paul CunninghamThank 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 uh 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 uh 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 flyover 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 Northback 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 slides 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

Kathy Taylorapplicantand 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 um entrance only in terms of coming off chain bridge road and that entry into the garage i will say uh briefly my understanding You can see on this image that I think it's trash, utilities, bike parking, so that you do see that on the west side of 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 interparcel 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.

Vinay GaneshanapplicantYeah. The access lane as you come in from Chainbridge Road is actually continuous all the way through the garage. So it's actually sort of like a fire 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 Chainbridge. So that's the intent behind the...

Paul CunninghamOkay, so you can go straight through. So there will be something inside the garage then. I presume you're going to have multi-level access working your way up and down the garage.

Vinay GaneshanapplicantYeah, so wood is not showing you. Obviously, we know we're just showing the roof level. But what happens at 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.

Paul CunninghamOkay. And that's tall enough to get any future vehicles, the bigger fire trucks that are coming through. 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.

Vinay GaneshanapplicantYeah, no, that was the intent. That was the intent, yes. And, you know, what is also not seen here is that there's also a great difference from change sort of coming up to the Brightview property. Right. we established also works to deal with that height of the great difference

Paul Cunninghamokay 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,

Vinay Ganeshanapplicantyou mean at the bottom?

Paul CunninghamNo, 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. And then I've got an entrance, it looks like, which would be standard for going to underground parking.

Vinay GaneshanapplicantYeah, 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.

Paul CunninghamThat take you up to the parking garage?

Vinay GaneshanapplicantYes. It's actually like a jump ramp.

Mr. FrederickstaffOkay.

Paul CunninghamAnd it will have residential then on either side of it and above it? Yeah,

Vinay Ganeshanapplicantit'll

Paul Cunninghamactually

Vinay Ganeshanapplicanthave residential on top.

Paul CunninghamAnd on top of it, okay. I presume with traffic flow then if you can come right in, it's essentially in the garage you turn into two-way traffic?

Vinay GaneshanapplicantYes.

Paul Cunninghameverything 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 North Fax the only way to get out of the site? Or is it planned that you'll be able to go left on North Fax and then south on that connector road on the other side of right view?

Vinay GaneshanapplicantHow

Paul Cunninghamdo you get around?

Eli Goldmanapplicantyeah that's correct you have the option of you have to come to Northback Street then you turn right or left so I believe the new far Avenue extension has been opened up and it's public right away I'm not sure if you know

Mr. Frederickstaffso I believe it's open yeah

Paul CunninghamI believe it yeah it's it's open now and it will certainly be open by the time yeah

John Chopublic commentyou're complete with construction

Paul Cunninghamso 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 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 in talking with the comprehensive plan and things like that

is that we had an intention not to build residential Boulevard. So is that the buffer that keeps this from being residential on the Boulevard?

Eli GoldmanapplicantI don't think we've discussed with staff whether that was the official buffer, but kind of we're focused just on our own property here, and 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 We don't own control that property, the south. So are those three properties south? So we have to stay within our own property.

Paul CunninghamOkay. I guess that that's part of my question. 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 two 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 of something that would be usable for people to park and access it and and have good flow sure

Vinay Ganeshanapplicanti think um 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 Chainbridge because that's out of your prime retail site, and 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. plan because you know with 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 north facts

Paul Cunninghamdoes it make any sense to put retail on chambered 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

Vinay GaneshanapplicantI mean ideally yes but you know we were actually trying to work with the master

Paul Cunninghamplan the small area

Vinay Ganeshanapplicantplan that showed retail along Northfax and you know we do have to talk about it though because when you look at the plan no matter how you do residential here Northfax 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 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, That's something we could take a look at also.

Paul CunninghamWould it be possible to work with the city who owns the corner if you had retail along Cambridge and that to get some kind of park or open space access that would give you better pedestrian mobility in that southern exposure 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 uh much more attractive yeah

Vinay Ganeshanapplicanti think uh i think we can definitely uh you know take a look at that also okay

Paul Cunninghamand i know talking with the city hopefully would be a productive exercise yeah but i don't know the swimming pool is going to be on the first floor the seventh floor

Vinay Ganeshanapplicantit's going to be on the first floor

Paul Cunninghamfirst floor

Vinay Ganeshanapplicantyeah

Paul Cunninghamokay 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

Vinay Ganeshanapplicantright now it's planned if

Paul Cunninghamit's shielded all around it's not going to get sunshine and get warm

Vinay Ganeshanapplicantright now it's planned as uh an

Paul Cunninghamupgrade pool but you know depending on how we do the

Vinay Ganeshanapplicantpodium you know it could go one level above but it is an outdoor pool and uh i think we've done a couple of projects with mill creek that You know, yes, I mean, they do function pretty well, but, you know, depending on the lighting,

Paul Cunninghamyes. Is there anything that could make it a year-round amenity that would be as attractive to residents or to whoever was allowed to use it?

Vinay GaneshanapplicantWell, the other option is, I mean, you know, we show the pool just because, you know, we show a pool, but I don't think we've worked out all the landscaping and design options yet. You know, they could probably end up just being two landscape courtyards also, you know.

Paul CunninghamSo we'd have to work that out. We could have an indoor restaurant or an outdoor restaurant in the center, unless it's just a total amenity for the residents. These are just thoughts that I'm throwing out to try to say, what can we do to add value to make it just not a residential place, but a place that is valuable to the city and its

Vinay Ganeshanapplicantresidents as well?

Paul CunninghamYeah.

Vinay GaneshanapplicantYou know, one of the things I think Catherine sort of talked about it, both along Northfax and also along Chain Bridge, specifically along Northfax. has done a lot of projects where it's using 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 we'll definitely look at. I think Brightview also has a lot of walk-up 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.

Paul CunninghamOkay. That I think would be useful in looking at it. And I think those are my primary comments are traffic utility to the city and connectivity for the rest of the city. of what we're trying to do and getting the best project to fill it in. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Kirsten LockhartMr. Feather.

James FeatherThank 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 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, 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?

Paul CunninghamThat's the old three.

James FeatherI'm thinking about this consolidation concept. concept

Mr. Frederickstaffso can you say a question yes that's that's the piece right there

James Featheroh that little corner there okay

Mr. Frederickstaffyes sir

James Featherall right good all right easily easily understood and could in fact be considered as part of a consolidation as well um staff also in the report the report made a comment about um 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? The right in, but there will be no opportunity to exit from that garage onto Chainbridge directly. Is that?

Mr. FrederickstaffThat's correct.

James FeatherOkay. 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 Botanist, another couple hundred units. Continue to be disappointed at the pushback we get from bringing in more modern and interesting commercial uses. 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. um in many other respects it's uh doing a pretty decent job at fulfilling the vision for the small area plan um i think a serious effort at consolidation and really more fully realizing what we think this corner should look like or could look like um would be a good activity on your part something good effort for you if you haven't already approached the property owners itself one piece of which as I said is the stays um not sure of any other questions those are mostly comments and feedback at this point thank you

Kirsten LockhartI

Speaker 2just have a few questions that

Kirsten Lockhartmay be still preemptive I know this is 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

Speaker 2yes

Kirsten Lockhartokay 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 you know we can encourage public transportation 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

Peter Brownlerapplicanti think it's a great question and it plays to the balance between the number of residential units we end up designing balanced with the amount of commercial space something we have to keep in mind because you're right we have to kind of pinpoint it we that can really just provide a lot of issues for the surrounding streets and also for the residents. At the same time, over-parking 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.

Kirsten LockhartOkay. 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, 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 your offers to the city and then of course with the with the parking you know what is the tie-in with any 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.

Paul Cunninghamyeah

Kirsten Lockhartany other questions or comments fall up for us

Paul Cunninghameither staff or the africans or anything else you wanted from us

Kirsten Lockharti

Paul Cunninghamthink

Mr. Frederickstaffwe're good thank you

Kirsten Lockhartthank 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.

Speaker 15Good 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?

James FeatherYes, I am. Thank you.

Speaker 15We 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 Chainbridge Road, Road Avenue and south of Meadow Bridge Lane. The future land used 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 proper 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, den units and 18 two-bedroom units. Here are potential renderings and the potential applicant is proposing to repaint and repair the existing facade. Staff met with the potential applicant and provided initial feedback on the concept.

This feedback is included in the briefing packet and on the next two slides. So that's more staff feedback Potential land use request for this project would be an amendment to existing proffers a special exception for 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 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

Kirsten Lockhartthey're

Speaker 15here to also answer questions thank

Kirsten Lockhartyou mr figure

Tassos McCarthyHi, can you elaborate a little bit on what you're envisioning for the live work units?

Bob BrandtapplicantThanks Commissioner McCarthy. Bob Brandt for the record with the wall from a Walsh-Kaluchi 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. they would be exactly that. It would be an opportunity for a resident of one of these units to also operate their business out of it. So think small independent proprietors or small businesses, small offices, perhaps medical offices, things of that nature. They are a relatively rare unit type, but they do exist, and they do exist in areas where there's a demand for small businesses, small business owners and things like that,

people who want to live where they work exactly. So we've proposed those as an option here on some of the lower levels of the building. One of the things that I think kind of intuitively makes sense is that the building as it exists today is almost designed like a live-work building because these units, as Ms. Schweiger alluded to, residential units. This building was built in the 1960s. It was manifestly designed and constructed to be a multifamily building. And so if you walk through the building, if you walk up and down the halls today, 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 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

Tassos McCarthyunderstood um i'm sure we'll hear a lot more on that the public plaza i'm 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

Bob Brandtapplicantresidents? Yeah, absolutely. And 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 7,000 square feet, give or take. 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 can and will necessarily be refined as we go through this process. But staff has suggested that we look at opportunities to improve those pedestrian connections in and out of that space. 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

Tassos McCarthyunderstood 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 is a better planning outcome for the city

Bob Brandtapplicantyeah 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 misnomer to call this a residential conversion because of what I said earlier. 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 on one of Ms. Schweiger'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 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 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 The bones of this building are solid and it really presents an opportunity to convert it back to its original use

Tassos McCarthyGot 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 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 or what are you imagining here to to make this an attraction in the city

Bob Brandtapplicantyeah i i think we're open right at this point and we've had some preliminary conversations with economic development um we'll be certainly continuing those conversations as we move forward 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 so I think that that's a that's a very well-known 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 restaurants 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

as I said, about finding the right mix of uses to keep that ground floor activated, keep that ground floor of the building as someplace that the public wants to come and see.

Tassos McCarthyGot it. And just one more. In this design, is this primarily focusing on the interior? Is there any consideration to like a reskin, or are you just imagining leaving the existing facade as is?

Bob BrandtapplicantWe are contemplating kind of a touch-up, a glow-up, if you will, again it's in pretty good shape it needs a little updating and so what we've talked about internally and with staff so far is maybe repainting some of the awnings restaining some of the 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 touch-ups that the applicant would be interested in exploring so again 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

Tassos McCarthyall right thank you

Paul Cunninghamthank you uh one would like to explore

John Chopublic commentlive work and ask staff to

Paul Cunninghamto give some more thought to that we put I don't know 10 12 live live work units as townhouse type buildings on the front of Paula 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 be the best use of that site 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 to get access in and out. That would be another thought, I would think, if you're keeping some of the commercial tenants and making the upper floors residential in a process like this. There is no underground parking that I'm aware of, 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?

Bob BrandtapplicantThat is correct, Commissioner Cunningham. And fortunately, this property is located within the transitional overlay district. And so the existing parking supply that's out there today is more than enough to meet the requirements. 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 work on that as we go through the process. But the very good news, in addition to the building itself having good bones, is that there's a very adequate supply of parking today.

Paul CunninghamOkay. There is access to the residential units that are behind this building through the parking either side of this building. And so how, 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?

Bob BrandtapplicantYeah, 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 will function very much like it was originally intended to function with both buildings, both residential buildings, sharing access points they do today. You know, the front building, the Mosby building, has a different traffic pattern 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 will continue to run smoothly.

Paul CunninghamOkay. 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 working arrangement that needs to be made between the management of the leased housing and the ownership housing for common aspects?

Bob BrandtapplicantI 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, the Mosby Building and the residential building. But I think that the property management established for this building, if it were to convert, would certainly continue to coordinate with the condominium association to the rear.

Paul CunninghamOkay. One in reading through the notes, I saw a note that indicated that we would have no residential on commercial. And I believe that may pertain to the 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 Main, I have townhouses. So I have residential there. If I go down to workstation road and main street 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 is an issue I think is one

in terms of this being residential.

Bob BrandtapplicantYeah, I appreciate you sharing 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, this property itself 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 seen come forward over the years along Fairfax Boulevard, 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 multifamily 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 that's what that's what brings us here this evening.

Paul CunninghamOkay. I guess from my thoughts then, if you could maintain more commercial on the first floor, the basement on the first floor and do something along that line and have residential above it, that might be a plus from my perspective at least. And those I think are my comments and questions on this. Thank you. Thank you.

Kirsten LockhartMr. Feather. Thank you.

James FeatherA couple of things. I had a similar train of thought to what Mr. Cunningham discussed regarding a restriction on residential and commercial corridor. I'm not sure that anything explicitly suggested that that restriction in the comp plan was just to Fairfax Boulevard. But in this case, 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 it's kind of surrounded by some commercial corridor properties that was rezoned to, I think, planned development mixed use at one point. behind this site is in fact this multifamily 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

and interestingly just a little bit down the street and across the street is a cemetery interestingly and perhaps kind of funnily zone residential high there are a lot of residences packed in there I guess and right just across the way we had the city center west redevelopment that we looked at that was approved for rezoning which expired now to commercial urban in order to put but upper story residential in the same corridor. So to me, that supports the case for doing something like what you're proposing here. I agree with Mr. Cunningham that maintaining ground floor non-residential uses would be desirable. and one of the things you may or may not be aware of Mr. Brandt 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 that perhaps rezoning 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 reemphasize 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. I think that's the extent of my comments at this point.

Bob BrandtapplicantThank you, Mr. Feather.

Kirsten LockhartAll right. I just have one last follow-up question. Do we know the current vacancy rate or utilization rate of the property?

Bob BrandtapplicantSure. Great question, because that has also come up in our early conversations with staff and economic development. So the best way to describe it is approximately 65% of the units in the building are either vacant or are on month-to-month leases or leases that will expire before the end of 2027. And frankly, the reason for that is my client, the current potential applicant, acquired this property at the end of 2025 with the intention of bringing this forward. And so the prior owner at the time, even prior to my client's involvement in this, started to establish a strategy to not extend and not enter into new leases, longer-term leases for the existing building. And so, like I said, that number 65% represents the amount of floor area in the building that's either vacant or soon to be vacant within the near term.

And so, again, that's why we think now is the right time to come forward with this application, 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.

Kirsten LockhartSo is the new owner or the applicant conducting outreach to those existing businesses or users of the property? And is there anyone that's interested in staying? Sure.

Bob BrandtapplicantSo 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 that.

Speaker 18For sure.

Holden SabatoapplicantThank you, Holden Sabato with the Silverman Group. Again, the applicant, appreciate you guys having us tonight. In regards to communication with the existing tenants, obviously we are on a daily, communicating with them on a daily basis. I would say, so Bob mentioned, by the end of 2027 it's going to be 65% vacant per the current leases by the end of 2028 it's going to be about 95% 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. But yes, I mean, honestly, our goal here is to keep as much of the existing tenant base as possible.

And then through 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 stories above with residential.

Kirsten LockhartOkay. 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 spaces. 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. 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 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

Bob Brandtapplicantyep great any

Kirsten Lockhartother Commissioner comments or questions thank you very much thank

Bob Brandtapplicantyou so much for the feedback appreciate it

Kirsten Lockhartdo you have what you need from us yeah

Bob Brandtapplicantother 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

Speaker 15right

Bob Brandtapplicantthank you all very much thanks for sure yeah

Speaker 15I'm fine I just wanted to say that I'll look into the 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 Thank you very much. Thank

Bob Brandtapplicantyou all.

Kirsten LockhartAll right. With that, we will reconvene our regular meeting and move to the staff report from Mr. Nabte.

Mr. NabtestaffThank you, Vice Chair Lockhart and members of the Planning Commission. Going back to the July 14 City Council meeting, the Council had a work session on the Small Layer Plan Zoning Ordinance Amendments, same work session that you all had the night before. Received feedback from that and our consultant is working on updating the draft and we'll We'll plan on being back to you on that in the next couple of months. The same meeting, the city council supported a ballot measure for the 1% sales tax now authorized by city code to go on the ballot on November. If approved initially, 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 to 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 held discussions on on june 22nd lastly regarding city council beginning in september They will be doing a pilot of holding work sessions beginning at 4 p.m. the first Tuesday of each month with the goal of encouraging all work sessions or as many work sessions as possible to occur on those days and freeing up time on the other regular meeting nights to hopefully make those shorter meetings. I'm not sure at this point if or how this will affect Planning Commission's schedule, but as we start to work through some of these items,

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 and then let's see September 1 the first one of these meetings they'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 a last thing I wanted to mention on September 2nd we'll be holding a community meeting on the smaller your plan zoning ordinance This will be from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Sherwood Center. 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.

Kirsten LockhartThank you very much. All right. Commission comments. Mr. McCarthy. Thank

Matthew Riceyou.

Kirsten LockhartMr. Cunningham.

Paul CunninghamNo comments. Thank you.

Kirsten LockhartMr. Rice.

Matthew RiceNothing for me. Thanks.

Kirsten LockhartChair Feiler.

James FeatherNothing for me. Bar still has not met. Wish you all a good August recess.

Kirsten LockhartAnd nothing else from me as well. So with that, we are adjourned. Thank you.

James FeatherThank you. Thank you.