City Council Work Session

Speaker 29Trying hard to look like Gary Cooper Super duper, come let's mix Where Rockefellers walk with sticks Or umbrellas in their midst Putting on the ritz Dressed up like a million dollar trooper Trying hard to look like Gary Cooper Super duper Come let's mix Where Rocky Vallas Walk with sticks Or umbrellas in their mix Puttin' on the Ritz Puttin' on the Ritz Puttin' on the Ritz Puttin' on the Ritz

Speaker 27Well, I'll read.

Catherine ReadGood afternoon. I would like to call the work session of September 1st, 2026 to order. I did say good afternoon instead of good evening because we are starting at 4 o'clock instead of 7. We will be taking a break between 6.30 and 7 before we start the regular part of our work session. Before we get started, I would like to note that we do have two council members who will be joining us later. So having a quorum, we will move forward. I will now recognize Mr. Alexander for the first work session item being future meeting topics. Mr. Alexander.

AlexanderstaffMayor and Council. I'm pleased that this item comes before you early and that I know we have some staff here too will give us an opportunity to have a more robust discussion about what's coming up in the short term and throughout the year. So certainly we'll start with September 8th and before we get too far along into that we have a consent item that's coming forward. I know we were seeing some comments and questions about on bike lanes and so I'm going to ask Wendy to come We'll talk a little bit about that before we go further into the agenda. And Chloe.

Speaker 22Thank you. Good afternoon, Mayor, members of Council. There have been some questions about the University Drive bike lanes that we had received from the City Council during prior meetings. I know there were some e-mails sent to you, but Mr. Alexander asked us to come this evening and just speak for a very few minutes to give you some overview information ahead of the consent item next week. So with me is Chloe Ritter, and Chloe is going to walk through just, again, we have, I think, four slides. Very brief presentation.

Chloe RitterstaffYeah, so this is just a very brief refresher. This project came to you for a public hearing about a year and a half ago, and next week, September 8th, we are bringing a consent agenda item to award the construction contract. So just as a brief background, this project really started back in 2020. It was included as one of the key ideas in the Old Town Fairfax and Northfax small area plans to develop University Drive as a multimodal spine. That at the same time, or sorry, a year later, this project was included in the two-year transportation program. And it was also included in the Bicycle Master Plan, which was adopted at the same time in 2021. And then from there, we proceeded with working on this project.

held a work session on that, had a public hearing which went along with the funding application and that's kicked everything off and got us funding in fall of 2021. And then the funding came online in 2023 which is when we started the concept design, did some additional public outreach on that initial concept design, and then worked our way through the design process. We had the public hearing, as I mentioned, last February and again next week is the construction contract award is when it's scheduled. And then this is just the same information putting it on our roadmap so you can kind of see how we walked through the process, starting with, of course, even step zero before the plans went online, putting in the long-range adopted plans,

and then, again, I won't read all of this again, but just walking through each phase of the two-year program, concept development, funding, the design process, and now again coming towards construction. And again, quickly I'll just walk through what the design is. So there's three separate sections. The first section is from South Street to the library garage entrance. And this is not going to be any kind of, this is not going to be a road diet. This is just going to be refreshing the sharrows in the outside lanes. So bicycles will share the lanes through the center of Old Town. We did look at reducing the number of lanes through Old Town, but at the time we didn't feel that there was enough capacity.

This is something we're looking at again separately with the Old Town Circulation Study and the of the South Street extension, but with this specific project, the design through Old Town is Cherros. And then as it goes north of where the library entrance is, it transitions to the road diet, which is where there's currently four lanes today with two lanes in each direction. It will be reduced to having one lane in each direction, a center turn lane, and then the bicycle lanes on the outsides. And there will be green pavement markings through the conflict areas. And then getting to Leighton Hall Drive, we are doing a little bit of making a little bit of changes to the intersection, bringing in the curbs, removing the right turn slip lanes,

and adding another crosswalk and adding a median in the crosswalk on the south side of the intersection right there. So this is kind of the biggest part of the project is to redo this intersection to redo the curbs here. But the rest of the project is simply re-striping the roadway. And again, you saw all of this last year. I know that we had some discussion about it last February. So this is a new item. This is something that came up during the public hearing last year was questions about whether we could improve the Kenmore intersection on University Drive. This is something that would be done separately with separate funding, but it could be done in coordination to restripe this intersection.

After that comment came up with the public hearing last year, we looked at a couple of different options. There's very few options to redo the curbs, but we did feel like we could restripe it and make it a little bit more clear how people turn into and out of the street, make the cross, bring the crosswalk closer, because right now the crosswalk is back here, and there's a stop sign back here, but it's very hard for people, or people very rarely stop there. So this is something that we could do, again, in coordination with the University Drive Bike Lanes project, because it is just north of that project area. And then the last slide is just one of the questions that came up was whether the road

diet would impact traffic. This is something that we looked at both before the funding application went in and then again after we had the funding we looked at it again. We made some assumptions in our traffic analysis that traffic would grow a little bit, about 5% per year. I'm sorry. Yes, half a percent. much different than 5% through 2033 and that also assumed that the Courthouse Plaza and Willard Sherwood developments would add traffic to the roads and that growth is actually a little bit conservative because what we've seen is traffic growth has been pretty flat or even declining a little bit on University Drive in the last several years so we did have a conservative traffic analysis and that showed that there really wasn't any significant increase in delay with

the road diet because there is excess capacity on that section north of Old So that's really all that we had in terms of an overview, but if there's any questions, we'd be happy to answer them.

Catherine ReadAre there questions? Council Member Peterson.

Thomas PetersonThanks. Always important to stay on top of the further development and implementation of things that are improving bike safety in the city. A couple basic questions just in terms of geographic scope on this. segment ends prior to Old Town? And just very big picture, out of curiosity, because university obviously cuts right through and heads on to Mason. Is there any activity or vision associated with the other side of the university between Old Town and Mason?

Speaker 22We actually implemented the road diet in that section from South Street to Armstrong Street about, say, eight years ago. exact, but that section already has the road diet. So this is really the other bookend. So what would not change would be that center through Old Town, but the road diet was completed on the south side already. And so it would really, if you're familiar with that section from City Hall up to South Street, that used to be four lanes. And we did that road diet a number of years ago. So now it's one lane each direction, center turn lane, bike lane. So this would look very similar to that.

Thomas PetersonAnd it's a separate issue, but I'm curious whether there's any anticipated change if development happens on the stretch between Old Town and Mason on University there, whether the increased number of housing units, et cetera, has any impact on the capacity of the designation of this for biking?

Speaker 22Well, I mean, as Chloe mentioned, when we did look at the evaluation, it is assuming a half percent of growth a year, year over year. And what we're actually seeing in reality is that that is not occurring even that much. So we were conservative, but the traffic study, I don't believe, looked at the south section. I believe it was looking at the north section.

Chloe RitterstaffI would just add that, as you know, traffic studies are done with each development, and they look at what the existing roadway capacity is. Thus far, we have not seen a traffic impact study that would necessitate changing the south section back to four lanes.

Thomas PetersonDo we do cumulative impacts of multiple developments instead of just single ones, and is that consistent with what we find here?

Chloe Ritterstafflooks at previously built and previously approved. So it does accumulate as each development comes through the process.

Thomas PetersonThanks. So geographically then on the other end, where University intersects with Fairfax Boulevard between the two car dealerships, what's the status and plan for that particular spot? Because it's a tough one if you're on a bike getting from Fairfax Boulevard up onto University towards Old Town.

Chloe RitterstaffAs far as I know, we don't have any projects planned there right now. Is that accurate? Yes.

Thomas PetersonHas there been any, there are no projects planned, but is there any interest in looking into that? Because it is kind of a tough spot, actually, for biking, right? That steep hill constrained by the dealerships and sidewalks is not a great place. And yet going from, you know, the other side, the north back side on, means you've got to get through there. Any thinking about that at present?

Chloe RitterstaffI think that's something that we could look at in more detail. It's not something that we've looked at thus far. The section between Layton Hall Drive and Fairfax Boulevard is a really residential section, as you know. So what you're really talking about is the intersection approach more so than the whole segment, correct?

Thomas PetersonIt is, but if you are going from the residential area down to the retail area, you've got to work through that intersection. You've got to work through that segment on university that's just this side of the intersection where the car dealerships are on either side, and that's really the question I have.

Chloe RitterstaffAnd I think that's something that we'd have to look at more closely.

Thomas PetersonAnd the only other question is, so the plans here will address a current need. I'm curious to know whether that is envisioned to be more or less a permanent fix and will address the needs for bike improvement indefinitely envisioned that we are going to be graduating to additional levels of protection and investment in infrastructure for bike lanes on university. Is this going to be, so far as we can tell, because of the low level of demand, this should have an indefinite lifespan? Or are we thinking that there's really a point at which we'll be graduating to some more intensive form of bike and pedestrian

Chloe Ritterstaffsafety? when do you build on this, but I think because we update our plans every few years, we update our comprehensive plan, small area plan, I'm assuming we'll take another look at those at some point. By the time that we look at those plans again, that might be a time to look and see, reevaluate if this is the right solution. Because it does take a long time to build these things and then a long time to get to the next plan. So that will give us another opportunity to see, is this still the right solution? So in terms of until we this would be the solution in place.

Thomas PetersonAnd I'm going to presume that as a part of that we are monitoring bike safety and road safety so we're going to be tracking crashes, accidents, all those kinds of things and that would be a part of the determination of whether anything else is needed. Yes. Okay. Thanks.

Catherine ReadOther questions? Council Member Amos.

Anthony AmosIf you could just go back to the slide with Ken Moore. That's the newest addition for this. I just from personal experience that intersection is not my So I definitely think the restriping and making that more clear, because right now it's kind of like a stop and yield sign, when in reality it shouldn't operate that way. So I would be very interested in seeing this move forward.

Chloe RitterstaffAnd I forgot to mention, we did actually reach out to the homeowners that have driveways that come out here. We were able to have a conversation with one of them, and she says she works from home, and she was very in favor of seeing some improvements there.

Catherine ReadCouncilmember McCullough.

Rachel McQuillenTo elaborate a little more on that, you had mentioned that there are some things that would require additional funding to achieve, that you had discussed something about, okay, maybe I misheard.

Chloe RitterstaffI'm not sure.

Rachel McQuillenThat's okay. I, too, like this much better. I think this is great with the crosswalk and the visibility, making it more closer to visibility of drivers is key for sure. Thank you.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Hall.

Stacy HallThank you. being late, so I'm going to ask you to repeat a couple things if that's okay. I strongly support the Kenmore re-striping. I actually just drove through there and it always is a challenge. Can you go to one of the other slides that would show where exactly you're suggesting the bike lanes be implemented? My understanding was that it was from Leighton Hall Drive to North Street. Is that correct?

Chloe RitterstaffIt is roughly North Street. I'm going to just take a moment and see if I can zoom in here. Just to orient you, North Street is over here. This is going north towards Layton Hall Drive. This is the garage entrance to the Old Town Plaza, and then this is the garage entrance to the library. And so you can see, I don't know if it's easy to see, but the bike lanes essentially start just past the library or end just before the Old Town Plaza garage. So that transition is before those two busy garage entrances. but yes south to the south of here it's just shared lane markings

Stacy Hallso then what is the expectation of bikers sorry it's my son he's not listening what is the expectation of bikers before or after those lanes start or end so

Chloe Ritterstaffafter so like if they're continuing into Old Town they would then transition into a shared lane sharing the road with or sharing that lane with vehicles This is again, I mentioned earlier, this is something that we're looking at again through the Old Town Circulation Study because there have been changes since this project was designed that we think maybe there's some opportunities to make some changes through the middle of Old Town, but when this project was funded, we didn't feel that there was enough capacity to do that now that there's the South Street extension going in and some other things that we're going to be looking at in Old Town. That might be something that changes in the future,

But with this project, they would transition to share the travel lane with vehicles through the center of Old Town.

Stacy HallOkay. And have we considered just doing a regular old shared use path on one side of the road to supplement or be instead of a sidewalk on one side that gives more flexibility and, you know, 10-foot space so that we could continue with the two travel lanes?

Chloe RitterstaffSo that would face a lot of the same challenges of having enough space because we have so many historic buildings in Old Town. Like, you know where DeClue is? That sidewalk is already so narrow. We wouldn't be moving that building. So I think, and same thing on the other side. So I don't think we'd be able to have a continuous shared use path unless we've made some really major changes. So that's not something that we looked at with this project.

Stacy HallBut if you're simply going from where you're referring to here, which I think is kind of right in front of where Ornery was?

Chloe RitterstaffYeah, I think Ornery was here-ish.

Stacy HallSo, and again, I recognize that those sidewalks are really narrow once you kind of cross over North Street. that run along the parking garage side and on the Vons Escape Room side and the ornery side, those seem to be sufficient. And I'm really not in favor of this. I'm happy to see it doesn't go all the way through Old Town because I had to wait through two light cycles to just continue straight on University to cross over Baden Street because people just hang out in the road there. I just don't, I'm not saying this isn't solving a problem, but I'm wondering if there's a better solution to solve this problem than reducing traffic and travel lanes for bikes.

Speaker 22MS. So one of the slides that we shared at the beginning was just, if you could go back to

Ms. Kadalovclerkthe first slide with the timeline.

Speaker 22Oh, up here. Gotcha. Yeah. So I just want to back up for a minute, because I think you came in after this discussion. The genesis of this project is from the small area plan for Old Town. And the discussion going back many, many years and looking at the comp plan and Old Town was that Chambers Road would be the major road for vehicular traffic and that University Drive would function as the spine. And I know we've talked about this a number of times in terms of making that the more multimodal, active roadway that is parallel to Chambers Road that would have the pedestrian and the bicycle connections. project came from. This project was originally discussed conceptually in the small area plan

for Old Town. So just going way back. And then when we started looking at it, this is when it became more of a reality and we started doing the traffic evaluation and looking at what would these facilities look like. And so the intent of the project always was to have separate bicycle and pedestrian facilities through this area, particularly if you're looking at the area like the flats and into downtown. The expectation has been, and it's there are so many pedestrians in this area. And so the idea was to have a separate sidewalk and bicycle facilities in this area. And then we were able to achieve that by doing the traffic evaluation to look at this. And we did look at the growth factors. Were you here for that? I can't remember.

The 0.5 percent? The 0.5, yeah. Okay. So we did look at whether or not there was capacity to accommodate removing this and doing the road diet. And so that's where we do look at this. We did look at the Shorewood and Courthouse Plaza specifically on top of assuming a year-over-year annual growth rate. And what it shows is that the road can accommodate that. I want to be clear, though, that does not mean that at all times of the day, every day, it is going to flow beautifully. What it means is that overall it can accommodate it. There will still be some times of delay. And so what this project is doing is implementing that vision that was included in that small area plan and in the bicycle plan. So it was not looked at

to have wider shared use paths on both. We would have to do it on both sides. Why? To accommodate pedestrians and bicycles only on a shared use path on one side would be, we think, too many people using it, given the heavier volumes of pedestrians that we're seeing in that area. So the sidewalk could function for walkers and then the shared use path could function for bikes? No, if we were going to have a shared use path, we would want one on both sides of the road. If it were both, we're going to be for pedestrians. If both were going to be for walkers and bikers, it would also be a different design because there are different buffer requirements that are required with a shared use path. So this is, to be honest, this is not something that we evaluated or considered as a viable option when we were doing this.

Didn't

Stacy Hallconsider as a viable option because it wasn't evaluated or didn't evaluate because it wasn't a viable option?

Speaker 22Because the small area plan was looking at separating the bicycles and the pedestrians. Okay.

Stacy HallTo the small area plan's credit, though, it suggests a lot of things that we take with a grain of salt and that we decide we're going to change. I don't, no disrespect, but I don't think that that's an appropriate response or an answer for this. If this were to be approved, when would this construction start?

Speaker 22We're looking at approval of the contract next week and construction starting, I would have to check with Sunny and the contractor, but most likely either later this fall or possibly this spring, but most likely this fall.

Stacy HallOkay, so then to be clear, we're dealing with Chainbridge Road, and is windy. We would then be removing a lane on either side of the university, bringing that down to one lane at the same time that we would be doing the Blenheim Road interchange, building Willard Sherwood, dealing with school construction and everything else along that. So the northwest connections through our, I'm sorry, the north-south connections through our city are pretty much at a standstill then at three

Speaker 22different roads. So this is one of the reasons why the timing is not nailed down, because we would want to make sure that we are doing this at a time when there is not active lane closures on Blenheim. This work we don't anticipate taking a significant amount of time, and the idea is to work it around all of the other projects so that we're not having multiple lane closures at one time. We're fully aware of the fact that there are multiple construction projects in the same area. Okay.

Stacy HallI appreciate all the information, and I recognize that we are up against a time trench here, and I've been asking questions about this for a while, but I still strongly think that considering a shared-use path, at least on one side, maybe both, might be a better option. I think the curb and gutter that goes along those roads is not ideal. The granite there, I think it already comes in. I have strong concerns about this, and then you add in the timing factor, and I think it's even more concerning for what's going on. I kind of feel like we should be highlighting or lighting the shared use path that runs along Chambridge Road and reminding people that that is already there. It's already functional.

It already exists. I just, this is, I'm all for encouraging bikes. And actually that's one thing I'm going to ask is that we get a bike counter. When I was at UCLA when my dad was in the hospital, which I saw bikers all the time, you drove, you know, you walked along where I went and it said 12 bikes rode on this road today. So I'd like to maybe see some of those bike counters out there big impactful decisions like this. So those are my thoughts. Thank you.

Catherine ReadOkay. I'm going to ask if, since this was pulled out because it's on the consent agenda, if everyone has adequate information for us to take a vote and if you would prefer that we pull it out of the consent agenda for a separate vote at the next meeting. Would everyone prefer that we pull it out of the consent and have a separate vote? Okay. but every okay so we have answered questions we've gotten feedback we'll pull it out of the consent put it as a separate item thank you so much for the presentation I will now turn it back over to our city manager thank

Alexanderstaffyou mayor council moving along looking at the next item we will talk again we've covered some of these but we're going to talk again about FY 2026 carryovers into FY 2027. We have a resolution authorizing the manager to sign an FY 27 agreement with the city and DRPT for Q operating and capital assistance. We have a public hearing scheduled later on for an applicant for an SUP pursuant to the code to allow daycare for 5 to 12 children under the care on premises coming up. And then at the end of that regular meeting, we have a public hearing on our code of ethics. I know there may have been some questions and be happy to entertain any questions on the special use permit, if anyone has any that they would like to share.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Hall.

Stacy HallThank you. There are two areas, I guess, of questions with regard to the special use permit for the daycares. I know the last two ones that came before this body, we were able to roll the hours back and the kids could be outside from 9 a.m. to 8 a.m. And I think there was discussion with our city attorney about seeing what could be done to make that more of a global change. And in light of this one coming up, I wanted to see if that had been done. And if not, if that was included in this current application as an automatic option. and then secondly I know that there had been some discussion about expediting the process for daycares and whatnot but I also know that that was not a global council decision to move forward with that so I would like to bring that up

again for discussion yeah

AlexanderstaffI'd like to ask I think if Brooke is here maybe to address the first part of Brian wants to talk a little bit about that we certainly could particularly get consensus today move forward on both and long-term issues around this, but I think we can talk process.

Brooke HardenstaffIncluded in this agenda item is a recommended condition of 8 a.m. as opposed to 9 a.m. Okay.

AlexanderstaffAnd anything permanent, I think, that we want to do, we can certainly move forward if it's the consensus of Council on the other changes that you'd like to see in this ordinance.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member McGuillin.

Rachel McQuillenI too would like to see that become a permanent option and then also to discuss some of the being able to expedite these specific

Catherine Readrequests. Thank you. Any other questions? Council Member Amos.

Anthony AmosJust for clarification, zoning staff is already working on specifically related to the special use permits for home daycares. Is that correct?

Brooke HardenstaffWe have that on our list. it would be helpful to get a council consensus on that for us to bring that back. Yeah, I would love that. Absolutely.

Catherine ReadI think the last time we discussed this, there was a council consensus generally, but I think that what I am seeing is that there is a specific council consensus on this. Great.

Stacey Hardy-ChandlerGreat.

Catherine ReadAppreciate that. March forward. Thank you. Are we ready to

Alexanderstaffmove on? September 22nd. So for that meeting we have a consideration of a resolution on consent Adopting the establishment of the process for the housing trust fund we presented that to you previously And so we would just be seeking approval of that process moving forward Also for public hearing we have the Highlands at Mantua on for 14 townhomes for consideration and then we have a work session to talk about amendments to the zoning ordinance many of which are primarily administrative and character for that meeting any questions on that meeting or items on that meeting before we move forward

Catherine Readseeing none

Alexanderstaffall right october 6 will be largely a transportation work session we have new sports on here also we'll bring back to you any modifications you'd like to see relative to the residential permit parking districts I think to some of the questions asked earlier it'll be useful time for us to talk about the two-year transportation program and so some of the things we talked about today can certainly fall within the

Albert Frederickstaffcontext of of that discussion.

AlexanderstaffAnd so that is largely an overview of the six. Any questions that anyone might have on that? Don't say any. Very good. Moving on to the 13th. If needed, we have a consideration for the appropriations supplemental appropriations. We will start consideration of resolutions for certificate of take for the chain Road project. We have a resolution of petition to VDOT to accept streets that are listed for maintenance payments and that is largely it for the 13th. Any questions

Anthony Amoson the 13th?

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Amos.

Anthony AmosNot on the 13th but just generally we're running the pilot on the 4 p.m. start time for work sessions today. When do we plan on reevaluating that or having the conversation I assume prior to the year?

AlexanderstaffI think that is a great question. I think that could be an ongoing evaluation. I think as we talk about future agenda and as we go through this, we'll certainly see how today goes. You know, it's good that we can have a broader discussion and pick a lot of these things apart, but we've got to weigh the value of it, you know, given what we're doing. But I think as we go, we certainly should evaluate it. And certainly as we move into the new year, we'll end up with the new schedule. So

Albert Frederickstaffgood question. Appreciate that.

AlexanderstaffOn the 27th, we just have one public hearing involving an SUP amendment for Mantua Hill Swimming Association to modify conditions for hours of tennis and swimming. Many questions before we move forward on that. All right. And then on the 7th, without going into detail on all of these items, it will be our work session for budget. And so we'll follow somewhat of the same process that we've used historically for that work session. Before that, we would have held a community input session. So we'll kind of do it the way we did before and make it interactive, get community feedback before we bring these items. our residents before we move forward with that discussion.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Hall.

Stacy HallThank you. I know something we talked about before was letting it be like an online interactive option and it was discussed that maybe Tyler has, the software Tyler had that built in. People could kind of drop and drag their priorities to see how they would balance the city's budget. Is that something that could be implemented in advance? I

Alexanderstaffthink we would probably, I'll let JC address that, have to talk about that

Speaker 10a little bit more. Sure. So Councilmember Tyler does not have that option. At least we don't have that option or that feature or module available to us. As the manager stated, it would be very similar of an interactive. With polling questions we're still trying to develop those, trying to get feedback initially so that way when we come a couple of days later to Council at the budget work session we can try to be as informative to Council with whatever feedback we receive while we're starting to work on FY28 budget development.

Stacy HallOkay, thank you for clarifying that. I'm not sure where we had been told that, but it's not currently accurate. So thank you, and I do appreciate the outreach with regard to the polling and those types of things. I think that's really important. So thank you.

AlexanderstaffAll right, and that's it for the 7th. Any other questions on that? We'll move to the 10th. Uh, 10th will be a fairly busy meeting. Um, given that, uh, we do not have a meeting on the third. And so, uh, on that, uh, on consent, you'll have resolution to adopt the Wilcoxon trail update, uh, which we have, um, I think presented to you before with an alternate date for the 8th of December, uh, consideration of updates to our financial policies and budget guidelines, uh, introduction of a number of different parts of the code specifically related to taxation and program exemptions for the 10th and then a list of public hearings on a variety of different items the legislative program shared use path small area plans

sidewalk projects that are listed here with no action needed for that and improvement projects and then uh council action on potential amendments to the zoning ordinance that we i think we mentioned before largely housekeeping amendments and on that consideration of resolution to adopt q transit development plans i covered that very quickly it's out a little bit but we're certainly happy to address any of those items that we can at this point

Catherine Readany questions on so far okay okay

Alexanderstaffso on the 17th we have an if needed meetings and we'll talk a little bit about that for December 2 if needed if we need to introduce an ordinance enacting a levy for the 1% if indeed that is successful in passing and that's it for the 17th for December 1st discussion again on our legislative program and where we are on that you can hear more about that later on today and discussion on the draft CIP moving forward and then move Fairfax City draft pedestrian master plan and draft safety action plan for the first

Speaker 10hearing any questions

Alexanderstaffhearing none and then on the 8th we have the taxation items that are brought forward from work session public hearing on the one percent and then land use applications for consideration on gallery at city center and courthouse plaza are scheduled for that time items not required public hearing would be the legislative program and the annual comprehensive a financial report often referred to as the ACFER presented to you on that date.

Albert FrederickstaffAny

Speaker 10questions

Albert Frederickstaffon the 8th? Okay.

AlexanderstaffNow, there has been discussion about, and is for council consideration, scheduling a December 15th, if needed, meeting in case, given the workload towards the end of the calendar year, that we may need an opportunity to hear items for that date. So I leave that for Council's consideration and consensus.

Catherine ReadAny questions or discussions on that? Council Member Peterson.

Thomas PetersonAnd why would that be needed?

AlexanderstaffI think what we're looking at is a number of different items that are coming towards the end of the year that are pretty significant to include these land use applications We want to leave that available in case we need capacity, meeting capacity at the end of the year. That's the feedback I've gotten up at this point, and so it's council's consensus on whether they want to do that or not.

Thomas PetersonI'm sorry, the feedback, if you could just elaborate.

AlexanderstaffWe have a lot that's happening at the end of the year meeting-wise, and so the feedback is that we may need an additional meeting if for some reason we can't accomplish everything we need to the calendar that we have. The holiday season, obviously Thanksgiving, Christmas season, always shorten our schedule and our calendar and so that's the impetus for this conversation.

Thomas PetersonIs the staff feedback because of crowding on the agenda or is there some other feedback that you're referring to?

AlexanderstaffYeah, I've heard from council members, you know, that this is something that we may want to do given the volume of issues we're considering at the end of the year.

Thomas PetersonBut no specifics on what that might involve at this stage.

AlexanderstaffI think the concern, again, is that if there is too much on a particular agenda at one time, we have seven public hearings scheduled for November 10th that we're able to deal with all of those items towards the end of this year.

Catherine ReadSo I will just add to that. this council has shepherded major projects through the last two years. And there's an upcoming election. And there's certain of us who will not be here because we're not running for re-election. So there will be a new council in January. And some of these things that this council has been working on for two years, I just don't think leaving them hanging for a brand new council to start over again would be a good model of stewardship. and therefore if we don't need the meeting, we can cancel the meeting. But I don't think necessarily we want the last meeting of the year to be at 2 o'clock in the morning either, trying to wrap up loose ends for things that this council has worked on.

I mean, that's just my thinking. Council Member Hardy Chandler.

Stacey Hardy-ChandlerI have no problem with scheduling a meeting so that we can take care of things that may move from other agendas. It just makes sense. We're on this council until December 31st, So I'm fine with adding that meeting if we need it and to the mayor's point canceling it if for some reason that meeting is not necessary

Catherine ReadCouncilmember Hall

Stacy HallThank you I do want to remind my colleagues that we don't have to do a public hearing and council action on something as big as land use applications in the same meeting And I also Totally understand and recognize trying to Add another meeting if needed so that this council can continue to work through things. It's been working on But I will remind everyone who's watching that the previous council To be frank had no problem firing the city manager right before we took office So I think that was a much bigger decision than consideration of two apartment complexes or housing complexes. Thank

Catherine Readyou Any other comments Councilmember Peterson.

Thomas PetersonWell just going back to earlier agenda item just to double-check September 22nd Silver King I understand there are some right-of-way in easement issues is that an issue that's ready to be before the council that we've resolved those

Alexanderstaffis this a which item are you speaking to specifically

Thomas PetersonPublic hearing and council action on redevelopment of the existing office complex Highlands of Mantua.

Brooke HardenstaffThere are no issues at this point, council member, that would preclude that item from coming before the council, the planning commission heard it in July.

Thomas PetersonSo we've resolved the concerns that the residents have about these issues.

Brooke HardenstaffAnd what concerns specifically?

Thomas PetersonWell, maybe we should talk further, but unless this is a different property, the talking about prior easement deed that may be a problem and having to get HOA permission in order to move forward with this project. And given that that's not likely, that would be an impediment to proceeding with it. Am I mistaking this for another project, or is this?

AlexanderstaffChair Greg Musil No, I think there's been feedback already, significant feedback, I I think, on this project, and that's certainly all part of the hearing process as we go through this. So I would not characterize that we've resolved concerns about that, you know, much like some of our other projects that will be coming before you.

Thomas PetersonMR. Okay. Just so it's understood, though, that this will be coming forward with unresolved issues of significance that the community has raised.

AlexanderstaffMR. Yeah, I don't know. It's probably, it's important to think about how we're characterizing it. I think we're going to be prepared to present the application and forward, correct?

Speaker 27Correct.

AlexanderstaffSo I think in terms of bringing to Council something for you to consider, we'll be prepared to do that. What I wouldn't want to do is characterize it as saying that we've alleviated some of the concerns about the project. So I just want to be careful that we're clear on that aspect of it, correct?

Brooke HardenstaffCorrect. And to add to that, you know, issues of easements related to private utility companies to which the city is not a party, those would be issues that would be addressed outside of city purview, likely at time of site plan and construction when those utility companies are engaged, if that's the item to which...

Thomas PetersonI guess a procedural question I would have is whether at the point at which we are considering this we will also have the opportunity to hear not just from the applicant but hear from the affected community there because they have some very significant and specific concerns that I think we should hear simultaneously as we discuss this.

Brooke HardenstaffAnd it would be a public hearing open to all comments.

Thomas PetersonWell I guess a public hearing is helpful because folks can provide input but I'm questioning whether there's an interactive opportunity with the I guess this will depend on the degree to which these issues are still unresolved. But there seem to have been some pretty significant issues that are unresolved and maybe a need for some dialogue to understand more clearly where they stand during that meeting.

Brooke HardenstaffAnd staff has met with the community as well. And we can certainly review all of the items that they've shared. And if there are things that are pertinent to the case or the city council taking action, we would certainly make council aware of that. were not legally able to take action council would be advised of that

Thomas Petersonwell not to belabor but at what point are we speaking and hearing directly from these residents on this issue is that something we are able to do within the open process here in some fashion

Brooke Hardenstaffat the public hearing yes it will be open and I believe council is has always been willing to accept comments from the public at any time and leading up to a public hearing. But there's not a pre-public hearing or something if that's, you know, if that's what you're referring to.

Thomas PetersonOkay. I just think this is a case where it may be there's some dialogue here that will be important to helping us frame and understand this issue. So I want to just acknowledge that that may be a helpful thing for us to occasion.

Brooke HardenstaffWe can certainly work on that.

Thomas PetersonI also have maybe a general question, which is a carryover a bit from the past. I think at some point in this overall schedule, we were anticipating we would have a report back from the work on board and commission guidelines, et cetera. This was a substantial project that was done here, and it's a substantial area of activity, given that we have 21 boards and commissions, I believe, and committees. So I don't know whether that's something that is envisioned on the agenda or whether if it's not we might find a spot for it

Brian Lubkemanstaffby voiceSo councilmember Peterson we're always looking to update The relationship with boards and commissions the handbook we've received to be brutally honest very few comments back from boards and commissions We have had Interaction with various boards and commissions, but this is an ongoing process. We don't have a specific item understand what your request was in the past that we have a report back. I think it may be a little premature to do that. And it's an evolving process, as you know.

Thomas PetersonMR. Even if we were able to understand kind of how many have actually gone through the training process, just so we understand what that universe looks like and if there has been any feedback from that process that indicates there's some further evolution of

Brian Lubkemanstaffby voiceThe general feedback has been that the manual has been helpful. I think we had identified various boards and commissions that need a little bit of extra care, and we have been working on that. So that's as diplomatic as I can be.

Thomas PetersonHave they all been baptized at this stage?

Brian Lubkemanstaffby voiceYou know, whatever blessing or whatever else you'd like to place over them, we're working with them to try to make their meetings as productive as possible and to enable them to serve in the capacities that they're supposed to be serving in. which in many cases are advisory boards, not action boards, and all of the issues that are attendant with the various roles that they have. MR.

Thomas PetersonBut they've all been through this, at least the initial part of this? MR. Well, we've

Brian Lubkemanstaffby voicehad this, again, we gave them the manuals. We have had discussions with the chairs. Some of this is fluid and ongoing, but it's not a process that stops and starts. It's ongoing. MR.

Thomas PetersonOkay. Well, good to know. I know that there has been the possible suggestion that some training of committee members themselves would be something that we would want to try to do at some point to push this beyond chair, et cetera.

Brian Lubkemanstaffby voiceMR. Absolutely. And as you know, there's also the tension with trying to get people to serve on boards and commissions. So we're trying to make the lift as light as possible

Thomas Petersonin

Brian Lubkemanstaffby voiceterms of folks serving in volunteer capacities. They're not being paid. So, again, most of these boards are advisory in nature. serve admirably and when we identify individual issues we try to address them.

Speaker 6Thank you.

Thomas PetersonJust one last thing. On November 10, just to clarify item 3, public hearing and council action and potential amendments to the zoning ordinance related to adopted small area plans. I think that was described as essentially some kind of a clean up or some such. Can you just maybe clear that up a little bit further? is this inconsequential in terms of any potential impact that has on the expansion, acceleration, et cetera, of small area plants? Or is this something that does, in fact, have an impact and it's more than just a custodial issue?

Brooke HardenstaffI think the item that had been described as more housekeeping or custodial in nature was related to SB 388, the housing mandate that was adopted by the Virginia General Assembly, removing the noise standards from the zoning ordinance, carports, and other items. There is a separate proposed zoning text amendment related to the small area plans. That's a subject, actually, of a public meeting tomorrow night. I encourage all of our residents to attend if they are able. that would be a separate item.

Thomas PetersonAnd so the November 10 public hearing and council action on potential amendments to the zoning ordinance, that is not merely, as I understand it, a custodial issue. That is more than that. That would have a material impact on planning and approvals for development.

Brooke HardenstaffThat would be, so both items are proposed to be on the agenda for November 10th separately.

Speaker 27And

Brooke Hardenstaffso the proposed zoning tax amendment related to small area plans, that would put a new zoning district on the books in the city's zoning ordinance. It wouldn't rezone any properties proactively. It would still require a property owner or a developer to go through the request process for a rezoning, but it would put a new zoning district on the books, so to speak.

Thomas Petersonsubject of that hearing on the 10th. There are two here, as I understand, there are two separate issues, but they're concurrent in terms of timing here.

AlexanderstaffYou're talking about number three versus essentially number seven, right? And so three to your point is more substantial.

Thomas PetersonYeah, it's substantial, not custodial. And I think that's the key issue. I think everybody listening in is, it's helpful for them to understand that on November 10th there will be a substantial discussion on the issue.

Brooke HardenstaffThank you.

Catherine ReadAnything else? Oh, time check.

Speaker 29Okay.

Catherine Read10 to 5. So we've got three more items before we take a break. So I am going to move forward. And before I recognize Ms. Kidala for the next work session item, I want to give a reminder on the development review process for applications. The development review process was established through a series of mayor and city council retreats to ensure development concepts are presented to the mayor and city council as a whole rather than through individual meetings. This approach promotes transparency by ensuring all elected officials receive the same information at the same time. Pre-application briefings occur before a formal application is submitted. At this stage, city staff provides a high-level overview of a proposed concept, and the potential applicant is available to answer questions.

The plans are conceptual, and the mayor and city council may offer general observations or guidance. Once a formal application is submitted and accepted, city staff conducts a detailed review for compliance with applicable codes and policies. Post-submission work sessions include an in-depth staff analysis and typically occur after the applicant has addressed initial staff comments and before the application proceeds to public hearings. The process has been reviewed and refined over time by successive mayor and city councils. Changes have included clarifying materials to distinguish pre-application briefings from post-submission work sessions and allowing potential applicants to answer questions during pre-application briefings

to provide additional context for conceptual proposals. Ms. Kadalov, what is our next work session item?

Ms. KadalovclerkOur next work session item is a pre-application briefing, potential redevelopment of Circle Gateway, 3226-3250 Blenheim Boulevard, Axeloo Properties, sorry if I butchered that, to develop an upper story residential mixed-use building with ground floor commercial space and up to 261 multifamily dwelling units. I'll recognize Albert Frederick, City Planner, for the presentation.

Albert FrederickstaffGood afternoon, everyone. This subject property is located on the west side of Blenheim Boulevard and south of Fairfax Boulevard. The site consists of two parcels, approximately 1.64 acres, with direct access to Blenheim Boulevard. owned by wood woodbridge commons llc the property is currently zoned commercial retail in the architectural control overlay district property is also located within the activity center place type and the surrounding zoning is commercial retail with activity center place type this fairfax circle small area plan contemplates the site as retail along Spring Street, which is on the bottom left side of your screen. Spring Street is a new main street, which would provide for accessibility from

Fairfax Boulevard to Blenheim Boulevard. This new street would provide for automotive and pedestrian connections as well as provide opportunities for our retail along spring street the building frontages shown to the top right provides an active frontage along spring street and a flexible commercial frontage along blenheim boulevard the bottom image on the right is the building heights. The recommended, uh, building height is a max of nine stories. The concept plan shows the 11 story mixed use building with up to, uh, 261 apartments and up to 16,530 square feet of, uh, retail space, uh, largely fronting on, um, Blenheim Boulevard. Uh, the max height proposed is 118 feet. 11 stories again with a mixture of one and two bedroom apartments.

The proposed density is approximately 159 dwelling units an acre. Uh, the applicant is proposing 16 affordable dwelling units, uh, meeting the, um, the zoning ordinance requirement, uh, providing ground floor, retail, uh, residential lobby, leasing and office space, as well as loading and parking. Uh, the applicant's proposing a parking structure, uh, with up to C parking spaces. Also, uh, there's direct access from Blenheim Boulevard and to the site and leading into the parking garage. Um, two levels of the parking garage is submerged, um, submerged and, uh, there's access, uh, to the, to the west side of the property, uh, exiting, uh, into the Fairfax circle, uh, shopping center. Uh, here's another image of the proposed concept plan layout.

This is the fourth floor. I would like to point out the five foot tree planning zone along Blenheim Boulevard, the 10 foot shared use path along Blenheim. The applicants proposing plantings along the, uh, on the fourth level of the, um, of the structure, um, including a pool deck area. The applicants are posing a 24 foot, um, private street align with old picket road and a stone water management system, uh, will be provided as well. So here's some renderings, uh, looking, uh, to the Southwest along Blenheim Boulevard, uh, here's a closeup view of, uh, uh, the building from Blenheim Boulevard and the last rendering shows looking north on Blenheim Boulevard. I should mention that the, in your packet, uh, we provided, uh, staff and

planning commission comments have been provided in the staff report. Um, and if there's, uh, discussions, um, questions regarding the, um, comments from staff or the planning commission, we'll be happy to answer packet, uh, in terms of potential applications that you would possibly see, uh, a rezoning form, commercial retails, commercial urban, um, in the ACOD, a special use permit for an upper story, residential mixed use building, special exceptions in terms of height and density. There could be others as, uh, the applicant, uh, comes forward with an application. Um, we'll be looking for approval of a general development plan as well as the mass major certificate of appropriateness for architecture and landscaping. And again,

City Council considers consideration includes the BAR recommendation for that certificate of appropriateness. Next steps would be potential land use application submission, development review process, work sessions, and public hearings. The applicant is here to answer any questions as well as staff and I'll I'll stand by for any questions. The applicant is here. Thank you.

Catherine ReadThank you. Council Member Amos.

Anthony AmosThank you. So I guess I'll just open up with some of the pros. I do know the current site very well, and I walked by there after eating over at Artie's, and it's just currently kind of an empty, vacant building, so it could definitely use some love in that area. The retail enclosure opportunity with the adjacent shopping center could be very beneficial. It could be extremely marketable as well Fairfax Circle. I do like the garage enclosure concept that specifically listed in the small area plan. And then I do like the streetscape components, which you also heard from the planning commission. I do have a number of questions, but I will digest it down to probably like my top three. My understanding is that this project has been

submitted in the past, or at least discussed in the past. Is that correct? That is correct. And is this project any, are there vast differences with the prior submission or not really? The one

Albert Frederickstaffdifference that I would point out is the previous project, previous application had a connection all the way through from Blenheim connecting to Fairfax Boulevard. This concept plan just shows the entrance connecting into the into the parking garage and I'll let the applicant address any issues of why there's been changes or anything going forward.

Speaker 6Thank you and thank you for the commentary. We do show what the future connection and grid of streets would look like within our generalized development plan. We have an intermodal plan that does show improvements on neighboring properties with which we can't control. And we provide that to show that yes, our alignment of this new private street does meet with the smaller plan requirements of making that connection to Campbell. So you will see that in a generalized development plan.

Anthony AmosAnd this is just more out of curiosity. Is there a reason why you didn't suggest any three-bedroom units? Was that just from a market study or?

Speaker 6Correct. Yes. Yes.

Anthony AmosGoing back to the roadway connections, the small area plan not only shows the Spring Street extension, but also a number of potential adjacent roadways to improve vehicular connections in that area is, and this is probably more directed towards staff, and I know that more information may come later. I would anticipate, based on our proffer conversation later, actually, no, that doesn't apply, but what are we planning on requiring for this type of project to help meet those needs or the goals of the plan? And that may

Albert Frederickstaffbe not right now, but I think that's something that we probably, unless Jason has we probably would have more discussion I think.

Speaker 6MR. I will offer that we will be submitting, you know, a proper statement with the initial application as well because we are committed to, you know, creating, you know, this new private drive and fostering that grid of streets. You know, we are going to proffer the need to design, construct, and operate this to a LEED certification standard and right-of-way dedications and the like. We'll be part of that package. MS.

Catherine ReadMS. Kit, can I just break in for one minute and ask people to speak up because people behind you are having trouble hearing. So just from the diaphragm and project right on into that microphone. Thank you. MR. I got you. I got you.

SuttonstaffMR. Along with what was just said, I think staff's evaluation would focus heavily on that Spring Street extension with the retail frontage and pedestrian amenities that are envisioned along there. Without that, this can't operate in isolation.

Anthony AmosThat's good to know and I think that's a very critical part of the plan. That's why I wanted to highlight it, especially within the context, you know, you're proposing an 11-story building. Our small area plan only calls for nine stories. So if you're seeking an exception, I expect an exceptional project and I don't think we're there quite yet. I'd be curious to see what you come back with, but that is my commentary on that. And then the only other thing that I'll note that you're probably aware of and a lot of it is due to I imagine the site the size of the site itself and some of the constraints there is just the lack of green space. Our small area plan really re-envisions Fairfax Circle with a significant

number of green space including on this parcel. I think in the plan they even highlight a courtyard or some type of green plaza that's just absent from here. And I know there were also concerns mentioned with storm water and fire so So this is going to take a lot of work before I think it's ready to come before us. But I appreciate you coming.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Hall? Council Member Quillen.

Rachel McQuillenThank you. So I have questions about the 11-story height and the trade-off. Usually when you get a special exception, you're providing some kind of benefit to the community. So what do you see us gaining or community gaining for that special exception?

Speaker 6Well, I think that in general, if you look at the goals of the small area plan, to create a vibrant mixed-use village in the southwest corner of that sector plan, that. If you look at ease of access, whether it's vehicular, bus, pedestrian, bicycling, and you look at kind of sustainable link to Akatink, we were very much involved in the early stages of the creation of the small area plan and working with ULI, working with staff, working with the community during those charrettes. And as you see within the small area plan documentation itself the form of our building is not only just reflected in the language of the plan but also pictorially you know that is our building you know in the small area plan so benefits going forward you know again on as far as

sustainability let's say tactic you know here we have reducing the impervious area of our site by over 10% and it's a small site we are introducing stormwater quality control management which none exists currently. We are you know introducing and proffer the creation of a bus shelter which doesn't exist to promote the the Q bus service. We are promoting you know bicycle racks the 10-foot shared use path so we are orientating our building to overlook you know the Akatink what's going to be the Akatink Plaza and the trail system you know which is a quite honestly a true benefit to us and to our residents you know this is a development precept that has proven itself you know over the past 30 years whether you kind of go up and down the James River you know from

Richmond to rocket landing into Lynchburg everybody is turning their developments towards you know these rivers and these creeks and honestly it's just for their benefit you know it is far much nicer for us to sit there and you know, our coffee overlooking, you know, a green area than it does overlooking a parking lot. So these precepts are, it's great to see where the market and the community desires and the planning all come together to kind of support that. As far as, you know, creating this ease of access, you know, one of the precepts within the small area plan for Blenheim Boulevard as a flexible commercial frontage, is to reduce the number of non-standard driveways that we are in front of.

And we're taking out all four of them that conflict with the through traffic on that main thoroughfare. We are replacing it with one 30-foot wide entrance into the project. We're also, again, promoting and dedicating right-of-way for this 10-foot shared-use path that runs the entire length of our property as well. And we'll connect with the neighboring properties same process

Catherine Readdoes does that pretty much answer your question

Rachel McQuillenso much stormwater bus stop shared use path

Speaker 6no it's not just it's not just those two things but when we talk about trying to create the link the sustainable link to acting those elements do go into it when we talk about creating a vibrant mixed-use, you know, place to work, live, and play village, you know, we need this high street front retail that we have boarding Blenheim Boulevard. We need to be able to again to conform with this flexible frontage that is Blenheim, put the parking structure not on Blenheim, but put it behind it, and again with a small 1.6 acre site, very difficult to do with the geometry that we have, and it will speak to you know our ability to activate this Spring Street extension the active street there which is actually on our neighbor's property and

how we can support that you know we have very limited abilities to do that in order to meet the requirements of putting the parking you know away from Blentheim Boulevard so the vibrant nature of what it takes it takes this type of density to kind of to create that live work play environment that we need to create.

Rachel McQuillenOkay, thank you. Since you mentioned the Akatink Creek, I did note that some measurable environmental promises would be nice. Things like, since our residents specifically asked the city to protect the Akatink Creek runoff and flooding, preserve the greenery and strengthen the connections to the creek, I'd like you to commit to measurable outcomes. Things like the actual impervious of stormwater, volume reduction, tree canopy, that kind of thing. I'd be happy to provide you with a little bit more detail as far as what I had in mind there. And then I did have a question about the well, let's go back to the height really quick. So what was, what's the purpose for the special exception since it looks like for staff, this is

a five stories right now, zone for five stories.

Albert FrederickstaffThe CU. CU's zoning standard is

Rachel McQuillenfive, right?

Albert FrederickstaffAnd 60 feet. That's correct.

Rachel McQuillenOkay. So this is actually like double that. So that's why I was asking what the benefit was. So I think that needs to be really clearly conveyed to our residents. They really want to know why it is that we're making this double exception, essentially what they're used to seeing here and what they're going to get in response to that. We discussed Spring Street a little bit. I know that there was some discussion about it being treated like a small alley when it's supposed to be a main street Has that been? Worked on a little bit.

Speaker 6I'm not aware that anybody has mentioned it being treated as a small alley again You can see where our property line exists and we can't affect change on the neighbors property And the Spring Street extension is actually south of our property now we have you know to help support that, a five-foot sidewalk on the outside of that, that can then be tied into the balance of that street section when the development of the Fairfax Circle Shopping Center occurs.

Rachel McQuillenOkay, because I did note that the small area plan envisions Spring Street as a new main street, but staff describes it as a proposed condition as a five-foot sidewalk, which is squeezed between the building and parallel parking, and it questions whether the frontage will essentially be a blank wall of a parking garage. It should be an active street. Planning Commission similarly said these comments in their meeting as well. I have notes on that. Agreed. Yeah, that's my biggest question. And

Speaker 6again, we wanted to continue the conversation and lean on a lot of the expertise, not just here but with staff specifically, because they've seen a ton more projects and have a lot of ideas on how to get us there. going. I think the truth will come out.

Rachel McQuillenOkay. And then I had one more note here. It looks like 6% affordable housing. That's our minimum requirement, but you're, like I noted, asking for exceptional height. And so I would like to see that be increased, personally. Thank you.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Hull.

Stacy HallThank you. To be clear, you're taking the whole building there, from Artie's all the way down past the bowling alley, down to where the sports bar is at this point?

Speaker 6No, ma'am. We don't own that.

Stacy HallHow far is this going down, then? What is this taking out currently? I'm trying to reconcile.

Speaker 6Oh,

Stacy Hallit's the home store building.

Speaker 6Home store, the old Lotte market.

Stacy HallThank you. Okay. Can you repeat

Speaker 27that point like a new award?

Stacy HallI thought it was where Artie's was going, where Artie's is. I thought it was that whole building. it's the white building that's the home store that's next to it.

Catherine ReadIt's formerly the old latte building. It sits right up to the sidewalk. Currently there is a home store in there. Surrounded by sidewalk, it is separate from the strip shopping center that contains Artie's. Different property, just to be clear. Thank

Stacy Hallyou. My mistake on that. I appreciate you clarifying. I do share some of the same concerns Council Member McCrillon had. Again, I think 11 stories is, we'll just say, way too tall. I do also think you're asking for twice the height and 6.6 times the density that is currently called for under the Commercial Urban District. That would call for five stories and 20 to 24 units per acre. This is calling for 11 stories and 159 units per acre. and I do think that the benefits to those that might not live in this building are fairly minimal and I think that some of those things might need to be addressed. I do also share the concern about the very base minimum of the ADU contribution. I think if this is an area that you want to have a bus depot and some other things down there

and this is a pretty walkable portion of our city, I would strongly encourage you to have you know to consider offering more affordable units as opposed to just a straight 6% I'm very concerned about the 10% tree canopy requirements, which I personally think is still not sufficient From a 10% standpoint, it looks like most of the trees will be In the like that fourth story level and and just a couple along the frontage understanding that correctly?

Speaker 6The landscape plan will be part of the submission package. We'll provide all the details. There is a street zone in the front. There are street plantings on the fourth floor. There are tree plantings on the roof as well.

Stacy HallTo the roof, I do like the... There was a comment in there about how you're considering a green roof. I think that would be something to strongly consider. I think that would be something that would certainly help with stormwater kind of an extra check in the plus category of something that's this massive. I'm confused why there's no sidewalk on the northwest side, and then it looks like there's only a constrained five-foot sidewalk on the other side. As I'm sure you heard through our previous conversation with the futures list, we talk about shared youth paths and wider sidewalks, and this seems to be pretty minimal, if I'm understanding this correctly.

Thomas PetersonThe northwest side.

Speaker 6I mean, the 10-foot Shared Youth path along the front will go along the entire frontage. The sidewalk on the south side next to Fairfax Circle Shopping Center, again, is five foot wide, and it's contained on our property. Now, the geometric constraints overall for the site, as you can see, are really problematic, especially when we introduce the new private street in order to create the grid of streets that is in the small area plan. That's basically one-third of our property in which we will provide a public easement for and privately maintain, repair, and replace as needed. So the geometric constraints are difficult for sure to make this. We're all not

Albert Frederickstaffgoing to

Speaker 6get

Albert Frederickstaffall that we want.

Speaker 6But again, as we submit and have this conversation, new solutions will appear, I'm sure.

Stacy HallI think we're definitely solution-based and oriented. It's just a matter of what that might be. yeah I also would like to see a spring street become an active street rather than just a garage alley which is what I think it kind of will potentially feel like here no

Speaker 6the idea again alley leads me to believe that there is structure on the other side and there is no structure on the other side on the private on the neighbors property so eventually we are promoting and allowing spring street to the small area plan to be constructed but again it's not on our property it's on the adjacent property. Now I look forward to getting with the architectural review board and figuring out how better to treat the south side of our structure for sure.

Stacy HallThank you. Just a couple more questions. I think this was in the staff report but the entrances, they're about 15 feet apart, where I think they typically call for 50 feet. Are we concerned about conflicts with vehicles and pedestrians?

Speaker 6I do not believe that in the proposed condition, our sole driveway entrance is within 50 feet of any other driveway entrance, if that's the question.

Stacy HallOkay. There's not any on the other side. I thought there was something on the other side. Okay, but again, I had the other building in my head so I might be conflicting the two and then my last question And this is a staff question, but how how tall do our fire ladders go our trucks?

SuttonstaffThat I don't have I I'm trying to recollect because I saw one in action over at the county About the time that the Massey building was coming down I don't think it was as high as 11 stories. That was a 13-story building. I don't have the specific number. I don't know if anyone else does.

Stacy HallI think it's eight? Six. Okay. And we just bought a brand-new ladder truck that doesn't have a tall enough ladder to deal with something like this. Okay, certainly a consideration. Thank you.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Hardy-Chandler.

Stacey Hardy-ChandlerSo my questions are going to be primarily directed at staff, I think, for the most part. Certainly the elephant in the room is the height and density. With the comment from the Planning Commission that there might be some mitigation of the height through use of rooftop amenities, that kind of thing, more about the rationale behind potentially having something on top of a building mitigate height.

Speaker 6Staff.

Albert FrederickstaffIn terms of height, the Planning Commission did think that height would be the 11-story building would actually be an amenity providing some public space there and viewsheds of Occident Creek. And I would say that the that the zoning ordinance and the smaller airplane basically right now they don't they don't necessarily the zoning ordinance doesn't catch up with the smaller airplane because the smaller airplane recommends nine stories. So whether if it's nine stories or it's 11 stories, the zoning ordinance basically says 60 feet for commercial urban. So I think there's a there's some work that needs to be done in terms of the zoning ordinance providing what the smaller airplane would recommend. But until then

we have a special exception process that would allow for the applicant to provide justifications in terms of the height that they're seeking. So the applicant would need to come forward with some you know rationale to the 11 stories that's exceeding the the existing height criteria now what they provide whether it's a restaurant up top or some open space those are the types of things that would you know could be used as a justification we would have to basically work through with the applicant to see if it actually makes sense and if it's something that we would be able to support.

Stacey Hardy-ChandlerRight. Because I'm having trouble sort of reconciling those two and maybe switching over to the developer. Is it because of the size of the site that the project is so big? What's the sort of calculation behind this size project?

Speaker 6Well, a lot of it has to do, I mean, the constraints of the site are small. seven acres. The geometry is a little bit difficult as well, too, because if you're going to introduce ground floor, active retail or commercial frontage, the bays on that have to be 60 to 80 feet deep. And then all of a sudden now we don't have the ability to place the garage on the property itself. and so even if you look trying to put the commercial component on the south side on what is to be Spring Street, the depth of those bays at 80 feet then you lose your ability to put a garage on ground floor or at grade so now you have to come up with some switchback routine in which makes it difficult to park. If you've been in parking garages where you drive in,

you park, in order to leave the garage, you have to drive all the way up to the top and then switch back and come down a separate down ramp. That's proven to be detrimental to the vibrancy of anybody visiting the site. The geometry and of course there's financials. Putting two stories of subterranean parking, right now it's over close to $58,000 of space. So it's extremely, extremely large investment. Then we're undergrounding all of the utilities along our frontage as well. So it adds up, and none of that is rent paying. There's no incomes coming into those costs. So I don't want to speak too much about the financials of it, but I have to be aware of that. I

Stacey Hardy-Chandlerthink there was also discussion about the Spring Street extension and signaling and kind of surrounding impact. Maybe staff can speak to that.

Albert FrederickstaffSo, yes. Perhaps a

Stacey Hardy-Chandlerneed for a signal to, because I recognize this is very early in the process and there's not a traffic study or anything like that. very high level, but is there is there any projected elements that we should take into consideration around that?

Albert FrederickstaffStaff will require a TIS and part of that TIS will be an evaluation of whether or not the signal improvements will need to be made at this intersection. And I believe remembering During the previous application, I believe transportation thought that there would be some work that would be required for a new light at this location. So

Stacey Hardy-ChandlerI think

Albert Frederickstaffit's going to be a

Stacey Hardy-Chandlerprior application.

Albert FrederickstaffPrior application, yeah. For the similar projects, not a whole lot of changes. So I would imagine that there's going to be similar conditions, but the TIS will get into that and the staff will have to evaluate the new signal and any other changes that need to be made at that intersection.

Speaker 6Chair Jerry Cook And I will offer that we will be submitting as part of the generalized development plan a traffic signal plan. Chair Jerry Cook We've spoken with staff about this and the traffic staff and that signal needs to be replaced. It was built in the 70s and is no longer code compliant and everything else. We have to bring that up to new code requirements.

Stacey Hardy-ChandlerChair Jerry Cook Yeah, just thinking about that in that and all of the circle drama just sort of adjacent there. Can you speak more, there are some references to LEED certification and those kinds of things. Can you speak more to the sort of green building, green property aspects that you're aiming for?

Speaker 6The green aspects, did you say? Sure. You

Stacey Hardy-Chandlermentioned the LEED certification. Well, LEED

Speaker 6certification in and of itself, the point-based system, there's a lot in the design element. There's a lot of the construction and sourcing of supplies. And then there's some, you know, the operational components that give you, you know, lead up to this LEED certification. But more importantly, you know, I think that the number one thing we can do is this site right now is currently 99% impervious. And, again, small site, urban environment. We have to project, you know, into the, our development needs to be relevant for the next 50 years. and so we are able to reduce the impervious area by 10% we are able to introduce quality control on our stormwater runoff on our site so it gets pre-treated prior to discharging down to Acton Creek so we're talking about you

know 99% removal of oil 99% removal of debris 85% removal of total dissolved solids, 75% removal of phosphorus, 85% removal of nitrogen. That system in and of itself is going to help prevent the supernutrification of Acton Creek, which would be great for the greenery and any fauna that live there as well. I think the promotion of bike riding, bus tram, multimodal transportation will also help. as part of our lead certification, we will be generating a transportation demand management operation for both the residential and the commercial side. So all of those will, I think, help the influence of the health of Akatink.

Stacey Hardy-ChandlerAnd sorry to go back really quickly to the high thing. Would this make this building one of the highest in the city?

Speaker 6I defer to staff on that. I don't know.

SuttonstaffThe highest? The tallest? Or close to? In terms of number of stories, yes. It probably is in terms of feet. We'd have to look at a couple of specific buildings, but my guess would be yes. Okay.

Stacey Hardy-ChandlerWell, I do think the site does need improvement, and I look forward to how this project evolves. Thank you.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Peterson, and I'm going to do a time check. It's 529, so we have another hour to go. Council Member Peterson.

Thomas PetersonI'll be careful not to take that old hour. so we've talked a lot about height let me build on some of the earlier questions and thoughts we don't have our urban forester here i don't think i can't see anna hiding anywhere but i think check me on this that a mature oak tree runs 80 to 100 feet tall in this area and that would be our dominant tree species. And so when you come into Fairfax Circle off of Fairfax Boulevard or you're coming down Blenheim Boulevard, etc., I think a lot of what a resident or a visitor sees is a tree line. And in fact, it's one of the amenities of the city is that we're able to see and enjoy a forest. And it's a residential forest, and the forest is actually very dense along Acton Creek.

So, again, the mature trees there top out at 100 maybe, if they're lucky. The biggest one in the state I just looked up is 116 feet tall. This building would be taller than the tallest champion tree in the state, and it would be taller than the mature trees in this area. And so for people who currently can see the tree line and the presence of trees in this, that would block them from being able to do that, if I'm not mistaken. It turns out you wouldn't even need to go to 11 stories to do that just because of the angle. So if I've got it right, I'm raising this because I think in terms of amenities, public amenities and the reaction of the public to the height of buildings, the skyline and the visual scape, and particularly the forested landscape,

that people really are very sensitive to here so I just wanted to kind of call that out also maybe just to understand a little bit more clearly on that point if I I think I understand councilmember Hardy Chandler raised this and I want to go back to it if I understand it the Planning Commission suggested that the height could be mitigated by putting a restaurant on the roof is that my understanding well

Speaker 6it was a first of all offer to the planning it was a So I'm not sure what weight, but it was to give consideration to. And it's something that we do have to continue to give consideration. To answer the mayor's question on this, if we turn that into what's now a 4,000 square feet amenity space that makes up this 11th floor, Could you pull up, Fred, just the concept plan real quick, the rendering? So you see on that far right side, that is management office. On the far left side, there's a very similar treatment on the roof on the south side. That's the 11th floor that we're talking about. It's a total of 6,000 feet of enclosed area. So if we turn the 4,000 some odd feet on the south side, you know, and try to attract a restaurant

that's open to the public, and we could access that from the south side and activate Spring Street, which is where I'm trying to figure out how to make that work, there's a lot of problems. You know, the restaurant community of itself, you know, while you think, hey, they would me up there eating my chicken parmesan, you know, and overlooking, you know, Akatink, it's not that attractive. You know, quite honestly, these top floor restaurants, they, you know, for whatever reason, they just don't get the attention right off of the bat that you think. So that's a problem. The other problem is, is that now all of a sudden I have to park, you know, if that's 4,000 feet, I've got to park it at five spaces per thousand so that's another 20 parking spaces and

that would force me to introduce a yet another level of parking preferably superstructure parking you know at thirty five thousand dollars of space rather than going down to subterranean you know the 58 number so now all of a sudden we don't park you know so I've got to try to balance and this just came up you know a month ago, so I'm, again, hoping that we have this conversation with staff and with you all in the community to figure out how to make that work.

Thomas PetersonYeah, I am personally not at all opposed to rooftop restaurants. In fact, I have often wondered whether in and around the Old Town area we might find our way forward to do some of that here in the city and find a way to be adding that as an attractive feature. But I think what I was kind of curious to know is how the addition of a rooftop restaurant would alleviate the concerns about height, which are really visual in nature in terms of blocking people from the skyline and the forest and landscape, the trees that they would otherwise see, and it just didn't seem to be quite making sense. And I hear you that it's a can of worms on top of that, but, again, that was my kind of curiosity here, how a restaurant would alleviate the height concern.

I appreciate you raising the traffic issue and the need for a traffic impact study and the intersection there, although I wonder, is that the limit of it? Because the small area plan painted a picture 2024. I think it was July 23, 2024, when this came before the council, of this area where this particular building would be the tip of the iceberg. There would be many of these buildings of equivalent or near-size scale configuration in this entire area. I mean, some of the description that was provided at the time around this was we would be creating what was known as New York canyons. So a development consultant, an industry consultant painted this picture and developed this. And at that stage, again, this picture that was painted had many, many, many of these buildings in it in this area.

As a consequence of that, I would imagine the traffic impacts that we would need to be looking at here, and maybe this is a staff question, is going to be a cumulative impact issue. I mean, that would be a fairly dramatic change in the traffic loading for this area. this particular building would have its own slice of that pie, but we're talking a much bigger pie here. I'm just curious from a staff standpoint, where are we in terms of assessing the potential impact that this entire area becomes loaded with? I can't even remember the count and the number of these buildings that were painted in this picture.

SuttonstaffThat's a very good question. A couple of aspects to answer there. One is as they scope out the project with the transportation team, city's transportation engineer will guide them to look at all adjacent intersections that surround the property, particularly those with direct access. So as folks would drive through the larger shopping center's parking lot to access Fairfax Boulevard and surrounding streets, they would look at those intersection points and curb cuts. They would have to evaluate the circle and use the data that our transportation team's already starting to evaluate with Fairfax Circle. most likely includes the light at Chick-fil-A. I don't know what that street's called, so forgive me for that.

Pickett Road, Old Pickett, and Pickett Road, and a number of intersection points and streets going down to most likely Ridge Avenue. So there's a holistic look at the general region. What they would also factor in is any development that's been approved or that's currently in a queue. And as Ms. Sanford said earlier, they apply a regional growth factor and a specific area growth factor to any study that anticipates project sizes and scopes appropriate to the area, a small area plan in this area with like type development at a certain percentage factor over a year. And that compounds annually. Not traffic engineer, and I don't want to misrepresent what Kurt, Wendy, and Chloe's team would be evaluating specifically, but that's what goes into their

requirements for the TIS.

Thomas PetersonWell, I appreciate that. I think it's a significant point because if I recall sometime in early 2025, we had a joint planning session with the Planning Commission and a question came up about the status of traffic capacity in the city and I think Mr. Cunningham and Mr. Feathers at that stage kind of counseled us to understand that the city in terms of absorptive capacity for traffic and anything beyond this is going to result in additional congestion and other difficulties. In other words, there's no efficiency curve here that we haven't yet, you know, gotten into. There's no free lunch. We're going to be adding more units, more traffic. It's going to have an impact. That being the case, when you look at the big picture,

which let's just say is this picture that was painted by a development consultant that put together the small area plan, That implies a very, very substantial increase in the number of housing units and the number of people on the roads in this area. If the city does not want to and if the community does not want to experience the additional congestion and traffic difficulties associated with that level and wants to see a lower level of traffic impact from this, that would mean that we would rescale our thinking about the height and density of buildings in this entire area. And it would mean as individual applicants come forward, that would be the time when we would ask this question, which is given the big picture and the fact that we will be going above and beyond

what we're willing to in terms of traffic, do we not make the course correction right now to ensure consistency with that? And so I think I raise this as a concern because doing a traffic impact study right now doesn't answer that question. And we could end up just kind of one step at a time getting over our heads here, right? So I'm not sure what the procedure is that perhaps it is revisiting some of the assumptions in these small area plans. This is not the fault of the applicant, but I'm just raising this because the cumulative impact side of this does come back to how we counsel applicants on where the level of tolerance is here for these things. I

Suttonstaffthink, too, not to get too far into traffic engineering because I'm not the right person for that, but regional growth by the county around us, if we see no development, will worsen our roads and intersections with no mitigation factors being provided by developers in the city. in which we could do nothing and still see a worsening of our regional congestion issues, which is why Wendy and her team are looking at variety of intersection improvements through the city sands development right now. The circle, for example, is one intersection that has long been studied. It's going through a very specific study right now. Camp Washington has been studied. That was before we even adopted the small area plan.

Regional impacts have impacted the city to a great degree where we haven't captured any of the traffic off the road off the roads to keep people local.

Thomas PetersonSo, yeah, I mean, we're affected by traffic demand that's outside the city that comes through, but it only underscores the point even further that we've got headaches and the headaches get worse. I think the question here is not a do-nothing versus do-everything scenario. It's whether there is something more moderate here that has a significant impact in terms of reducing the harm that people in the city experience from the additional traffic burden that results and that we can choose a different future that might be less harmful in terms of that traffic. I just raise this because even people getting to the meeting today have just noted how difficult the traffic has become, and it's an issue that is becoming more and more of a concern.

I think it's something we should revisit. Just quickly in terms of some basic facts here, what does this particular development do in terms of the site? How does it affect the percentage of commercial? Square footage that's available here. Is it going up? Is it going down?

Speaker 6Going down how

Thomas Petersonmuch is it going down?

Speaker 6I think the existing home store is probably 30,000 square feet and And we're proposing 16,530 square feet.

Thomas PetersonOkay. Not quite a half drop cut and almost 50%. Helpful to know, although this has been also a big picture consideration we've had in that we've wanted to be sure that we are not giving up commercial space because it's so desperately needed. And I guess on that, in the staff right up here, I think it's on page six, there's a comment that maybe I'd like to understand a little bit more clearly. And you referenced this earlier. It says the proposed development is not a reaction to the small area plan as it serves as both a cornerstone and catalyst in satisfying the stated goal of creating an economically vibrant mixed-use village to live, work, and play. We've heard kind of back and forth this is driven by a small area plan, but this indicates

that it's not. Can you just kind of clear up what that means?

Speaker 6If I can, yeah. it it's a reflection of the work and listening that we were a part of with that consultant group the ULI the various charrettes that the city hosted in developing the small area plan the genesis of this project is we originally applied three years ago due to our own self-inflicted wounds we didn't respond quickly and fastly and appropriately to the staff and I we we've changed out the starting line up here to make sure that we do that coming forward and so that the application got abandoned you know much to my chagrin and cost and so now we're back you know restarting.

Thomas PetersonOkay well

Speaker 6so it was the genesis within the creation and our getting input, listening to the community, listening to ULI, listening to the staff, and the generation of the small area plant. So we were part of that genesis.

Thomas PetersonAnd it's been a rough couple of years in terms of what everybody's been going through with changes in the economy and everything. But I guess my question, and perhaps this gets back to the height issue more than anything else, is whether it's possible to have, to create an economically vibrant mixed-use village without it being 11 stories tall. And I think that's an issue that I'd love for us to maybe contemplate a little bit more clearly. It may be, I think there's probably very broad scale acceptance and belief and hope that this area, you know, would experience that, but maybe a different way than doing 11 stories. Final thing is just there's a notice in here about the need for, and I think this may have come either

from staff or planning commission, about expanded investment services for fire and emergency access. I think that's something that will be important to understand more clearly. That, like traffic, is going to be a cumulative issue because if this picture that was painted were ever to come to fruition, we would be loading this area with a very, very large number of new households. And I think it's possibly not a secret that this is a location where exposure to safety risk at present is probably at the higher end for this city. think we would want to be thinking quite clearly about safety issues here and some assessment of risk exposure as we try to add in this area. I'm not saying that's an irresolvable issue.

I'm just saying it's an issue that we should be openly kind of making sure. If the reality is we have to invest in that, then I think that should be eyes wide open. We should know what that really means. Again, I'm not so sure this is an issue for the applicant to be tangling with, but perhaps support but I think the city really owes the citizens some you know kind of honest and open assessment of how Fairfax circle it is made to become a very safe place in light of all these developments thanks and I know this is hard work that you've been through here for a couple years and appreciate everything that you're working on thank you

Catherine Readquestions or comments

Thomas Petersonyes mr. Sutton

SuttonstaffI just wanted to get back to Councilmember Hardy Chandler one regional building that's tall is the Fairfax Towers just outside of the city behind the giant that's 13 stories just for perspective.

Catherine ReadI think they call that the Trillium now I believe. It used to be the Circle Tower Apartments. Good point. That is right outside Fairfax Circle. I appreciate the feedback. That's what pre-application hearings are for. I do recognize that there is the feasibility of bringing any project to the city that it has to pencil and so understanding that if you're bringing a certain density and there are certain points to this, it's because financially it has to be feasible for you to build it. So this is the point at which there's give and take, and you see what the temperature is for what the community wants. But moving forward, we're in the middle of an enormous Northern Virginia region with development going on all around us, as Mr. Sutton pointed out.

That is going to impact our traffic, whether we build projects 11-story tall or not. the presentation from the staff I appreciate the developer answering questions this all helps us to better understand the different perspectives and to hopefully bring the community's perspective through the dais to you so thank you all very much and miss could olive what do we have next our

Ms. Kadalovclerknext item is a pre-application briefing potential redevelopment of north but North Facts West, 3570 Chainbridge Road, including up to 350 multifamily units, ground floor, commercial space, and structured surface parking. I believe this is Mr. Frederick again.

Albert FrederickstaffI'm presenting Northfax West, Phase 4. The subject property is located at 3570 Chambers Road on the west side of west side of Chambers Road south of Northback Street east of Far Avenue and Brightview Northback Senior Living and north of Fairfax Boulevard. The proposal would be the final phase of the planned development mixed use approved in 2020 and the existing townhome development Part of phase two has a density of 11.34 dwelling units per acre, and the senior living parcel has a density of 50.8 units an acre. The existing master plan did not approve any permanent uses for phase four, but identified office, retail, restaurant, residential, and hotel as possible uses. This base work currently is a 3.3 acre parcel with a storm drain, drainage, culvert and

associated 45 foot easement that bisects the property. The property is located in the activity center for NorthVAC's small area plan and the existing zoning is a plan development mixed use. So, uh, there's a map that shows a future language designation activity center and, uh, the zoning designation of a plan to plan development, mixed use. The surrounding area has a mix or a mixture of non-residential zoning districts and uses. Uh, the smaller your plan was adopted in 2020. Uh, just some details from the small area plan. the subject property has a recommended retail frontage along what used to be called orchard drive. Now it's called North fact street. The site shows the residential uses at this particular location. Also with the linear park

adjacent to the fronting on the subject property along Fairfax Street. The commercial area also shows for the site. So what you really have is potential to have a mixed use development. And the building height recommendation here is a recommended maximum of seven stories. The concept plan, the concept plan shows one seven story multifamily building and one upper story mixed use building connected by a seven story parking garage, along with surface parking. The proposal shows up to 350 multifamily units. So that's roughly 105 drill units per acre resulted in overall density of around 50 units an acre for the 10.49 acre plan development. So for the entire project, you're looking at approximately 50 units per acre,

up to 7,000 square feet of ground floor commercial with residential amenities on site, a garage and service parking with approximately 450 parking spaces. The applicant is proposing two access points for ingress and egress into a parking garage with full attorney movements from North X street and a right and only entrance from chamber road. The proposal shows a linear park along Norfolk street with planting sidewalks and a sitting area. Also in your packet is comments from staff and also planning commission. in terms of potential land use application, uh, what you would, uh, see would be an amendment to the master development plan with modifications and commitments and a major certificate of appropriateness for architecture and

landscaping. Uh, and going forward, we would have a potential land use, submission, land use application, submission, uh, development review, um, process, the work sessions and public hearings and the images before you, uh, provided by the potential applicant of buildings that have been the applicant has developed within the Northern Virginia region. Staff is here for any questions and the applicant is available for any questions as well. Thank you.

Catherine ReadThank you. Councilmember Amos.

Anthony AmosThank you. I'm gonna be quick. Just some pros. The existing Brightview facility is beautiful. Did an excellent job with that in that community. I do like that this is helping us meet one of the core needs that was identified with the initial version of the small area plan, which was that this location was primarily 70% office space and now we're starting to diversify that mix a bit. I think this project has a lot of merit. Just one question and a few comments and this may be directed more towards staff. Just something to keep in mind, are we concerned at all with adding an additional connection i do appreciate that it's right right in right out but having another connection i guess coming from chamberlge i guess that's mitigated by the right in right out concept

so that's good to know um so we may not need to worry about that let's see in the small area plan something that i did want to highlight that really stood out specific with this specific location was that this was really listed as kind of a gateway to the city for place making and public art, I do feel like that should remain at the forefront of this conversation for this site. It's a defining intersection for us and I think could really help serve in capturing the spirit of the city as we move forward as an economic development opportunity as well. So that might even be worth having a deeper conversation with the Commission on the Arts. Looking at retail orientation as we move forward, just trying to have a better understanding

of would the the retail or I guess commercial space be more facing towards linear park you don't really have direct access to Fairfax Boulevard which kind of has an issue for me I don't think it makes sense facing Cambridge Road so kind of keeping that in mind and the other thing that I will point out and I give credit to Councilmember Bates he was actually the one that brought this up was that southern triangular parcel if we don't consolidate this site that just kind of floating on an island by itself and right now it's zoned strictly for retail and that site's never going to grow up or do anything i do feel like consolidation would be honestly kind of necessary as a part of this proposal so that's just something to keep in mind and explore

as we move forward thank you

Catherine Readother questions councilmember hall thank

Stacy Hallyou um a couple questions and comments um first uh talks about a dog park being on site um have there been any considerations that a public dog park I know there's lots of people that live nearby including me who don't have access to a closed dog park and I think that could be something that would be a community benefit that people might be able to see past some of this additional you know units there the write-in only so you're turning in from Cambridge Road and then it's right out as well or you're going to North Vax to leave?

Speaker 13Yeah, you can right in from Chain Bridge and you can go out to North Vax Street and then leave at the light to either turn left up Chain Bridge or back right out. Or you can come back out that same entrance and right back out Chain Bridge.

Stacy HallOkay, and then there's no direct access to Fairfax Boulevard in the back or anything like that, correct?

Speaker 13Correct. You could also go North Vax Street out to left, which Far Avenue now connects down to Fairfax Boulevard. projects done

Stacy Hallright okay so what this does though is it adds in my opinion for people that are coming southbound regardless of whether they come on I'm sorry northbound regardless of whether they come from Cambridge Road heading north or whether they come from Fairfax Boulevard and then have to turn on to Cambridge their only option to get into their community just like now with the Brightview and with all the Norfax townhomes is that they a u-turn at that light right at the eaton place i live there that's my only primary access into my neighborhood as well it's currently terrible i know it's under construction and we're not under construction currently but it will be made different and better as far as an intersection

goes i better is not a term i agree with but um i think u-turns there as the only way to get these people into their homes for now 350 units plus I don't know how many townhouses plus Brightview is and that's not your problem I understand that I'm speaking to staff here but that's not going to work as far as I'm concerned so I think that that needs to be severely contemplated here I don't love adding another light I know we're talking about adding a hawk signal I think it's called so that people can cross over as pedestrians but it's just not really feasible there If anything, I think you would need to cut out the U-turn, again talking to staff here, cut out the U-turn at Chambridge Road and force people to go up to the bigger light that is currently a VDOT light that has a bigger intersection available there.

I just think that's a big challenge. I think it's a big garage. I had to look what precast meant because I'm not in construction. Sounds like it ought to go up faster and be better. and things like that really could be discussed.

Speaker 34Yeah, definitely. And you know, there is also a really good reason. There's also a really good reason for the precast garage. Because of the easement, which is about 45 feet, the only real way to span it is to use a precast garage. And so that's what it does.

Stacy HallOK. And then my other questions that I had prior to this. It looks like it was previously studied as 180 units, potentially to include a hotel, and now we're at 350 units, which is almost double. Why was that change made?

Kathy TaylorapplicantHi, good evening. My name is Kathy Taylor. I'm representing the applicant. I'm a land use attorney with Walsh Colucci. And just very briefly, just with my team, we have our civil engineers as well as our architects. So those are the people that have been answering your questions. terms of the programming that you had just mentioned councilmember Hall that was actually the the 180 units I think it was 25,000 square feet of commercial retail as well as the hotel however many units that that was provided with phase four during the previous application was really for transportation planning purposes so we wanted to essentially show the highest or most intense dense or density as well as kind of GFA, and then in utilizing that programming,

we could then show during that initial phase or the initial application that the overall phase development would have a negligible impact on the surrounding traffic network at the time. So that's why it really, there's nothing in the actual approval that shows that that was the approved programming. It was just utilized for transportation purposes.

Stacy HallOkay, so to make sure I understand, what you're saying the previous consideration of 180 units a hotel and 25,000 feet of commercial space that was anticipated to generate more traffic 350

Kathy Taylorapplicantunits so so the planning behind that was to create a high intensity development So we kind of just said okay the idea is that this is going to be mixed use So we just sort of picked uses at a high intensity to show that the traffic would work Even when all of this is complete phase force complete when you add in the bright view when you add in the townhomes that For traffic planning purposes, okay, that makes sense It it

Stacy Hallmakes sense in theory. Yes Thank you Yeah, so so you still do think it's a decent traffic study then okay I didn't see any mention and maybe it was my mistake I didn't delve deep enough, but are there any affordable units being planned for here? Is it still required to do the 6%?

Kathy TaylorapplicantCorrect. We are required to do the 6%. We haven't gotten in terms of any type of commitments. Obviously, we're still in the pre-app phase, but certainly that is something that we've taken into consideration, and we will during the actual MDP.

Stacy HallOkay, and are you thinking one, two, like more? What type of unit?

Kathy TaylorapplicantSure, and we actually have the representative from Mill Creek, so I'm going to defer that question to him.

Peter BrownapplicantSure. My name is Peter Brown. I'm with Mill Creek Residential. Just to put in context, Mill Creek, we were the developer behind the apartments at Mosaic District in Merrifield about 10 years ago down the street. So our unit mix, I mean, we're still in the very early stages of programming. We have programmed preliminarily some three-bedroom units, I think no more than about 5% of the total mix, subject to change with, you know, frankly, URLs feedback and some component of three bedroom units is likely warranted but again subject to change

Stacy Hallokay um and you mentioned mosaic and so how and i'm sure the answer is way much way more but how many units are there and how much um retail is currently there or at least you're part of it

Peter Brownapplicantwe built two phases multi-family that i think add up to over 450 homes there's other developers that built other multi-family there, so I don't know the total number. There's also several condo projects and townhomes, so the total unit count, I would imagine, is well over 1,000. And then Eden's, the retail developer, did all of the retail. I think it's well over 100,000 square feet of retail.

Stacy HallOkay, and what are you thinking here for retail?

Peter BrownapplicantSo we've had good preliminary conversations with staff about what this should be, how to activate the Northfax streetscape as the small area plan calls for. What we don't want to do is just throw down token retail and have it not function. Council Member Amos pointed out very astutely that there's not great access to this site from a retail perspective. You mentioned as well for our residents. I mean, if you're traveling along 50 and you see the retail and you want to get to it, you sort of have to know how to get to it. You can't just turn left into the site. So I think we're throwing around various ideas with staff, but in addition to or maybe in lieu of just a typical retail shell, potential ideas of providing commercial space for small business owners in the city,

maybe that's live-work units, maybe that's a co-working space that gets carved out of the ground floor that's open to the public as well. So there's different things that we could pull from our pocket that could potentially satisfy the commercials. want to activate the streetscape

Stacy Hallokay so that's not at all the retail I was thinking of there be honest again I live in back in that community we have a ton of single-family homes we have the townhouses at the assembly I mean all of these people are looking for something that is walkable and that corner there I do think I understand that the challenges of the parking and getting in and out, but I do think that that is kind of ripe for some sort of retail development. I think the live workplaces, like been there, tried that when it comes to Paul VI, it didn't quite pan out. I don't know. To me, that's not an attractive type of retail in the city. So that's just my two cents on that one. One of the other things I'm really questioning, I won't say concerned because I don't know enough to be concerned or not, but

building over the stormwater culvert what's involved with that who takes on the risk and the liability of repairs I mean what does that cost the city what does that cost you as a developer how does all that work

Speaker 13so good question there's definitely a lot that goes into that so we're originally did the first design for the culvert and oversaw all that construction so we've got the full history of kind of what how that happened so we're working with city staff Dave Summers on exactly how to preserve space above it in the easement to allow for future maintenance and to get in the weeds a little bit kind of the structure has to span 45 feet and but they can probably talk a bit more about how that's happening so we're coordinating on how much height is needed in terms of 13 half feet to get equipment underneath and then to allow for that access to to does need to occur. We are going to install additional manholes to access the culvert and

also the foundations that you're building near the culvert. We have to extend the foundations deeper so that if you do dig up the culvert, the building is still kind of structurally sound. So we're just trying to preserve a safe spot for any construction to occur. And Peter, we'd have to work with the city if maintenance needs to occur. That's why having two points of access the garage allows for something to get shut down for future maintenance so it's unlikely something major is going to happen but we have to plan for it

Stacy Hallokay and this is a koto would have showed a question from before and someone brought this up and we were discussing it with a few of us i recognize you own this space and you don't own the space where the fud wreckers is but why why didn't you consider purchasing that and putting things there as as opposed to tearing out all of the trees that were, you know, where Brightview and the Northfax townhomes and all that are. Like, why not use that open parking lot to do things?

Speaker 13Are you talking, referring to stormwater?

Stacy HallI'm talking about referring to the fact that now all these trees were taken out. Again, it's a long time ago, but, you know, you didn't used to be able to see back to the assembly. You didn't used to be able to see any of that. You know, it was kind of an RPA area. I'm just curious why that decision was made wasn't available at the time but just curious

Speaker 13yeah I think this site has long history with John Napolitano back here the property owner and he spent 16 17 years acquiring all the parcels for the whole North fax development and spent years working with the city going through the whole FEMA Clomar Lomar process to underground the stream with the box culvert and then do the whole master development plan that was previously approved for the townhouses and that was all concurrent with the small area plan for North Facts West so that was all being planned together so this was the our site here is kind of last piece of the puzzle meaning we're doing that mastered MDP amendment to kind of get this last piece in which some groundwork was laid but yeah I

think this site North Facts West is kind of was planned all together and Fuddruckers was never part of this conversation other than the small area plan which john napolitano um stayed on this side of chamberage

Stacy Hallokay and you guys don't own the area where the car dealership is there on the corner right that is currently for sale

Peter Brownapplicantcan you point to which area

Stacy Hallright below your the triangle i guess yeah no

Peter Brownapplicantno

Stacy Hallno

Peter Brownapplicantno we don't own that

Stacy Hallokay it's a shame that consolidation wasn't done here in some ways because I have to say again I live right here so not that I necessarily want all of this but I do think from bringing vitality and entertainment to the city that corner there with its easy in and out from 66 and the Metro that would have been a really great place to put things and so that's why I think I'm leaning more towards some better retail than a WeWork space or something along those lines. So that's just my two cents. Thank you very much for the presentation, though.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Hardy-Chandler.

Stacey Hardy-ChandlerSo I want to reiterate the location piece that was mentioned earlier, that this is really a welcome spot, a gate to the city, and I think optimizing how people feel welcomed, there's a real opportunity there as you think about how the project evolves. Any other thoughts about maximizing the location coming off of the 66? I mean, is there anything beyond the utility of the building that you think is important in terms of being sort of a welcoming edifice as people come into the city?

Speaker 34You know, that would be the next sort of step once we get through the concept process, which is to kind of figure out, like, how to identify certain locations, corners, and make them sort of landmarks. And that's something that I think Mill Creek has done a pretty good job of on other projects, specifically, you know, the waterfront near the wharf. Again, it was just going to be an apartment building, but when you look at it, it's got a great corner, and it kind of establishes that corner. And the goal is to do the same thing here, but, you know, we've got to get past the easement. That's the biggest challenge here. And that would be a great name for the project, too. Call it the easement. Yeah,

Stacey Hardy-Chandlerplanting that seed. There is mention of meaningful recreation and green spaces. Can you speak more about what meaningful means? I noticed the linear park, of course, but tell me more.

Peter BrownapplicantEli, you know the dimensions of the actual streetscape, and there's a setback that we're offering from the sidewalk, which is green area along the North Fax streetscape. It's part of the idea of activating the North Fax streetscape. Correct me on the dimension. 20 feet. So a lot of that green area comes in effect by activating that North Fax treescape with additional trees, landscaping, and setbacks. Anything else to mention?

Kathy TaylorapplicantWell, I would just highlight as you know that that on the small area plan it does identify that North Fax Street as the linear park and then it connects into the upper portions of the North Fax area. So I think our intent is really create complete that linear park connecting to Brightview and as as Peter mentioned you know whatever we can do if any type of maybe stormwater I know there were tree planters previously with the Brightview if there's things that we could do so certainly as we go through the next step of actually putting together materials to your

Gwen Riddlestaffpoint

Kathy Taylorapplicanthow can we create just better open space areas that would connect and make that, make or realize the linear park vision for North Vax.

Stacey Hardy-ChandlerExcellent. And adding 7,000 square feet of commercial space, is that accurate?

Speaker 277,000?

Gwen RiddlestaffDid I read that somewhere?

Speaker 27Yeah. That's correct.

Stacey Hardy-ChandlerRight. That's what we're proposing. Right. I do encourage that, but have the same access concerns. DON'T GO SIMPLY BECAUSE IT'S HARD TO GET IN AND OUT. AND SO REALLY ECHOING THE PRIOR SENTIMENT, THAT IS REALLY IMPORTANT. KEEP THAT, EXPAND THAT, HOWEVER THAT HAPPENS. BUT MAYBE THERE ARE SOME CREATIVE IDEAS ABOUT FACILITATING VARIOUS TYPES OF ACCESS TO THAT RETAIL. I THINK THAT'S ALL I NEED TO ASK FOR RIGHT NOW. looking forward to this being a significant project at that particular location. Thank you.

Catherine ReadOkay. I'm just doing a time check. It is now 6.15 and we've got 15 minutes left in our scheduled time. And we have another presentation. Council Member Peterson.

Thomas PetersonThe scenario you developed initially that was the hotel based scenario why again did you move away from that into the scenario area you have now?

Kathy TaylorapplicantSo again, that was just for transportation planning purposes. So really, all we were doing was creating a high-intensity development program so that we could, at the time, with overall phase development, when you add the Brightview and the townhomes, that we could show that for transportation purposes and doing a transportation study, that it would work in terms of traffic generation. So we had picked high-generating traffic uses and a combination because the vision was ultimately that it would be for a mixed-use development. But if you look at the actual proffers or the commitments as well as the master development plan, this portion has always been TBD to be determined. So we didn't proffer or commit to any particular uses

or programming.

Thomas PetersonWas there any sense that that was a commercially viable scenario when you developed it?

Kathy TaylorapplicantI can't recall exactly. Again, I think they were just picking here's the amount of square footage, how that would work with residential and hotel. I think at the time we had no sense of that, that we didn't have any particular uses in mind commercial-wise. Really the only thing we had programmed was the bright view in the townhome community.

Peter BrownapplicantI will add that was before We got involved in before I think any any developer got involved. It was more I think land owner land use council Trying to complete the plan

Thomas PetersonI'm sorry. That was the scenario. The hotel based scenario was something that predates your involvement. Is that what you're saying? Correct

Kathy TaylorapplicantMy firm and Eli's firm were involved in the original phase development. However, Mill Creek coming in to develop the site, they were not part of the original phase development.

Thomas PetersonWell, okay. I think maybe the point here is the question mark of whether there is more potential for commercial development here than the present scenario really reflects. and part of that is the question mark of why 350 units here? That's a lot of space that goes residential, and yet one would think this is actually an area that's pretty attractive from a commercial and retail standpoint. Why the move in that very, very high level of residential units?

Peter BrownapplicantAgain, for us it wasn't a move. We're putting forward the plan that we think is viable and feasible, at the site with fresh eyes. We're happy to do retail. We do retail all over the country, various developments. Again, the challenge of this site, a lot of it has to do with access to the retail, parking for the retail, and having great visibility, but minimal access. Has, you know, we've talked to several retail brokers who would represent tenants looking for one of the main points of commentary was you're going to really struggle to fill more than, you know, 7,000, 10,000 square feet of retail here if you push the envelope to 20,000, 25,000 square feet because you don't have the access and folks are just not going to come.

Thomas PetersonWhat about commercial?

Peter BrownapplicantSo that's something we're still willing to talk about. It's on the table and it was part of the idea of the more kind of office-centric uses that we were talking about in terms of co-working and live-work units. So we're still having those conversations.

Thomas PetersonSo that's still an alternative?

Peter BrownapplicantIt could be, yes.

Thomas PetersonOkay. Just I think the history of this site, and I appreciate that it precedes you, is this was, this general area right here, this was a 10-acre forest. And I think the question Council Member Hall was asking, which is a question that predates you, is why wasn't the site across the street that was already paved over the place where this kind of development would happen so that we would have had the benefit of retaining that forest. We had an earlier speaker applicant mentioning how valuable that is. It's basically an anchor amenity. I think it's behind us now, but it's just worth noting historically this was a forest. And I think I saw in here that it looks like we're not quite there yet in terms of the

addition back of tree canopy and forest canopy on this site. I know it's not going to recover the 10 acres that was lost but where are we in terms of I think there was a commitment here 20% or even higher to do that. Where's that stand right now?

Speaker 13Yeah I'm not sure about the latest tree canopy totals for the whole development right off the top of my head but we can look into that.

John NapolitanoapplicantLet me add,

Thomas Petersonactually.

John NapolitanoapplicantMy name is John Napolitan. I started to purchase these sites 22 years ago. The entire site is 11 acres. There was eight homes. It wasn't forest. And there was two big commercial sites. At best, there might have been three acres of trees. So whoever is saying it was 11 acres of forest is totally off base. case. You can look into history to verify that. And a lot of the two or three acres is still wooded. Kind of goes beyond what the conceptual plan shows there. But again, the total site was about 11 acres. There was homes. There was commercial. It was never 11 acres of forest. So just to be clear, basically. Thank you.

Kathy TaylorapplicantCouncil Member Peterson, I think you might be actually referring not to the tree canopy, but the open space requirement, which is 20%. And so I believe, Eli, with the previous, we did meet, I think the actual requirement was 15% that we met. Do you recall the open space? Okay, go ahead.

Albert FrederickstaffSo the previous approval back in 2020 was for 15%. So they will need to come up with 5% for the overall 11-acre project. For the entire project, it needs to be 20%. So this phase needs to come up with that difference. So that's where we stand right now. It was approved at 15%. There's a shortage. they need to come up with some additional acreage or in order to make the 20%

Thomas Petersonand I see that Thank you for the clarification on open space versus trees the kind of open space that's envisioned with the dog park be open space Or how exactly is that going to be fulfilled?

Kathy TaylorapplicantAnd that's something we're continuing to evaluate I do think under the city ordinance Private recreation areas do count as open space

Albert Frederickstaffthat's a good question I think yeah I think it does count but we would need to right

Kathy Taylorapplicanttake

Albert Frederickstaffa look at it

Kathy Taylorapplicantand there's certain width requirements in terms of how big the open space needs to be so that is something we've certainly already started looking into and you know even I think the linear park portions of that would count as open space so in totality as as mr. Frederick mentioned those are things that we are in the overall development we're

Albert FrederickstaffThe open space requirement would need to be a minimum of 50 by 50.

Kathy Taylorapplicant50

Albert Frederickstaffby 50.

Thomas PetersonOkay. Thanks. I would just support the earlier notion that whatever is done with open space in this area, to the extent that that can be open to the community in some way, it's kind of a big benefit because there are a lot of people nearby and historically kind of did have access to this area. forward to that. Thank

Speaker 33you.

Catherine ReadCouncilmember McQuillan.

Rachel McQuillenThank you. My question is about the Lanier Park. Would you mind describing it a little bit more in detail of what you're imagining or envisioning for that space please?

Speaker 13Yes I think we're still open to how that plans out. Right now the city's working through design guidelines for the whole North Vax Lanier Park so that's still in the early stages and kicked off this summer. So right now we've got 20 feet curb to building face at the smallest at the shortest spot so we're open to working within the design guidelines from curb to building face to fill out that linear park

Rachel McQuillenokay so that's something that you would work with staff on to make sure excellent

Speaker 13yeah but

Rachel McQuillenexcellent

Speaker 13it'll probably have some landscaping BMP facilities and kind of mix of sidewalks

Rachel McQuillenokay wonderful I do want to echo councilmember Hardy Chandler's comments regarding the access to retail and or commercial space that may be there. I, too, recognize and deal with that same issue with the parking. So I just wanted to echo that I think that's a really important feature to ensure is examined and included. And that's all. Thank you.

Catherine ReadAny other questions or comments? The last thing I'll say is, you know, understand that the ingress and egress is problematic, that the Glasscock property is in play, that is in your design because you don't own it the parcel on the corner I believe is owned by the city on the very corner that is utilities and so that's not going to be part of this design either I don't believe because it's just not developable because of what's there I think this is you know a good initial presentation I think people gave you lots of feedback on what they think about this final piece it is important that Brightview is open that the are there and this is the last piece to councilmember Hardy Chandler's point it

is a major gateway into the city what's on that corner is what people see when they come off 66 and so having a really solid project there is something the city wants what it finally might look like up for debate but I think you're on the right track for what to put there and hopefully the comments you've gotten tonight has helped you and given you some feedback on how you want to proceed next so very much appreciate the presentation. So Ms. Kadalov, I don't think we're going to actually do in the next five minutes a presentation and round of questions. So that begs the question if we should take a break and kick this to the beginning or power through. Are there thoughts?

Alexanderstaffmy initial thought is to power through this one but certainly wanted to get consensus counsel on that i don't know if we have reps here um

Catherine Readmy my only thought is that if we power through then then we are eliminating any break at all because we need to start at seven so i

Alexanderstaffdon't i don't know that we're committed um as a continuous meeting to start then um just food for thought Excuse the reference to food.

Catherine ReadOkay. Initial thoughts? Council Member Amos?

Anthony AmosI can go either way.

Catherine ReadThat's so helpful. Council Member Amos.

Stacy HallDo we have representatives from? We do.

Catherine ReadWe do.

Stacy HallI mean, I think it's either make this small group wait or make, well, I guess everybody's waiting regardless. I actually would say we should delay this and then let the public that are coming in for a meeting at 7 p.m. hear at the tail end of this.

Catherine ReadOkay. Council Member Hart-Chandler.

Stacey Hardy-ChandlerI'd be in support of powering through. Let's knock this last one out. Okay. Council

Thomas PetersonMember Peterson. I think I could go either way, but I do want to just note that I think this was structured not to be understood to be a 7 p.m. start meeting. before and then on. So I do think we have some flexibility as a consequence of that. If we power through, I don't think it means reconvening at 7 and I think we all need a break. Otherwise, we're not going to make it through the rest of the meeting. Okay. Council Member McQuillan?

Rachel McQuillenYeah, I think if our residents are expecting that we're taking a break right now and that we're reconvening at 7, that we stick to that plan. That's my personal opinion.

Catherine ReadOh, well, this is just really not necessarily particularly helpful. Okay, since we've got representatives here, if you can do it, and if we can all be concise, too, if we can all be, let's make this happen and let's all be super concise. Let's just power through. So what do we have next, Ms. Kidolive?

Ms. KadalovclerkNext, we have a pre-application briefing on a concept plan of the Mosby Building at 10560 Main Street to convert an office building to a mixed-use building, including up to 107 multifamily units and ground floor commercial space. I will recognize Clara Schweiger, city planner, for the staff presentation.

Clara SchweigerstaffGood evening, Mayor Reed and Councilmembers. Tonight we're here for a pre-application briefing to discuss a potential residential conversion of the Moseley Building located at 10560 Main Street. We're 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. So on the right here is an aerial of the site. It's located to the north of Main Street, west of Chain Bridge Road, east of Railroad Avenue and south of Meadow Bridge Lane. The future land use is commercial corridor and green network public.

The site is zoned CR commercial retail with existing proffers and it's in the transition overlay district. So the Mosby building is a seven-story building built in 1964 and originally constructed as a multifamily residential building. Over the years, the uses have changed, and in 2014, City Council approved a proffer amendment to allow office as well as some non-office uses on all floors of the building. Today, there are office, personal service, and non-residential uses within the building. There is 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 area and the potential applicant would also remove the circular drop off at the front of the building. So the next few slides are layout plans from the concept plan. This is the basement. This is the first floor. These are the upper floors. And the upper floors would house 107 multifamily units including 46 studios, 33 one-bedroom units, 10 one-bedroom with 10 units and 18 two-bedroom units. Here are potential renderings. The staff met with the potential applicant and provided initial feedback on the concept.

This feedback is included in the briefing packet and there's more on the next slide. the Planning Commission held a briefing with the potential applicant on July 27th and it gave feedback on the concept that feedback is also included in your packet so the potential land use requests for this project would be an amendment to existing proffers special exceptions for density and 75% of the ground floor for residential uses a general development plan, and a major certificate of appropriateness. Next steps for the application or the potential application would be submission of a formal land use application, staff review, work sessions, and finally, public hearings. And that concludes my presentation.

Here for any questions you have, and the applicant or the potential applicant is also here for any questions.

Catherine ReadWell done. When I said succinct, you brought it home. Yes. Council

Clara SchweigerstaffMember Amos?

Anthony AmosAll right, thank you very much what I like marketability since its proximity to judicial complex and Old Town proximity. I think that's really good I'm gonna look towards staff on this one Really getting clarity on the live work component, but also the residential not being supported a commercial corridor Has that been addressed since the Planning Commission meeting and I know I'm kind of looking over at Brooke Harden on that's a pet peeve of his So I'd be curious on where we've landed on that.

Clara SchweigerstaffYeah, so I did look into it for more information from the city side data on like how many live work units are currently in operation in the city there's only one development that's been approved with live work units that was Paul this public sector Boulevard six there are none thank

Anthony Amosyou the I'm just gonna turn the rest in the comments to move this along I'd be curious on getting information either now or later size of your average commercial unit, your vacancy rate, things you've probably heard before that our economic development director would have. They brought up stormwater management plan, considering you're adjacent to RPA. I think that's extremely important, getting a water quality impact assessment. Be very curious on where that lands. Would love to learn more about what the game plan is for the existing tenants, both during construction and those that might have to be relocated. Coordinating with zoning and economic development staff. up is the basement floor. I need to think about it some more about having live work units on

basement floor. I might feel better about that just being full commercial and an amenity space, but I can be open to that discussion. Thank you.

Catherine ReadMs. Council Member Hardy-Chandler.

Stacey Hardy-ChandlerMs. Council Member Amos. So just to pick up on a question from Council Member Amos, the residential being in a commercial corridor, that seems like that's a tipping point issue. Could you explain that a little further? Because the building was originally residential, right? So

Clara Schweigerstafffrom a staff perspective, that's an issue because, yeah, the comprehensive plan, the commercial corridor place type does not recommend residential along the commercial corridor.

Stacey Hardy-ChandlerYeah. Does the fact that it's in a transitional part of the corridor help or no?

Clara SchweigerstaffNo. There are site-specific properties that have been identified in the comprehensive plan that would allow for more flexibility. This is not one of those properties.

Speaker 27Okay.

Speaker 6Do you have to respond to that? Yes.

Bob BrandtapplicantThank you. Bob Brandt with Walsh Colucci. Thank you for having us this evening. specifically for agreeing to power through my wife asked me to pick my daughter up at cheerleading at 8 p.m. and it would not have been good for me to not make that deadline so seriously thank you but in all honesty I'm here with my client Holden Savado from the Sorkman Group we're here to continue this conversation that we began with the Planning Commission in July and began with staff earlier this year there was a lot of discussion at the Planning Commission Councilmember Hardy Chandler about this idea that this property is currently planned commercial corridor but as you mentioned this building itself has a bit of a unique history.

It was originally approved, constructed, designed, manifestly designed to be a residential building, which it was for the first 10 or so years of its lifespan. So I think that's one factor that kind of sets this proposal apart from some other proposals that the city has seen over the years looking to repurpose or redevelop office buildings in commercial areas of the city like Fairfax Boulevard. I think another piece that went into the Planning Commission's feedback, was very positive was that where this property is situated where it's actually located in the city and you touched on it this is in the transition overlay district just outside of old town fairfax it's proximate to all of the downtown shops businesses breweries that we all enjoy here

so i think those two pieces of this are factors that set this proposal apart from some of the other ones that the city has seen over the years.

Stacey Hardy-ChandlerYeah, thank you for that. And it's old, right? So if not this, have any other configurations for this building been considered or?

Bob BrandtapplicantNot at this time. The building itself actually is in pretty good shape. It's got good bones. And so that's one of the major reasons that we're here tonight because it's a building that's ideally positioned in terms of repurposing, adaptive reuse, because again, circles back to the fact that it was always designed, built to be a residential building. If you look at the floor plans and the upper levels of the building specifically, it's kind of that traditional double loaded single corridor with, you know, 800 to 1,400 square feet units on either side of it. And so it's really a light touch when it comes to repurposing. There's no real redevelopment required here. we're not looking to expand upon or add to the building it's really in a good

position to be repurposed

Stacey Hardy-Chandlerwell I walk my dogs past there and I stopped by there pretty regularly my last question is any green considerations in retrofitting a building that of that age yeah

Bob Brandtapplicantgood questions we're still we're still looking into what might be feasible in terms of sustainable building practices I think one of the most sustainable features about this proposal is the fact reusing an existing building and so again unlike other projects that you see in the city that result in demolition extensive disturbance construction activities this one again i use the term is more of a light touch uh so i think there's just some inherent sustainability built into repurposing an existing building you're

Stacey Hardy-Chandlerrecycling correct okay

Bob Brandtapplicantgood way thank you thank you

Catherine Readcouncil member hall

Stacy Hallthank you I will be quick and I will start with the things I like first. I do like the year repurposing the building. I understand it's not in a Residential area, but I do think there's a decent amount of residential around there I do have concerns about the live work things. I guess I'm jumping around but I Do I like that there won't be any additional parking needs. I mean everything's kind of already there my one of my concerns with when we deal with buildings like this that have a lot of and therapists and, you know, reading specialists. Like, they tend to be in these type of buildings, and there's not necessarily a lot of other areas for them to go to that might offer that same rent. So I do worry about that level of service that we are losing for our residents

by not maintaining them. That being said, I don't know that those types of people really want to live and work in the same place where they are. and I think that the live work option I feel like it didn't really work out in politics I guess it could work in other places but I think it's it's very specific and then when you go to you know re-rent your unit in another way then you've got to deal with that as well so I'd like that the building or the restaurants will be staying I think my my biggest concerns are just really what's going on in there already now and where those people will go to because again you're not the only building that's trying to do something different but I do really like that it's in the same space it's the same footprint I mean I

think that you know it's a lot more turnkey and like you said you know light whatever light touch or something that that is there so

Bob Brandtapplicantno thank you thank you for the comments I'll just briefly touch on them because I think council member Amos brought some of them up as well the concept of the live-work unit You're right. And as Clara mentioned, there's only been one project in the city that really proposed those, Paul VI, and they really haven't come to fruition. We heard some of those questions from the Planning Commission. We've heard some of that feedback. Again, one thing that I think makes this concept, this building unique, is that if you walk down the hallways, you can actually peek into some of the spaces. There's a couple doors that have transparent glass, and I walk through the building, and I kind of poke my head in.

and because these were kind of originally built as residential units, they're already kind of well set up for that. So, you know, if you think you're an entrepreneur or a sole proprietor or a therapist or something like that, if you want to have that option to have your business out of your home, this building could potentially fit those needs. That being said, and again, I want to be clear on this, we did hear feedback from the Planning Commission that they wanted us to explore more commercial, I'm sorry, more commercial options here. One thing that you don't see on the screen now that we've internally started working through is converting more of the ground floor space from what we had previously proposed as

residential units to commercial space and so we're working through that right now councilmember Amos you asked about coordination with Existing tenants economic development. We did have an early conversation with economic development about this make no mistake about it We will be in very close coordination with these tenants if this project moves forward and so we very much want to do right by the existing tenants in the building and make sure that there are resources in place for them if indeed they do wish to remain somewhere in the city and so ownership is very much committed to working through that

Catherine Readcouncil member mcquillen thank

Rachel McQuillenyou how many existing businesses would be displaced displaced.

Bob BrandtapplicantI'll walk to home.

Speaker 4So right now most of the leases are rolling over 2027, 2028. I would say I think it's about 65 percent of leases are expiring in 2027 and then 95 percent in 2028. From the conversations we're having, most of the tenants whose leases are coming up are choosing not to renew. So that's an ongoing conversation. So we're trying to kind of balance, you know, how many tenants are actually going to still want space with the amount of commercial we could provide. But that's a broad terms. That's where we're landing right now.

Rachel McQuillenOkay. Thank you. Could more traditional commercial space be retained on the first floor, even if it means somewhat fewer than 107 residential units?

Bob BrandtapplicantSure. Clark, if you could go to the ground. This is the basement. This is the level that walks out to the back of the property. This is what you see on Main Street today. So if you see, just for a point of reference, the existing restaurant, that's Patriot's Pub, that's chicken wings in the area. That's going to remain. The area that I mentioned earlier that we're looking to retain as commercial space are those, you'll see there's one, two, three, four live-work units on the bottom of this. Again, that's the part of the building that faces towards Main Street. we're looking to keep those as kind of smaller commercial units more or less what they are today. So, yes, that will necessarily result in a loss of residential units,

but, again, that's something that we heard was important to the Planning Commission, Economic Development staff, everybody. So it's an iterative process. We're working through that now.

Rachel McQuillenExcellent. And then could you go into a little more detail about the live-work units for those of us that don't really speak this lingo and aren't sure?

Bob BrandtapplicantYeah, essentially it's almost exactly what it sounds like. unit that provides kind of flexibility for folks to reside and or work there. So if you're a, I don't know, a small business owner, Councilmember Hall, you mentioned a therapist or someone like that or an artist and you want to have a studio there or you're a CPA that wants to have client meetings in your in your unit from time to time, really they're units that are designed for those types of businesses. So relatively low traffic, low traffic units but ones that provide to operate their business out of their unit as well.

Rachel McQuillenMS. Okay. So how does it differ from a regular apartment? MR.

Bob BrandtapplicantI think there would be more formal non-residential space. So think of an office or a small waiting room or an area in which a therapist meets with her patient, something like that.

Rachel McQuillenMS. More openly out type

Bob Brandtapplicantof? MR. Correct. MS. Okay. MS. So, and again, if you walk through the building today, you can actually poke your head into some of these units and you'll see that there's a, you know, reception area, the smaller offices out to the rear, which would theoretically be the bedrooms, really just providing those future residents with the flexibility.

Rachel McQuillenExcellent. Okay. And then can you talk about the resource protection area a little bit? I read a little bit about there's some stormwater management and environmental conditions that we're trying to avoid.

Bob BrandtapplicantRight. And we're trying to avoid those too. So there is an area, I think it's off to the west side of the site, the north and west side of the site that is in a resource protection area. Fortunately, none of our plans involve any work occurring in that area. Really the only site improvements we're looking to make, and this goes back to our early conversations with staff, are some revisions to that open space area in the front of the building on Main Street. We'd like to make that more usable, more publicly accessible, so we want to do some work there. There will be some work done in the immediate front of the building where there's a circular turnaround today. We want to convert that to something different.

this light touch concept that I keep coming back to, there won't be a lot of site work associated with this conversion. And so I have every confidence that we'll be avoiding that resource protection area in its entirety.

Rachel McQuillenExcellent. That's something that's really important to me and that I really appreciate in this design plan. I have one more question. It should be pretty easy. What specific public benefits are we receiving in exchange for the special exception?

Bob BrandtapplicantSure. I mean, affordable housing. When this building was originally built, it was built in the 1960s. That's certainly in effect now. This building will provide 6% of the units as affordables. The other public benefit I touched on this is the conversion of that open space area out towards Main Street, which is currently just private open space. We want to work with staff to make that more publicly accessible, do something that kind of draws people into there. So I think those are just two of the benefits right now. But giving people the option to live in downtown Fairfax or close to downtown Fairfax, further activating supporting those businesses that are there today, I think that's also a benefit.

Rachel McQuillenWonderful. I really, really appreciate this project, specifically the rehab and repurposing of the building. I think it's fantastic. This is exactly the type of project I'd like to see. So thank you.

Catherine ReadThank you.

Thomas PetersonCouncil Member Peterson. This may be a question for our Economic Development Director, but I think I recall, and perhaps you all know that for the tenants you have now we have what sort of effectively became I think by its own evolution a small business cluster that is synergistic and a bit of an ecosystem and that that's easier easier said than done in terms of cultivating it and I had thought that was precisely the direction we were hoping to go with future commercial and economic that's attractive for that. How does this conversion square against that?

Speaker 14Thank you, Council Member. So as the applicants have said, we did meet early on and discuss this. That is a concern of ours in economic development is the number of small business tenants and making sure that they do have a place to go. We are hoping to work with the applicant to do some tenant outreach. We also have heard from some of the tenants in the building as their leases are coming up for renewal, know that they can reach out to us and we can find space. I would be remiss not to say what I have said on every single one of these applications, which is we do have concerns about the total amount of commercial space in the city and for small businesses that have been in longer-term leases, the jump in mark to

market rate can sometimes be very jarring. So we would like to do as much proactive outreach as possible, get them connected to things like the Small Business Development Center to our office to help ensure a smooth transition. We do not have that plan in place as of today because this is just a pre-application, but that is something we would very much like to work with because you're correct. It is hard to find another place in any jurisdiction where that many small businesses can coexist, but we'd like to make sure as many of them continue to operate in the city as is feasible.

Thomas PetersonIt's like a mini industrial park. But I'm maybe hearing an inconsistency that you could help me with here because on the one hand, I hear that we have a set of tenants who are not renewing their leases. And on the other hand, I'm hearing that they still want and need another place to go. Why is that happening? Why would they not stay where they are today if they have an effective residence?

Speaker 14specific tenants, but what I'll say what in general happens is There's already talk if your lease comes up for renewal That's a decision businesses make all the time either not to renew because they believe that something is coming They've heard that something is coming and they need to make a business decision and don't want the uncertainty Uncertainty is one of the greatest impediments to running to continuing to run a business. So So in all environments, there's going to be businesses that it's just the timing. They just decide not to continue. They decide not to renew. What we don't want to happen is that people think they don't have that option. So on the record tonight, for any business listening, please reach out to the Department of Economic Development because we'd like to help you.

But we don't always hear from tenants before they make that decision, and that's not exclusive to this application. Not in any way.

Thomas Petersonthat it's inducing flight. The expectation that this facility would convert is inducing folks to plan to move on whereas they otherwise may in fact stay and we have a viable small business ecosystem here and that seems to run counter to where the city wants and needs to go on commercial development and this is just one project but the cumulative effect of that, I keep going Going back to thinking big picture here, cumulative effects, we are way behind commercially in the city. And particularly what we want to do is focus on these small businesses and the unique characteristics we have that can attract them. And they like being here in comparison to many other places they would go. So I guess on this project it would seem to me it would be well worth examining whether

we can do better in terms of the amount of commercial activity that is retained here. Certainly want to do everything we can for those firms who have already decided to throw in the towel. I think that's pretty unfortunate, frankly. But I think this is a site that evolved naturally to have this ecosystem of small businesses and we ought to think a little bit harder about what we might do to protect that. Thank you.

Catherine ReadWell, I will just add, since we're, I'll just piggyback onto that, that oftentimes businesses do move. There was a window washing company that moved out of the commercial space that's being considered for the Highlands at Mantua and moved to Germantown Square. And Pathway Homes is probably the greatest example of a tenant in one of our buildings considering redevelopment who bought a building downtown and is not only using it as their providing 15 units of supportive housing. So it's not always a detriment when somebody decides to take leave of their current space. They generally, if they like the city, they will find a space in the city. And in the case of Pathway Homes, moving out as a tenant has benefited the city.

So I just want to address the fact that this was originally residential, to echo some of the things that my colleagues on the dais have said, to repurpose the building rather than tearing it down is something preferable, I think, for all of us. We don't want to simply tear down everything that's old and outdated. Businesses, I mean, buildings generally have a life of about 50 years. This one has good bones. And I appreciate the fact that often it's far more expensive to retrofit an old building than to just tear it down and start fresh. So the fact that you're wanting to repurpose this building, I appreciate the fact that there's a will to do that. I will also point out that it's across from the judicial complex.

The government center is across the street. And also across the street is a development that was previously approved for a condominium complex right on the edge of the judicial complex. So even though this is in a commercial corridor, there is housing in that commercial corridor already that's been approved. I mean, I see a lot of positive benefits to repurposing the building. I see the opportunity, and we've talked about this before, too. We end up with less commercial, but it's quality because it's brand new. It's modern. A lot of people have to balance, do I want to pay below market? It's just like renters. Do I want to pay below market because it's old, or do I want to find some place that I can afford,

but it's also new and modern and in a good location? And that comes up to individual people's choices. I do think that this is a good project. I don't know about the live workspaces. I think that's a thing. I think we have to appreciate the fact that this is a very old city, and a lot of things have changed because the world changes. It was residential. Then we needed more commercial than we needed residential. But now we need more housing than we need commercial. I mean, we have to look at the marketplace. There is a marketplace, and there's a market demand. and so simply deciding we do or don't like something, I think we have to read the tea leaves of the market and I appreciate that looking at mixed use development

gives us some flexibility in the future if all of this changes and it's kind of like, well, we need less housing, we need more commercial. We have to kind of bake that into the projects that we're looking at to give the city some future flexibility because we don't know what's going to happen in the next 10, 20, 30, 50 years. I do appreciate the fact that you've worked to rehab an existing building in a very prominent corridor in our city. And I do think that if it were converted into housing, that there would be a lot of interest because of its proximity to both the downtown and the judicial complex. I mean, just something to consider. But again, you know, this is going to be for other people to decide.

Hi, Council Member Bates. Did you want to say something?

Billy BatesYeah, just real quick. Sorry if I end up duplicating anything that's already been said, but current guidance to the comprehensive plan is that housing is not supported here. That being said, I would look to our staff and planning commission and their guidance if they believe that this is appropriate for this site. Personally, I hesitate to do away with as much commercial as would be removed by this project. I could see some housing here, maybe keep around half the commercial space and convert half to housing, kind of consolidate your existing tenants under the space that's retained. But I would hesitate to eliminate as much as would be eliminated by this project as proposed. Understand, of course, it's pre-application

and it'll go through the process see further changes in the future. Thanks. Okay.

Catherine ReadAnd with that, I think we have 656. This is good. Thank you all so much for the presentation. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. And so we're not doing too badly here. 656. So at this time, I will now recess the work session. We will take a 30-minute recess, and we will be back.

Speaker 27Thank you.

Speaker 33Daisy is darling, Iris is sweet Lily is lovely, blossoms a tree Of all the sweethearts I've yet to meet, well, I finally chose an American beauty role. Camellia's tragic, she can't be mine. Magnolia's magic makes Maggie shine. Laurel will hug you Our kids divine Still I finally chose an American beauty rose Why, she's clingier than Ivy And she's zingier than black-eyed Susan Springier than Maybell in June Oh, Aunt Daffy has a daffodil It's laughable the way I thrill When roses are in bloom Pansy is pretty, willow is torn Violet's kisses, two lips recall How can I choose one, I love them all Still I finally chose an American beauty rose Say she's clingier than Ivy And she's zingier than black-eyed Susan

Springier than Maybell in June Oh, I'm daffy as a daffodil It's laughable the way I thrill When roses are in bloom That pansy's so pretty Willow is tall Violet's kisses Two lips recall How can I choose one I love them all Still I finally chose Can you guess who I chose Yep, I finally chose An American beauty role

Speaker 28I'm the lonesomest gal in town Everybody has thrown me down I got no angel child to ever call me dear Got no honey man for me to cuddle near, but I'm learning to roll my eyes. And someday you may be surprised when I find someone's loving man and kiss him with a smack. I'll hug him and I'll squeeze him, but I'll never give him back. Cause I'm lonesome, so very lonesome. I'm the lonesomest gal in this here town If you're reading no paper someday Ask some poor gal has gone astray Don't shed a tear If you should hear that gal was me And if you see my picture in the paper With a smile on my face I was broken hearted, that smile was out of place If you wanna save a gal from her grave Find me a man if you can

I'm the lonesomest gal in town Everybody is putting me down I got no angel child to ever call me dear Got no honey man for me to cuddle near But I'm learning I'm gonna roll my eyes and someday you're gonna be surprised When I find someone's loving man and kiss him with a smack I'll hug him and I'll squeeze him but I'll never give him back Cause I'm lonesome, so very lonesome I'm the lonesomest gal and is there any other time Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Speaker 27Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Music Music Music Music Music Music Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Catherine Readwelcome back miss kid miss kid olive what is our next work session item our

Ms. KadalovclerkNext item is a discussion and report on the findings of the citywide level of service study. I'll recognize Eric Foreman, city planner, for the staff presentation.

Eric ForemanstaffOkay, well, thank you very much. So tonight we are discussing this project. It's called the citywide level of service study, and this study is an analysis to assess the capital implications of certain new development on city infrastructure. contracted with the consulting firm of Tichler Buys to conduct this analysis. Tichler Buys has nationwide experience in economic and fiscal analysis of just this sort of thing. The main goal of this study for them has been to develop what they call a dynamic capital impact model that the city can use to estimate capital needs that result from new residential development, and specifically from new development that occurs at the time of a rezoning. And before we begin, before I hand it over to the consultants,

I think it's helpful to quickly go over specifically what this project is looking at and also what it's not looking at. So the reason I said that this project is looking at just capital needs and just from developments that result from rezoning pertains specifically to the acceptance of cash proffers during the development process. And cash proffers, cash proffers is money that developers can offer to jurisdictions to help offset the future costs of a development. But the acceptance of proffers is tightly regulated by state code. So it's not free money that comes to locality. There's a lot of strings attached. And importantly, cash proffers can only be accepted as part of rezoning applications.

So developments that are by right, developments that are permitted, are not eligible for cash proffer contributions. On top of that, cash proffers can only relate to capital projects, so not regular operating costs. And on top of that, only those projects that address some kind of a capacity constraint capacity constraint that's present at the time of rezoning. Virginia is very peculiar in this regard, but it's important to be aware of all of that as part of this discussion. The reason it's important in this discussion tonight is because the level of service study is not a cost of development analysis. So it's not something that says every new housing unit that comes into the city costs the city a certain number of dollars per year to provide services for it.

that. It's not similar to that. The study is actually focused exclusively on capital costs, so things that are in the city's capital improvement program, the CIP, and specifically items that are in the CIP that could potentially be used for cash proffers. And even with all of those restrictions that are imposed by the state, as you all know, a lot of jurisdictions do accept cash proffers as part of rezoning applications. The city has done this in the past, but we don't have any policy guidance on what kinds of proffers the city may need or how to calculate those proffers. So every time that we've accepted cash proffers as part of a development application, the process itself has been somewhat scattershot.

So the rationale for this study is to establish a framework for doing just that. So for accepting rezoning proffers based on an orderly kind of methodology. So tonight we're joined by the project's consultants, Julie Herlands and Jackson Barlow are here. They'll be taking a look at the capital impact model that was the result of this project. Ms. Herlands and Mr. Barlow, they'll go over the capital impact model itself. And we'll also show some examples of hypothetical rezoning projects and the capital impact results that that model shows. So I'll turn the presentation over to them. And of course, at the conclusion, the consultants and staff would be glad to answer any questions you all may have.

Speaker 19Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Eric. Mayor, members of council, it's good to be here with you again. And we are going to work through the model, the process, touch on that, and then get to some examples, as Eric mentioned. So we'll go over our study, the results, and again, have some time for discussion. Mr. Foreman went through the basics. There are rules that govern cash proffers. Essentially, they're voluntary. They're made at the time of rezoning. There needs to be a need for capacity. It needs to be no capacity or a need for capacity in the capital facility. is paying its fair share of that impact, of that cost. Payors must receive a benefit when you collect those dollars, so they need to be accounted for separately. They need to conform with the comprehensive plan and include those types of facilities that are in the CIP.

and it really boils down to what is a reasonable, the language in the statute is localities cannot require or accept an unreasonable, require an unreasonable proffer. So just turning that around, what does that mean in terms of what makes a proffer reasonable? And that is then the need for or the use of this model. So the model then is going to quantify what does that mean exactly? What are the steps to get there to then ultimately get a dollar amount and an amount of infrastructure that is reasonable tied to the rezoning? That's a reasonable amount, a reasonable amount of capital infrastructure that then, again, is tied back to the land use itself. It is limited to residential development. It's collected for a system-level improvement.

We make this distinction between project level, you know, turn lanes that go into or, you know, something that's needed just to make the project work versus the city's capital system level improvements. A direct and material benefit is received from the payer eventually in the construction of this improvement. Again, there's this need to test for capacity. Again, a reason to use a model to do this so that this can be integrated into the calculations in the model. And as Mr. Foreman mentioned, does not include operating costs. So this is not the full cost of growth or cost of development or to serve that residential unit. It is just the portion for capital and additional capacity in those improvements.

So we really thought about this study in two ways. One is to come up with a static dollar amount. that the residential unit's share of capital costs by type of unit. So we have ultimately a finding and a list of costs by type of residential unit for a single-family detached unit, for a multifamily unit. That then is really that maximum amount, that development share of the capital cost. And then at the same time, this model is set up to do more of a dynamic analysis, to test for capacity, to test for, to tie it specifically to the project that's being analyzed at the time. And so you really get two sets of numbers that come out of this, and we'll show the difference in those figures. The capital improvement categories that are included in the model are all what we call is cash proffer eligible.

CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS OR THE TYPES OF CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS THAT ARE ENUMERATED IN THE ACT. PUBLIC SCHOOLS, PARKS AND RECREATION, PUBLIC SAFETY, UBRELA, WHICH IS POLICE AND FIRE AND RESCUE UNDERNEATH THAT. AND THEN TRANSPORTATION WAS ANALYZED BUT WE'RE NOT INCLUDING IT AT THIS TIME BECAUSE THERE'S REALLY MINIMAL CITY FUNDING THAT'S GOING TO BE USED TOWARD CAPACITY PROJECTS FOR TRANSPORTATION SIDE. So by way of example, on the dynamic front, where we take the model and enter in a hypothetical project. So you'll see here on the left, this is kind of the parameters of the model. You'll see here that all of the geographic areas are what we call citywide. We've left this in the capability in the future if time goes on and there's a need to do sub areas of the city for different reasons

We have the ability to to modify the model in that way for now everything is considered on a city-wide basis the And then on the right is the section that the user would enter how many units are you considering for this development? In this case, we have used a hypothetical example of 400 multifamily units. You'll see here we have places for whether it's a single-family detached project, single-family attached, age-restricted single-family, and age-restricted multifamily. And a project can be a mix of any of those, any combination of those types of units. And then we also model, even though the output and the use of it will really be just on the residential side, we also include an ability to identify to capture what the impact is,

the capital impact is from non-residential development as well. So this is just, again, without considering revenues off of that development, this is just purely what is the capital impact from additional non-residential development. Now, not all categories are going to be applicable, so schools are not tied to non-residential. Parks are not tied to non-residential. We have just the public safety portion. So on this example, we have 400 multifamily units and 10,000 square feet of retail development that we're modeling. So this gets entered into the model, and the output then provides the amount of sort of development profile, 400 units, that's what we model or what we input it, input. Population off of those 400 units, 870 additional residents.

The generated, the projected students using the average student generation rate for each. So we have 38 total students and modeling it by each level. And then for those 10,000, for the 10,000 square feet of residential retail development, pardon me, created off of that, so 19. Again, working in averages, this can be modified. Those factors can be modified by the user. We have averages in there that are reflective of

Kathy Taylorapplicantconditions in the city.

Speaker 19From that development, what does that mean in terms of dollar amounts from the capital impact? So you'll see a few different columns. And on the far left, the infrastructure category, so for schools, parks and rec, police, fire, and then grand total. is what we call the next two full capital impact. So this is the non-dynamic. This is, we're just saying, what does it cost to serve this development, this combination of land uses? What is the cost here? So the total there is about $5 million. We have in here, there's a hidden column for the non-residential piece. So the residential portion is 4.952. total 4.987, the difference there is the non-residential piece of that. So that's that full capital impact.

So no consideration of capacity triggers, just the total maximum amount. Going to the next column or those next two, the capacity trigger, that's where those capacity, again, those formula come into play of capacity triggers and where there's a difference here on the schools and the parks and rec piece of it. Again, residential, the total, and it's a lower amount because there's a capacity trigger that's included in that final number. And then from there, getting to a kind of how proffers are typically discussed and how they are communicated is on a per unit basis. So then, again, taking that residential number and dividing it essentially by the 400, we get what's the full capital impact is $12,381 for this, again, this particular development.

And then that capacity-triggered amount is about $7,500, so $7,495. Again, we're looking at them separately. Full capital impact is a point of information. and then that capacity trigger is what is essentially cash proffer eligible, that maximum cash proffer amount. A second project example is just looking at 50 single-family attached units. This gets us 136 additional residents. 11 students, and the same results get generated here in terms of full capital impact and capacity triggered. And we just wanted to show a side-by-side, kind of a mix, two different types of developments, obviously one that's denser, 400 multifamily units with retail, and then a less dense development of 50 townhouse units but getting down to that bottom line of the per unit

amount the total and then the per unit amount even though the the total is higher for the denser overall you have more units and tire the per unit amount is less so it's seventy five hundred capacity to seventy five hundred dollars on the capacity triggered front per unit and ten thousand five sixty or so on for the townhouse unit. So intuitively, it makes sense in terms of higher per unit for that larger type of unit, but in the total, in the aggregate, a lower dollar amount for the smaller project, or the smaller end number. I mentioned also the other output or the other deliverable that's part of this is the static cash proffer amount. So more detail here in terms of the, again, by type of housing unit and the type

of capital infrastructure. So for public schools, we have separate numbers for elementary, middle, and high school, and that total public school number, the parks and rec number, there's actually more detail underneath that, but that is the total number there. police, fire, a public safety total, and then again that grand total. So for a single-family detached unit the cost to continue to provide capital capacity and capital improvements at the city's current level is $22,357. And then we wanted to just zero in on the public school cash proffer figure and number and how that compares to the current Fairfax County public school number and wanted to just show a side-by-side. We have what you're looking

at here is the static this the the the our city capital impact model static amount and I'll just focus on single-family detached just for ease here of 14,321. So that is, again, the cost to continue to provide the same capacity for public school students in the city at all levels, elementary, middle, high school combined, per unit. So this is the per unit number. The dynamic, when we factor in existing capacity that there's seats available at some of the school levels here, that number gets lowered down to 5,578, again, per unit. public school number shown here is currently 7,792. They have a different formula, they have a different methodology. As far as I know they don't use a model, they do they sort of update it on an annual basis, potentially they

update it. I don't, we're not involved in that number so I don't have detail other than a three-page memo that that shows the calculation. So that as you can see is higher, their static number currently, their number per unit for single family detached, again focusing there, is higher than the city's dynamic figure. There is also a different in the student generation factors, the student yield ratios, the county's figures are higher than the city's. We have city-specific student generation rates, so those are different between county writ large and the city specifically. so we wanted to bring that to your attention I know there's been some discussion along the way on that so we wanted to put that out front and center and

with that I'm happy to take questions and discussion and then we can talk next steps as well so thank you. Alright thank you for the presentation. Do we have questions?

Catherine ReadCouncilmember Hull

Stacy HallThank you. Eric I know when we met, I asked a lot of questions. Do you happen to have any of those or other responses to them? I know there were several things you were going to be looking into.

Eric ForemanstaffI do not with me right now.

Stacy HallOkay. I'm going to try to remember some then. And actually, I have some new ones. My first one is, or I guess it's the last one, but on page 13, or slide 13, why are there different numbers for elementary school, middle school, and high school?

Speaker 19Like the cost per so those generally they're from different student generation rates per unit so there's a rate specific to elementary school middle school and high school so the number of students per housing unit that are in elementary school number of students per housing in a middle number in high school multiplied by the cost per student and those costs may be different at the different and the numbers and the cost per seat are different as well at elementary, middle, and high school. If you think about a high school being built, it's going to be typically higher cost with labs, gyms, et cetera. So there's typically a higher cost per seat at the high school level than at an elementary school level.

And I think that is what our data shows here as well.

Stacy HallOkay. So that is not at all referring to the cost to educate a student. It's the cost to build the

Speaker 19new

Stacy Hallschool. Correct. Okay. And I think this is where this is very echoey today. The city struggles a little bit, I think, compared to the county because we only have so many schools. We only have so many buildings. We only have so much land to add new buildings onto. And so I think we're at a unique time right now where we are talking about renovations. And, you know, we're in the middle of those things. So one of the questions I had asked was how far back can we go? I understand it's 12 years forward. But if we have new developments like all of the things that we're potentially having before the end of the year How quickly could this either be implemented or? Retroactive to the development that we agreed to do to be consistent with these proffers

Speaker 19So the the if you've already if there's already approvals in place that and the rezoning has already occurred to negotiate and receive a cash proffer on those, if those processes are already done,

Stacy Hallregardless. But if they're coming before us before the end of the year, do we have time to implement this in order to take advantage of those and to ask for those proffers?

Eric ForemanstaffWell, proffers, and we all trip ourselves up on this. Proffers cannot be asked for, they say they have to be voluntary. But if a proffer is voluntarily accepted, let's say right now, it can be applied to a project that is discussed at the school board or at city council at any point later on. As long as it's an eligible proffer, so it has to address a capacity problem. You know, it can't be re-roofing. You know, it can't be an operational maintenance kind of item. But if it's something that addresses a current capacity deficiency, then it can be.

Stacy HallOkay. And I know this, when we spoke, this kind of got into the conversation of about, we are adding on more classrooms at the schools. We are adding on a whole new senior center that is going to be significantly larger than what we had at Green Acres. We are adding on additional child care facilities and all of those things. So one of my questions too was is there any opportunity to apply any of these Requested proffers that you're not asking for but you're saying because let's be honest Prefix County You don't get to build anything without putting in cash proffers. It's just what they do You see every we see all when we were on school board We saw everything comes in that same dollar amount times the number of students

I mean, it's just what they do and I do like that. There's this higher and I think it's actually a different model from what I understand but if they get away with it and we're paying their numbers we should be getting away with it too so that's a different conversation but I just think there needs to be a lot of attention given to what we have going on right now especially with Willard Sherwood to see if any of that could be considered here another one of my questions is you know it talks about this as capital improvements does this apply to the property yard that is an expansion because yes we're underwater but also we physically need more space more room to be able to maintain our vehicles our

our buses our trucks all of those things I mean it we're kind of at a unique time here when all of these things are up for discussion and up for for money so how How do those factor in?

Speaker 19So the recreation center, community center piece, that's included, that's in our parks and recreation. So the dollars that you potentially collect that are offered and collected, they could be used for those capacity improvements. Even

Stacy Hallif it's

Speaker 19already

Stacy Hallbeen agreed upon and we're starting construction in the next

Speaker 19however many months? Because you're planning for the future. You're planning for future capacity needs to serve future population.

Stacy HallOkay, and

Speaker 19that's what we

Stacy Hallthought, but we didn't know for sure what we meant before. Okay. Does this also apply to things like fire trucks, fire stations, police vehicles, all of those things? Yep. Okay, and are those, those are all kind of included in there?

Speaker 19Yep.

Stacy HallAnd is this your own, like, proprietary model, or is this like a modeling standard that's used in your industry? It's both.

Speaker 19So we have developed this model. specifically to answer this question in Virginia because it's a unique thing in the country we do impact fee work elsewhere which is similar typically an impact fee study is the study itself and you get and there's a schedule like this and that is the schedule that gets adopted and there's really no need to have a model because that's what they you know that's the way they just put they charge you know that's building permit here's your single-family number this is the number you pay when you come in to pull your building permit so model. We do also do fiscal impact models that are proprietary, but this model, it is proprietary in that it's not, we're asking, it's getting, it's turned over to the city. The city has use of it.

They have it. The proprietary nature of it, the restriction is we don't want him, anyone to send it out into the world because it is something, it's an intellectual property that we've developed. But it is provided to the city, and they have use of it now to do this analysis. And so do these

Stacy Hallrates change in the city or outside of the city or globally when you work with these models over different years? Sure. It's

Speaker 19specific to the locality. So this is all cities' levels of service. And what these numbers represent is the city's current, what you're providing currently, acres per person, square feet of fire stations per person, number of apparatus per person today, per person in jobs, you know, today. And as new folks come into the city and new developments, what is their share of that cost to continue to provide that same level of service? So if you don't build more or buy more stuff, levels of service decrease, right? the cost, what it costs you as a city to continue to provide that same level of service.

Eric ForemanstaffI will add one more thing just following up on your question about how these numbers change. These numbers do change, but typically jurisdictions that use a model like this will keep the same model for a number of years. These numbers, if the governing body or if the school board agrees on a set of numbers, those would typically be the set of numbers for several years, rather than going through this entire process year after year, updating brand new numbers into the CIP. So for example, like Fairfax County Public Schools, their proper numbers, last time I think they updated, that was 2022 or so. So same kind of idea.

Speaker 19And one option, if I may, is just to apply an inflationary adjustment on the number. you know, the number. And

Kathy Taylorapplicantso you could

Speaker 19keep up, you know, somewhat, but not redo the model that, you know, need to go through that process every year.

Stacy HallOkay. And then this is kind of a, again, I understand we can't require proffers, but is this a suggested starting point? Is this a, we could ask for more, but we have backup for why we're, not ask, but lay the things out, that this is what we say, this is what we think, think this is what we're looking for if you're voluntarily giving

Speaker 19it.

Stacy HallRight. But you know what I'm saying?

Speaker 19The purpose and the service of the model is to identify what a reasonable proffer is, to what that number, what the, complying with the requirements of the Act and the city's levels of service. These are not, you know, desired. This is not what, you know, the neighbor, your neighbor is doing. This is what the city is doing currently. that if it's collected, then the city will use those dollars to continue to do the same stuff, essentially, or, you know, similar things. And, again, to identify, bottom line, what is a reasonable amount? What is a reasonable cash proffer amount or a proffer amount?

Stacy HallOkay. And one final question, and you might have sort of already answered it in this, about that's in our CIP is the Van Dyke Park. It was $16 million. I'm sure it's probably $30 million now, if I'm guessing. We don't know. But are things like that also included here? And, but do you, did you take into consideration then that our Van Dyke Park is built in the 70s, 80s? I have no idea. 60s? Okay. I was going to go 50s and that sounded way too old, but so does that include the age of our current assets? It's yes, no,

Speaker 19I mean yes and no. What these numbers reflect is what it costs you today to continue to provide the infrastructure. So the part, the acres and the level of improvements on the acres. So it is a cost per acre to continue to improve, you know, additional acres, again, to serve new development. So it's not, you know, the 1960s costs to develop the park and we're talking about, you know, $100,000, I don't even know, $100,000 to build a park. No, because if you're collecting those dollars, the city is, you know, the intent is to get to an improved, you know, get to a, not an improved level of service, but get to that same level of service. You're collecting on an old, you know, you're not going to be able to do that.

The dollars aren't going to be there. So it is reflective of what does it cost today to continue to provide those levels of service. So, and that's, you know, the reason for if, you know, Fairfax County comes in and does an adjustment, they're just trying to, you know, get up to inflation, you know, to align with inflation. But this, the starting point is, you know, current dollars as best as we can. Obviously, there's going to be fluctuations and there's fluctuations, you know, when we're in the middle of studies, but it's close to current as possible.

Stacy Hallmight be an Eric question. I sort of already asked it too, but if we decided to pursue this, if we wanted to implement this, how soon would it be effective potentially?

Eric ForemanstaffThe logical next step would be for the school board and for the city council to see a set of numbers and agree upon them. It winds up being in some kind of a memorandum, something like that saying you know the city the school board has identified these costs of capital costs of new development so uh i we expect to talk to the school board about the education component of this sometime in the next month or so and we'll come back to city council as well these being voluntary, developers can proffer this kind of cash with or without a city memorandum on the topic.

Stacy HallRight. But it's better to have it in place. Again, I'm just thinking of all, we had 718 homes discussed tonight. That's a lot of bank. That's a lot of money. Do you, and maybe you're not allowed to answer this on the record, but do you recall what was proffered from the botanist by chance?

Eric ForemanstaffI can answer it on the record but I have no idea. I wish I knew. That's in the development approval so it is public record. I just don't know.

Stacy HallOkay. JC? Do you have that number offhand? No? Really? I'm shocked. Okay. That's all

Speaker 19my questions.

Stacy HallThank you.

Catherine ReadOkay. Council Member Amos.

Anthony AmosThank you. So great policy to have definitely in support of it. I think the dynamic model is definitely flexible and a useful tool. The only question, and I'd be curious on what you see nationally in trends and conversations, is there ever pushback from the development community, an argument of like we also are a revenue generating property and yada, yada, yada?

Speaker 19Of

Anthony Amoscourse. Sure.

Speaker 19Yeah. Yes, to answer your

Anthony Amosquestion. And I mean, just based off of your experience, is that typically a hindrance those conversations usually evolve?

Speaker 19It does really depend. It depends on the project. It depends on the developer. It depends on, you know, national developers versus local developers are different. You know, we work all over the country in small communities, medium-sized larger communities, rural, urban, you know, just sort of the whole gamut. So it really does depend. And, again, cash proffers are different. I'm kind of thinking of impact fee experience. But that is part of the discussion is what will the market bear? reasonable. We have obviously a need, the pressure of local governments to continue to provide amenities, public services to establish the desired quality of life or the quality of life that's the standard. But at the same time, there's an affordability crisis. There's a

housing crisis. So then how do those two things square? We do all the math and then we have the discussions about what can the market bear, you know, what's reasonable, not reasonable profit, but what's reasonable from a market standpoint. Yeah.

Anthony AmosYeah, and I'd be also curious, I assume you don't ever differentiate between, like, fully affordable developments versus market rate developments, or do you?

Speaker 19We do. And I, so again, on the impact fee side, and I can't, I'm trying to remember on the proper side, but in most state acts, so impact fees again, kind of runs the gamut, but there are some states have, you know, enabled legislation and typically allow for a waiver for affordable housing, deed restricted affordable housing. Not, you know, marketed, not, you know, maybe, but deed restricted affordable housing, affordable units, a waiver that then either is paid for from the general, you know, from another funding source or waived outright. can be waived outright. So that is typically part of, again, with impact fees, there's an ordinance that enacts impact, you know, so typically codified and that is, you know, kind of written in.

The other thing that we do, and it's more challenging here because it is a proffer and it's done at rezoning, is we'll do schedules by size of housing units. So for instance, either by square footage, so a single-family unit that's a trunc, 1,200 to 2,000 square feet and then 2,000 to 25, you know, kind of building blocks so that we can scale through data household sizes by the size of housing unit. So typically, you have fewer people, less space, fewer people, lower fee or a lower amount. It's more challenging and it's almost impossible, I would say, because it's done at rezoning, and so you don't really know what that project's going to look like at the end state. So that does kind of tie your hands a little bit about doing a fee schedule or a proper model like that,

but it is a possibility. And

Anthony AmosI imagine its applicability kind of varies also in jurisdiction size. For example, the city versus Fairfax County. Or even just housing type that we see. We typically get market rate with the 6%. We don't really see fully affordable projects like the county does. So, okay.

Speaker 19Yeah,

Anthony Amosexactly. Thank you.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member McQuillan.

Rachel McQuillenThank you. This has been a long time coming. This is more a question, I think, for staff as far as rollout and how this is communicated then to developers.

Eric ForemanstaffAnything such as a recommendation from city council or to the school board or from the school board would be communicated to developers in the development process.

Rachel McQuillenAnd then additionally, just how departments are going to communicate this information, because as we've discovered, sometimes something sounds like a renovation. However, it might have an expansion component like our school renovations do, that we weren't aware that that was even applicable until that was stated. So will there be ongoing communication and conversations or some sort of way in which that information is consistently related? MR.

Eric ForemanstaffThere will be communications through the department, but as far as identifying which CIP projects are capacity enhancing and proffer eligible, that is all built into the model now, and that's part of the reason why that model, and that's the reason that this has taken months since our work session in February is because that's a lot of effort. MS. Excellent. MR. So they've gone ahead and they've identified those projects, they're in the model, and that's part of the reason why these models aren't updated annually. Okay. Not have to do that annually as well.

Rachel McQuillenSo as a project comes into CIP, that's when it'll enter this model here?

Eric ForemanstaffWell, not quite. New projects would enter the model when we redo the model. So it may be a few years. Okay. So we would keep this model active for several years.

Rachel McQuillenUnderstood. Thank you.

Eric ForemanstaffYep.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Peterson.

Thomas PetersonAnd I'm guessing about every five years you'd be on a cycle for updates, something like that. If you could, and I'm sorry to ask you to repeat this, can you explain how you develop full capital impact? And, I mean, literally how you assemble the data for that and what the mathematics are, and then also how you determine capacity triggered, if you could just refresh that.

Speaker 19Sure. I may have Jackson come in. I think we can show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the full capital impact and sort of the math underneath that is the building blocks are identifying levels of service. In our vernacular, the level of service is an infrastructure component. So square feet per student of elementary school space, of middle school space, of high school space, right? So that's one component of the schools. What does it cost to continue to – what's the cost per square foot for elementary space, middle school space, high school space? Just total. And there may be other components as well. It's just school space. And land. Okay, so land and school seats, so space, so the building space. So from there we get a total cost per student essentially.

We get how many square feet per student. So let's say 100 square feet per student multiplied by the cost per square foot to get to a total and cost per acre of land, how many acres per student of land are provided in each school level, elementary, middle, and high school. We get to a total cost per student and then take that, multiply it by the student generation rate for each type of housing unit. So each housing unit has a different student generation rate, and that is the number of students on average that are public school students, city public school students, that are residing in that unit at each level, elementary, middle, and high school. And so in the report, the full report, I think it's documented in a full report that, yes, that we can, if they haven't seen it, you can provide.

We don't have it in this presentation as it stands now. But so those units, so it's less than one, essentially. And these are average over the life of a housing unit. So

Stacy Hallit's not

Speaker 19just, you know, at the time it's built and it's, you know, when someone says, well, I know this unit has three kids in it. And, you know, today it's not always going to have three kids in it. It's going to be over the life of the unit. or .4 or even less than that. The multifamily units are much lower than that. So the cost per student multiplied by the student generation rate at each level, you get to a cost per housing unit, which is, I'll go back to my trigger, I mean to the static, which will give us. So on that single family detached line, so that is the product of the student generation rate multiplied by the cost per student, per seat, cost per student seat for each of those levels. So that $14,000 reflects, again, per unit.

So if our single-family detached student generation rate is 0.3, maybe, the cost per student is $14,000 divided by the 0.3, right, to get your cost per student. So you can back into it that way. There's more to it than that. So that's the math just on the schools. We do that for each category. The parks is components of type of park, recreation center, trails, I think is in there too, so different components of capital facilities to get to what does it cost to build a new acre, to improve a new acre of park, to improve a linear mile of trail, to build a new square foot of a rec center. Again, getting to the level of service, how much per person, multiplied by the cost for that piece of infrastructure

to get to, again, the cost per person, and then multiply that cost per person, time the household size by the type of unit. Okay, so that's that piece. The capacity trigger piece is a test that says, is there, and this is a calculated threshold in the schools where we look at, okay, does the elementary school today have capacity seats? There's enrollment today, capacity number, a program capacity. Is it at 100% or below 100%? If it's below 100%, there's capacity. And this is something that's specific in the Virginia statute. This is in the IRS. This is a Virginia statute that governs cash proffers that if there's capacity in the facility at the time of rezoning, then the cash proffer is not to be accepted.

So this is, just as an aside, something that is very different than the impact fee world. and it is an added hurdle that almost penalizes good planning. Like if you were to build additional, if someone was to go out and build a new school in anticipation of growth, you're not potentially able to collect for that if that school is built, not to be able to collect at rezonings after the fact. So it is a quirk of the law and it is something, you know, we hope that it gets changed over time. But that's sort of an aside. But that is this need for the capacity trigger. The other ones there are, the capacity trigger is if there are CIP projects, and to Council Member McQuillan's point about those projects,

If there are capacity projects in the CIP currently, then that is the capacity trigger here on parks, police, and fire and rescue and those other ones. That says basically, yes, we know we've committed in our CIP to build additional capacity because we need it, and that's why it's in there. And so that's the capacity threshold and trigger there for those categories.

Thomas PetersonChair Greg Musil, On the going back to the schools for any of them said there's a total build cost for a facility. And you're looking at that in relation to the number of students or number of people that that facility serves. And that's not an annual number. Chair Greg Musil, Correct.

Stacey Hardy-ChandlerChair Greg Musil, Okay. All right.

Speaker 19Chair Greg Musil, Except for the enrollment.

Thomas PetersonYeah, go

Speaker 19ahead.

Speaker 5Well, so the cost of serve is based on seats, not current enrollment. So it would be the levels of service would be square feet per student seats per that amount of students you can fit at 100% capacity. So that's where we're determining each of those. Not updating that every year unless if you, of course, do an expansion to one of your school facilities.

Thomas PetersonTransportation. Why it's exclusion? negligible what does that really mean

Eric Foremanstaffso in a lot of our big development projects like this would apply to the city tends to get transportation improvements as part of a proffered condition which is different from a cash proffer so if a development would warrant intersection improvements or a new traffic signal or a new turn lane or that kind of thing that that type of improvement is typically proffered by the developer to just do that thing. So it's not cash, it's a direct proffer. Taking that out and going through the CIP, finding capacity enhancing projects, figuring out a per capita being the per housing unit share of that, once you boil all of that down it comes to a very small amount. So I think when the consultants did that calculation,

amount was something like $10 per unit or something of that sort. And it was really, I think we used the word negligible in the presentation, but it was just too small to be worth the effort because transportation funding and transportation projects as they relate to new development tend to come through another method.

Thomas PetersonChair Greg Musil So the $10 is the above and beyond what's already been done by the however you're describing it, proper being done in the first place to do a direct build. The proper conditions,

Eric Foremanstaffright.

Thomas PetersonTo do a direct build versus a cash thing, okay? If you could go back also, and thanks for explaining at the very beginning what this is and is not, but just to pursue that for a moment, you mentioned this is not a capital budgeting tool. For instance, this is not a cost-benefit analysis. This is, as I understand it, actually the establishment of standard cost for standard offers, if you sort of a reference book that makes your lives a whole lot easier, right, so you don't have to do a brand new different thing every single time. But when you come up with those standard costs for that, remind me again and explain again if you might the difference between that and what would be a full-blown analysis that would

capture all of the infrastructure, all the fixed and all the variable costs, but particularly all of the fixed costs and just explain if you would why this is different than that.

Eric ForemanstaffI think the big difference between this and what you're describing is operational costs. So something of what you're describing would include the total cost of a new housing unit to the city. So the cost on city hall, the cost on public works, the cost on the court system, I mean All of these little costs all added up to one, just the daily cost of doing business in Fairfax City and the work that we do for, in this case, house residents, housing units. This doesn't look at operational costs at all and this doesn't look at enterprise fund costs and this doesn't look at capital costs that do not include capacity enhancements.

Thomas PetersonOkay, and this didn't, because of the former issue we talked about, include an estimation of transportation cost because those are direct investments by the developer as opposed to a cash thing, so they're really outside of this system.

Speaker 33Right. Okay. Okay.

Thomas PetersonWell, it sounds like this, well, okay, here's the other question. In terms of the data that you use to actually calibrate this, you have a model, right? And you're tailoring it, if you will, to the city of Fairfax. If you could just say how you're doing that. What is the source of data you use to tailor this to the city so that we're using our Fairfax city-specific information on this and we're not using the county's information or, you know, somebody else.

Speaker 19Yeah, it's all Fairfax City information. So when I say we have a model, I mean, it's Excel spreadsheets. I mean, it is not a different set of software. It is Microsoft Excel, and it is every factor to the extent possible, maybe with the exception of trip rates, which really locally, and we don't even use them, I don't think, on the residential side at all, so it's kind of irrelevant. It is irrelevant, but it's all specific to the city of Fairfax. So the census, you know, household size, persons per housing unit from the census for the city of Fairfax, student generation rates specifically for city of Fairfax schools, cost data that's specific to the city of Fairfax, and to the extent, I don't know, it may not be available,

we would use a weighted or a comparable jurisdiction average, but honestly I think we use all local, I don't want to say all, but mostly local costs. The infrastructure, the levels of service are all the city's facilities, the city's assets. So the schools that are located in the city, the parks, the trails, factors, the levels of service, again, and we talk about levels of service, it's infrastructure, the amount of infrastructure provided per person. That is all specific to the City of Fairfax. So, and I can't think of anything else that would be any national average because employment figures and trip rates are, we didn't use those for any of our calculations except for on the non-residential

side.

Thomas PetersonAre you literally able to get the standpoint, the expenses that are line itemed in these areas to use for calibration of this? I'm looking at the corner of my eye at JC. From a cost accounting standpoint, I mean, is that, are we able to provide cost accounting information here that will allocate adequately to these areas? Mr.

Speaker 10Chair Jerry Cook, I think that's something we could look into. do. We have not tried that recently. We can come back to Council and try to figure that out. I would say that as long as we have sort of defined parameters, we could probably try to figure out and then fine tune what the model might look like if need be.

Thomas PetersonYeah, I think what I'm asking, and I don't mean to put you too much on a spot, it's just kind of best available data kind of question here. How much of this is direct expense information direct cost information from the city and how much of it is from outside the city that is translated, scaled, benefit transfer, how do you want to describe that?

Speaker 19Right. And we can, again, we have a written documentation that shows sourcing for all of the, all of our level of service tables that have the cost data. So to the extent where there's current estimates for projects in the city, we're using those. If there are sort of new or not yet fully formed plans where we're trying to value what asset is, those may be from adjacent jurisdictions, but there's certainly, we have, you know, we work all over the state, so they're going to be reflective of a cost, you know, for the city. But we worked with, you know, with departments, with finance, and with the CIP. Again, we're not modeling, we're modeling what it costs, what the value is to replicate that today.

where there are plans again, where there's expansion plans, we're going to use those dollars of current dollars, those things that are, but pretty much, you know, all the asset valuation, like, you know, what's it cost to purchase a new, you know, fire engine, a fire truck, that's known, right? Like that is a known number. They know, even though they may not be adding, you know, you're not adding to the fleet every year, but you're replacing, and so we know what those costs are to the city today. So all of that is vetted. And, again, you can see on each of those cost tables the source of information. Honestly, I don't know if we had to go.

Speaker 5The majority were in city. Fire and police were either recent purchase costs or CIP items, as with school. So essentially we're saying you have this amount of fire space currently and you have one planned new station. We're taking the cost per square foot of that new station and applying it to all fire stations as that's the cost to build a new fire facility covering all of them.

Thomas PetersonAnd in your experience, having gone through that and gotten hands-on with data that is specific to the city of Fairfax, and I recognize some of what you're doing is taking data from other places and you're translating it. That's an appropriate process. But how does our cost structure compare? I can imagine for a fire engine, it's absolutely comparable. There's probably a standard cost out there. I can imagine there are other areas where it's not. We have some unique features, whether it's a school build or whatever, but what's your sense of the variation?

Speaker 19And that's part of our process as well to, you know, for our experience, you know, does it pass the sniff test? You know, I'm faced with occasional in other places where you go, that doesn't look great. Like, there's no way. You can't build that for that. Or that's way too much. You know, honestly, we probably, we tend to err on the more conservative side. But, you know, fire stations are $1,000 a square foot now pretty much everywhere we work. And so we see something that's less than that. I kind of, okay, well, what exactly? You know, what are you doing? Is it an expansion? Is there some other unique feature? But I don't think there was... If there was anything in this study that raised our eyebrows,

we would have vetted it before we produced the final result.

Thomas PetersonOkay. Thank you so much.

Catherine ReadCouncilman Partichandler.

Stacey Hardy-ChandlerI just want to briefly go back and highlight that the point of this is consistency, which I think it's really important to support. the best information or that you will continue to modify the information to accurately reflect the city. I think the next step is policy, right? So what's needed to translate what we've been presented tonight in terms of the model into the policy that we need to set up expectations for those who come to us, as part of our CIP process and make sure that the expectation of considering those proffers is a part of that process. What support do you need to move to that next phase of policy?

Eric ForemanstaffI think our immediate next step would be to have a similar discussion with the school board based on just school-specific information, then come back to city council, But likely with the recommendation saying similar to what I had said before that we identify these costs as being attributable to new development with the costs likely from this model from what the school board is recommending and that that would be a policy that we can convey to, that development staff can convey to applicants in the development process. So

Stacey Hardy-Chandleryou would reconcile any feedback that you got from us versus the school district, and then that would become what we, in transparency, people would know in terms of the expectations? Correct. Okay. Sounds good to me. And, by the way, thank you for all of the proper 101 preparation because there are some narrow parameters that I think get forgotten. with that was extremely helpful.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Bates.

Billy BatesThank you. This is really exciting and certainly more information, more data, more modeling is never a bad thing. So I look forward to seeing this implemented. And I also, so this, the example here is based on the model that you've constructed for Fairfax City, correct? Yeah. Correct. I just, you know, I think it's interesting that, you know, of course for public schools and parks and rec, the cost per unit for multifamily is a good bit less than for a single family. But just interesting that the same is true for police and fire and rescue as well. Just, you know, just something that caught my eye. Thank you.

Catherine ReadAny other comments, questions? Are we feeling confident, fairly confident? Anything else to add, Mr. Harden?

Brooke HardenstaffThank you, Mayor. Just one item on the question regarding the botanist. The total amount of proffers, and I'll give credit to the city manager, was even faster than I was on this one, was about $510,000. Total, $390,000 for schools, about $100,000 for parks, and $20,000 for trees.

Stacy HallAnd do we know how many units?

Brooke Hardenstaff260. So all told, about $2,000 in cash per unit.

Stacy HallOkay. So about half of what you would be recommending? Not recommending, but discussing if we wanted to put this out there as a thought process.

Speaker 19What type of units? Or are you talking about 10,000? Multifamily

Stacy Hallunits. No, it was 10,000, wasn't it? Or seven? I'll

Speaker 19let you talk. Yeah. The grand total, well, the grand total, not dynamic. So static number is 12,380. Our number is already going back. Oop, there. Yeah, 7,500.

Stacy HallOkay. So we might have left about 5,000 and change per unit on the table. Potentially, if we were to ask and not demand.

Eric ForemanstaffRight. And the botanist proffers did not include public safety, so that's a big difference.

Stacy HallBut it was also the first time that we had received proffers, so I do want to give credit to Jeff Plattenberg, our previous superintendent, for that. I'm sure he is not listening at home, but that's okay.

Catherine ReadOkay, any other questions or comments? Thank you so much for the presentation. We look forward to taking this to its next level. What do we have next?

Ms. KadalovclerkNext we have a discussion of a resolution for the reappropriation of general operating capital and enterprise funds to carry over to FY 2027 that were appropriated in FY 26 and have not been spent as of June 30, 2026. I will recognize Gwen Riddle, Budget Director for the staff discussion. good evening i can

Gwen Riddlestaffpull up the staff report if you like or okay so this is an administrative task we do it every year we are looking at purchase orders that have were not completed at the end of the prior fiscal year so fiscal year 26 for our operating um account for the general fund every department must submit request to keep their purchase order open. So we go through it, and just because you would like to keep it doesn't mean you have to have a business reason to keep it open. It is a project has started and it's not complete, or equipment was ordered and did not meet the deadline by receiving it by the end of the fiscal year. So for FY26 carry forward, we're looking at $1.6 million for a general fund. Oh, no, excuse me.

Wrong number. $1.19 million for general fund. So we were able to take it down about $500,000 from what was still open. We're looking at about $40 million for capital. of that is for Blenheim. So more than half is for the Blenheim PO that was just recently open. For the wastewater funds, about $2 million and $2.4 million in our Stormwater Utility Fund. Any questions on this item?

Catherine ReadThank you for the presentation. Questions for Ms. Riddle on this? Seeing none, thank you so much for your presentation. Ms. Kadala, what do we have next?

Ms. KadalovclerkNext we'll have a discussion on the City of Fairfax 2027 legislative program. I'll recognize Melanie Zipp, Assistant City Manager, for this staff discussion. Thank you.

Catherine ReadThank you. Do you want to just proceed?

Ms. KadalovclerkGive me 30 seconds. 30 seconds. Make

Catherine Readsure my papers walk around me better. We do have it.

Clara SchweigerstaffThat's okay. Don't worry about it.

Melanie Zippstaffby voiceOkay, good evening, Mayor and Council. I will do my best to be quick. Tonight is the kickoff of our process to develop the city's 2027 legislative program. The purpose of tonight's discussion is not to ask Council to adopt any positions. or make any final decisions. Rather, we want to begin with the review of where we have been, what changes during the 26th General Assembly session happened, and what is beginning to take shape in 2027. Over the next several months, staff will continue to monitor legislation, work with our regional partners and associations, and bring issues back to the council for additional There will also be a public hearing on the draft program before Council is asked to consider

a final legislative program in December. One theme that we would like to introduce tonight is a slight shift in how we look at the City's legislative program. Historically, much of the program has focused on individual legislative initiatives or policy themes, things we would like the General Assembly to authorize, fund, or change. but increasingly legislation coming from Richmond is affecting how local governments operate, how we plan our communities, what services we're required to provide, and how those services are funded. So as we develop the 2027 program, we'd like council feedback on looking at proposed legislation through the lenses of state mandates and local impacts. The city continues to be represented in Richmond by Senator Saddam Salim in the 37th Senate District

and Delegate Gretchen Bulova in the House of Delegates 11th District. This relationship is particularly important because the city's legislative program serves more than one purpose. There are occasions when Fairfax asks our delegation to carry specific legislation, but just as often the program gives our delegation guidance about the city's support, what concerns us, and where we believe legislation will have unintended consequences on our local governments. That latter role may be increasingly important during the 2027 session. The city's legislative program does not exist independently of the rest of our work. As we evaluate legislative issues, staff looks at them through the city's adopted strategic goals,

organizational values, financial policies, comprehensive plan, and council priorities. For example, legislation affecting zoning and housing directly impact our economic development and our community goals. Transportation funding and automated traffic enforcement affect both our transportation and public safety objectives. Challenges or changes to school funding affect our budget and the city's long-term financial capacity. Environmental requirements affect stormwater infrastructure and capital planning and legislation dealing with FOIA, employee requirements, technology, collective bargaining, or local taxing authority directly affect our governance goals. We don't develop our program in isolation.

Between now and December, staff will continue coordinating with VML, Fairfax County, our school board partners, regional transportation organizations, our boards and commissions, professional associations, and neighboring Northern Virginia jurisdictions. That coordination serves several purposes. It helps identify issues that may not initially appear significant to Fairfax, but have broader local government consequences. It gives Northern Virginia jurisdictions a stronger collective voice when our interests align, and it helps us identify where Fairfax's circumstances may differ from other jurisdictions. For example, a requirement that may appear relatively minor statewide can have a very different operational or

Speaker 19fiscal effect here.

Melanie Zippstaffby voiceThe next two slides summarize the priorities Council included in the 2026 legislative program and where those issues stand today. There were several significant successes. The City's requested charter amendments were approved. General Assembly also enacted authority allowing Planning District 8 localities including Fairfax to consider an additional local sales and use tax subject to referendum for eligible school capital and public transportation purposes some food for thought council may want to consider whether whether the city's program should focus on preserving local revenue authority that has already been granted and opposing future legislation that would restrict, redirect, or condition that authority.

K-12 funding remains a work in progress. The city's 2026 position emphasized that public education is a shared constitutional responsibility between the Commonwealth and local government, yet the difference between the state funds and the actual cost of delivering education continues to place significant pressures on local budgets particularly in high-cost Northern Virginia jurisdictions. Several bills carried into 2027 address standards of quality funding, at-risk students, special education, and teacher compensation and and we will keep an eye on those. Data center legislation is another area where there was considerable activity. Even though we're not a major data center jurisdiction, Northern Virginia's concentration of data centers

has regional consequences. Cannabis retail sales was successful Assembly providing localities the option of a 3.5% sales tax. I lost my train of thought.

Ms. KadalovclerkSorry about that.

Melanie Zippstaffby voiceAffordable housing continues to be an important city and regional concern. During the last several sessions, the General Assembly has increasingly considered statewide requirements governing traditional local land use decisions. Some food for thought. The city can support the objective of increasing housing opportunities while also asking that localities retain the ability to determine how those objectives are implemented within our own communities. The anti-rent gouging initiative is an example of that different approach. The city's 2026 program supported local enabling authority, giving council the option to establish protections locally rather than imposing a statewide requirement. A bill carried into 2027 would provide local governments with authority to establish rent increase limitations.

Stormwater funding also remains important. the city's infrastructure responsibilities continue regardless of whether the state provides sufficient assistance. Our FY27 and future capital planning includes significant infrastructure investments, so continued state participation through programs such as SLAAF is very valuable. Finally, state aid to local police continues to raise the larger question of state commitment local governments. That issue fits directly into the mandate versus local impact discussion. When the commonwealth establishes a statutory funding framework but does not fully fund it, the service requirement does not disappear. The cost simply shifts elsewhere generally to local

taxpayers. This slide identifies several areas staff believes warrant discussion as we begin the 2027 program. These are not recommendations for council position tonight. They're issues we believe deserve additional analysis and are a point of discussion with staff and regionally. Local authority and state mandates. The first broad issue is local authority. One of the clearest trends we're seeing is an increasing willingness by the General Assembly to establish areas historically administered locally. Housing and zoning are probably the most visible examples of that. The issue for Fairfax is whether the Commonwealth should define the desired outcome while allowing local governments flexibility in implementation or whether the state should

prescribed the specific zoning solutions. Unfunded and underfunded mandates. We increasingly see bills that require new local programs, staffing, technology, reporting, employee benefits, infrastructure standards, or administrative processes without providing corresponding state resources. Transportation and automated enforcement. Transportation remains another area of discussion changes adopted by the general assembly affecting automated traffic enforcement will provide localities additional administrative flexibilities beginning in 2027 including the potential to including the potential use of appropriately trained non-sworn personnel for some violation review functions FOIA and electronic participation is another area. Another issue is electronic meetings

and FOIA. The General Assembly continues to consider changes involving remote participation, electronic meetings, public notices, and the way local governments communicate with the public. Technology provides us an opportunity to increase participation and reduce our administrative of costs. Staff will continue working with the city attorney and the city clerk to identify potential changes that preserve transparency while allowing reasonable local flexibility. Public notices. The city has also previously discussed modernizing of statutory advertising requirements. Many notices are still required to be published in newspapers, even though residents information electronically information technology accessibility the

information technology technology Access Act continues to create implementation questions involving accessibility standards and timelines for local government digital content the city's interest here is not avoiding accessibility requirements the question is whether state deadlines and technical requirements should align with applicable federal ADA requirements so that local governments are not implementing two different compliance frameworks on different timelines. Currently, the state timeline requires us to be in compliance as far as accessibility on all of on our website in 2027 where the federal requirement is 2028. Impact fees versus proffers. As development and redevelopment occur, Fairfax must provide infrastructure and services associated with that growth.

Virginia's existing system limits the mechanisms available to local governments to address those impacts. And then we have regional issues. At the regional level, we'll continue tracking transit funding, collective bargaining, housing, K-12 funding, and other issues where Northern Virginia jurisdictions have common interests. Tonight is September 1st. It's the work session introducing the legislative program and gives staff the initial direction from council. between September and December will continue regional legislative coordination and monitor bills and policy proposals. Staff will use Council's feedback tonight and throughout the next coming months to begin preparing a draft 2027 legislative program.

That draft will return for a public hearing on November 10th. That's an important part of this process because it provides residents, businesses, boards and commissions, and other stakeholders the opportunity to comment on the city's proposed legislative priorities. Staff will then incorporate council direction and feedback into the next draft. Council will have another work session on December 1st to review the final draft of the program with a final request for council consideration on December 8th. Nothing in tonight's presentation commits the council to a final legislative position. We expect this document to change as council discusses these issues as our regional partners develop their programs, as we hear from

the community, and as additional legislation becomes available. So tonight we're primarily looking for direction in several areas first are there existing 2026 priorities council believes should clearly remain priorities in 2027 second are there issues that have either been resolved or changed enough that the city's position should be reframed rather than simply carried forward and third does the council agree that staff should develop a broader state mandates and local impacts framework for the 2027 program. That framework could include principles related to preserving local authority, adequate state funding for state-established requirements, local fiscal impact analysis, reasonable implementation timelines,

and flexibility for local governments to determine how statewide objectives are achieved. And then finally, are there any additional issues council would like staff to research or bring back during the next work session? We're not looking for any final answers tonight. Our goal is to make sure we're asking the right questions and that we begin developing the 2027 legislative program. And with that, I will ask if there are any questions or input.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Amos.

Anthony AmosThank you. No, this is great. opportunities to speak on this. The only thing that I would flag, and I believe I brought it up last year as well, and the state is starting to get more into it, is also under affordable housing, adding into that missing middle or workforce housing, specifically for that AMI range between 80% to 120. There's no funding available for that, and it's not really focused on. So potentially adding in language for missing middle housing, I think, would be recommended.

Catherine ReadWe'll just go around if it's okay. Councilmember Hall.

Stacy HallI would agree with everything that you said as suggestions for things to pursue. I would also agree with Councilmember Amos. I strongly feel like there are, the state is trying to take away a lot of the local authority and even things as seemingly insignificant as the maximum number of parking spots you in a commercial place. If anything, there should be minimums, not maximums. But I feel like that it's very hard to make a decision from Richmond that applies to the whole Commonwealth. So I think that the other thing that I've, and I'm not saying I want to raise taxes, let me be clear, but I have strongly felt that we should, as localities, be able to consider other sources of revenue to include a local income tax that could be applied instead

in lieu of some portion of the real estate tax so that even if you don't directly pay real estate taxes, maybe you pay something because you live or work here, which is extremely common across the country in other localities. I'm sorry, across the country in all other states. So thank

Catherine Readyou. Council Member Hardy-Chandler.

Stacey Hardy-ChandlerSo I'll start with number three. I support the shift in the framework because I feel like that is more foundational. And I think it covers a number of things underneath looking at the local impact of state mandates. So I support that slight shift, not to the exclusion of more specific topics if they come up and appear relevant. But that framework sounds to me more of an umbrella that impacts multiple things. I would support continuing to support the areas that remain in progress. K-12 funding, affordable housing, as was mentioned, rent. Also looking still at any legislation that impacts first responders and support of first responders police fire. I noted when you were saying about the cost shifting and that kind of thing,

and perhaps other legislation that is introduced to deal with that. I'm curious and would like staff to research any questions that come up around voter access. That's an issue that is floating around, and I would be curious if you can find some information about anything that is emerging in that area, particularly when it impacts certain communities differently. So that's my feedback. Thank you.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Peterson.

Thomas PetersonCan you tell me a little bit more about how the regional dialogue or how it's described actually works? We have September through December regional legislative liaison meeting.

Melanie Zippstaffby voiceSo I meet monthly, sometimes twice a month, depending on what the discussion is about with the other regional legislative liaisons. Arlington, Alexandria, Loudon, Prince William, Manassas. And we just discuss regional items that are out there, bills that are being pushed forward, where everybody sort of stands, how that fits into each other's program. We share program language back and forth between each other. That's pretty much how that works.

Thomas PetersonAnd I don't know if this is a question for you or us, but do we recall when we are getting together with Senator Saleem to have our kind of annual discussion about this? Is that October?

Melanie Zippstaffby voiceI do not have that scheduled yet. Typically when we do those, it would be on the work session night or the public hearing night.

Thomas PetersonSo this is actually a meeting of elected officials in the region that he hosts each year.

Melanie Zippstaffby voiceOh, I have not seen that one come through yet. Okay.

Thomas PetersonIt's an important meeting. I had a chance to talk with him at some length about this. I think it would be great for us, as it would for others, to arrive at that meeting armed with ideas. I think he would love us to be able to do that. One of the areas of interest, and I'm curious to what extent this comes up in your discussions, is around money, around either special projects or special needs or, you know, opportunities here that straddle borders where we could be requesting some financial assistance in combination with one or more other jurisdictions. and I'm just curious, is that something that's included in the kinds of conversations that you're having?

Melanie Zippstaffby voiceI think in the framework of items that maybe COG would pick up for the region or the Northern Virginia Regional Commission would pick up for the region and push forward to the General Assembly, I can't think of one off the top of my head. But it could come up periodically if you have an idea.

Thomas PetersonDr. Joe Sopcichon- I do. I mean, just off the reservation for us, but for others, there was, I think, a facility on the WND trail that actually received some assistance. But I think one thing that did come up here that kind of triggers this is we were successful in applying for and receiving some study funds for road safety for Pickett Road. It turns out that the road safety issues don't end at the Fairfax City line on Pickett Road. They extend on beyond. And in retrospect, if we had joined forces, and he would have been, I think, interested in helping us do that, we might have pooled together an even larger set of funds to be able to address these issues. So I think the opportunity here is to keep those kinds of things on our radar and at

the staff level and the council level be thinking where we know we have an issue here, we know we're pursuing it, but somebody else may have a similar issue and they might be next door. That's the kind of thing where it's possible that it could result in a General Assembly action that I think he would be interested in understanding and knowing about. encourage us to be thinking in those terms as we go forward. Thanks. Council

Catherine ReadMember Bates.

Billy BatesI certainly agree with all of the priorities that are raised here, with the exception, of course, of the ones that have already been addressed by the General Assembly. With regard to taxation, I've been raising really since I first ran in 2022, but again, last year the idea of considering local flexibility for a graduated real estate tax structure based on income and unfortunately there wasn't really support for that last year and my concern with allowing just a straight income tax is the you know certainly I think to some extent that could be done the entire real estate tax rate with an income tax. I've heard concerns from the community that, you know, at that point would we be essentially kind of driving higher

income residents out of the city, you know, back to places where they wouldn't have an income tax. On the other hand, with the real estate tax, the county's rate is already, you know, much higher than ours. So we have a lot of flexibility there. to have a graduated rate where, you know, where we might not even go beyond the county's rate, even at the highest bracket. That said, if, you know, if there was only support for a separate income tax, then at least that's something, and that's something I would agree with looking into and including a request for flexibility to do here. Thank you.

Catherine ReadCouncilmember McQuillan.

Rachel McQuillenYes, I support the anti-rent gouging, really like that. and the K-12 funding is something that I continue to support and appreciate that I see that in there. Local authority as well. And I would support an independent tax. I'm not sure about the real estate discussion yet. Since that's new information, I'd have to think about that. Thank you.

Melanie Zippstaffby voiceThe income tax? Independent income tax? Yes,

Rachel McQuillenI would support that.

Catherine ReadSo I would say based on years past, I like this framework, subject-based framework, but NVTC, NVTA, COG, things emerge as individual bills start to drop in December, and a lot of times these regional organizations have an opinion on specific legislation dropped by an individual senator or House member. And so in years past, we've kind of locked arms around the 3% for the WMATA funding. We kind of locked arms around the 1%. I mean, there's a lot of things that as the bills end up dropping toward the end of the year, it'll also become clear what actual legislation falls under these broader categories of housing and local taxation and things like that. I think on some of these things like the automated speed cameras, I think there will be legislation following up on legislation that was passed this year, maybe expanding that a little bit.

So there will be opportunities, I think, for this dais to figure out exactly. But I think we'll also be guided by the regional associations that we belong to. That's what I have found is sitting in those rooms. kind of decides that we're going to put the power of these regional associations behind a particular position. And I think that's one of the greatest strengths of being in this region and having the delegation that we have in this region is that we are a powerhouse in the Commonwealth of Virginia. We have

Speaker 27density

Catherine Readof voters. We have density of legislators. I mean, we just have so much going for us when it comes to being able to impact legislation, not just for our region, but across the Commonwealth of Virginia. And I'm just looking forward to being there more next year than I have been in the past, because I have missed being in the room where these things have happened. It's interesting to be down there when the committee hearings are happening and people are testifying and to actually hear from the legislators. So that will be exciting. Any other comments on the legislative session as we look forward to hearing from you again? between September and December about this?

Melanie Zippstaffby voiceYeah, as I develop the program and get more information regionally too, I'll share that information with council and may set up one-on-ones to make sure that I'm on the right track because there is a big chunk between now and November.

Catherine ReadYes, there is. I'm sure a lot of things are going to happen that we don't even know are going to happen because that seems to be the nature of change. We don't even know it's coming down the road and then it'll suddenly be here. All right, well, I will adjourn this meeting at 9.07 p.m. on Tuesday. Thank

Speaker 27you. Thank you. Thank you.