Planning Commission Regular Meeting/Work Session

Good evening. Welcome to the regular meeting and work session of the City of Fairfax Planning Commission for Monday, April 13th, 2026. Our first order of business is the Pledge of Allegiance. Please join me as you're able. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Our next order of business is consideration for remote participation by our new Planning Commissioner, Nick Tricarchi, pursuant to the Code of Virginia Section 2.2-3708.3. Motion. Mr. Chair, I move that in accordance with the Planning Commission's adopted policy that is permitted by Code of Virginia Section 2.2-3708.3 to approve the request from Planning Commissioner Nick Tricarchi, properly submitted in writing prior to tonight's meeting, for remote participation subject to the requirements outlined in the Planning Commission adopted policy and applicable in all or portions of the Planning Commission regular meeting of April 13th, 2026.

Second. Second. Second. Second. Moved and seconded to adopt the agenda as presented. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstained. Passes unanimously. Next order of business is presentations by the public on any matter not calling for a public hearing. I see no one here to make a presentation. Give somebody five seconds to come in the door. Seeing none, we will move on to Agenda Item 4. There are three parts to this consideration of our previous meeting minutes. Ms. Lockhart. Mr. Chair. I move that we adopt the meeting minutes for the February 9th, 2026 regular meeting, or sorry, meeting with the Economic Development Authority as presented. Second. All right. Second. Second.

And those minutes were slightly updated from the first issuance of those to reflect the approval or the recommendation for approval that we sent on to City Council. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstained? Abstained. Okay. Passes 5-0 to 1. And lastly, I move that we adopt the meeting minutes from the March 9th, 2026 regular meeting. Second. Move and second to adopt the minutes from our March 9th meeting. Discussion? Discussion? Comments? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Abstained. Passes 5-0 to 1. Thank you. Next order of business is items not requiring a public hearing. This is a motion to amend Chapter 86 related to subdivisions of the Code of the City of Fairfax, Virginia.

We'll receive a staff report and recommendation from Mr. Foreman. Thank you. Okay. So this is a motion. This item is a motion to initiate amendments to the subdivision ordinance. It's not very often that we amend the subdivision ordinance. The last time was about four years ago. And that time was in response to updated floodplain standards. What this initiation pertains to is a relatively minor update. We call it really a housekeeping update. It's in response to state legislation from 2025 that changed the time frame for subdivision plaque review. Now, similar to the zoning ordinance, there are some sections in the subdivision ordinance where state code is either repeated or is summarized. And this is one of those sections.

So these subdivision plaque review standards appear in the section of the subdivision ordinance dealing with final plaque approvals. And an amendment here would really ensure that our ordinance stays consistent with state code with these specific items. So updating the subdivision ordinance, this can be done similarly to updating the zoning ordinance. And one way to do that is for the planning commission to initiate an amendment. And that's the purpose of this procedure today. And we do have a sample motion here in your packets. And with that, I'd be glad to answer any questions if there are any. Any questions for Mr. Foreman? Well, for the benefit of our newest planning commissioner, the planning commission does take action to initiate changes to both the zoning ordinance and this ordinance for the benefit of city council.

Since it involves land use and development in the city. So it falls to us to formally introduce this to council. We will have our own public hearing in a few weeks on this and then pass it on to city council. Okay. Mr. Chair, I move that the city of Fairfax Planning Commission initiate these amendments to Chapter 86 of the Code of the City of Fairfax, Virginia, as part of the regular review and maintenance of the subdivision ordinance, articles and sections contained therein, including but not limited to administration. And I further move that a public hearing be scheduled for consideration of these amendments. Mr. Chair, I move and seconded to initiate these changes. Any further discussion?

All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Passes unanimously. Thank you. Next order of business is items not required items requiring public hearing. We have no public hearing this evening. So we'll recess our regular meeting and go into our work session. We have two items this evening. The first is a discussion on potential zoning text amendments regarding detached accessory dwelling units. We welcome Mr. Foreman back. Well, thank you very much. So tonight we are talking about potential zoning text amendments that would permit detached accessory dwelling units or ADUs in Fairfax City. We've held a few meetings on the topic of ADUs with various amounts of detail. Last year we held work sessions with Planning Commission and with City Council where we discussed accessory dwelling units in general

and also where we focused on the topic of detached accessory dwelling units. At the conclusion of a City Council work session in the fall, Council asked staff to draft potential amendments to modify our existing ADU standards in order to permit detached units in the City. And that's what we're focusing on tonight, focusing specifically on potential amendment details for detached accessory dwelling units. So that we're discussing that draft tonight, you have the full amendment draft in your packets. Now accessory dwelling units didn't just pop up out of last year's work sessions. The comprehensive plan references ADUs as a potential way to, as it says, to support a wide range of housing types.

And it recommends, and it recommends, like it says here, to research expanding ADUs, and this last phrase is important, while ensuring that they do not negatively impact the surrounding neighborhood. And again, that's an action from the comprehensive plan. And when reviewing options at those earlier work sessions, both Planning Commission and City Council recognized the importance of guardrails to reduce these negative impacts to surrounding properties, and particularly regarding height, regarding setbacks, and regarding parking. And like I mentioned, Council asked staff to bring back a draft ordinance with details that would put this all in motion. Now, as you may know, accessory dwelling units are currently allowed in the city under certain circumstances.

And now we won't go through them all in detail tonight, but it's helpful to look at some of the more significant standards. And this one at the top here is the big one. Accessory dwelling units currently need to be attached or within the home itself. So attached rather than detached, rather than standalone units. So there are also size standards. And in addition to that, there's some operational standards for accessory dwelling units in the zoning ordinance. And standards that apply to all properties or to all accessory structures, so things like lot coverage and building coverage. And there's also a parking standard that you see down here, and we'll talk about that in a little bit more detail later tonight.

And before we get into some of the details on things like height or measurements, I think it's helpful just to have some quick visual examples of detached ADUs. And I know we've been over this before, but I think it's helpful just to keep in mind what these kinds of structures can actually look like. So most accessory dwelling units are a few hundred square feet. Now, beyond that, there can really be a great deal of variety. So just looking at these examples here, we see that some of them clearly were built as ADUs. Some were converted or added onto some other kind of structure. But the question here at the top, what's needed to allow detached ADUs, the answer to that is a zoning text amendment.

And that amendment would modify our existing ADU standards. The existing standards are already in the ordinance. And like I said, allow attached ADUs. We would modify that to allow detached ADUs as well. And the main characteristics of an amendment would really be these physical standards, standards for the structures themselves. So things like setbacks, height, square footage, things that you see here. But also some operational standards like parking and some others. Some behind-the-scenes issues like how to account for existing structures. And that was a big one that we talked about at our last work session. But these physical standards are really the key to making this work. To reducing those kinds of negative externalities that the comprehensive plan mentioned

and that were mentioned at the work sessions. So the challenge from a policy perspective is really that this is a balancing act. So trying to juggle flexibility for property owners and juggle that with the neighborhood impact that that flexibility could bring. So with that out of the way, we can go over these physical standards and how the draft ordinance here addresses each one. We'll start with setbacks. Setbacks is probably the most detailed of all of these. So this probably has five or six slides here. And I'll pause for questions after setbacks and then move on to the rest of them. But a setback, so from a zoning standpoint, a setback is the minimum distance that a type of structure is allowed to be from a lot line.

And that dovetails here with what's called required yards in the zoning ordinance. And required yards are part of a lot that are required to be open and unobstructed. Now, of course, there are exceptions. There's lots of exceptions in the zoning ordinance. And there's a whole section of the ordinance called permitted encroachments. And that details what can actually be in these required yards. So some big things are allowed, like accessory structures, sheds, garages, and so on. Lots of little things, so decks, mailboxes, walkways, and on and on. But the important thing is that a housing unit or a dwelling itself cannot encroach into the required yards. So the reason that that is the case, the reason these smaller things can encroach into these required yards,

but a dwelling, a house, cannot, is that the zoning ordinance considers a dwelling to be a more intensive use. So it's more intensive than a shed or a mailbox or a garage and so on. It's occupied regularly. People live there. So that required yard is established as really one of the main elements that defines a neighborhood. So in our single-family zoning districts, the required rear yard is 25 feet, so 25 feet from the rear property line, rear lot line. The required side yard varies a little bit by zoning districts. It's 10, 12, 15 feet. Now, these setbacks are what's called the general provisions, and this is in the zoning ordinance. But there are actually separate provisions for affordable dwelling units.

And you see this here on the right. So this section was added as part of the Affordable Dwelling Unit Ordinance back in 2020. And as you can see here, these affordable dwelling provisions provide for slightly reduced setbacks. And the rationale here is to provide some extra flexibility, but still without overly impacting the surrounding neighborhood. And the reason I'm showing this here is that for this accessory dwelling unit draft, what staff recommends here is using setbacks that correspond to these affordable dwelling unit provisions. And really for the same reason. It's that balancing. It's a way to balance that flexibility to give some preference to accessory dwelling units, but still recognizing the guardrails that are in place to prevent those negative externalities on neighbors' properties.

So like it shows here, those setbacks are 20 feet in the rear. So that's 20 feet as opposed to 25 feet. And about a 20% reduction, so two or three feet from the rear, from the side lot lines. So it helps, I think, to show this visually. So we've got a number of slides that will make this a little bit easier to understand. This shows a sample lot. This is in the RH district. And this shows the same lot with three different examples of side and rear yard setbacks. On the left is the setback for the dwelling itself. So if this house's owners, if the house's owners were to build an addition, or if the house is torn down and a new house is built here, the house itself could not extend into the green shaded area.

Those are the required yards. That's the setback for a dwelling. Now in the middle here, this middle image, this shows the side and rear setbacks for accessory structures. So these are things like garages and other bigger structures like that. Now like it says down here at the bottom, these are less intense uses than a dwelling. There's no one living in a garage. There's no one living in a gazebo. So these structures are permitted to be closer to the lot lines than the dwelling itself. So in this case, there's a minimum of five feet from the rear and from the side lot lines. That's the minimum setback for accessory structures, this one in the middle here. Now on the right, this is the draft recommendation for detached accessory dwelling units for ADUs.

And again, this mirrors the existing standard in the ordinance for affordable dwelling unit setbacks for single family zones. And again, this recognizes that accessory dwelling units have similar levels of intensity as other dwellings. It's a dwelling. Somebody lives there. Somebody occupies it during the night and so on. But it provides more flexibility by permitting these structures to be closer to the lot line than the main house. So trying to balance that, trying to balance a little bit extra flexibility with, again, preserving the neighborhood character. So we can see what that means when it comes to ADU placements. We can see it in these kind of charts. Again, this is the same sample house.

So in this hypothetical scenario, so based on the draft setbacks that we had just talked about, an accessory dwelling unit could go anywhere within this unshaded area. So it could go here or here or here or a bunch of other locations as long as it's within this unshaded area, as long as it's not within that setback zone that's in green here. This little box here, this indicates a 450 square foot ADU. That's not an uncommon size for an accessory dwelling unit. And like it says at the bottom here, the intent here, again, is balance. It's to balance, that balance between property owner flexibility and neighborhood impact. At the fall work session, city council had mentioned that detached accessory dwelling units, that these units can really be thought of as offering an alternative of sorts to building very large houses.

And the advantage along this line of thinking is that that alternative might fit better, might fit more appropriately into neighborhoods than building very large houses. So these draft standards really view ADUs as that kind of alternative. And importantly, this standard here, and we'll show this in a few slides, this avoids maximizing both the house footprint and having detached ADUs on the same lot. And we'll get to a representation of that in just a little bit. Now, setbacks, setbacks are really a significant issue regarding the effect of ADUs on neighboring properties. So we've got a few different examples from different zoning districts, from different lot configurations and so on, really just so the commission can get a better handle on what this means.

So we've got one slide for each zoning district. We can start with RH. So RH is residential high. So the example on the left is in Daniels Run Woods, and this is the house that we looked at in the previous slide. The example on the right shows a house at Westmore. So both are standard size houses and standard size lots for their neighborhoods. And what this shows is how an ADU could fit into these lots with the setbacks that are shown in the draft ordinance. So this is RH, and we can come back to these. RM, residential medium zoning district, tends to be a bit more spacious. The lot on the left, for instance, we can see that there's ample room for an accessory dwelling unit. And again, this is 450 square foot ADU.

But, and this is an important point, really no matter how much setbacks or other permissions are sliced, fitting an accessory structure of any kind on some lots can be a challenge. Country Club Hills is a neighborhood where this is sometimes the case due to unusual lot configurations. And that's a neighborhood that has a lot of unusual lot configurations. So the example on the right here, this shows a house with a very shallow rear yard. And this is something that's common in Country Club Hills and in some other neighborhoods. And in this particular case, I mean, really there may be room to squeeze an accessory structure into the side yard. But really the point here is that there are just some lots where either due to dimensions or due to topography or due to other considerations,

that a detached ADU won't necessarily be the best option. So, you know, we don't want to present this as being something that every lot in the city can achieve. There are certainly some lots that for a whole number of reasons would not be able to. And that would be the case no matter what kind of regulations you come up with. But that's the purpose of showing this here. Now we do have a residential low or RL slide. RL is the lowest density residential district. And as you'd imagine, there's typically plentiful room on these lots. Now the side setbacks in RL are slightly wider than in other districts. But in this context, it really doesn't make too much of a difference. I mean, there's typically ample room here.

So just one more slide on setbacks. A few slides ago I mentioned that these draft standards really view the ADUs or detached ADUs as an alternative to something like a residential addition or to a large footprint new house. And it's really drafted to avoid cases of property owners maximizing, like I said, both the house size and a detached ADU on the same lot. So this is an example of that. These are two houses that are side by side on identical lots. The house on the left is a newer house. And it doesn't completely maximize the buildable area here. But it comes somewhat close. The house on the right has an overall has a smaller footprint. Due to that, it has more open area on the lot. So these draft standards would enable that house on the right to build a detached accessory dwelling unit.

Or for that matter, it could build an addition as well. But for the house on the left, these standards basically say that the square footage that could have been used for a detached dwelling, for a detached accessory dwelling, really has already been used up by the house itself. So this is another case, kind of like with unusual lot configurations, that sometimes the house's footprint uses up so much room that it wouldn't necessarily be beneficial to create a large house like this and a detached ADU as well. So that is setbacks. It might be a good time to stop and see if the Commission has any questions on this before we move on to the other items. Since, like I said, this is probably the most detailed single item that we have.

So I'd be happy to answer any setback questions. Commissioners, any questions, comments? Mr. Cunningham. I'll let Dr. Wright. Thank you, sir. I find the example you have in front of us momentarily exceptionally instructive. When we look at ADUs and setbacks, there are two things that come to mind immediately with the picture you have in front of you. One, the house on the right does not appear to have a curb cut. So from my sense there, there's no requirement for that house to have anything but on-street parking, which means that if you're going to have an ADU and have no parking requirement, there's also no requirement to park any of those vehicles on the lot. So with ADUs in this kind of a configuration, the burden for parking can be removed from the property owner totally.

Is that an acceptable means of approaching this? Well, it's interesting that you brought this up. I searched long and hard for two lots that represented this footprint that were right next to each other and were exactly the same. The downside is that one of them doesn't have a driveway, and of course, you all notice that. So keep that in mind for our parking discussion because what the draft parking standard says is that a house with a detached accessory dwelling unit would need to meet the minimum requirements for parking, which would be two off-street parking spaces. So if this was real life, we would have that detached ADU, and we would also have a driveway that could fit two cars. So we're going to require also, in addition to that, that we bring it up to standard and meet the parking.

Bring it up to standard, and we'll get into the parking discussion a little bit later on, but not adding an additional standard to houses with ADUs, but saying that with an ADU that it would need to be brought up to minimum standards. Okay. My next question, I guess, comes in looking at some of the other standards that we have put in place in the last couple of years. You're talking about an ADU being 450 square feet. In this case, if we were going to have to add a parking standard, and you're going to put in a driveway along with an ADU, I presume that the Chesapeake Bay regulation that says if you're going to disturb more than 2,500 square feet of property, you have to now go out and get professional engineering requirements

to certify that what you're doing will not impact the Chesapeake Bay. So a house like this that looks like it's a fairly level lot, probably far removed from the Chesapeake Bay or anything else, would drive additional requirements then in the construction of this kind of lot so that you have to meet the extra engineering standards and all the things along that line? We are not proposing to change either those standards or to change lot and building coverage standards as well. So this proposal has all of that remaining as is. And so the same requirements would come into play for a detached ADU in this case as would come into play for a residential addition or new construction. So it would not change one way or another under these draft standards.

Okay. Your house on the left is a good example. It is a large house with a large footprint. Part of our requirement is to not exceed 50% of the main house's footprint in building your ADU. If I move that to one of your earlier slides and say that I have a large lot on a fairly large lot, a large house on a fairly large lot, is there any reason that I could not build two 450 square foot ADUs in my backyard if they met all the setback requirements and did not exceed the size of the main house? Or perhaps three depending on the size of a very large house. If I were putting 1,200 square feet of ADU, I only need what, 2,400, 2,500 square feet of house for footprint in order to do something like that.

Is there any limitation when we're looking at setback and the rest of this that if I can't fit it in within the boundaries, I couldn't build multiple units? There's one ADU permitted per lot. Okay. And... And we have not gotten to the lot and building coverage. Part of this discussion yet, so... Okay. So... For setback, my other question, when you're looking at the side of many of the houses and many of the lots, does running a driveway beside a house to the property line have any setback issues? That would not change. So that as long as I've got eight feet, nine feet for clearance of a vehicle, I can run it right to the property line in order to move past... Correct. ...and houses to get to backyard or other structure.

Correct. And I guess my other for setback is that corner lots, I presume, are considered to have two front yards, which is why there are some on a later map you're going to show us where you have significant size lots, but apparently they would not qualify for having an accessory dwelling unit constructed on the... Correct. So corner lots, as it is now, like you said, technically have two front lots or really a side street lot, you know, as per the zoning ordinance. These draft standards say that an accessory dwelling unit cannot be built between the house and the street. So even if the setback exceeds minimum requirements, that there would not be a detached accessory dwelling unit permitted in that area between the house and the street,

whether it's the front of the house or the side of the house. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. so they continue all the way to the front face of the house, and I'd prefer, for instance, if we bisected the front and back of the house and set that as the most possible forward encroaching limit of an ADU to allow a little bit of differentiation of the front of the structure and then to prevent the sort of problems visually that existed with the Greenbrier problem. So what you're recommending, and I'm going to see if this works here, this example on the right, so this has an ADU built in a side yard, and we're not really sure if this specific ADU could fit in this specific side yard,

but let's pretend that it does. So what you're saying is that we shouldn't have, there we go, we should not have ADUs permitted in side yards like that, that they should be permitted only in rear yards. Is that? No, it's not quite all the way to the rear yard. Okay. On the right side, I would, there's a tree canopy. I wouldn't want the ADU to have its forward edge even with the front of the house, which does have kind of multiple different front faces. Right. But to have it present, you know, at the curb as, you know, equivalent in terms of architectural weight to the front of the existing structure for me is problematic. So you mean the height? It's not, it's the mass, but it's more, I would prefer in the case of the right one,

according to the rules, the front face of that ADU could come all the way up to the front of the existing house. Right. That we could have an ADU, and that looks absolutely terrible. Well. You know what I'm trying to do. I do. I do. And so I would. Right there. Yeah, I would prefer to see it. This placement that you've shown here is acceptable to my aesthetic sense, and the left side's fine. It's just when the ADUs start to present from the curb like the original structure itself in terms of how they're seen and how they present in front. Right. To me, that just seems problematic. But at the same time, I admit I'm, my only argument here is aesthetics and bad examples that I've seen. Right. It's not, you know, a rule-based kind of logical conclusion.

It's just a hunch that that doesn't seem right. But I know exactly what you're saying, and this is something that we had debated on staff. And where we run into challenges with that is if we say that a detached accessory dwelling unit has to be built towards the rear half of the side yard, let's say. But the same house could build an actual attached addition on that front portion. So that, it runs into kind of a roadblock. And I absolutely understand what you're saying. And if it's the commission's desire to have these more towards the back, we can come up with wording to do just that. But just wanted to make that known that that's kind of a stumbling block with these. Yeah. Yeah, and it's undoubtedly the conversation's been had about this issue and the things.

If you can build an extension to a home, I think having an ADU instead of the extension itself is different. I think likely the age differences and the aesthetic difference between the ADU and its materials and presentation will be different than the home. Right. My hunch would be to take the rear-facing wall of the home, the front-facing wall of the home, bisect those, and then the ADU can't encroach further than that halfway point. Right. That would be my – that's just an idea again, not something that I would carry very far in a discussion with someone with better ideas. Yeah. And certainly if it's the commission's desire to go along with that, we can figure out a way. I mean, we'll transmit that to city council, but we can figure out a way to get that into the ordinance.

Others? Mr. McCarthy. You mentioned homeowner flexibility, this being a tool, several times. I'm just – as we think about this conceptually for myself, is that like purely the intent of this? Or is there some hope to have like a meaningful increase in housing supply? And I'm not saying one's right or wrong. I'm just trying to understand the intent. Trying to make it easier for homeowners to create a meaningful increase in housing supply, I'd say would be the balance. Okay. Okay. So with that, and I don't know if we've gotten this far. I'd looked earlier, but it's on setbacks. You have that map that says 85 percent of the lots theoretically could support it. But we've already talked so much about how important the setbacks are, and it's a major piece in it.

Have we done any homework to then like further look into how many of that 85 percent are actually feasible? We have. So the map, I don't know if all of the commissioners have looked forward to the map that's at the end of this presentation. I'll jump ahead to that since it relates to setbacks. Yep. This map, this is something the planning commission had asked for at the last meeting. So this analyzes how many properties would be eligible for a detached ADU under these standards. Analyze, this was obviously done in GIS, analyzes it on footprint, building coverage, and lot coverage. Now, that comes up like Mr. McCarthy said, 85 percent of the homes here would be eligible based on those. It does not include setbacks.

Now, the reason for that is in doing the GIS analysis, we can build a buffer around the lot lines. But we can't, our GIS doesn't have the ability to distinguish what's a rear lot line versus a side lot line. So the homework that we did to get to the next level was we took a sample of houses from each of the zoning districts and from all around the city. And we manually checked it out based on the recommended setbacks of 20 feet on the rear lot line. What we found is that over 90% of the houses that we checked, and we checked over 100 of them, were still able to build a detached ADU based on those setbacks. Now, like you said, that was homework. I know that's different than doing a GIS analysis on 5,000 housing units.

But it does show that the vast majority would still be able to construct an ADU theoretically. I mean, really the big, that bottom issue there of topography and preferred placement is important, because that's something that we really can't factor into. Topography, floodplain, you know, preferred placement being if a homeowner really wants to build something on one side of the property versus the other, and can't because of, you know, some other consideration if there's a tree in the way that they don't want to get rid of. I mean, that kind of thing. But just on the setbacks, the setbacks I'd say would be above 90% of this already 85%. Okay. And then lastly, like with that, have we looked at what other municipalities have done and what, like, the take rate has been on that?

And I guess what I'm ultimately getting at is, you know, balancing the neighborhood compatibility. Certainly don't want to be putting abominations into people's neighborhood, but with, like, actual deliverability. Because it'd be, to me, a shame if you went through all this and then it really didn't, nothing came of it. Right. We have looked at other jurisdictions. So you all have an Excel sheet of, you know, I think five other jurisdictions in the Washington area that compares them. The two jurisdictions around here that have had detached ADUs for the longest are Arlington and Alexandria, and I have looked at all of the permitted detached units from those jurisdictions. Really, the thing that jumped out at me with those the most is the proportion of new housing units that are built with accessory dwelling units.

And that gets to that issue of whether we want to maximize, you know, like I said, maximize that new house footprint plus an ADU or not. So that is a real issue. And that's one of the reasons for the 20-foot rear setback. Got it. Others? Mr. Tukarchi, anything from you? Yes, I do have a few questions. So you talked about balance being the key to all of this. Yeah. With the setbacks, they have more room to place an ADU. What's the balance at the other end of the spectrum? Like, what have we heard from neighbors' concerns that you've taken into consideration with these setbacks? We had a community meeting last year in 2025, I believe. Unfortunately, not very well attended. We've had some positive and some negative feedback.

We've had this on the Engage page for a while. So there's definitely been a mix of feedback. Some people are eager to get these built on their own properties. We've had other people saying that they absolutely do not like it at all. So it is something that really begs for that kind of balance. And, again, that kind of balance is what we're trying to achieve to satisfy both of these, to not make it onerous to those neighborhood properties, but still to make it available to homeowners. And really not that much of, you know, a little bit more generous than a residential addition, but really not blowing the books wide open for it. Okay. Okay. And on that point, you know, I think we've talked a couple times about how these are viewed as an alternative to building a bigger house.

But it seems like we're imposing different setback requirements depending on which path someone chooses, meaning I forget which slide it was, but the person with the big house, you know, they're precluded from maybe precluded from building into that 20-foot setback if they were to go that route, right? They'd be subject to the 25 feet, if I remember correctly. However, if they were to build a smaller primary and, you know, a bigger ADU, they could, you know, use more of that setback and get closer to their neighbor's line. I guess how did we think about that, that we have these two sets of alternatives, but we're going to impose different setbacks for each one? Yeah. And that's really the question for a planning commission right now is, you know,

whether that variable setback, you know, would really be in the best interest. You know, the reason we're recommending that is there seems to be interest among planning commission and among city council for going forward with these detached accessory dwelling units and for really promoting them as an alternative. But really recognizing that those guardrails are important. So, you know, we are giving a little bit more flexibility to this, but not extremely so. Another factor is that the height regulations do stipulate that accessory dwelling units cannot be, in these draft regulations, cannot be as tall as houses typically are. So the, you know, it might be a little bit closer to the lot line,

but there would not be the possibility of a full two-story or a three-story detached accessory dwelling unit, where there would be the possibility of a two- or three-story addition to a house. So that's another justification for having a slightly different setback for accessory dwelling units, as opposed to the main house. I don't want to step over my fellow commissioner, but I have sort of a follow-up question. Most of my questions are going to fall under the enforcement category, but this is relevant, I think, in terms of that affordable dwelling unit provision that you mentioned, which is the source for these variable setbacks. Does that only apply to new construction designated affordable,

or would it apply to organically incurring affordable, current affordable housing? No, that would be new construction. Okay. Yeah. So somebody putting an addition on a home in green acres would still be subject to the 25 versus the 20? Correct. Okay. But not an ADU? Yes. Potentially. Correct. And I should note that we're pegging this in the draft standard to those affordable dwelling unit regulations, but it's in different location. So it winds up being the same, but it's not in the same section of the code as that. So they can... Because I can't think of any single-family designated affordable housing that's been built since that. No, we haven't had any. Yeah. There's no real-life example of this yet.

Anything else, Mr. Tricardi? Yeah, just one last question. And the height point that you made was very helpful, so I appreciate that. What have we heard is the primary use case for these ADUs? Are people truly looking at it as an alternative to building a larger primary, or is this being used for rentals? I wish I had an answer to that question. I don't know what the restrictions are on rentals, like long-term, short-term, but... Not short-term rentals, because short-term rentals are not permitted in the city. But as far as who the... And short-term rentals being like Airbnbs, for instance. But as far as who it is, who is actually living in detached accessory dwelling units, whether the people who are interested in it in the city or elsewhere in the region, we just don't know.

You know, you hear a lot about having family members live in their... You know, whether an elderly relative or an elderly person's adult children or whatever. You hear a lot about renting out these units as additional income for the homeowner. We have no way of knowing where the chips fall as far as what ends up being the most popular tenancy. But we're not restricting who can rent or occupy one of these. In fact, we made some changes not long ago to open up who can occupy an accessory dwelling unit. Yeah, the only restriction that's still in place is that the property has to be owner-occupied. So either the house or the accessory unit would be occupied by the homeowner. Anything else? Mr. Rice sort of hit on one of the things I was concerned about, about how far forward on the lot one of these should sit.

So you've captured that as a concern. I certainly get that they can't be permitted. They won't be permitted in the front yard, but how far from the front plane of the house. We probably want to come up with some standard or number for that. It kind of falls in the setback area. Maybe it's related to the side yard setback number or something. I don't know. But you've got the concern that we've expressed. And I echo that concern. Okay. Anything else on setbacks? We can move on then to other dimensional standards. Okay. Moving on to height. So height is really the other very significant physical standard. So there was a good amount of discussion on height standards at the work sessions, both the Planning Commission and City Council.

That Greenbrier example, of course, comes up. The main issue really being the implication for neighboring properties and specifically regarding privacy, regarding looming. There seemed to be a sensitivity at the work sessions, both from the Commission and from City Council, regarding tall structures. Again, some examples from the city, some examples from nearby. Without any specific standards in the ADU ordinance, detached accessory dwelling units could be as tall as the zoning district allows. So, you know, without anything saying otherwise, it could be three stories or 35 feet, which is at maximum height could be. That seems excessive. You know, really, one or two stories. You see the image here.

You know, you can see how that seems to be a much different looking structure, being one story or two stories. So, these draft standards set a limit of 20 feet or, like it says down here, the height of the main house. So if the main house is measured at less than 20 feet, then the height of a detached accessory dwelling unit would be capped at whatever that height of the main house is. If the main house is over 20 feet, then the accessory dwelling unit could be 20 feet. 20 feet is really about one and a half stories. So the intent here, again, it's more balanced. I know I feel like I'm overusing that term. But to ensure that the detached ADUs don't overwhelm the lot that they're on, don't overwhelm neighboring properties, not negatively impacting the neighbor's properties.

But that one and a half stories still provides flexibility regarding the placement, regarding layout, regarding design of the structure. So, again, that recommendation on height is, like it says up here, the detached accessory dwelling unit shall not exceed 20 feet or the height of the principal dwelling, whichever is less. I guess I only have one slide on height or two slides on height. But since that's really tied to setbacks, we can pause and see if we have any. The 20 feet is to the midpoint of the, how we define measuring height. That's correct. I had that baffling slide in the last work session on how height is measured. It's not to the peak of the roof. It's not to the peak of the house.

It's from the midpoint of the sloped roof, from the midpoint of the ground, and the main house would be measured the same way. Anything from planning commissioners? Mr. Cunningham. Mr. Cunningham. A significantly sloped lot, and my house sits at the midpoint with the front yard being lower than the main part of the house, but the backyard is significantly higher. And you say it can't be more than 20 feet or the height of the house. Well, if the height of the house is 25, you know, it's 20 feet, and I'm starting 15 feet above that 20 feet for the height of my house, do I get 20 feet, or do I get 5 feet? When I look at that, is this trying to keep visibility down and not have the one structure be higher than the other?

If the slope goes in the opposite direction and my house is 20 feet or essentially two stories, but in effect, the level in the backyard is much lower, so that if I went to 25 feet or more, I still would be not up to the midpoint of the house? Does it make a sense to push the size of that down as opposed to letting it come up? How does slope impact? So the two structures, so the main house and the detached accessory dwelling unit would be measured independently. So we would get one measurement for the main house, and if the main house is on a slope, it would be measured that way, and the detached ADU would be measured independently as well. So slope or topography would be taken into consideration with each of them, not necessarily in relation to each other.

So if you have a vastly sloped lot, let's say where the rear yard is much higher than the front yard, you still could have a detached accessory dwelling unit that appears, you know, as a bird flies would appear above the peak of the other house just because of topography. This just tries to minimize that impact and any other kind of impact as much as possible. Okay, and by the same token, then, if the backyard is in a hole, so to speak, you're not going to give extra height, even though it impacts nothing. Correct. And again, you know, you can view it as if it was an addition to the main house itself, you would have the same topographical kind of considerations, but the addition could actually be three stories or 35 feet.

So, again, this is trying to minimize the visual impact of a detached ADU. So those separate reference points were each of the structures? Yes. Basically. Yes. Mr. McCarthy. So thinking about minimizing impact, right, is there risk that a height limit of 20 feet could, like, ultimately push people towards less attractive designs that don't fit, flat roofs, compressed small windows, trying to stack a unit on top of a garage? Have we thought about that at all? I feel like that's something that would probably end up with border zoning appeals all the time, right? You know what I mean, just trying to stack it in there type thing? Right. Undoubtedly, there might be some kind of instance somewhere, you know,

where you get, let's say, a flat roof trying to maximize height. But with 20 feet, I'd be surprised if it's something that you would see very much because that leaves enough flexibility for a one-story unit in virtually any kind of topography. And most topographies would leave enough room for a one-and-a-half-story unit. So giving pretty good flexibility with that 20 feet. If it was less than 20 feet, you know, if it was 12 or 14 feet, the story of, you know, a one-story unit, I think I'd be a lot more concerned about that. I think the example of a unit, a second story, as it were, on a garage is a good one to use as a thought exercise, though. Right. So the second story on a garage, a full second story on a garage, would not be under that 20 feet limit.

So like you said, something like that would have to go to the board of, you know, would not be allowed if it was something that was an existing garage with an occupiable space overhead. That would go to the BZA if somebody wanted to convert that into a living quarter. Mr. Rice? I may have missed it, and I apologize if I did. Can a structure in this context also include something subterranean? It could. That's where the square footage limitation would come into play. So it's just like an attached accessory dwelling unit could be in a basement. So a detached ADU could also include a basement, but it couldn't be so big that it would get within 35% of the house's gross floor area. That could still be pretty big.

Yeah, it could still be big. Yeah. Right. 20 foot high plus a basement. Yes. But I somehow think from the perspective of the visual presentation and the, you know, wanting to minimize impact, that maybe the rules for what's underground should be a little bit more lenient. So were you thinking of no subterranean living spaces for detached accessory dwelling units? I think as far as I'm concerned, it would be okay to have living space subterranean. And obviously the boundaries in terms of the, you know, 8 foot setback and 20 foot setback would still apply. But anyway, I guess with a size limit generally, specifying an above ground size limit, I think would be helpful. And then a below ground size limit that might be more permissive.

But anyway, I'm not hearing any quick agreement. So again, maybe not important. There are a few other things that kind of go into the measurements of trying to keep accessory dwelling units accessory to the main house, which means much smaller than the main house. So there's the footprint regulation. There's the square footage standard, you know, where the square footage can't exceed 35% of the house's square footage. And there's a maximum of two bedrooms. So all of those things combined, try to keep that as accessory as possible. And subterranean space would have to meet whatever required ingress, egress requirements as well for safety. So not going to have a, not going to be permitted to have a, somebody living in a totally underground cave.

Anyway, so as my students may wish to, they'll be happy with that. But Mr. Cunningham. On that thread of construction that I know of, and this is not an ADU, but a senior citizen planning for grandparents has constructed a bedroom that is capable of sleeping all 10 of his grandchildren when they visit. Is that one bedroom or is that, in other words, it's a small dormitory? How does that fit with what Mr. Rice was just talking about? When we, when we limit them to two bedrooms, we've limited the number until they build two dorm rooms and can sleep 20 people there. Which one? Then we cross other lines. Yes. And is this enforceable is one of the major issues if you're going to do something and it's not enforceable.

That's my whole litany of questions for the end. Not, not everything is enforceable. I mean, there would always be the case of some, somebody planning a, you know, a big bedroom and then later splitting it up themselves without getting building permits and whatnot. And that, that is certainly a possibility. You know, our, our staff does look at things that seem unusual like that, but, you know, that I, I think there's always the chance of some oddball scenario happening just, just like that. Mr. Tricarchi, anything from you on this subject? Yeah, maybe just two quick questions. One, I'll show my naivete. But is a, is a, is a 20 foot structure tall enough to put a, like a window on the second story?

Yes. And if so, are we going to talk about guardrails on where those windows can be, you know, to protect privacy for neighbors? Right. So, so, so 20 feet would, would really be, and I'll, I'm going to forward on, uh, this is the baffling slide that I had mentioned that, that we had, uh, talked about at the last session. And then, uh, so that, that 20 feet is, is measured to, uh, like you see here on this image to the right. Uh, it, it, it's measured from, uh, in between the eaves to, to the ridge, the midpoint between the eaves and the ridge of a sloped roof. And then it, it, it's measured at the midpoint of the ground on sloping ground. So, this, this shows a 12 foot height. Uh, 12, 12 feet essentially is one story, uh, when, when it comes to this kind of measuring.

20 feet, it is really one and a half stories. So, 20 feet would be enough to have windows on the second floor, but not full, but not a full second story. So, you wouldn't have windows on all four sides for, for instance, like you would on a two-story colonial house. Okay. Does, does, does that, does that make sense? It winds up being very complicated, but. Yeah, I, I, I'm not an architect, clearly, but we're gonna, are there gonna be restrictions on where those windows can be placed on these ADUs? Like, if you can peer into your neighbor's backyard or the back of their house, would we restrict a window on that side of the ADU? Uh, right, right now there is not in these draft standards. Now, that is, is something, if you look at a lot of accessory dwelling unit ordinances,

that is something, uh, that I've seen in ordinances that you, uh, might not be able to have a window facing a property or facing a property if it's a certain distance away from the property line and, and whatnot. What, what we feel with this is the, the recommended setbacks are far enough away, uh, that, that we wouldn't really get into, uh, fenestration regulation, when, you know, regulating windows. If it was much closer, you know, if it was five feet or if it was two feet, I, I think that would be a much, much more of a concern, uh, with, with eight feet on the side and 20 feet on the back, uh, of, you know, might, might not be a concern. But if the planning commission thinks that it is, uh, we, you know, we can certainly wind up forwarding that recommendation along.

I, I think of where I live in 11 Oaks, new subdivision, very small lot lines. There are windows on all sides of the house, some looking toward neighbor's windows. We have window coverings and they have window coverings. So even though we, we know where their bathroom is, uh, we're not peering into it and we have our own window covering. So we're not peering into our, our, uh, our bedroom. So we have structures like this today with small lot lines, relative close proximity, um, with windows. Um, uh, you got a couple of questions, Mr. Tkachy. Um, yeah, my other one was just on the 20 foot. Did we, you said you looked at other jurisdictions who have done this. Did they also impose that same height limit or what'd you find there?

Uh, there, there are some other, uh, jurisdictions that have a 20 foot height, height limit. I'm, uh, looking at this, um, Alexandria has, uh, the, the same as that, that we, we are recommending 20 feet or the height of the main house. Uh, Falls Church. Now Falls Church just passed their detached ADU ordinance last year, uh, has 20 feet or one and a half stories. Uh, Montgomery County, Maryland has 20 feet, uh, in their typical single family zones. It, it tends to vary behind zoning, between zoning ordinances, zoning districts. I'm sorry. Uh, Herndon has less, has 15 feet as a maximum. Arlington County has more, has 25 or one and a half stories, whichever is, is less. So, uh, uh, 20, 20 feet is kind of with, within the range of others.

Got it. Thank you. Yeah. I was thinking about the question on windows. Uh, how do dormers come into play? As, as, as far as measuring the height? Yeah. Uh, a dormer wouldn't affect the height. So it's another way to get, it would still be another way to get some height in the room and some more window. Right. But it doesn't factor into the, further limit the height or something. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Anything else on height? Okay. Next dimensional standard is. Okay. We're, we're moving on through the dimensional standards. So, uh, there are some other, uh, physical standards and these are currently in place. And I, I think I'd mentioned this before. The draft, uh, here recommends keeping these standards.

So one of them is the standard for square footage. Uh, so when it comes to, uh, the current standards for all accessory structures, uh, we do have a limitation on footprint. So an accessory structure, so like a garage, uh, right, right now must be under 50% of the main house footprints. So the top image here, uh, kind of illustrates that in a simple way. Uh, so that is footprint. And, and we're recommending that that stay the same as it is now. This is an existing standard for accessory structures. Uh, now size standards are, are common in ADU ordinances. Because again, this is what helps, uh, prevent accessory structures from overwhelming the lot or overwhelming the main house. Uh, so we do have standards regarding the size of ADUs right now.

And, and keep in mind that we do permit attached accessory dwelling units. So that's what these standards refer to. So that's the 35% that I had mentioned a little bit earlier that an ADU must stay under 35% of the house's square footage. And again, that's to maintain that accessory nature of accessory dwellings. Uh, same thing can be applied to detached accessory dwelling units. Uh, so the, the example on, on the right. And I, I do realize that in this example that the ADU seems a little bit taller than the, the house. But again, this is, is like that early image without a driveway. We'll just kind of look, look past that. But this is a large lot. So plenty of room from a stand setback standpoint, uh, a house with a large footprint.

So that floor areas area standard can ensure that an accessory dwelling unit in this kind of scenario, again, keeps to being accessory in size. So like it says at the bottom here, these standards really are intended to work together, uh, can account for different size, lots, different size houses, multiple stories. In this case, one and a half story ADUs and, and so on. So I assume by gross floor area, that would include multiple stories, right? Uh, gross floor area. So thinking of the green buyer debacle, right? Yes. The three story, four story. Yes. That's right. Yeah. Uh, so the, the zoning ordinance also has standards on lot and building coverage. And we had talked about these kind of briefly.

So this is both for accessory structures and for lots in general. So, uh, like it says here for accessory structures, uh, the total lot coverage for those who are in general. And this is a current standard, uh, must be under 30% of the combined area of the required rear and side yard. So this really begs a, uh, visual representation. So, uh, what it means in real life, uh, if you see the image here, you see the required side and rear yards and those are in green. Uh, this is the, uh, area where the house can, can be or cannot be. So let's say you have an ADU in the yard. Uh, let's also say that you have a shed in the yard. But the combined coverage, the combined footprint of these structures can't exceed 30% of the combined area of that green overlay.

Uh, so that, that is, um, that, that's what that means in a visual representation. The reason for this is to help maintain again that neighborhood character of having backyards that are largely open and unobstructed like it says in the zoning ordinance. Uh, there are also, uh, general building coverage and lot coverage standards. You see these down here on the chart in the bottom. Uh, so these apply to all properties, not just with accessory dwelling units, not just with accessory structures. Uh, so as you can tell, these again are all interrelated. Each addresses a specific issue. Uh, this draft ordinance proposes keeping all of these standards intact. So we can move on to, uh, parking. So parking, I mean, this tends to be a visible issue.

Can I ask you one question? Yeah, certainly. Go, go. Sorry. Yeah. I'm just thinking about like the smaller houses, right? And like, you know, the equity of it. And I, I understand, you know, you could create maybe some odd layouts in people's yards. But by tying the ADU sizing to like the primary dwelling, are we like unintentionally limiting the tool for like, basically making it for larger homes to be more productive? Whereas like, I'm thinking over like Fairchester Woods, right? You have a 1950s, 800 and something square foot house. You want your grandkids or whoever to live there. They're going to be, it's going to be punitive to them because of the size of their house. I don't know. Should there be, I don't know.

It's a tough question, but I'm just thinking about like, right now, I just as punitive to people that might actually really need the ADU. So, so really the smallest footprint houses that we have in the city are about 900 square feet. So, the original houses in Fairview, for instance, original houses in Westmore, those houses that have not had additions. So this house in the upper, the middle image here is roughly that size. Half of 900 square feet would be 450 square feet. And that's really the size of a typical accessory dwelling unit. So, a house of, of that size of under a thousand square feet wouldn't be able to have, let's say, a 600 square foot accessory dwelling unit. But, but still would be able to have, you know, a more common, smaller accessory dwelling unit, which is not unheard of as far as ADU sizes.

But it could potentially have a 600 square foot addition, right, on the same lot. So there's, if you're considering construction. Yeah, it seems punitive if you have a small house. For it, for a truly detached unit, but not necessarily for the attached. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay. If you're telling me there's almost nothing under 900 that quells it more, but if someone has 800 or 750 or, okay. I'm, I'm not aware. There, there may be one or two houses in the city that are 700 square feet. I'm, I'm not, not sure that any, any of them still exist, but. Okay. I'll get, I'll get you that information, but. If they do, they're likely sitting on significantly large lots though. Right. Right. Okay. Okay.

Yeah. What's the size of the house? Anything from you, Mr. Karchi? Nope. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Parking. Okay. Parking. So it, it, parking tends to be a visible issue in communities with accessory dwelling units. Neighbors tend to be concerned about excess parking loads from ADUs. And if you recall from our work session, our zoning ordinance does have a current standard for accessory dwelling unit parking. And you see it here. It says that an ADU. The foreign ADU, no more than two vehicles used by those residents are allowed. Uh, the way this is written. I mean, this is challenging to enforce and, and, and that's being generous. I mean, this is unenforceable really. This is just not the way to write a parking standard.

Uh, in, in our work sessions, the, uh, planning commission and city council were interested in exploring a different approach to ADU parking. It's really, you know, it's one of these issues like threading a needle shouldn't be like our current standards, but also shouldn't be too restrictive. So the, uh, the standard proposed in this draft takes a different approach to what we have now. Uh, so like it says here, and, and, and we touched on this a little bit earlier. Uh, a, a lot with an accessory dwelling unit must meet at a minimum the parking ratio requirements that are in section 4.2. And that's the parking section. Uh, that means for houses, for detached houses, for single family houses, the minimum requirement is two off street parking spaces.

So, you know, what, what this says is that a lot with an ADU must have at least two off street parking spaces. The reason for this is, uh, not to trigger a parking shortage, uh, you know, with a new accessory dwelling unit in most cases, but still to guard against parking shortfalls where they could be problematic. So you can think of that image we showed earlier where we have a house that does not have any off street parking. And if, if that kind of house were to have an accessory dwelling unit, then that house would have to be brought up to, to standards. So, uh, not, and, and I, I, I should mention that this is not, uh, requiring dedicated ADU spaces. This is just, uh, parking spaces in general.

So, one more detailed issue here. And, uh, we had talked about this at our last work session about how to potentially deal with the conversion of existing structures to accessory dwelling units, and particularly existing structures that do not meet whatever standards are in place for ADUs themselves. So that means that they would be considered non-conforming. Uh, so for instance, you know, garages that were built very close to lot lines, uh, structures that are too tall and, and so on. And you see some examples here. These examples are not from the city, but you know, we can imagine they are. There's numerous structures like this that fit this description in Fairfax really anywhere. I mean, this is not something unusual.

And, and, and really in, in, in fact, there's so many different variations on what could be considered a non-conforming structure. Uh, that this kind of issue really isn't ideally met through rigid standards of, of saying that this, this, and this can be built, while this, this, and this can't. So under these draft amendments, uh, what would happen if a property owner were to wish to convert an existing non-conforming structure to an ADU is that that would go through the board of zoning appeals process. Uh, the BZA is really set up just to handle this kind of situation. So special exceptions that could be handled on a case by case basis. And it, it's really the case by case adjudication of this that we would really need because there are so many variables.

Uh, and, and this is really the default set up with our zoning ordinance, uh, you know, for special exceptions to go to the board of zoning appeals. And staff feels that it's really the most equitable avenue for judging non-conforming structures with, with this issue. Again, just that great amount of variety, different things that could be considered non-conforming. Yeah. So, yes, we can go, go back to any smaller here. Any questions on parking or the existing structures? Mr. Tkachji, anything from you? I guess what constitutes an off street parking space is just room on a driveway to park a car. Right. Room on the driveway of a certain, uh, size of a certain square footage. I don't have that offhand, but car, car space.

So it does not have to have its own dedicated access to the street. Uh, some, some ADU ordinances do have that to say that, uh, you know, there has to be at least two spaces that have direct access to a street. In our ordinance, it doesn't, doesn't say that. So it's just space for two cars. Is there anything in the code around maximum cars? Like, could you get into a situation where you got six cars side by side, back to back in a driveway? And like, how would we talk about that from a, No, there, there's, there's no maximum. What that would do aesthetically? There, there's no maximum for driveway size. There is a maximum for, uh, impervious area. Uh, so some, somebody couldn't pave their entire yard for, for instance.

Uh, but, but there is, is no maximum driveway size. For those neighborhoods that have, um, city permitted parking on the streets, basically to prevent George Mason parking. Is there a limit to how many spaces or permits can be assigned to any one home? I don't know. Okay. I'll look into that for you. I know the treasurer's office has dealt with that issue repeatedly. And the person has to show evidence of occupancy, um, in order to get a permit. And it is a difficult issue. But yeah, treasurer would be able to sort that out very quickly for you. Okay. Uh, one question for you on existing structures and, uh, BZA process. Yes. Is there a public notice, public hearing aspect to any of these kinds of things?

So, neighbors who may be affected by somebody wanting to build up on their garage that may not be conforming would have to be notified? Yeah. Yes, there is. I'm, I'm not sure how broad the, the public notice is. Uh, but. We do have Mr. Hardin in the room too. He may address that. But he's not taking exception to that. So. Uh, but there, there is a, a public notification. Okay. Mr. Connigan. Thank you. With regard to parking and it also ties into your next slide. Comes, I guess, or the, the slide after this, the map. Comes the practicality of, of parking in various of our neighborhoods. Uh, I can't think of any standard over the time I've been on the planning commission that hasn't been input, put in place.

Uh, and had a number of grandfathered instances. Conditions that were put in place and seem perfectly reasonable at the time. That we now feel have outlived their usefulness, but can't be changed because this is the way it was when they were put in place. Uh, one of these is the size of streets when we start talking about parking. And when I look at all the green we have on the map, the one example I'm going to use is the east side of university drive on Stratford Avenue. I believe it's nonstandard street. It's 26 feet wide instead of the standard width. Uh, in theory, since I have lived here, parking should only have been allowed on one side of the street that has never been enforced. And so you now have a street that is fairly long, has a number of houses that is in effect a, a one way Bob and weave street for a car at a time.

Uh, even though traffic goes in both directions to, to move out of the way. So the traffic can actually pass because it has been street parked for as long as I can remember. And that's since moving here. Uh, when we look at most of the houses on that street, uh, most of them were built in the fifties and sixties. Uh, most of them have a small ribbon. Uh, there's essentially one card wide and they can park two cars nose to tail on their property. Uh, most of them have slightly bigger yards in the backyard that would allow for an accessory dwelling unit to be put in the backyard. And they back up to commercial space for all of the ones on the north side of the street. Uh, when we look and talk about the practicality of all of those houses or the bulk of those houses being eligible to put in an ADU.

Uh, I don't see where the practicality of that fits. I mean, we're writing a very nice rule, but the implementation of that rule, when people have it as the right to do it, is going to create additional chaos in a neighborhood that with extra vehicles would not do well. And is that the intent of writing our rules? When we look at all of the streets that are viable here, when I think of, uh, I believe it's sideburn that goes down past green acres. Uh, and when I go to the senior center, uh, I note that people park on both sides of the street on sideburn. It's a little wider, but it is a bob and weave process around the cars as you're trying to maneuver the street. Because with cars parked on both sides or staggered in that way, you can't get two cars comfortably passing in a travel lane.

Uh, so for the most part, actual behavior is to modify how you go through the street. Uh, when I think of other streets in the city, I see essentially the same issue arising. So practically speaking with every house being eligible to put an ADU in, is this a feasible thing to do? Is it an enforceable thing to do? Is it a community thing to do for neighborhood cohesiveness? Well, one of the things that, you know, we're trying to balance here is, again, the fact that any of these houses could build an addition. And sometimes an addition, you know, that might be, that might double the size of the house and not install any new parking for that. And that's the case like on Stratford Avenue. I think the vast majority of homes have been added onto from their original 1950s design.

And, you know, that generates the increased parking load as well. So the intent with this is really to take care of the egregious situations where a house really doesn't have the minimum required parking at all. Uh, but not, not to trigger additional parking requirements where there wouldn't be a parking requirement for adding the same amount of square footage or the same bedrooms or the same kind of arrangement. If it was just attached to the house as opposed to being detached. So, you know, again, just trying to thread, thread the needle there, come, come up with a way to, you know, take, take care of some of the concerns as far as parking. Uh, but not to trigger something that might be onerous to the point of discouraging detached accessory dwelling units in, in favor of something else just to evade a parking requirement.

Okay. Okay. That sounds reasonable until I get to the house on the corner of Stratford and Tolston on the west side of university drive, which is a fairly large house. Uh, but because it has, so to speak, two front yards, the fact that it does have a large tennis court. In what would be considered the front yard. In other words, it has the space to build an affordable dwelling unit. It's a 1960s fifties or sixties house. Uh, and as it were to turn over, it has the space, but because of the current layout of the house, we now have some very large lots that don't qualify. Or we've made very small lots in unworkable situations qualify and do our rules then need to be looked at for form fitting function.

As, as, as a previous mayor has stated publicly, you can't legislate taste and to Dr. Rice's point, uh, many of these are now going to be individual situations in which taste goes with the homeowner. And who knows what the thought and the variety is going to be, that's going to come out of this. It probably won't all be solid agreement. But as we're looking at various areas where large lots or other issues come into play that could accommodate this, they're excluded. So, is that something that should be looked at further? My question. I'm, I'm, I'm not following how the large lot is excluded. I'm, I'm, I'm not following how the large lot in this instance is excluded from, are, are, are you saying it's excluded from?

It's, it's on your map, it's in white, which means it's not eligible. Oh, okay. The, the chances are, it's the, it's the tennis court that's throwing it off. So the, the tennis court being a, um, you know. The tennis court is part of the large single family lot. Right, but the tennis, the tennis court has been there. Right. Since the house was built, which is probably grandfathered. So my, my guess is because this takes into account lot coverage, that that tennis court is a lot of lot coverage that bumps up against the maximum. And it would be the same thing for a house that has a, you know, a very, very large detached garage, for instance. Uh, that, I mean, this, this is the, the downside of using a GIS analysis for 5,000.

How housing units. So it, it might not be colored on this map, but that doesn't mean that there's no way that it would be able to. Yeah, this is not the definitive sort of. Yeah. Okay. So, no, but, but, but an answer to our question at the last meeting of which houses reasonably could be expected to have this fit. To see that all of these houses essentially would have this fit in one form or another. Even in the very dense neighborhoods, uh, would beg the question, is this just an open, uh, amendment that if you want to build something on your lot that's additional, you can. And is that in keeping with the structure? And I will leave it there because I'm going to ask the question as it ties into our next briefing when we get into a population slide.

Thank you. Other questions, comments, Mr. Tukarchi, anything? Nothing further. Okay. Okay. I think we've talked about the map. Uh, and I, I can always go, go back to the map, but, uh, we, we've gotten some good feedback tonight. That's exactly what we're looking at. The clock art's not done yet as well. Right. No, no, I, I mean, I, you know, we'd love to get more feedback, more guidance. I mean, that's, that's the reason for, for holding this, uh, this work session. Uh, so we do have a work session scheduled with city council next month. And, and obviously if planning commission, if city council are interested in pursuing amendments, uh, about detached accessory dwelling units, there'll be additional meetings as we go along as well.

So glad, glad to take, I don't, I don't mean to wrap it up early. I'm glad to take more, more guidance and, and more discussion. And we can go back to any of these slides as well. So this is a question slash a recommendation, because there's a very good chance that you all already have this because you're so well prepared. But I I'm missing from this, what is staff's perspective on the implementation and enforcement of this? Should it go forward? Because I think that workload and that degree to which you feel you can be proactive will be empowered to be proactive to which you anticipate that people will follow the process versus not follow. And it'll be retroactive is very important when you consider actually moving forward with something like this.

Um, just look, you know, thinking about a walk through green acres, I can think of whole lot of structures that exist in various states of legality. I'm sure, you know, sheds with questionable purpose, a garage with a second story, a garage with a very deep basement. For some reason, I don't know why that sat as an open pit in the ground for 18 months, which is his own safety issue. Right. Um, and then I also talked to folks who tried to have plumbing added to a garage for a dog wash and were told that they would now need to meet the threshold for an accessory dwelling unit, even though they just want a bath, a powder room and a dog wash, you know. Um, so what does it really look like to put this in place in the city?

Um, and then to go out and try to get ahead of potential blight, potential eyesores, potential misapplication of these standards. From, from a detached accessory dwelling unit standpoint, this, this is as enforceable as it could be. And, and really the issue is any new structure that's built will need a building permit. Uh, you know, converting an existing structure will, it's the utilities. Uh, you know, as, as you know, that's the big issue, but that that's usually not something that can be done that a homeowner could do themselves. So, you know, no, very few people are, are going to add water and sewer to a shed without the city knowing. So this, this, from a detached standpoint, this, this is enforceable.

The, uh, attached ADU is a little bit less so because that's, those are changes that can always happen within a house. And undoubtedly our city has a whole lot of attached accessory dwelling units that are not known for that exact reason. Uh, the detached units, uh, we're, we're fairly confident that as this is set up, I mean, this, this is something that would be enforceable in a real world application. Um, and I think another thing that we had talked about when this first came up was, have we seen any trend shifts yet with the loosening of the rental requirements or the occupancy requirements for attached ADUs yet? No, not, not yet. Has that no impact yet? Right. Okay. And I have one more question in the vein of enforceability.

Certainly, I think all of her points are, are very warranted and valid. I think very much about the back end enforcement of that. And is there anything, at least as I read it, as long as it's owner occupied, you can lease out the ADU. Once it's no longer owner occupied, it has to revert away from that. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. So is there any kind of inspect, ongoing inspection, anything to verify that? Because if, if the answer is no, like boy, do I have an idea for a side business. Right. And, and that's something that we'll have to work up with zoning and with code administration, you know, to, to deal with that as, as we move forward. I mean, it assumes that they're following the rule to get a business license to be renting out a property, right?

Right. Which is, that's already the proposition. But we'll know if the unit is built and we'll know if the unit, the primary unit is sold. Right. Presumably those pieces will come together in a, well, constructed database that would flag some kind of. Okay. I mean, there's a gut remodel that apparently was unpermitted in the neighborhood adjacent to us that the city did in fact catch based on the signage affixed to the door. But I mean, after it happened, right. And once the house went up for sale. So I understand that our inspectors have their ways, but do they have the bandwidth to get ahead of this if it does cause a construction boom? Anything. Mr. Cunningham. On the basis of one of my earlier questions in terms of disturbance in that, in another hat I wear with Fairfax Renaissance Housing Corporation, it has been more than a year and a half for one of the applicants under that program to work through getting the engineering done and through zoning permitting in order for a project to move forward.

And this is an excessive time and has excessive cost implications. One for the engineering on small properties. Two for the cost of construction in a period such as this where inflation is impacting construction costs. So that if these kind of programs drive very long delays, there is a tremendous need for additional professional staff to stay on top to try to keep programs moving. And that staff that is costly and I don't believe we have at the moment based on the experiences that I'm seeing. So that that isn't a point. It's a good side note. How all of this gets implemented. Good side note. Yeah. My feedback isn't intended to lambast any current inspection processes. It's to make sure that the city is prepared to actually implement this.

Right. In a in a no hiring hiring freeze environment. Doesn't affect the ordinance that the Planning Commission will act on but planning or the city council should be certainly made aware of our concern for how this is going to play out. Mr. Cartier anything further from you? No, nothing further on that. Thank you. Are we ready to move on? Okay. We have one more work session item update on discussion of the citywide level of service study. Is this the Mr. Foreman hat trick tonight? Yes, it is. I've just got to shuffle some papers around. Thank you. Open up a new file here. Mr. Napdy is getting off too easily this evening. That's right. Okay. I think this is being shared. So if it's not, I can pause and see what I did wrong.

But for our last work session. So we'll discuss a project that's ongoing. So it's a project and analysis. It's called the citywide level of service study. And what that is, it's an analysis to assess the capital implications of new development. And the citywide level of service study is a project that's been a project that's been on city services and city infrastructure. So the city is contracted with a consulting firm. The consulting firm is called Tischler-Bies to conduct this analysis. So Tischler-Bies has nationwide experience in economic analysis and fiscal analysis. And the main goal of this study is for them to develop what they call a dynamic capital impact model. So it's something that the city could use to estimate capital needs that result from new development.

And new development at the time of rezonings. So a lot of this pertains to the acceptance of cash proffers. A lot of Virginia jurisdictions accept cash proffers as part of major rezoning projects. So here in Fairfax, we've done this in the past, but we don't have a policy. We don't have guidance on what kinds of proffers the city may need or how to calculate those proffers. So what this project does is this will establish a framework for doing just that. And that would potentially help the city recover some of the costs of new development and also set up a way to, a consistent way to calculate it. So just, just interrupt us. Yes. Go along and also frame it in the context of planning commission's role in all of this.

Right. So, so that we do obviously review the capital improvement program. Yes. One key touch point, but there may be others. Right. So it's kind of the intersection of these, these big capital projects and the big rezoning project. So where, where those meet is where this project lies. And the planning commission doesn't play a role though in the cash proffer process. Right. Just the rezoning piece. Yes. Yep. Help focus our discussion on. Right. Thank you. So as, as you can imagine, this is a very detailed project. It involves a great deal of analysis. So they are about halfway through this project right now. So what we'd like to do tonight is just brief the commission on the main goals of what this effort is.

Just to take a look at the consultant's methodology. To take a look at the framework for that capital impact model. That will be the main output. So the, if the lead consultants themselves briefed city council on this project back in February. And, and tonight I'm, I'm using slides from their February presentation. And I'll walk the commission through the same kind of material. Uh, so, so why are we looking at capital needs? And, and really basically because of growth and growth puts a strain on infrastructure, puts a strain on facilities. And generally to maintain existing levels of service, a jurisdiction would need to expand those facilities as we move along. As, as we grow. So part of this analysis is for the consultants to look at our city's current situation.

Our current state of affairs for our facilities and, and really what would be needed to serve growth. And now typically the general fund, uh, when we look at the budget, the general fund funds routine operations. The capital fund is for extra stuff. So things like new facilities. And it's really that the capital fund that this analysis is primarily looking at. Uh, so cash proffers, cash proffers are at the heart of this study. Uh, these are governed by Virginia law. Uh, there are many requirements to this. So these proffers need to meet certain standards. They need to be reasonable. Uh, they need to be proportionate to who's providing the facilities. Uh, cash proffers need to provide a benefit regarding the improvements.

They need to add additional capacity. Uh, they need to represent a fair share of the cost of the given development. The cost of the, what the development is incurring on the city. Uh, so you see some of the requirements up here on the screen. Now pay attention to the bottom item. So any cash proffer funds that are collected need to actually be spent. And they need to be spent within 12 years. And, and this is important because if funds are collected, but are not spent for an actual capacity enhancing project within 12 years, the city would have to give that money up. So this bottom part, part is very important. Uh, now one of the big rules around cash proffers is that localities can't require an unreasonable proffer.

Uh, so this is its own slide here because it's, it's really an essential part of state law. Uh, so, so what does this mean to be a reasonable proffer? Uh, basically it means that any proffer has to be proportional. So there, uh, that there's a benefit received to the development that's being rezoned, uh, that's offering up this proffer. And, uh, that the developers are paying for their fair share of what's being improved and not more than their fair share. So specifically state code says, uh, that a project that's funded by proffers, uh, has to be attributable somehow to the new development. So it can't just be a random project somewhere in the city. There has to be some kind of connection between what's being funded and the project that's being rezoned.

Uh, and also a project, uh, a proffer has to be dedicated for capacity improvements for an offsite facility. So think of things like fire station or for apparatus, those kinds of things, uh, that improve capacity. So not just replacing what's already there, but actually adding to the city's capacity to provide a service. And, uh, also that there's an actual benefit received to, to that development and that there's a need for whatever's been identified. So what a need means is a need that goes in excess of what the city's capacity for whatever it is, is at the time of rezoning. And, and that's a, it's an important threshold. It's a threshold that's unique to Virginia law. Most other states don't have, uh, this kind of complexity in, uh, these arrangements.

So one approach for localities to deal with that and to quantify, uh, these requirements is to use capital impact models, which is what this project is leading up to. Uh, the consultant that's working on this or Tishler buys, they build these kinds of models and, you know, this assists, uh, city staff or county staff in, uh, making these kinds of connections. And model here, uh, really means a very detailed Excel worksheet. So, uh, this is the kind of thing that's intended just to identify what is a reasonable connection between the land use and whatever capital infrastructure is needed. And as you can see here, this firm has done work in, uh, other Virginia localities. Uh, so they're familiar with all of these complexities of Virginia law.

Uh, now part of the process is to identify both the current state of affairs in the city and where the city is headed in terms of growth. Uh, this is just a snapshot of base year information and growth projections. Uh, these, these might change over the course of, uh, of the project and obviously will change consistently as, uh, you know, as, as we go along. Uh, now with school capacity needs, we're in obviously unique situation in Fairfax City that we have non city residents attending city schools and, and vice versa. Uh, and, and that analysis is built into the model as well. Uh, now, uh, again, I, I mentioned that at the beginning that the consultants are building what they call a dynamic model.

And, and that's to allow the city to identify capital impacts in an actual dollar amount. And this also calls, uh, it also includes what they call a static report. The static report identifies, uh, that cost per housing unit in general, uh, that reflects each unit's share of total costs, uh, but not necessarily just the costs that are, uh, attributable to proffers. And then the, uh, the third part of this, uh, is to use that model in determining what kind of infrastructure would be needed to support the small area plan. And the, the, these plans have already been, uh, adopted. So they're incorporating the small area plans into their forecasting as, as well. So we're looking at these kinds of infrastructure categories.

So things like schools, things like parks and recreation, police infrastructure, uh, fire facilities, apparatus, possibly transportation. Uh, now some other government functions might be analyzed in the process. In what they call the static model, uh, but wouldn't necessarily be eligible for cash proffers. Uh, so operational things like general government for instance. Uh, but we can look at those as, as just some extra information. It's just not something that gets built into a cash proffer kind of situation. Okay. So on a high level basis, I mean this project is looking at the current city levels of service. Uh, what it costs to continue to provide that same level of service under a growth scenario.

And then make that connection between the land use residential units and the demand for infrastructure as well. So a good example is parks. Uh, how many park acres do we have today? Uh, what does it cost to improve an acre of park land? Uh, and then what does that translate into a cost per unit? So if we have a rezoning project that's proposing 500 units, uh, how much does each unit, uh, you know, correspond to a needed increase in park facilities or, or in, um, park capacity. Uh, so the consultants are using, uh, capital improvement plans and master plans to build on current inventories. So think of the parks and recreation master plan for instance, everything is formula driven. Everything is quantitative, lots of numbers, equations, and so on.

Uh, they'll look specifically at schools for instance, look at schools by level, uh, where those potential capacity needs may be, where they may not be. And again, this will consider the balance between city resident students and county resident students as well. Uh, now the consultants will ultimately develop, like I said, a model for the city to use this year as a sample model. And again, this is Excel based. Uh, there's a user input area and an output that shows, uh, what the capital impact would be in dollar amounts. And, uh, this would also provide the universe of impacts and, and then what could potentially be, again, that reasonable cash proffer. Uh, so the consultants, again, Tischler buys, they're working, uh, with the city on how to operate this model or they, they will do that when it, uh, you know, becomes available.

And here you see another view of what the model could look like. Uh, look like, and really the ultimate goal is to, uh, you know, providing this information back to planning commission, back to city council as part of rezoning applications. So, uh, the consultants are, are continuing on their analysis right now. Like I said, the project's about halfway through on this model building, uh, looking at the capital improvement plans, keeping up with what's being proposed currently. Uh, they will finish the model, they'll review it with staff. Ultimately, this level of service study will conclude with a, uh, report, uh, with a presentation to city council. And then ultimately, uh, with a working model that can then be used to cat, to craft city policy on cash proffers to be used consistently.

So, uh, a lot of detailed information kind of sum summed up in a handful of slides. Hopefully that, that makes sense, but I'm happy to answer any questions on cash proffers or on the, uh, model project to begin with. Ms. Lockhart. Is the intent of this model to also drive budgeting? Um, full disclosure, I built a levels of service model for the Marine Corps installations, and it was about what service can we provide given our budget. So is there any discussion of that? Like we're going to. Really, it's the other way around because it's taking a look at the budget or at the CIP and, and, and, and saying, you know, what, what's needed from a growth standpoint. So it's not necessarily intended to guide budget.

Might be able to back into some kind of guide, budget guidance with it. Uh, but the intent is, is, is, is really the other way around. But are you benchmarking current level of service? Yes. And where that is in the grand spectrum of levels of service? Like we're providing that level service here. We could be here. Yes. But then which one do you use for determining the proffer, the ideal or the current state? So for, for a cash proffer situation, you would use the current level of service at the time of rezoning. So, so for, for instance, if there's an item in the capital improvements plan to build capacity in, in a particular function of, of the city, of it, that project, if it's in the CIP, could be eligible for cash proffers.

Uh, you know, even though it's already been identified as, as a capacity need, uh, you know, as long as it's above that level of service that's currently in effect at the time of rezoning. Okay. Sure. I understand the qualification of projects, but in terms of impact to the level, to providing services. So for example, we get a lot of development projects on already congested streets. And by their analysis, they're not impacting our level of service from a traffic management standpoint. Because it's already bad. Yes. So being able to stratify that, yes, we know we're, and we're code red. Right. To get us to yellow or orange, your contribution would be X more. Right. So, so transportation is a, and, and I, I had said that, that this may include transportation.

Uh, the reason that that's not certain is that most transportation related projects in rezonings are, uh, negotiated outside of the cash proffer situation. So, you know, for example, adding a, you know, a necessary turn lane or some, some kind of intersection improvement or, or that, that kind of thing is typically negotiated just directly. Right. Rather than being cash proffer related. So cash proffer related. So cash proffer related, uh, you know, would, would say, you know, for an intersection, let's say down the street. Uh, and I'm, I'm trying to think of a transportation, a capacity enhancing transportation project right now. I mean, it might, might be, I'm, I'm not too up on, on this transportation project.

Yeah. I mean, I just pick it as an example. Let's say Warwick Avenue. It's hard to find somewhere where the city is not providing high quality services because they are. Um, maybe an example would be, we've already pushed our fire response times to the limit, but now we're being asked to cover a high rise building just outside the jurisdiction. Can we communicate to them that they're without a proffer or with no change, we're going to drop down a level of service. Our response time is going to go from three minutes to six because we've, we've gone above the capacity threshold. So you said outside of the jurisdiction that, that, that, we can't quite do that. And the, the other thing with cash proffers is that they have to be voluntary.

So, so the city, the city can't say, you know, you're, you're proposing a high rise apartment complex where we're going to need to increase our fire services as a result of that. Therefore, we need you to pay a certain amount of money towards fire services that that, that can't be the case. True. So that's communicate the risk, right? Yes. We accept this additional capacity. We will drop down from level four at the highest to level three provision of fire services because of the capacity. Right. Got it. Thank you. I guess the reason I bring this up is, you know, the, the city council working on their budget has been talking about where they can take trade-offs. And so if you're able to communicate what the risk is of those trade-offs based on a budget allocation, that's another benefit of this type of modeling.

Sir, is anything from your, Mr. Gunningham. Thank you. If you go back a couple of slides, you've got a statistic slide about the city. That one. Yes. When we look at 2035 and a 10 year change, and we start looking at the numbers that are in there, is the genesis of those numbers essentially what the city has done with the comprehensive plan with the small area plans and the other basis that the planning commission has been involved in establishing? I think that those numbers look vaguely familiar from the number of housing units expected to be built in each one of the nodes as they were called. Right. Before they became small areas. Population and that. So that, so that, so that part of this is based on the projection we have for certain things to happen.

And it's, it is general generated or based off of the work that planning commission has done with the staff in the comprehensive plan world. And, next when you begin talking facilities and other things along that line are things like a new community center. Something that would fit under that status under parks and rec or one of those groups because it's not exactly police or fire. But a community center is a facility that is generated to meet the needs of an increasing population. So that kind of thing would fall under our ability to look at it and say this is a reasonable thing to put under a proper microscope. Right, that kind of project would qualify because it would add capacity and it, it's, that, that's the threshold that's important.

So, like, like you said, you know, a new community facility, a new park, for instance, these are things that would add capacity in one way or another to the city. So, they would be, in theory, proffer eligible projects. So, many of the things in the capital improvement plan would be, would fall under that, but probably not all. Not, not all. So, again, things in the CIP that would add capacity would be considered proffer eligible. Things that would be maintenance, for instance, like putting a new roof on a building, would not add capacity, even though that might be a major account. Yeah. For replacing vehicles or things along that line that we've dealt with for a long time. Okay. So, the, so the planning commission does have a role in understanding what this process is and how it would be laid out and providing the data that is used to reach the conclusions that are going to be drawn.

Correct. Okay. Thank you. Others? Mr. McCarty. And to that end, you know, I'm not, it's probably on the fringe of where our role is, but just in, to his point of getting to where we want to be, I just recommend you make sure that the model supports the implementation of the area plans. Just being cognizant of, like, feasibility maybe being already marginal in some of those. Mr. Tricarchi, anything from you? I guess just big picture, why is this being done now? Like, presumably, we've been accepting cash profits for a long time. Is there concern that we've left money on the table or we don't have budget going forward to support what we need from a growth standpoint? You know, really the concern is that we don't have a plan for coming up with this state, that it's really been kind of a scattershot approach on a project by project basis that a developer will offer up proffers for one form of city operations or another.

And, you know, we can't really be sure if those profits are something that we actually need or not, you know, whether they're in excess of what we need, whether they're insufficient for what we need. So this hopes to establish some kind of a framework and some kind of a recommendation for proffers to make these consistent, to make it predictable, and to make it align with the city's capital needs. Okay. Anything else? Anything else? No. Mr. Cunningham. Thank you. By way of background, there was a period of time when the city was in the city's capital. We'll call it the aughts and into the teens when proffers were an acceptable means of getting projects approved and could be dealt with above board between the government agencies and the developers.

It was felt that that became unbalanced in the early teens and the state prohibited the city from requesting proffers. So this is a period in which the term proffers is beginning to come back into acceptable use, it looks like. come back into acceptable use it looks like and for a significant period the power rested with government bodies ability to approve or disapprove but not to demand and as such it was incumbent on developers to offer proffers in the hope that they would be accepted by the city but the city could not comment on them they could either accept them or decline them and not approve a project so it sounds like we're beginning to move somewhat back into an area where discussion of proffers is possible again or is this not the case yeah yes and no

I mean really tiptoeing in into that I think what what this winds up being is recommended proffers so you know this this is still something that the developers in the case of rezonings would offer and but at least they would have something to base that offering on and and and this is similar to what other jurisdictions do you know sometimes there's a so the one that I'm most familiar with is Fairfax County Public Schools at Fairfax County Public Schools has a memo that they issue every few years and and and says this is our recommended proffer contribution for a new housing unit of various kinds so that's an example of a recommended proffer contribution okay thank you others so the city currently has a calculation of the economic impact of a new development that

we see is right the application does that also feed into this process that you know that's actually a separate process because that tends to look at that at operational cost so that the general fund as opposed to the capital fund so to to different impacts both both important just different avenues of impact okay so capacity that I guess that was my question capacity and capital impacts don't play into that economic assessment not not necessarily okay just just a couple questions from my standpoint made a time of rezoning is what is like any rezoning or ones that is adding population a lot of what your examples you're talking about are residential growth it's it's usually it's usually residential rezoning yeah but I mean other I don't think there's anything that prohibits

commercial rezoning but most of these cost are residential in nature's they tend to be residential it's hard to imagine something that perhaps somebody wants to come and redevelop the industrial heavy district turn it into a major commercial establishment that's going to require too much larger fire trucks or something that's not outside the realm of stormwater and this example stormwater yeah yeah those kind of infrastructure now now storm stormwater is its own fund so so stormwater the q buses for for instance are enterprise funds so they're a little bit different than the capital fund as well so it's not exclusive to residential rezoning you also mentioned small area plans for activity centers but

there can be redevelopment outside of activity centers correct we'll believe that could drive something mr. this is something we might need to clarify it's not necessarily going to be part of this project but per the changes that happened with the state in the 2010s there was a period of time where we were restricted from receiving any kind of proffers not just requesting them we couldn't even receive them as the state legislation started to evolve we could accept proffers in in certain situations that would exempt us from some of those restrictions and the smaller your plans exempt us from those restrictions there might be others areas of the city that are exempt for other reasons but those are the only areas that we

have clearly defined that we are exempt and we can receive proffers in activity centers where there's a smaller your plan as of now we don't have any plans or we are not accepting proffers in any areas where there's not a smaller plan that could always change with changes in the code though right good should be looking at picket in Maine then the one area that we have not done a small area plan or Roberts Road and Main Street where a major redevelopment is likely to occur yeah we wanted to have that benefit then we had to go to that exercise yes okay well let me look at my other question oh my other question I think this is full profit discussion come up have to be driven by a rezoning as opposed to some other development that may not require yes okay I think I knew the answer to that

but I wanted to ask and I think that's all I had to all right get enough feedback from us I think so okay thank you for all the time you spent with us this evening it's always interesting informative and and I appreciate the engagement of the Commission on some of these things are they are important and hopefully provide some feedback that will go to the council and stir some further thinking and let them know that we're thinking about it too so thank you thanks all right mmm we will recess our work session and go reconvene our regular meeting move to mr. Nefti staff report please thank you chair Feather and members of the Planning Commission pretty short staff report today as council discussions are mainly focused on the budget and continue to

focus on the budget a few things to report at the March 24 meeting that is when they received their presentation initial presentation on the portion of the budget that included the capital improvement program as planning Commission recalls that you all sent recommendations to City Council regarding the capital improvement program other than that the April 27 Planning Commission meeting may be canceled we are still looking at our agenda items for that date we have two items that may or may not move forward and we'll keep you posted about that a couple of larger scale upcoming topics that will be coming to you before long we're having an introduction work session with planning Commission on the potential to

review and update our smaller your plans also we'll be having a discussion on the process for partial specific considerations amendments in the comprehensive plan this is the process that somebody would go through if they were to try to seek opportunity for mixed-use development outside of our activity centers this is a request of the Planning Commission several months ago there are a couple different ways we can handle this right now without a process such a change would have to be initiated by the Planning Commissioner City Council or it would have to wait for our five-year review regarding the smaller your plan zoning ordinance amendments effort that is underway City Council had a work session on this on March 10 the day after we last met and

discussed it as well I just wanted to thank those planning commissioners who came to the community meeting we had for that project on March 26 we had pretty good attendance as well as good feedback and we are reviewing that with the consultant now and staying turning them off to start making revisions and hope to come back in the next couple of months to discuss the second draft of that document with you so that's all we have for the staff report tonight thank you any questions for mr. McCarthy okay final item on our agenda commission comments anything for the good of the body mr. McCarthy nope thank you mr. Cunningham no comment Lockhart nothing thank you mr. Rice mr. Kerr G I presume not but welcome to the

Planning Commission forward to connecting in person from my perspective there have been no bar meetings a number of those have been canceled so nothing to report from the Board of Architecture review and he's left now but it was good to see mr. Harden back with us after his his assignment in the economic development office so back to community development planning being fully reasonably fully staffed at least from our perspective so you can pass along our appreciation for his return and thanks to mr. Sutphin for filling in so capably while Brooke has been away with that that we will adjourn our meeting thank you you