Planning Commission Regular Meeting/Work Session

James FeatherThank you very much. Anything else? Well, thank you so much. You've given us food for thought, especially as I said, we start considering small area plans again. You have some vision, and that's what's appreciated. it's easier for us slightly older folks to be entrenched and that's that's a difficult thing in the city sometimes people are comfortable with the way things are but we need your kind of vision to help us get out of our comfort zone so thank you for bringing these ideas to us thank you next

Amy Lynne Dennystafffor commercial industrial uses. status for 2028 is to evaluate benefits and feasibility of manufactured housing communities and the two 2030 actions relate to a TDM fund and creating commercial corridor block concept diagrams. Moving back to the implementation guides for our small area plans. In Old Town eight of the 41 action items were updated. This includes the completion of the retail viability study which supports increasing retail square footage in Old Town. Construction for the University Drive bike lanes which is anticipated for this year and a survey was included in the TDM commitments for Flats on University and that study was completed for the first time this past fall in Northfax eight of 45 action items were updated similar to

James FeatherOkay, moving on. Next to our business is public hearings, which we have none of, so we will recess our regular meeting and go into our work session, which will be a continuation of the discussion on potential amendments to the zoning ordinance related to the adopted small area plans. Mr. Napty and crew. Welcome.

Justin WallaceGood evening, commissioners. Can you hear me okay? Okay, I'm Justin Wallace. I'm with Mark White. We're here to answer questions about frontages, open space and anything else in particular with the zoning ordinance while we're here i'll start with the development frontages and just a quick refresh as to why we went this route this directly reflects what was in the small area plans development frontages were called out in the saps but also given the fact that fairfax has an overlay with design guidance already The development frontage was kind of a balance that we felt was the most appropriate approach for the activity center districts. So the purpose of the development frontage is to strengthen the relationship between the building and the street

Okay. Okay. Okay, I'll move on to recreation and open space. This is another huge portion of the zoning ordinance text amendment. And so what we've drafted in more detail, it aligns with the values that we heard from community engagement process and from the small area plans. So when we think about a network of open space and the variety of scales and programs, activated open space, and resilient features, all of that is what we heard from community engagement. And so what we've drafted here is open space definitions and types that

Paul Nabtistaffreflect back to the small area plans. The

Yeah, and actually, now that you mention it, that is a good point. And the Cardouse Plaza example is a good one because that is one where the Planning Commission raised the question, are we trying to encourage too many streets here? It's impacting our ability to get good open space. It's impacting good development. And that is something that we will need to address as we review the small area plans. But one of the benefits of this ordinance is that, and Justin might be able to speak to this more, with the street and driveway standards, there are spacing standards with the ideal spacing of what they should be in between them. And that's something that the smaller plans don't have. They really just show what it should look like on the map.

James FeatherIt feels to me we need to look at the small area plans again, what we're calling for as streets and otherwise what are just accessways, driveways. Okay.

Kirsten LockhartQuick question. Yes. The small area plans do in some cases stipulate underground versus shared like above ground or centralized parking right?

Matthew Ricecirculating now in the area and I know up in the mosaic they've been some experimentation with autonomous shuttles between the Metro and mosaic and it's going to happen sooner than we think. We are not built for it. And we need to figure out how to shoehorn that use into Old Town and into all of our activity centers. And I don't think other than the reference to it in the Camp Washington small area plans, we've not really done it.

Paul NabtistaffYep. Okay, last topic is our use table. This should be quick. As you know, the draft amendments propose establishing a new zoning district that applicants are required to rezone to in order to provide development that is consistent with what is in our small area plans. So if we're going to be doing that, we also would like to be looking at our use table and our other standards to make sure we are encouraging this new district as a preferred venue for new development in activity centers and so some of the things we heard when we were talking to you last year we were talking about our best methods forward we asked the Planning Commission and City Council both if we wanted to lean more towards trying to achieve by right development