Planning Commission Regular Meeting/Work Session

Good evening. Welcome to the regularly scheduled meeting of the City of Fairfax Planning Commission for Monday, June 22, 2026. Our first order of business is the Pledge of Allegiance. Please join me. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which its standings. One nation under the law, individual, with liberty and justice and law. Thank you. Next order of business is discussion and adoption of the agenda. Agenda was, of course, issued ahead of time as required. Any comments on the agenda? Mr. Chairman, I move the agenda be adopted as presented. It's been moved and seconded to adopt the agenda as issued. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Extensions? Passes unanimously.

Next order of business is presentations by the public on any matter not calling for a public hearing. We have one public hearing this evening on proposed amendments to the zoning ordinance related to accessory dwelling units. So there will be an opportunity to speak to that later. But if anyone would like to address the commission on any other matter, you're welcome to do so at this time. Seeing none, we will move on. I guess we do not have minutes to approve. Is that correct? Okay. Making sure that wasn't missing. So we have no public hearings. We have no items not requiring a public hearing this evening, so we'll move on to our public hearing. This is on proposed amendments to the code of the city of Fairfax, Chapter 110, Zoning,

to amend portions of the articles and sections contained therein, including introductory provisions, zoning districts, and regulations, and definitions relating to detached accessory dwelling units. Mr. Foreman, it's good to see you back. Good to be here. Thank you very much. So this agenda item is a public hearing, and it's for a series of zoning text amendments that would permit detached accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, in Fairfax City. If you recall, the Planning Commission held a work session in April to discuss this topic, and at that work session, we reviewed a series of draft amendments. City Council held an equivalent work session in May, and we've held quite a few meetings on the topic of ADUs.

They've been in various amounts of detail. We held some high-level work sessions and a community meeting in 2024. Last year, we held work sessions with Planning Commission and with City Council, where we reviewed options to potentially accommodate detached ADUs. At those meetings, both Planning Commission and City Council recognized the importance of guardrails to reduce the potential negative impacts on surrounding properties, and that's something that's really guided further work on this topic. At the conclusion of City Council's work session in the fall, Council asked staff to draft potential amendments to modify our existing ADU standards in order to permit detached units, and that's what we discussed back in April, focusing on potential amendment details for detached accessory

dwelling units. Like I mentioned, City Council held an equivalent work session in May, and at that meeting, Council requested a public hearing to be held to consider these amendments, and also Council requested additional analysis on certain topics. So tonight, we'll discuss both the proposed amendments and also the pieces of analysis that City Council had asked for. So as you likely know, accessory dwelling units are currently allowed in the city under certain conditions. Now, specifically, ADUs currently need to be within the home itself or attached, so rather than detached. In order to permit detached accessory dwelling units as well, what's needed would be a zoning text amendment that would modify our existing ADU standards, which are already in the zoning ordinance.

Now, the idea of detached 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 support a wide variety of housing types, and the comprehensive plan recommends to research expanding ADUs, and this is important. This is what's highlighted on the screen. So to research ADUs while ensuring they do not negatively impact surrounding neighborhoods. And like we talked about at our earlier work sessions, this year is really the critical element when it comes to creating standards for ADUs. Now, the main characteristics of any amendments to allow detached ADUs would be physical standards for the structures themselves, so things like setbacks, like height, square footage, things

that you see here. There are other elements as well, but it's really these physical standards that are key to making this work and to reducing those kinds of potential negative impacts that the comprehensive plan mentioned. And like we talked about in April, the challenge from a policy perspective is that this is a balancing act, so trying to juggle flexibility for property owners with the neighborhood impact that that flexibility could bring. So tonight, we'll go over how the proposed ordinance addresses these physical standards. We'll also go over those additional pieces of information that the city council had requested during their work session. Most of the standards that you see today that are in your packets are similar to those that we discussed in April, and I'll point

out where they differ. The first of these that we'll talk about is setbacks, and we'll spend more time talking about this than anything else tonight, because setbacks, and this is really a significant issue regarding the effect of ADUs on neighboring properties. In our single family zoning districts, the required rear yard, so the distance from the rear property line for most houses is 25 feet right now. The required side yard, it varies by zoning district. It could be 10, 12, 15 feet. Now, we had mentioned at our last work session that there are also provisions in the zoning ordinance for affordable dwelling units, and those were added as part of the affordable dwelling unit ordinance back in 2020.

And those affordable dwelling provisions include slightly reduced setbacks, and the rationale for that was to provide some extra flexibility, but without overly impacting the surrounding neighborhood. We had talked about that in April and had mentioned that these ADU, these accessory dwelling unit amendments that we're talking about tonight, recommend setbacks that really correspond to those affordable dwelling provisions. And really for the same reason, this is a way to balance that flexibility, so to give some preference to accessory dwelling units, but still recognize the guardrails that are in place to reduce negative externalities on neighbors' properties. And like it shows here, those recommended setbacks, and this is what's in your packet, the recommended setbacks for accessory dwelling units are 20 feet from the rear lot line, so that's as opposed to 25 feet for general house construction.

And about a 20 percent reduction of, let's say 2 to 3 feet reduction on the side lot line, so 8 feet here. 12 feet in RL district, 8 feet in residential high and residential medium. 12 feet in theдедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедеде from the lot lines. Planning Commission in April did have a recommendation that's been incorporated in this proposed

amendment and that recommendation involved ADUs that might be located on the side of houses, so in the side yards. The Commission was concerned about the aesthetic effects of having a detached ADU in a side yard and recommended that staff consider standards that would ensure that side yard ADUs, if they are built, would be located toward the rear of the house. We've included a standard to that effect in this ordinance. The standard says that for any side yard ADUs that no part of the ADU may extend closer to the front property line than twice the distance of the minimum required front yard. That seems a little bit wordy and it seems wordier than what the Planning Commission had discussed in April, but there's a reason for that.

The reason that it's written like that is because from a zoning ordinance perspective, measuring house length can be problematic. We had talked at the meeting about having an ADU beyond the halfway point of the house. The reason it's problematic is most houses aren't box shaped. So you have houses that have additions on them, you have houses that have additions on part of the house. It becomes a difficult thing to measure exactly where the midpoint is to fairly measure where the midpoint is. Adding another addition on the back of the house would change that midpoint and could potentially put an accessory dwelling unit in non-conforming status. So pegging this kind of standard instead to the required front yard is more precise and it

would still get any side yard ADUs to a more aesthetically pleasing location. So for example, in the RH district, which is what's shown up here, there's a required front yard of 20 feet from the front property line. What this means is that any ADU located in a side yard could be no closer than 40 feet, so twice that distance from the front. I know the Planning Commission had said it much more eloquently at the April meeting, but translating that into zoning language gets this twice the distance of the minimum required yard. We think that that's a way to get to the aesthetic issue that was raised at the Planning Commission meeting, but we can talk about that. I'll just try to get through all the setback slides and then we can see if there's any questions.

Now for setbacks in general, so not just the side yard issue, but setbacks in general, I think it helps to show how the proposed ADU setbacks compare with setbacks for other structures. And we had looked at a slide similar to this in April as well. This shows a sample lot in the RH district. It shows three different examples of setbacks, and we're just looking at behind the house setbacks here. On the left here is the setback for main dwellings themselves. So if this house's owners were to build an addition or if the house were torn down and replaced, the house itself could not extend into that green shaded area. That's the setback. That's what's called the required yard in the zoning ordinance.

So that's for dwellings for houses themselves. In the middle here are the side and rear setbacks for accessory structures. So this is things like garages. Like it says at the bottom here, these are less intense uses than a dwelling, than a house, because no one lives in a gazebo, nobody lives in a house. So these structures are permitted to be closer to the lot lines than the dwelling itself. So in this case, a minimum of five feet from the side or the rear lot lines for accessory structures or for garages. On the right here, this is what's in the proposed amendment for detached accessory dwellings. And again, this mirrors the ordinance's existing standards for affordable dwelling setbacks. Again, it recognizes that accessory dwelling units have similar levels of intensity as other

dwellings. But it provides more flexibility, and it permits these structures to be a little bit closer to the lot line than the main house can be. So this is a comparison of three setback examples, and then just one more slide on setbacks here. At its fall work session, City Council had mentioned that detached accessory dwelling units can be thought of as an alternative to building very large houses. And it was thought that this alternative might be able to fit more appropriately into neighborhoods. So that's a significant guiding principle, because these standards with these setbacks view ADUs as that kind of alternative. And importantly, the setback standard here would avoid cases of property owners maximizing both the house size and having detached ADUs on the same lot.

So this slide shows an example of that. I know we discussed this in April as well, but it's an important point. These are two houses side by side on identical lots. The house on the left is a newer house, and it doesn't completely maximize the buildable area, but it comes somewhat close. The house on the right has a smaller overall footprint, has more of an open lot. These amendment standards that we're discussing tonight, these would allow the house on the right to build an ADU. The house on the right could build an addition as well, for that matter. But for the house on the left, these standards basically say that the square footage that could have been used for a detached ADU has already been used for the house itself.

So, again, trying to offer some flexibility, but not wanting to get into the scenario of someone having a maximum-sized house and a detached ADU on the same lot. So that is setbacks. I did say that there would be more discussion on setbacks than anything else. We had a few slides here. It might be a good point to stop and see if the Commission has any questions on setbacks. Questions from the Commission? Mr. Ruggs. I suppose it's a bad idea to write changes to zoning code based on esoteric examples, but there are a couple of houses that may be, for instance, in residential medium, that are set back much further than required because of mature trees that were in the front yard at the time. Right.

So in this case, an ADU could be twice the required setback but still have its front in front of the face of the house. It would not be in front of the face of the house because there's another standard that says it has to be behind the front face of the house in all cases. Okay. So if you do have a house that has an unusually large setback, so if you have a house in RH, for example, that's setback 60 feet from the road, and there may be a case or two in the city like that, that house could have a detached ADU up at the front. The thinking is that's far enough from the street that that would minimize any kind of aesthetic impact that we had worried about in that kind of scenario. Right. It would end up having to be a very skinny little house if it's residential high and they've still got the required setback on the side.

Right. Yeah, there's not a whole lot of properties where a side ADU could really fit to begin with. Yeah, I have a neighbor with an unusual setback and I walk past and think about that issue. But anyway, thank you. Yep. Other questions? Mr. Carson? Eric, can you just remind me, did we look at requiring rear only? And if so, like why was that rejected to just not permit ADUs in a side yard period? We did. Well, we didn't explicitly, but we had looked at some examples of unusual house places. We had a house in a basement where a house might be close to the rear lot line, but might have some room in the side lot. And there are houses, for example, in Country Club Hills that are built that way. It is certainly possible to prohibit that, but there wasn't a strong sentiment towards that.

It was just getting that aesthetic view of a different looking structure kind of farther back when possible. Anything else? Mr. Leifert. This might be getting into the weeds on implementation and enforcement, but I don't see language in here about who's responsible for conducting and validating the measurements when issuing an approval or approval to construct. Should we be cognizant of that? So these would go through both a zoning permit and a code administration permit. So the combination of those two would catch that. The zoning permit would look at the measurements and everything for a detached ADU. We'll get into that. The very last slide, I think, of the presentation, we'll talk about some of the permitting issues.

It's a little bit different than attached ADUs, so we'll likely come up with a different permit or a big permit that can be split into two ways by staff, but there is a mechanism to do that. Anything else? Thank you. Please go on. Okay. The other significant physical standard is height that we'll be talking about tonight. There was a great amount of discussion on height standards at the work sessions, the main issue being implications for neighboring properties, and specifically regarding privacy, regarding looming issues, and there are some pretty significant examples of this nearby, and that generated a lot of discussion. These amendment standards set a height limit of 20 feet, and this is exactly what we had talked about in April,

20 feet or the measured height of the main house, whichever is less. So 20 feet is approximately one and a half stories, and the intent with this is to ensure that detached ADUs don't overwhelm the lots they're on, don't visually overwhelm the main house, or don't loom over neighboring properties. And again, keeping to that comprehensive plan action of not negatively impacting surrounding neighborhoods. One and a half stories still provides flexibility regarding placement, regarding layout, design of the structure. So again, the recommendation on height in these amendments is that ADU height, and it says up here at the top, shall not exceed 20 feet or the height of the principal dwelling, whichever is less.

And again, that's the same as the April language. There are some other physical standards that are currently in place that these amendments would keep. Size standards are very common in ADU ordinances for all accessory structures right now. We have limitation on footprint. So an accessory structure right now, so like a garage, for instance, must be under 50% of the footprint of the main house. And these amendments recommend keeping that in place. We do have standards regarding the size of ADUs, and remember, ADUs currently are permitted attached, so this would carry forward to detached units as well. And what this says is that the ADU must stay under 35% of the house's gross square footage, and that's to maintain the nature of accessory dwellings.

Square footage standards, these really ensure that ADUs are kept to an accessory size. And like it says at the bottom here, these standards really can work together. They each address different things, but they work together to account for different sized lots, different house sizes, multiple stories, like for the house, and so on. So square footage requirements stay the same. Same with lot and building coverage. The zoning ordinance also has standards on lot and building coverage, so both for lots in general and for accessory structures. And like it says here, for accessory structures, the total lot coverage for those structures must be under 30% of the combined area of the required rear and side yards.

And that sounds as easy to understand as the twice the minimum front yard thing. This is another example of zoning ordinance language. But what that means in real life is if we take a look at the image here, you see the required side and rear yards in green. Let's say you have an ADU in this yard. Let's say you also have a shed in this yard. The combined coverage of these two structures can't exceed 30% of that green shaded area. And the reason for this is to help maintain environmental character, so having backyards that are largely open and unobstructed. Now, there are also general building coverage and lot coverage standards that you can see in the chart in the bottom here. These apply to all properties, so not just those with ADUs.

And as you can tell, these are, again, all interrelated. They all address a specific thing. And these amendments propose keeping these standards intact. So moving on to parking. Parking tends to be a visible issue in neighborhoods and communities that have ADU standards. Neighbors tend to be concerned about excess parking loads from accessory dwellings. And we've heard that in the work sessions with Planning Commission and City Council. And as you may recall from our work session in April, our zoning ordinance does have a current standard for ADU parking. But that standard is based on vehicles that are used by ADU residents. And it's just not effective. It's not enforceable. And in our work sessions, Planning Commission and City Council were both interested in exploring a different approach to ADU parking.

So the standard that's proposed here takes a different approach. It's rather simple. And, again, this is the same as we discussed in April. Like it shows here, it says that a lot with an ADU must provide no less than the minimum number of parking spaces as specified in Section 4.2 of the ordinance, which is the off-street parking section. So that standard in 4.2 for detached and duplex houses says, like it says at the bottom here, it's a minimum of two off-street parking spaces. So that means that in order to get an ADU permit, a house must have at least two parking spaces off-street on its lot. So if a house already has at least two off-street parking spaces, and that means driveway spaces, so a driveway big enough for two vehicles, then that house would comply with this standard.

But some houses don't have a driveway, or some houses, like the one that's shown here, have a small driveway that fits only one car. So in those cases, the house would need to be brought up to the city's regular parking standards in order to have an ADU. So this house, again, that's shown here, if the owners were to add an accessory dwelling unit, they would need to enlarge the driveway so it could fit another vehicle as well. The reason for this standard is so the ordinance does not automatically trigger a parking shortage with the addition of an ADU. So it doesn't say that an ADU requires a dedicated parking space. But still guards against potential parking shortfalls where it's felt they could be particularly problematic, being in houses that are already under the minimum parking requirement for the zoning ordinance.

And one more detailed issue here, and then we can stop for some more questions and then go on to the analysis that city council had asked for. We had talked in our work sessions about how to best deal with the potential conversion of existing structures to ADUs, and specifically existing structures that don't meet whatever standards are in place for ADUs themselves, meaning that they'd be considered nonconforming. So, for instance, garages that are very close to the property lines or too tall for our height standards or so on. So there's a lot of structures that fit this description in the city, and we'll get into that detail a little bit later on. There are in any cities. I mean, we're not particularly unique in that.

But there are so many variations of nonconformities that this just isn't an issue that's best addressed through rigid standards. So under these proposed amendments, what would happen if a property owner were to convert an existing nonconforming structure to an ADU would be to go through the Board of Zoning Appeals. And the BZA is really set up to handle exactly that kind of situation, so special exceptions that can be judged on a case-by-case basis. And that's really the default set up within our zoning ordinance, and staff just feels that that's the most equitable avenue for judging nonconforming structures with this kind of situation. So that's nonconformities, and we went over parking and lot coverage and whatnot, so if there's any questions on those, I'd be glad to talk about them.

Commissioners? Mr. Picard. I've got two questions. On the driveway slash parking, so if I have a driveway right now that can fit two cars, and my family currently uses two cars. Right. So no access parking. I could build an ADU without adding any additional parking? Correct. Yes. So if one of the concerns was, like, spillover, you know, street parking, how does that address that concern? You know, there certainly could be spillover parking with ADUs, but there could also be spillover parking. And that's where it got very complicated. And that's where it got very complicated because, you know, an ADU is essentially additional square footage. And it's hard to say that 500 square feet of ADU would generate more parking than 500 square feet of an additional bedroom in a house.

So it's that kind of situation. And is this consistent with the current attached ADU? This would apply to both attached and detached. All right. And then my second question was BZA. Do we define, like, what constitutes a conversion? Could we have people trying to, you know, circumvent the code by calling it a conversion even though it's essentially a new construction? So for new construction, it would be different. For a conversion, it would really mean taking an existing unit and making that into an ADU. So there is gray area there because at what point does a conversion become just a new thing, you know? I mean, if all you keep is the foundation. So that's what I'm asking. Yes. So that gets into code administration issues about when, you know, when something becomes new construction versus not.

But, again, that's a good issue for the Board of Zoning Appeals. ADU ordinances in general are all over the place with that. There are some ordinances that do not permit conversion of existing structure, not existing nonconformities at all. There are some jurisdictions that permit them basically regardless. There are some that say that you can convert a structure, but you can't add anything. So you can't add any windows. You can't add any ingress or egress and so on. So it's kind of all over the place. We just think that the BZA is really the way to go with all of that. Okay. So they would be, the BZA would be determining whether this is truly a conversion. Yes. Thank you. Yep. Others? Ms. Lockhart.

So I don't mean to hammer on the parking. I know I've heard the justifications, and I see that the comparable jurisdictions have similar, you know, preserve what's existing. But I asked last time if there was a limit on how many city-issued park permits you could get for the street, and there's not. That was the follow-up question is you can get unlimited street parking permits per housing. There are streets currently in the city that are over-parked. You can't park on much of Green Acres, much of Ardmore. I mean, this is, it's kind of like when we say that an intersection that's already failing is still going to be failing. These are streets that are full. They can't get any fuller. And we are going to force more cars onto them if this is allowed.

Would the city ever consider limiting permitting issues, parking permit issuance, so that you had to at least have two cars off street before you could add more? Or is that something that we can't really do? From a zoning perspective, that's more of an administrative issue for the, I guess, for the treasurer's department or for the city manager's office than from a zoning perspective. Permit zoning is not part of the zoning ordinance, or permit parking, I should say, is not part of the zoning ordinance. So then in that sense, would it make sense to say that at least one off street space is required for an ADU? Well, that is what we're saying. Oh, you mean for an ADU? Specifically for the ADU.

If the planning commission wishes to add that requirement, it can certainly be done. You know, from a staff perspective, we're just struggling with saying that an ADU, like I mentioned, is different than a residential addition of some other kind as far as parking generation. Mr. Wright? So I want to echo that concern of over parking. There are a couple of neighborhoods close by that really every tenant has a permit and there are six. You know, it's perhaps in a setting like that an ADU would just completely not work. It would overwhelm all the houses in a few directions. But yeah, that is, I guess, a future issue to talk about. Is the, in your opinion, is the oversight generally that will be associated with this process that my colleague referred to, is it adequate to avoid the sort of Greenbrier,

marble lane issues with structures that are just wildly out of context but may come close to meeting requirements? The oversight for detached ADU certainly would be because we, as it's written now, we have the 20-foot height requirement. In order to get a permit for an ADU, that unit would have to be under that 20-foot height requirement. This does not address, you know, the Greenbrier instance wasn't an ADU. It was an addition onto a house. So that's another issue. If the Planning Commission would like to bite. Yes. If the Planning Commission or City Council would like to tackle general building height, that can certainly be done. But as far as detached ADUs, there are certainly enough guardrails in place with the permitting process that we wouldn't wind up with a taller ADU.

Mr. Gunnigan. Thank you. Can you go back to slide, I think it's number four, the one that shows two houses next to each other? Yeah. So the house on the left shows new construction. The house on the right shows an ADU. But the house on the right also shows zero curb cut and zero parking. So the example here shows that we can put an ADU on a house that has no off-street parking whatsoever. And yet our discussion was just that you have to have two off-street parking places. Correct. So I guess my question really is, how many curb cuts and how much of the front yard, although that looks like it could be a challenge because I see a set of steps about eight or ten feet up from the curb, which means there's going to be a grade change.

How many cars can you park in the front yard in order to meet your requirement? If you don't have the length to park two nose to tail, how many can you park side by side? Can I turn my entire front yard into a parking lot? No. What percentage can we do that with then? I don't know the percentage. I know. No, we talked about this image at our last meeting. I was actually debating about adding a driveway and cars in this image. But then I thought, you know, when I did that, I'd be talking about setbacks, and then that would derail everything. So we'll just, as far as the house on the right, if this house were to come in for an ADU permit, the city would require a two-car driveway. A parking space, a driveway parking space is considered one car if it's, I don't know, 18 to 20 feet long or so.

You could get a two-vehicle-width driveway in this location. I don't know offhand what the coverage requirements are, but you can't pave your whole driveway. Two vehicles, a minimum, a maximum. Two vehicles. Here comes the parking expert. Here we go. It would be a minimum vehicle side by side. There's a, excuse me, a maximum of two side by side within the front yard setback. So you can't pave the entirety of your front yard or get an extra wide curb cut to allow three, four, five vehicles to be parked there. There's a maximum of two side by side. Maximum of two. Within that front yard setback. Once you get beyond the front yard setback, there's more flexibility potentially on how much you could pave.

You could pave. Okay. So you would have the opportunity with this house to add your ADU, but you would also then be required to have some kind of curb cut and the ability to park two cars in the front yard side by side because it doesn't look like there's really enough depth to do it nose to tail. Correct. Even though there's no sidewalk to identify blocking any traffic length. And to qualify as a parking space, it would have to have, as Mr. Foreman said, that 18-foot depth outside of the right-of-way. So that would be part of the evaluation if a property owner would have come in and wanted a driveway at that location. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Others? We'll see if there was any traffic.

We go on. Okay. So we'll get to city council analysis. Like I had mentioned before, city council had requested analysis on a few different topics. Staff has done this analysis, and we've got a few slides that summarize the results. So council asked a few questions regarding potential impacts that detached ADUs may have on real estate assessments. So both on the ADUs property itself and also in general or citywide. So like it says up here under direct impacts, when a property owner builds a detached ADU, that ADU would be assessed similar to other structures, similar to other additions. So what that means is on a per square foot basis. Now there's no, there would be no set amount for valuation.

So it would vary, like it says here, really based on the details of the ADU itself, but it would be a per square foot assessment on that property. Now council also asked if a jurisdiction allows detached ADUs, would that permissiveness, would that result in increased property values citywide? So not just for the properties that have the ADU, but for all properties in the city. And the concern there was whether by enabling property owners to build these kind of structures, would property values in the city increase in general? And the reason that was a concern is just since there'd be a new option for essentially monetizing properties to a greater extent than there are now, would that mean the properties in general would become more expensive?

And therefore would detached ADUs actually worsen housing affordability as opposed to improving it? So our real estate staff examined this question, determined that across the board, property value impacts due to a detached ADU ordinance is not something that we'd expect. So to reach that determination, our assessor's office reviewed existing studies on ADUs, did not find evidence of this kind of effect. They also conducted their own local analysis, and that was based on Arlington County. Arlington is the jurisdiction around here that has had detached ADUs for the longest. And like it says here, our staff analyzed neighborhoods in Arlington County that have had detached ADU property sales and analyzed those neighborhoods over a five-year period.

And what we found was that the general property appreciation in those neighborhoods tracked extremely close to countywide average property value appreciation. So by extremely close, I mean within one-tenth of one percent of the countywide, and that's Arlington County-wide average for detached homes. So the neighborhoods that were examined actually went down by 0.1 of a percent, but that's really so close to the baseline that we would consider it, just like it says at the bottom point there, we would consider it just not indicative of ADU influence at all. To put that in dollar amounts, you see the green box down there. In Fairfax City, that amount, that 0.1 percent of assessment change, and really it's so close to the baseline that we'd consider it a plus or minus.

0.1 percent would amount to plus or minus $10 a year in property taxes. So again, just not something that is statistical enough to rise to being indicative of any kind of influence there. Another request from City Council was to see for other Northern Virginia jurisdictions that have already approved detached ADUs, how many of these units have been approved. So the most instructive localities around here are Arlington County and Alexandria. Those have had permitted detached ADUs for five or seven years. You see the numbers up here of the number of permits that have been issued. That number for Arlington County starts in 2021 because I couldn't get the full number of permits going back to 2019,

but it's for a good five-year range. But what's most instructive here is that average number of annual permits issued. And you see for Arlington and Alexandria, that's 11 and 14 on average annually for these two jurisdictions. And you see at the bottom how that translates into annual permits per 1,000 homes. And that's helpful because that accounts for the difference in size between the jurisdictions. Council also asked for information on Fairfax County and Falls Church. Fairfax County allows detached ADUs right now on properties that are larger than two acres, on residential properties larger than two acres. And the county has issued 10 permits since 2021 when the regulations were revised. Falls Church is the most recent local jurisdiction to allow detached ADUs.

They've issued one permit so far. They're about a year out, maybe a little less than a year from the ordinance. And I should mention that ADUs per 1,000 detached houses. I hate to extrapolate that for Fairfax City, but that's what everyone wants. So if you do the math and extrapolate it, it would come out to about 50 ADUs over the course of a decade, so over 10 years. The margin of error on that, and the reason I really hate to say that is because the margin of error, obviously, is very large. A lot of this seems extremely localized. And I'd hate to say that the experience in one county around here would translate to a city that's in another state of affairs in a lot of ways. So I'd say that comes out to 50, let's just say a few dozen over a decade.

And that would make me a lot more confident in saying it. But everyone wants that number anyway, so it's 50. So that's the number in nearby jurisdictions. Another question involved existing structures, and this is along the lines of what we talked about a few slides ago as far as nonconformities. Council wanted to know, just as a frame of reference, just how many of these kinds of structures there are in the city right now. So for this, we looked at existing residential structures of all types, but that were 350 square feet or more in size. So in total citywide, there's slightly under 400 of these kinds of structures. About a quarter of those, so 104 like you see up there, are within what we call the buildable setback area for detached ADUs.

So outside of that required setback. The remainder, like it says here, are outside of that buildable ADU area. So for example, too close to the lot lines. So that gives some kind of an idea of the number of these structures that are in the city. But extremely important, like it says at the bottom, not all of these structures are really convertible to something that people would be able to live in. Either from a construction standpoint or just the feasibility of running utilities to an existing structure. From a foundation standpoint and so on. So that's really the big question mark with these numbers. 400 structures, but a relatively small percentage of those really could be converted into something that would be habitable.

So just an important thing to keep in mind, but that should give some kind of a framework as to the amount of nonconforming structures that we have now. And finally, there were some questions about the permitting process. We talked a little bit about this already. City Council was specifically interested in whether city staff would verify whether properties would be owner-occupied. Because that is a requirement in the zoning standards. It's a requirement that we're proposing to keep. That the property owner live in either the main house or the ADU. So, like I had mentioned, city staff will update the permit procedures if detached ADUs are allowed. There's differences between attached and detached.

We'll figure out how to handle that on staff. But one area where detached ADUs would be different from attached ADUs is that they'd be subject to the city's rental occupancy program. And that's a program where rental houses are registered and are periodically inspected. Because detached ADUs are separate structures, physically separate structures, they require their own certificate of occupancy. They would be made part of the rental occupancy permit program. And those periodic inspections through that program, staff could verify that that property is owner-occupied. So, there would be an extra verification in there that would not be there with attached ADUs. So, aside from that, city staff would still be able to respond to complaints about zoning violations.

That's currently the case. And it says so in the zoning ordinance that if city staff receives a viable complaint about any potential violation of the zoning ordinance and the owner-occupied clause is in there, that city staff can inspect the unit to figure that out. So, that concludes the presentation for tonight. As for next steps, like it says here, city council is scheduled to hold public hearings on this series of amendments at its July 28th hearing. And with that, I'm glad to answer any questions, either in general or just specifically with the city council requests. So, another question I had asked back in April was whether the city had seen an uptick in requests for attached ADU permitting

with the removal of the age or disability requirement for those facilities. And the answer at that time was no. Is that still a no? That's correct. Okay. Is it reasonable to infer from the lack of change that either, would you infer that we don't have any of those types of properties in the city or that the existing ones are not being used and created and managed in a way that we are intending through our zoning language? I mean, are they operating under the radar of the zoning code? That may be the case for in a lot of ADUs. We just have no way of verifying that. Right. So, my concern is that as well-intentioned as this is, that the city lacks right now the enforcement wherewithal to ensure that we are mitigating the impacts to the neighborhoods,

as we say we are trying to do. Obviously, on paper, it looks great. But if we do not have boots on the ground or a proactive process by which we're monitoring the rollout of this, I fear it could become catastrophic very quickly from a perception stance. I'm not sure why we wouldn't have a residential occupancy permit even for an attached unit if, you know, safety and occupancy is paramount. There is a reason, and I've spoken to the code administration staff about this. So, the reason is that the rental occupancy program, like you said, is a health and safety standard. So, the property owner is considered with an attached ADU. The property owner is living on site. And similar to an apartment building, that's considered to be an ownership oversight.

So, that would apply to an attached ADU, and it would also apply to individuals who rent out portions of their home, even without the ADU. That that property owner living on site is the eyes and ears that are needed for safety. The rental occupancy program applies to detached houses or townhouses that are completely rentals with the property owner not living there. Since the detached ADU would be, from a building code standpoint, its own structure, that would mean that it would apply to the residential occupancy program. Okay. So, if someone applies for a business license to be a landlord in a portion of their house or in an attached ADU, there's no house inspection that goes along with that application?

If that person is living in the house, that's correct. Okay. Have we run this language and these proposals by, for example, the fire marshal, in terms of proactively addressing any potential hazards or how we might go about managing the safety implications of this? Yes. So, the fire marshal was consulted on this. Fire marshal was the one who made the determination that detached ADUs would be part of the residential occupancy program. Okay. I'm just concerned that, again, we're using policy language to address what is actually an enforcement problem. And obviously, enforcement costs money. Policy, less so. But at the end of the day, the enforcement is really the important part. I don't know how we can better write it into the language, but I just think it's something that we need to be aware of as we consider putting this forward.

Mr. Rice. I agree with Ms. Lockhart. The enforcement issue is, you know, makes or breaks things like this. And anecdotally, for a project, we were trying to estimate the proportion of homes in the city that were occupied by renters. And I think I discussed that fairly broadly. That's actually really difficult information to get. I don't think the city knows. And the best estimate we had was about 50% of the rental, the active rentals, are not licensed. So I do also have some skepticism about the ability of the city to stay on top of the sort of health and safety issues that come into play when a property owner has only the profit motive in place. And unfortunately, students, frequently F1 students that don't feel empowered to complain, unfortunately, they seek me out.

They think as a professor I have some magic wand that can solve problems. Not the case. And the city doesn't necessarily really know. I was in a public meeting recently where just there was some joking about short-term rentals in the city. And I spoke up and I said, I think those are prohibited in the city. But I think it was evidence of a perception that short-term rentals take play. I pulled up the short-term rental app. Yeah, sure enough. I think that the staff adds within the short-term rental system for city properties. Of course, it's graduation season, and that's a lucrative thing to be able to do. So this enforcement site is problematic. And I don't know if we have the staff or ability to really stay on top of it other than reacting to squeaky wheels and people who file complaints.

And I don't think we want to rely solely on that if there's something else proactive we can do. Others? Mr. Cunningham. Thank you. I believe one of the statistics we got at our last presentation was that 85% of the single-family residential units in the city would be eligible to have an ADU constructed. Only 15% of the residential units in the city not being eligible. It says that's a very small number scattered where I'm not sure. But that means that every place in the city this is possible. Which I think brings back my concern with enforceability as just voiced by two of my colleagues. And I think that's a very important thing that in looking at where we would permit this, there is no question in control or the amount that it's going to do.

The second thing that I guess gives me a little concern is in our neighboring jurisdictions, those properties that have ADUs actually come in at a less assessed value, even if it's only marginal, than single-family residences. And I would ask a question on that because apparently no value is being added by the ADU in various ways. And I would be interested in why that is. Is it the quality of the construction? Is it the management of it? What would cause putting an otherwise economically viable and valuable addition on a property to cause the property value to go down? So that figure is for the neighborhoods in general, so not the specific property that has the ADU attached? Then is that a useful statistic to be using in this kind of approval process?

And what is it saying to the neighborhoods that have ADUs as opposed to other neighborhoods? Or why would this be the case and why is this statistic being used if it is not showing a relative value? If it's just to say it won't cost you more or we won't get more taxes out of it, I'm trying to figure out what its utility is. What that is looking at is any increase or decrease in property value in neighborhoods in general, so not just the properties that have the ADU. So what that is saying, and the amount of difference of one-tenth of one percent is so small as to be not statistically significant. So we would say really that there is no change between those neighborhoods and the baseline scenario.

So what that tells me is that if we were to adopt an ADU ordinance and permit it, it's going to have no impact on the residential tax structure of the city in effect. But it may or may not have an impact on the number of students in schools, the number of people who are there, enforceability, and a number of other issues. Is that a reasonable assumption to make then? I would say it's not forecast that property values in general would change just with the ADU ordinance. So individual properties, so let's say that there's 50 properties over the next decade that have detached ADUs. Those properties would go up in value because they'd have more square footage associated with them. It would be like building an addition.

Neighboring properties in general would really not go up or down just based on the ability to add a detached ADU. For some of the other impacts, I would not say that there would be a significant number of school students because the size of the ADU in most cases would be just a few hundred square feet. Not saying that it would be impossible to have children in small units like that, but unlikely to be a lot. But if the owner occupies the ADU and rents out the large home, there could be. But I think what I'm hearing is I guess we would expect, and we have someone from the real estate office here if she'd like to speak to us, that the individual property value likely would go up. We're just not having an impact on the entire neighborhood.

The individual property would go up just like that. So I wouldn't conclude that there's no impact. I think there probably may be a benefit for a few individual properties, but there probably aren't that many properties that we're going to be talking about anyway. But it's not a speculative input. It doesn't drastically spike the real estate costs because real estate speculators now think it's a landmine to build on. And that's exactly what council was worried about. And the reason that there's not a general lifting of properties with the addition of a detached ADU ordinance is because there are so many things that property owners can do with a property right now. So it's not like a house in, let's say, Fairchester is frozen in time in 1959.

And an owner of a house, any house in the city, can build an addition, can remodel, can tear the house down and build it up again. And with things like real estate speculators, those are the important things. The ability to add a 600-square-foot cottage in the backyard in the grand scheme of what can be done with residential properties is relatively small. So that's the reason why the detached ADU ordinance itself wouldn't see a big change in housing price affordability citywide. Others? Then I guess one additional question would be if this is only a small number of units in the city and it doesn't have an impact, and we have authorized in the neighborhood of 10,000 units over the next 10 years to be built to deal with housing issues,

what is the impact of this activity? What demographic are we speaking to for this process? We heard from a student who was a musician at George Mason who said he would prefer to live in a detached unit so that he wasn't disturbing people when he practiced. I mean, I think, rightly or wrongly, the American dream is still a house, a single-family house. And so if an attached unit gets you closer to feeling like you're living that, it's an attractive proposition for a renter, right, versus an apartment. Again, I think at least if you look at Falls Church in Alexandria, there's a lot of families that are building them for aging in place or multigenerational living. That I think we already have covered.

Yeah. Not necessarily with detached units, though. You can do it with attached, but, yeah, it's just expanding the opportunity. But does the likelihood of legal usage being for multifamily or multigenerational living merit reconsidering reinstatement of the 65 and or disability occupancy requirements for a detached unit? I don't believe that can be done because there's state legislation that prohibits that at this point. As far as I know, if I'm wrong on that, somebody can come forward and correct me, but I believe that's not possible any longer. Also a good point we should cover, yes. Anything else in the commission? We're looking at 4 to 10 per year, possibly. Right. Yeah. Unknown whether it would get off to a larger start or a smaller start.

You know, there may be pent-up demand, but there's a number of property owners who are really looking to do that, and we might see more in the first year. On the other hand, Falls Church's experience indicates that there was not that kind of a surge in the first year, so it's hard to tell. But I would say that's a factor. I think the side comment I heard was about legally. Don't forget, we're talking about detached accessory dwelling units. It's going to be hard to build a detached accessory dwelling unit and somebody not noticing and doing it illegally. You might try to convert a garage. That's absolutely correct. I think. It's going to be harder to do. And it's not just building, but it's getting the utilities there as well.

Correct. So it's not really about the building of the unit. Think about what our focus is. It's on the ordinance pertaining to detached, et cetera. There are a whole lot of other baggage issues around rentals and so forth. But the purpose of this ordinance is to address that specific issue. Anything else before we open the public hearing? Okay. So this is a public hearing. We're inviting anybody from the public who would like to address the Planning Commission on this subject to please come forward. Welcome. Please state your name and residence for the record or at least provide it to the clerk in the meeting. Thank you. Good evening, Chairman Feathers, members of the Planning Commission. I'm Jim Gillespie.

I reside at 3604 Colony Road here in the city. Here in the D.C. area, in northern Virginia, in Fairfax, we have a desperate housing shortage. The Washington Council of Governments estimates that by 2030, the region needs an additional 320,000 units. 75,000 of those are above what are being forecast. Now, obviously, that's going to require big projects, small projects, a lot of different things. And you might think that this effort is perhaps kind of like throwing the starfish back in the sea. You know, it doesn't make much difference except to the starfish that ends up back in the water. And there are people out there who need this housing, who would benefit from it. I have a sibling who is disabled and is on a fixed income.

And he would be very reluctant to move into my home. And it would really be a difficult adjustment for everyone. However, he might accept an ADU, which would allow him to keep more autonomy, more independence. And I urge you to support this ordinance change. It does not affect a lot of people. But if it's 50 people over the next 10 years, that's 50 people who are going to have safe and affordable housing in our community. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Others? Okay. Seeing none, we'll close the public hearing. Any final comments from the commissioners before I entertain a motion? Is there a motion? Ms. Lockhart. Mr. Chair, I'd like to present a motion. I'd like to preamble the motion by saying that I do have remaining concerns about safety.

Once these changes are potentially implemented, I think they're outside the bounds of specific zoning language. But I will be tracking this carefully, of course, through council and implementation. To that end, Mr. Chair, I move that the Planning Commission recommend that the City Council approve the proposed ordinance, amending Chapter 110, Zoning of the Code of the City of Fairfax, Virginia, to amend portions of articles and sections contained therein, including introductory provisions, zoning districts and regulations, and definitions. Is there a second? Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion on the motion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Extensions? Motion passes unanimously.

Mr. Foreman, thank you. So this closes our public hearing section of the meeting. We'll recess our regular meeting and move into our work sessions. The first item for the work session is a pre-application briefing on the Fairfax Professional Building, located at 3541 Chainbridge Road, the southeast corner of Chainbridge Road in Eaton Place, west of University Drive and north of Fairfax Boulevard. Welcome, Mr. Frederick. Good evening, everyone. This is a pre-application briefing for a concept plan for Fairfax Professional Building at 3541 Chamber's Road. The applicant is Northwest Related Partners, being represented by Robert Brandt. Staff met with the potential applicant to discuss the preliminary plans and have provided some initial feedback on the concept plan.

Staff will provide a brief presentation. The potential applicant is in the audience and is available for questions. Again, the site is located at 3541 Chamber's Road on the southeast corner of Chamber's Road and Eaton Place, and west of University Drive and north of Fairfax Boulevard. The site is in the Northfax Small Area Plan with the activity center place type. The current zoning is commercial retail and proposed zoning is commercial urban. The existing conditions for the site, they're four two-story office buildings with a floor area of approximately 17,000 square feet and 124 parking spaces. The concept plan shows a mixed-use development with 37 residential dwelling units consisting of 29 townhomes

and eight two-over-two multifamily units and approximately 2,700 square feet of freestanding retail. So the two-over-twos front along Chamber's Road. The townhomes are in the center of the site, and the retail is fronting on University Drive. The maximum height, building height, is four stories. The applicant is proposing a density of approximately 18 units per acre. There's a 8,300 square foot open space on the southern property line and approximately 4,200 square feet of linear park on University Drive. The applicant is proposing a private street connecting Chambers Road to University Drive while constructing new sidewalks on University Drive in even place and internal to the site. The sidewalk on University Drive is an existing, I'm sorry, let me rephrase that, construction of new sidewalks on Chambers Road in Eden Place with the existing sidewalk on University Drive.

The applicant would install street trees and provide a streetscape. The residential parking is provided in garages and on-street parallel spaces. The commercial parking is located on the east side of the site adjacent to the retail building. The parking requirement requires 88 spaces. The applicant is proposing 88 spaces for the project. And finally, the applicant is looking to provide an inter-parcel connection to the south. The applicant is looking to provide an inter-parcel connection to the south. Before you is renderings of the proposed units. So you're looking at townhomes in this image. And the next slide shows the two over twos and also the retail building, Frontingdon University. Staff has provided preliminary comments and those comments that have been included in your packet.

One item that I would also like to note is that the applicant should provide some consideration to mitigating noise for the units that are fronting on Chambers Road and Eaton Place. These are heavily traveled roadways in the city. So the applicant would want to consider mitigating items to provide to limit the sound for potential residents living on site. In terms of potential land use applications, you would see with this application from the applicant is a rezoning, a special use permit for townhouses and multifamily, an approval for a general development plan, and a major certificate of appropriateness for architecture and landscaping. In terms of next steps, the briefing is scheduled to go before city council on July 28th.

And the applicant is here to answer any questions you may have and staff is available for any questions you may have. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Frederick. Let me ask the first question. This is obviously in the North Facts Activity Center. That's correct. What's staff's assessment of how this comports with the small area plan? The small area plan gives guidance. It doesn't give exactly specific recommendations for the site. I have a map that shows kind of the guidance that it provides. It has retail on the perimeter of the site, but it doesn't necessarily would reclude the applicant from developing residential uses at this location. So it's more of a list of its guidance, but it's not. I would just say it's guidance.

It's nothing that's set in stone where it would definitely preclude our residential development. Questions from the commission? Ms. Cunningham. Thank you. I guess I'll preface this with a long time ago. When, before we had small area plans, when there was discussion of nodes and other things like that, there was discussion of the fact that the city had X amount of commercial space, X amount of residential space, and where we were moving forward. And the discussions centered around, if you were going to use commercial space, and we might have had excess commercial space, and you were going to put residential and commercial space, how would you do that in order to maintain accessibility? And I guess as stated at that time in a number of meetings,

the idea was that if you could keep the ground floor accessible to everybody in the community, then that would be a positive, where you're not chopping up your existing space into small pieces is that piecemeal it so much that people don't have access. And access seemed to be an important thing going forward because the other discussion point was that the purpose of this whole exercise was managing density. The area is getting more dense, not less dense. It's recognized that commercial space might turn into residential, but the feeling was that if you could keep the ground floor accessible to everybody in the community, commercial space, one form or another, or doctor's office, something that allowed people to go there,

then you could let above the first floor continue to develop and use that as residential space. Now, there are obviously exceptions to everything, and in this area, now that we've gotten to small area plans in North Vax, if you look on the other side of Chambridge Road and go to the back corner, you will find townhouses abutting residential. And then you'll find a large multifamily building that is special purpose for senior community and has memory care center and other things along that line, and the rest of that property is still to be developed, but it's all intended to be used in a commercial or a general purpose way. When I look at across the street from this at what we're developing, I see one of the first exceptions because we have a Class A office complex

and a residential building was allowed to be built next to it. And part of the outcome of that residential building is that there is a minimum of commercial space on the first floor, even though it's a seven-story building. So it's an extremely large and dense building. And here on this corner, my sense would be from the original discussion we had that this would be something where commercial would be on the ground floor and residential would be above it. And I don't think it meets the intention of the old discussions that we had that building a small retail building at the end that looks like it might be minimal in its general use but meet supplies or whatever for the residents of the townhouses

would meet the concept of what we're doing, especially at an intersection like this where major work is being done to restructure the intersection, to redevelop the area, because it is prime commercial area. So I would have, I guess, a question, as the chairman just said, as the appropriateness of putting single-family residential townhouses, which is a ground floor use and essentially an exclusion from the community from that original purpose of allowing the first floor to give us all access to what is commercial space and allowing the residential to be built above it. Has that changed and has it been discussed in any manner that would solidify that change in the ongoing planning? The Northfax small area plan is our most recent guidance for this area.

That plan specifically depicts where ground floor retail is most preferred, recognizing that that is not something that can be accommodated across every face of every street. So along this site, the one location where ground floor retail is depicted is on that eastern end that faces the proposed linear park. So that's where it's shown on this plan, and that's where when we review this, we would suggest that it be. Whether or not the amount that is shown there or the design of it fits with what the vision is for the plan is something that we'll have to look into more as this plan is reviewed. But when considering it strictly from a use perspective, that is where we would want to see commercial,

and the small area plan doesn't necessarily suggest that we have to have ground floor commercial elsewhere on the site. I guess, are we building single-family townhouse? Are we looking at building single-family detached in this area under this concept then? That's something else we'll have to look at in more detail. In general, the small area plan doesn't, it's, what we see in the graphics generally depicts larger multifamily buildings, but it doesn't specifically say that townhouses are prohibited and townhouses are listed as a type of use that's accepted generally in the activity center. It doesn't necessarily say that it's the ideal use for this site, but there's nothing that says that it would be opposed to that.

I don't have any other questions. Okay, thank you. Others? Yeah, the applicant may answer some questions if you have them. Sure. Or the potential applicant. I'm curious about the orientation of the commercial site and why it was chosen to make that sort of internal-facing vice front of John University, especially because in the rendering, when you have an outdoor patio, I assume that means restaurant, and it doesn't appear that you have sufficient access for trash management and servicing of a restaurant facility. So if you could talk a little bit more about the intention of that piece. Certainly, Commissioner Lockhart. First of all, Bob Brandt with the law firm of Walsh-Kalucci. I'm here this evening on behalf of the applicant,

Network Realty Partners. Greg Trimmer is with me in the audience as well this evening. So first of all, first and foremost, thank you, Mr. Frederick, Mr. Navdi, for the presentation, and thank you all for having us here to talk about this project. The retail, the commercial space, that's something that we've actually talked pretty extensively about with staff. Rewinding, probably the better part of a year, when we first approached staff with this concept, our initial pass at this, frankly, didn't really have any retail, didn't really have any commercial components to it. We didn't really think it was the right space or the right location for it. That being said, staff made it very, very clear,

as Mr. Navdi pointed out, that the small area plan does expect some retail here. And the location of the retail, the commercial space, is identified along the eastern portion of this property, along what will ultimately be this concept of the linear park. That is kind of the key idea of the small area plan that we're carrying forward. And so we took a couple of different passes at this, working with staff to kind of try to find out the right configuration, the right amount, the right location for that retail. And what we've come up with is the about 2,700 square feet that you've seen on here today. This is our first concept. We're here, obviously, at the pre-application briefing stage to get your feedback.

What we've presented on the screen and the elevations and the renderings that you've seen is one potential configuration of that. We thought that it would potentially be a good location for a small restaurant, a cafe, a coffee shop, or something like that. And so we did think it was appropriate to introduce, at least in theory, the idea of this outdoor patio, outdoor dining area fronting onto that linear park. But I think we're pretty flexible at this point. It really could be anything. You brought up trash loading service. That's something that staff has raised as well. Frankly, for buildings of this size, relatively small size, 2,700 square feet, we think a lot of those facilities could be accommodated inside the buildings

and then on trash days, collection days, rolled out into the interior drive aisle for collection. So make no mistake about it. That's something that we're certainly thinking about as we begin this process, hopefully soon. But it's just our initial thoughts on it. But again, the orientation, the location, the amount of retail is a product of our conversations with staff so far and certainly open to feedback and suggestions moving forward. Thank you. I have one other question. We've heard in recent presentations that the economics of development in the city simply doesn't support an ownership model of housing. But you seem to have landed on an ownership model of housing for this particular site.

Is that a function of sort of the future outlook on Northfax? Or how did you land on townhomes and two-over-twos for this particular site versus larger multifamily? Sure. No, it's a good question. And, you know, NRP and Greg, I'm certainly sure you're able to speak to this in more detail, but they have a lot of experience with this type of product in northern Virginia. I think this might be your first project in the city of Fairfax, but they're borrowing on their experience throughout Fairfax County, throughout the region. And I think they're very bullish. They're very, very confident that this area specifically, in this area, this specific neighborhood of the city of Fairfax could accommodate and would certainly

be a high-demand location for these types of homeownership opportunities. One of the things that I think is important about this proposal is that not only is it an opportunity for homeownership, it will provide opportunities for affordable homeownership. Based upon the number of units that are being proposed here, these homes will be subject to compliance with the ADU ordinance. And so there will be affordable dwelling units brought forward with this concept. You know, at a time where a lot of the development that the city has seen recently has been multifamily housing, largely for rent. This is an opportunity for homeownership, fee-simple homeownership, and affordable homeownership, which I think is something important for the city to consider here.

But I think overall, we're very confident that this is an appropriate location for this type of product, these types of units, and we think that they'll be very successful here. All right. One last question, which is one you might be familiar with me asking you before, but is there any consideration to accessibility in any of these units? Elevators, you know, designated disabled parking spaces, things of that nature? Yeah. I mean, I certainly think potentially. We have identified some accessible parking spaces, ADA parking spaces on the plans thus far. I think that's something, you know, the elevator units, those types of things that you've frequently asked me about over the years, that's something that I think we're willing to consider.

But again, we're very early stages right now, very preliminary, very early part of the process here. And I think a lot of those details, a lot of those questions will certainly give a lot more thought to as we move forward. Thank you. Mr. Rice. I'm counting about 15 spaces on the plan right now with a retail establishment and the need for visitor parking for the units. Are we under parked here in this particular plan, or is that about right? So what you see on the right side, the east side of the screen near the retail, I think there's 14 spaces there, which represents the retail requirement based upon the number of the amount of square footage. And so what we have elsewhere on the property, on the western side of the property, there's a

number of surface parking spaces next to the two over two units, the stacked townhouse units. And so we have a little bit of parking on both sides. What we would expect to happen is that, you know, evenings, weekends, after hours, when the retail, the businesses in this and the areas on the eastern side of the site are closed, that those parking spaces could potentially be used for overnight visitors, things like that. And so the number of spaces that you see on the plan in the tabulations is consistent with the minimum zoning ordinance requirement. Okay. I'm looking here and see 11 plus an ADA spot on the east side. So spaces to service that retail establishment do look a little bit thin. Okay.

And if we do introduce retail, which I do believe we support, it needs to be supported adequately. I'm also looking at the safety access plan. As the city fire chief or associated plan reviewers for the fire department looked at the safety action plan, it's got an incredibly difficult to believe entrance and exit that just for the tower ladder doesn't seem to be realistic. Yeah. Great question, Commissioner Rice. We actually did present this to chief sites and city staff. They have looked at it. And, you know, again, we're early in the process. It hasn't undergone yet a full, full-blown review. But this design, and specifically the fire access design, has been coordinated. We are providing a 26-foot wide dry vial throughout the site, which is primarily driven by the need

to provide adequate fire access. And so, again, you know, this plan has not been fully, fully engineered just yet. But our engineering team over at Bowman, they've certainly taken a look at that. They've done some preliminary coordination with chief sites, and we'll continue to do that going forward. Okay. Okay. Just the measurements of the tower ladder and that west side just looks, it looks very hard to believe. I trust chief sites has the expertise to say, yeah, this will work. But, yeah, squeezing in between those buildings and making at least five changes in direction over 150 linear feet just seems hard to believe. Right. And we'll certainly put a sharper point on it as we move forward with our final plans.

Mr. Crouch. Yeah, just one question reacting to something you said. I guess I would echo fellow commissioners that more retail would be great. But I want to go back to something you said, which was you didn't think this was a good place for retail. What was that based on? Is that what the market's telling you? Yeah, in part, yes. But, again, you know, when we met with staff, they made it very, very clear that this was an important element, a key element of the small area plan. And, you know, I think looking at this site in isolation, I think it's reasonable to assume, okay, this may not be the best retail space now. But I think staff, rightfully so, is thinking long term, thinking about what happens, you

know, five, ten, twenty years from now as the small area plan area is built out, as North Facts is built out, the linear park comes online. I think the city is, rightfully so, trying to create a node. I forget who said it. A node of activity here. And so, you know, I think that's what we're trying to honor. We're trying to honor that long term vision. And so, again, you know, we've taken a couple of passes at this internally, gone a couple of rounds with staff. What we've come up with is a little bit over 2,700 square feet, which we think is a reasonable amount for this site. But I think ultimately long term, what we're hoping is that it's going to be just one piece of a much larger area of activity.

I hope so. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. And you think in the broader context as well, at the botanist, which is kind of diagonally across, they'll be putting in some similar retail commercial kind of uses. So we'll maybe start connecting the dots of having these places along the linear park. Any other questions? A couple observations from my perspective. The small area plan calls for up to seven stories in this whole location. Large buildings. In this particular piece, it's commercial with ground floor retail. This is kind of refreshing to see something a little smaller finally being proposed in some of the places rather than rather larger. The question is, at some point down the road, we'll be surrounded by up to seven story buildings.

And that becomes probably a marketing issue for selling these places. That's so a concern for us. But I like that you're incorporating a couple of things from the small area plan. The linear park along University Drive with the retail in that vicinity, both called for in the small area plan. I also like that you're actually adding additional green space to the south of the South Bank of townhomes, adding more open space green space in an area that we want to see more of. So I think that's a benefit as well. Interesting concept, planning townhomes here. But you're kind of first to the game in this corner of the world. I'm not sure if it's still contemplated, but the east side of the Class A office buildings,

the last proposal we saw quite some time ago, incorporated two over two condos. I don't know if they're still thinking that way, but it's bringing that same kind of housing elsewhere into this section, that east part of North Facts. So this may not be completely out of context if that development goes through, at least in that concept. But I think it's an interesting proposal. It's kind of refreshing to see something that's not coming in with humongous buildings. The question is how it fits within the broader context of the other development that may go on here. I anticipate the hotel will probably be there for a while. It's not a huge building in terms of height. So these are kind of consistent and kind of keeps a low profile in this part of North Facts,

so that could all be a benefit. So otherwise, I do believe townhomes are an underrepresented form of housing we have in the city. It's creating opportunities for ownership that, like these, could be a benefit and of interest to some people. So other questions or thoughts? Mr. Rice. What sort of coordination, if any, with Marriott has been done, especially given the possible interparcel connection? Yeah. So I'm glad you pointed that out because that's something that I probably should have mentioned as well. You know, I think our understanding and the conversations, I personally haven't had any direct contact with them, but my client certainly has. They will be there for quite some time. At least that's what it appears.

And so we are assuming that, frankly, Mr. Feather, that's one of the reasons that we located that about 8,000 square foot of open space on the south side to kind of be mindful that there are some larger buildings in the area now and potentially in the future. And so we've built in that buffer. But we're certainly mindful of understanding that we're going to have to work with them now and in the future. And hopefully if this property redevelops, there will necessarily need to be some coordination. We have identified that potential future interparcel connection there. The reason for that, just to get a little bit more granular, is that if and when the Eaton Place-Chambridge Road intersection improvements move forward,

there's a potential that the existing service drive access to the hotel is closed off in the future. And so there will be a need for them to have access through the rear of the site. And so what we've shown in our concepts for now, anyway, is a potential interparcel connection down the road. If our site is in a position to redevelop prior to that happening, city staff has asked us to be mindful of that. And so what we're anticipating is reserving easements for that potential connection in the future. It's refreshing to have an applicant discussing access roads with the neighboring development and the possibilities. We've seen a couple of presentations where the access issues were offloaded to the next developer.

And having that buffer in the south is great. And having some drawings showing mature trees and plantings that would help to screen. I do drop off a lot of visitors from my work at the hotel. And the coming and going late at night is super common. So I think, you know, as much buffering and sound attenuation as you could do would certainly make those units on the south side viable. That's it. Thanks. Good points. Thank you. I did think of one more thing. The renderings, the plans show a stormwater easement going right underneath. Correct. Two over twos. How does that work? Yeah, it's interesting. So what we think, and we've done quite a bit of research on this, is that that easement is a vestige of a time gone by, right?

So we've done a utility sweep of the property utility survey. We do not believe that there are actually any facilities in that easement area. And so what we have discussed to date, at least preliminarily with city staff, is if this application moves forward, potentially vacating that easement. There's no facilities in there. We don't believe there will be a need for any facilities in the future. And so something that needs to be certainly coordinated with staff, public works, stormwater folks here in City Hall. But that is something that we're mindful of. And frankly, that's why we continue to show on the plans, just as a reminder to everybody that that needs to be dealt with moving forward as this rezoning proceeds.

Anything else? Mr. Frederick, have you heard sufficient from us? Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for your time. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Our final work session item is the redevelopment at Courthouse Plaza property located at 10300 Willard Way and 3922 Blenheim Boulevard. Thank you. We're currently in the post-submission phase of the development review process. The applicant has formally submitted a land use application and has so far sent in one resubmission. The staff has provided the applicant with comments. And now we're here for work session to discuss the proposal and requests. The applicant is requesting a rezoning from CR Commercial Retail and CG Commercial General with proffers to PDM, Plan Development Mixed Use, and the Transition Overlay District with commitments.

The draft commitment statement has been provided in your packet as attachment six. The subject site is comprised of two properties shown on this slide as parcel A and parcel B. Existing on parcel A is the Courthouse Plaza Shopping Center, which is home to Safeway. The applicant is proposing to rezone the site to PDM, Plan Development Mixed Use, and if approved, you can see on the bottom left what the zoning map would look like if the project is approved. The site is located in the Old Town Fairfax Activity Center, and the future land use designation is Activity Center. So for this site, the small area plan recommends a six-story height maximum, a grocery store anchor, new publicly accessible open space, above-grade structured and underground parking,

and then retail frontage to be oriented towards new street and public open space. The applicant is proposing a phase development with phase one including 315 residential units, 72 feet maximum height, 12,500 square feet of force for retail, around 30,000 square feet of open space, a plaza to the east of the existing retail where there used to be a bank drive-through, new landscaping, two new streets, new and widened sidewalks, 741 total parking spaces, and surface and structure parking, facade updates to the existing retail that's to remain Safeway, and then the other retail to the east, and then some public art along the street one facade. This is the pedestrian connectivity plan for phase one. Pedestrian connections would be provided on all sides of the new building, along an existing sidewalk in front of Safeway, through the pad site, and along Blinnem Boulevard.

So the applicant is requesting a special exception for sidewalks to not provide ten foot wide sidewalks along Democracy Lane, proposed street two, proposed street one, University Drive, and then the connection to the pad site. This is the vehicle connectivity plan for phase one. The applicant is proposing vehicular connectivity on all sides of the proposed new building. With two new streets, proposed streets one and two, a new secondary east to west connection with a right out only onto Blinnem Boulevard, and then a connection to Blinnem through the pad site with a right in and out to and from Blinnem Boulevard. This is the open space plan for phase one. The applicant is proposing 10.6% open space in the first phase. Zoning ordinance requires all areas designated as open space in a master development plan to be at a minimum 50 feet wide.

50 feet wide. The plaza to the east of Safeway and the residential amenity courtyard meet this requirement for a total of 17,155 square feet of open space provided in the first phase. And that meets the zoning ordinance requirements. I said east, but I meant west. So the two areas that are circled in red. Those are the areas meeting the zoning ordinance requirements. And then the areas not meeting the 50 foot width requirement as stated in the zoning ordinance are all the areas you see in light green on this slide. So that would be the plaza to the east of the former bank drive through and then portions of the pad site. The applicant has made a commitment to provide a minimum of 7,000 and up to 55,000 square feet of open space prior to full build out.

This would occur in an interim phase after the approval of the master development plan and then prior to the filing of the master development plan amendment. So I just mentioned that the applicant would have to apply for a master development plan amendment for phase two. The amendment would return to city council and would require full staff review. So at this stage, the applicant is proposing 315 residential units, 50,000 square feet of first floor retail, 90,000 square feet of open space and 980 parking spaces provided in surface and structured parking. This image shows the pedestrian connectivity plan for phase two. So pedestrian paths or sidewalks are proposed along the future road, along the northern drive aisle, along closet drive and through future open space.

And then just as a reminder, this is what is proposed for phase one. So this is the vehicular connectivity plan for phase two. The applicant proposes a new north to south street, a signaled intersection at the right out only created with phase one. And the primary vehicular paths in phase two would be street one, street two, and democracy lane and the future road. And then the secondary vehicular path is proposed through the pad site. This is the open space plan for phase two. In phase two, the applicant proposes 20% open space. And the open space would be provided in residential amenity courtyards, a future large open space in between the two buildings, and then on the pad site. The next few slides are elevations.

The top image here is showing the south elevation, so from proposed street one. The bottom image shows the west elevation from University Drive. The top image here is showing the north elevation from democracy lane. And then the bottom image is looking at the building from street two. And the applicant is requesting a special exception for building height. The maximum height proposed by the applicant is 72 feet. And the maximum allowed by the zoning ordinance is 48 feet. And then the small area plan recommends a maximum of six stories. Here are some renderings. On the left is from street two, looking north towards the plaza that would be located beside Safeway. And then on the right is the intersection of street one and street two.

These renderings show the facade updates for Safeway. And then the plaza that would replace the former bank drive-through. So the applicant is requesting a rezoning from CR Commercial Retail and CG Commercial General with proffers to PDM, Plan Development Mixed Use, and the Transition Overlay District. A master development plan, special exceptions for height, sidewalk width, and parking. And I've already talked about the special exceptions for height and sidewalk width. But the applicant is also requesting a special exception for parking. And the parking ratio minimum for the proposed residential use is 1.5 spaces per unit. And the applicant is proposing 1.25 parking spaces per residential unit.

The applicant is also requesting a major certificate of appropriateness for architecture and landscaping. So staff have provided the applicant with comments on their second submission. And these are the outstanding issues. There's a longer description of some of these issues provided in your packet as attachment nine. So based on staff comments in the first submission, the applicant provided staff with a few alternatives in their second submission. This slide is showing the alternatives for architecture. The top two images are a first option or alternative. And then the bottom two images are a second alternative for architecture. The applicant also provided open space alternatives. The image on the left is showing additional open space for phase one.

And this would eliminate a portion of the drive aisle connecting University Drive to Blenheim Boulevard and the new right out. It's outlined in a red dashed line on in that left image. And the image on the right shows additional open space in an interim phase prior to full build out. This additional open space is shown also in a red dashed line. And that replaces the parking next to the former bank drive through with open space. So on February 24th, a pre-application briefing was held with the city council to discuss the proposal. City council gave feedback to the applicant. Council members stated that more open space should be provided. The phase two plan should be more detailed. And the proposal is generally an improvement from the proposal that was denied at the end of last year.

And then the board of architectural review held a work session with the applicant on June 3rd. And gave feedback to the applicant on architecture and landscaping. Board members were concerned about the special exception for sidewalks. And would like to see increased sidewalk width. They wanted the applicant to explore a new color scheme. And they would like more articulation for the new building. So the next steps for the application are a city council. Work session that's been scheduled for July 28th. Plan resubmission and staff review. And then public hearings with the planning commission, city council, and the board of architectural review. And that concludes my presentation. Are there any pressing questions for staff at this point?

Okay. We would invite the applicant's representative to come forward. If you'd like to make a presentation. Welcome, Ms. Novotny. Good evening. My name is Molly Novotny. I'm an urban planner at Curata Partners. I'm pleased to be here before you tonight to talk about the courthouse redevelopment. Clara did a great job overviewing the site. I know you're all intimately familiar with the existing conditions at the site. And so I'll move right on to what we look to achieve with this project. Everything in red here are the leases that are currently under or back under combined properties control. And this is a portion of the site that would be redeveloped in phase one. Everything in green, those tenants would remain in place.

Yet their facades would all be improved also as part of phase one. This application when we were before you in February, I don't think it became, it was very clear of the significant revisions that have occurred between our 2025 application and the application that is before you all now. So I have this slide up here to overview the changes. Most importantly, this is now a rezoning, which is why we are before you. So we're rezoning to the PDM. It includes both parcels that combined properties owns. Originally, it only included the larger shopping center parcel and only a portion of that parcel. It also proposes a second phase and it improves the pad site. In terms of architecture, we've now included upgrading the existing retail center with this application.

Previously, that was a, we'd come back to the BAR for it. Now the BAR is actively reviewing it. We've also reduced the height at the corner of university and democracy. We've added canopies to the retail corner and recessed the retail doors. We've revised the color and material palette and continue to work on those following the BAR's meeting earlier this month. For landscaping, we've added the phase two central park. We further developed the park adjacent to Safeway. We've provided street plantings and widened the sidewalk all along the entirety of Blenheim Boulevard. And we've offered some alternative and potential interim open space options. And then in terms of site conditions, we've widened the street two for vehicular traffic, eliminated pinch points along both street two and university and committed to retail at the corner of university.

These are all important changes that we think make this project better. When we came to you in February, these are some of the big topics that you all raised and they will be discussed. I will discuss them throughout my presentation, right? You had questions about the long-term implementation of the small area plan, phasing and future redevelopment of this site, cumulative residential growth, pedestrian vehicular connectivity, and then what we're doing for the retail tenants that will be relocated as part of this project. This project got its start by your small area plan, which called for this whole area of Old Town, which was all commercial. The existing mix of uses, you can see it's all commercial.

It called for an infusion of residential here. It called for this area to be converted to be more than half of it to be multifamily. That's why we're here before you and before staff with this project. What will that look like? In phase one, this is the mixed-use building that will be on the west side of the project, shown here with new public open space, the park next to Safeway, as well as enhanced landscaping throughout the project. And then in phase two, again, as Clara mentioned, this will come back for a master development plan amendment, but that will bring on another similarly sized multifamily building, additional retail grocery anchored, and a significant phase two public park. This park is located in a similar form and fashion that your small area plan called for, and it will really be the heart of this development.

In terms of architecture, this is the facade. We've got a key plan in the upper right, but you can see this is along University. And so what we've done here since we've seen you last is the prominent corner at University and Street One, which is our street on the right side or in the foreground here, that will be a retail corner. We previously had an option for it to be retail or leasing. We've worked with staff and understand that that's going to be retail focused. But then importantly on the backside of this building next to Democracy Lane, we've lowered that corner of the building by a floor. That was something staff had asked us to do to help with some height transitions. And so you can see there that that portion of the building is five stories.

The overall building is six stories tall because that's what your small area plan calls for. And that's why we do have that special exception for additional height. This is that corner where we've lowered the roof or lowered the floor, lowered the elevation by floor. I think it's easier to see here. This is going along Democracy Lane. What you see here is the flats are on the left side. Our entrance to our parking garage is on the right side. So all of our traffic into the residential building will be off of Democracy Lane, which we think is really important because we see that more as a lower occupancy perimeter road for us. And so we focused all of our residential traffic there. This is so street two is our main retail street.

This will be predominantly ground floor retail. There will be our leasing office and residential amenities on this floor as well. This space is into the shopping center parking lot that exists today. We've got significant articulation and really lots of materiality changes along this facade. We have added this canopy and recessed doors here to help articulate and set the ground level retail apart from the residential above it. In the background here, you can see this is the location of our loading and trash area. This, I'll be very candid, is still under discussion with staff. Staff has asked us to continue to look at the loading location, and so we continue to study that. This is just a kind of more close-up view.

You can see the, what we call the Safeway Park or our Phase One Park on the right side there. Looking in the background there is the flats at University. And then this side, we've just flipped the view. So now you're looking back into the project, and you can see that loading area kind of tucked into the corner of our building. One of the reasons why we've located it in that location is that it's across from the Safeway loading, and we're trying to keep like uses together. It's also on the kind of tertiary street around our project. Color options. Clara did highlight potential revision. So we heard from staff that they would like to see some more red brick incorporated into the building. So what you see on the top, the top two images are, was, that's our initial proposal.

And then the bottom images show a revised proposal where we've incorporated red brick. When we went to the BAR, they said, we don't know if you've gone far enough. And so they've asked us to incorporate additional red brick. Also, they've asked us to kind of look at an overall color palette. So we are continuing to do that, but would love some feedback from you all on that as well. So these are, the one on the, the two images on the top were submitted. The ones on the bottom are works in progress, and we continue to work with staff and the BAR on those. In terms of retail renovation, the facade improvements will all be done as part of phase one for the existing retail that will remain. This has already been through the BAR for its first work session.

So what, what that means is this, the cedar shingles that have existed on the property for 50 years will be replaced. And so what you see here is the top images existing and the bottom image is our proposed revision to that material. And this is the rest of the center, same, same look, same feel. Now, if we revise the, you know, however the building material on the new building looks, we will look to incorporate that so it does present as a comprehensive cohesive center. Because this is what's really important to us, right? This may be, and this is one of the comments from the Planning Commission, this may be the, the environment for several years at this property. And we'd, we'd be very proud if this were the environment to be there.

It's a great mix of uses. It combines existing retail, um, upgraded retail with that new multifamily building. Connectivity. The Planning Commission was very focused on the pedestrian connectivity. And what you see here in red are all of the new, improved, or existing pedestrian paths through the project. One thing I will note, down in this area, but at the, um, just north of the, um, north of the, uh, new teapot building, um, we have offered an alternative. We had previously proposed a right out there because that was something that we had worked with staff on the last application that they thought that was important to create that road network there. We heard from you all. We've heard from staff since then that maybe that additional vehicular connection isn't as important as adding open space in that area.

So this alternative, instead of doing that right out there, would create a linear park along Blenheim Boulevard. Um, if we, if we do that, then we also get to add an additional pedestrian connection through that linear park. We think it's really good. We have presented a revised traffic study to staff. It showed there were between eight and 12 peak hour trips that we're going to use that right out. It's not significant. So if we took it away, it would not be a detriment to the project. And we do think that's a good way to increase the open space and the pedestrian connectivity here. So, in terms of the other sidewalks around the project, yes, we do have a special exception to, to reduce the width from 10 feet down to seven feet in some instances.

This is street one. You can still see there's plenty of activation, plenty of ability to move along this street. Um, and it does narrow down to about seven feet in some areas, but it widens in other areas. This would, uh, be along that new street one. And I'll go back here. The reason why, because we've had the question, just widen the sidewalk, right? Every time we widen that sidewalk, something else gets pinched. And so you can see where it's located on the, with the multifamily building. And what's directly on the other side of the units is our interior courtyard. So if we widen, if we widen the sidewalk, that means either those units are going to get pinched and narrowed, or the interior courtyard gets pinched and narrowed.

And we've already kind of done this push pull as much as we can. And we really want to make sure that this property remains class A and has the sorts of amenities that a class A apartment building needs. And so we really think we've struck the right balance in terms of maintaining an appropriate, adequate courtyard that we can put a pool into. It will allow sunlight into for the residents, as well as providing, um, a double, double corridor, um, units there to make sure that the building is efficient. In terms of the street two sidewalk, um, this does narrow to, uh, just about seven and a half feet at one point. However, the entire width of this sidewalk has tree grates, which are five feet in width.

So you're really creating a 12 foot walking zone along this area. And there are just certain pinch points. There are other areas where it's 10 feet or wider. This is our retail area. We've now recessed these doors to also create additional, um, breathing room and kind of, um, activity corners and pockets throughout this, this street here. Along Democracy Lane, this sidewalk's just over six feet in areas. But again, it's complemented by that five foot wide tree grate. So you've got more than 11 feet of walking area throughout this sidewalk. And then along University, there was previously one small pinch point that narrowed the sidewalk a little bit. We have since corrected that. So now we can provide the full 10 feet or more along University.

So we don't need the special exception for the tent, for the sidewalk along University Drive. Um, I've talked a lot about how the pedestrian's gonna get around. It's equally important how the vehicle's gonna get around. All of the orange routes, um, would be phase one routes. That blue right out is what would be removed or not built in lieu of the open space. So that's the only out, um, that's the only vehicular route that would not be built if we do opt for the additional open space. You can see there's lots of permeability through this site. In terms of open spaces, we, we're excited. We've got the amenity courtyard space internal to the building as well as that, uh, post-hospital. Uh, the new park next to Safeway.

We've further amenitized that park since we've seen you all. In February, we've created kind of more of an experience area. You can see through these images here, we've got that. And we now are showing that pedestrian path through it. We've, um, made it very clear that there's areas for individual folks to sit and enjoy some quiet time or to play, toss the frisbee around and really gather with the community. Residential courtyard examples. These are, uh, examples from some projects that both combined has built or that our architects have designed. So we'll really look to create this as important gathering space for our new residents. And then our retail park closer to Blenheim. We've, um, made a good reuse of what was that former bank drive-through.

Created kind of a pergola and outdoor seating area that we do think will be attractive for the retailers there as well as community members. This is that proposed park I've talked about that would be in lieu of the right out. So it's about 7,600 square feet. So it's not insignificant and it shows that additional pedestrian path through it. So here's just an overall open space for phase one. And then when we were here in February, I've kind of highlighted some of the significant questions that you all asked that I don't think we had adequately answered at that time. So, um, what happens if phase two is delayed or doesn't occur? Well, I've already shown the image on the bottom. This would be how the site would look.

You'd have a fully renovated retail center as well as one new multifamily building. But then we also have some options for interim open space. So after the Safeway lease expires and we regain control of the rest of the parking area, we have more flexibility into where we could put open space. And so we've given two options. The one on the left shows about an additional 2,200, 2,250 square feet of open space while maintaining the vehicular movement there. And then the one on the right shows more than 10,000 square feet of new open space if we wanted to close off that vehicular access to really create a pretty significant park on that side of the project. These would be interim open space phases.

So if we have not filed our MDPA or master development plan amendment, then we would go ahead and move forward with these with these open space options. We heard from you all, you know, we really that you all wanted the pedestrian connections to be prioritized over the vehicular connections. And so I've already talked about we've added the vehicular, I'm sorry, the pedestrian path through our Safeway Park and then that addition of the additional pedestrian path down through the new linear park. So two ways to really augment the pedestrian movement through the property. Additionally, this is along Blenheim. There's a lot of detail on this image, but if I can draw your attention to the circle, the green circles.

This is along Blenheim Boulevard in this. So there's an existing sidewalk along Blenheim, both in front of the pad site and on in front of the larger shopping center. We've worked with staff and we've agreed that we would widen the sidewalk in front of the pad site to actually be 11 feet because there's some existing signage and things in there. So we want to make sure you've got the 10 foot wide clear path and follow the same cadence of the sidewalk street trees that exists by the library parcel. So if someone's walking up from Old Town, they're going to kind of follow that same path of sidewalk street trees. Then you transition to the shopping center parcel and that sidewalk also gets improved and will be widened to 10 feet with the street trees there as well.

So those are new pedestrian improvements. In terms of the existing retailers, we do have a commitment in our proffer statement or our commitment statement that talks about how we can help those tenants who would be displaced. So this is language that's planning, that your planning staff is reviewing and we actually have a meeting with them tomorrow to go over our commitment statements. over our commitment statements. But we have noted that we would subsidize rents if they're higher for tenants who get displaced early, work with your economic development team, also to try to attract some of those smaller tenants to the new space that we could work to set lower rents and then kind of ramp those rents up over time

as they become successful, and to make sure we create smaller spaces for those startups. And then finally, there's a question I think, Commissioner Cunningham, you asked about where this fits in with the overall residential units that were called for in the small area plan. So this chart shows that if this first phase is approved, we'd be at just under 1,000 units. So still under that 1,250 units in terms of what's reviewed, what's under review or approved and still entitled. And so I think this appropriate, given this plan has been in the works for 10 plus years, I think. And so we're following suit and kind of following what the city has asked for. Clara provided these kind of overall staff comments.

These are, this shows that this project is a work in progress, right? We've submitted, we've gone through one resubmission. We're getting ready to do a resubmission following the city council work session next month. But these are really the comments that we as a team have already been working on, right? So as I mentioned, the loading location staff has asked us to reevaluate then. They've said, is Street 2 in that location really the right spot? And so we are doing an ongoing search to see could it go in a different location on Street 1 potentially. We've, I've already talked about the sidewalk whisks and why they are what they are. Staff had wanted us to commit to where that leasing would not be

along University. We've done that. We've, we have, it's important to us to put leasing at the corner of Street 1 and 2. I can go into those reasons later. In terms of activating University, I think this was a comment that you all may have raised as well, is how do we make sure that University Drive has a good pedestrian experience to it. And so we are now committing that we'll do some stoops along that road that will actually give individual units access to that street. So we think that's a, could be a real enhancement and attraction. There's about four units that we'd be able to create outdoor entrances to. I've talked about open space, the new pad building. Staff had asked us if we could add additional retail

to the pad site in phase one. And unfortunately we can't, but fortunately it's because we have new tenants there that have just signed long-term leases. So those spaces are now accounted for, but that's something that we could look to do in phase two. I've already talked about our tenant relocation plan. There's a comment about the signal at Blenheim Boulevard. Your small area plan shows it in one location. We've accommodated it in that location. But in discussions with staff, the conversation is maybe that's not the right location because it does have impacts on the property across the street from us. We're happy to continue those discussions. We didn't choose for the signal to be there. And so we're just trying to make sure that we put it in the right spot

that works for everybody. And some of these other items are really just details on the plan set that we've been able to address and we'll be showing staff on our next submission. And so with that, I'm happy to answer any questions. But we are very proud and excited of this project. Okay, commissioners, questions for staff and or the applicants? Ms. Lugger. I just want to start with a quick confirmation. The courtyard in the residential building is just for residents, correct? That's not a publicly accessible amenity at this point? Correct. Okay. Others? Mr. Cunningham. You really don't want to start with me, do you? I do have a 615 Uber pickup tomorrow morning. You got it. Okay. I should try to keep this somewhat focused.

This has been an interesting site over a long period of time. And I would like to deal with it in two ways. One, the existing site and two, the context of this site in the block. In the past, I know a lot of things have changed. If we go back to an election in 2002 that talked about height and density and things along that line, major political changes occurred because of it. There were discussion at that time that buildings would not be taller than the old historic courthouse in trying to keep scale down. And the Massey building towered over the courthouse at that time and has since been torn down. So that has put back in play. I don't know where the six stories goes on this, but I know across the street, we don't

have a theater and we don't have usable retail space because the redevelopment across the street from this was pushed down due to political activity. So I know things have changed over time with the people and the activity going on in this area. When I get to context at that time, if I look at University Drive, Leighton Hall Drive and Oldley Highway, which was the name, there were zero residential units that are bordered in those buildings and North Street. When residential was brought into the discussion, it was 800 units to provide access to student housing to help George Mason housing, George Mason University with their housing problem. So there are 800 bedrooms as they are counted. It wasn't counted in units, but 800 bedrooms that were put in with the flats.

The theory being that that would help the university with housing. It would help downtown with customers because students will go out and use the bars, the restaurants, the other things like that. And it would also help because students provide good part-time employees. So there was a benefit all around for this kind of development and that's what helped it come in. Now that we're moving on with greater density and the small area plans came after this time frame. We're moving into this development and one on Leighton Hall Drive. The one on Leighton Hall Drive proposes to add another 400 bedrooms roughly. This in phase one will add another 400 bedrooms roughly. And that's just the breakdown of one bedroom units, two bedroom units, it's two bedrooms and

three bedroom units if there are a few in there. So 400 bedrooms there. And phase two will bring another 400 bedrooms. And then we have an orphan site, which is what I'm going to term it, between the Leighton Hall property and the back of the Safeway property, which is claimed by nobody right now, but will leave a small area of small townhouse offices. That is going to be probably a challenge to redevelop in a significant way. And along now what's Blenheim Boulevard, we have two properties that are potentially ripe for redevelopment. So from a perspective of zero residential units, we're now at essentially 2,000 bedrooms in this space with the possibility of adding more. And I don't know whether this is being done intentionally or unintentionally or one small

piece at a time, but by the time we add 2,000 bedrooms in this area, traffic continues to be discussed. Access tends to be discussed, things along that line. So I think it's a challenge when we look at long term plans and how they're implemented to see how this is going to work out and how it's going to be digested by the rest of the community as we're moving along. Right now, because of the 800 bedrooms, you have some residential on University Drive coming up the hill south of Layton Hall Street. When this goes in, you have a wide section of commercial visibility right now with the Safeway parking lot, which is an expanse, and then the building. This is going to put, save the small corner, all residential up to six stories high, right

up to essentially the street. You're fairly close to the street with very tall buildings. So we're moving residential up the east side of University Drive until we get to the townhouse office complex and then another commercial office complex. So it changes the character of what we're doing. And this is just an awareness discussion. We said it needs to be there. Originally, if I go back with this open space, we talked about development and we might or might not be talking about this had it been permitted. And that was no more drive-throughs in downtown. You already had one at the bank building. You had one at the McDonald's. And Chick-fil-A was going to be right in the middle of that parking lot that we're talking

about. And it was determined that they could not have a drive-through. So it was not located there. But that was a proposal for this site. So the site has had proposals before and this moving forward. This now talks about phasing of this. But this is a 10-year development proposal we're talking about. And 10 years seems to be a very long time for things changing. And I'm glad you made comment in reference to the fact that if the second half of this doesn't come about, we still have a renovated shopping center that's on the other end while we've managed to build the residential. But we're building the residential without adding any real amenities for the 2,000 bedrooms, which I presume is going to be analogous to the same number of people who are going to be living

in this area. So I think it's important that we include the commercial space and the activity that's needed to provide a place for those 2,000 people to spend the time when they're not at work. Now with 800 students, we don't have to worry about employment for them because they're students and they come and go and they're intended to be transient. But everybody else here is going to require a job of some kind unless they're a student in the school system. So what we are building is a lot of residential, but I don't know how to deal with the fact that all of these people are going to need employment, which means they need to go someplace and they need to do something unless this is going to be such a high-tech,

wired building that everything is going to be able to work from home. And in which case, people are going to need to get out of their place, enter over to let off steam, and keep their perspective. So as we get to the density of the housing that's coming into this area, it's one of those things I appreciate the effort that's been put into bringing it forward, but I hope we can continue to move forward and say, how does this transition work smoothly as we're going forward from that standpoint? So the architecture, red brick, is what we used to talk about because that was Williamsburg character in downtown, and everything was based on red brick that was built in downtown and around this area. But as times change and people change, architecture can change too.

So I see that happening, and I guess we'll leave that to the bar. But the comment that we should have more red brick in downtown, I think, is based on the history that was there, and the question as to whether we're carrying that history forward or we're trying to break with it by renaming all of our streets to other things so that now you can't figure out where you're going. Those are the issues that I still see here in the time frame and the phasing. The fact that the two streets you've got going in right now, it's commercial access from University Drive. When we're done, you have two small side streets along residential, essentially, or the small office townhouse complex that are going to take you off past residential to get you back to the parking lot.

So it's going to change the nature of the traffic somewhat going from University up to the commercial area. We have refocused the commercial on Blenheim Boulevard, and we have taken any commercial focus off of University. That's my sense that we're moving residential up into downtown or down into downtown, depending on your north-south orientation. Those are my comments on it, the rest of it. I'm sure the work is going to be good. I'm sure that you will handle the people well. I'm sure that the affordable housing aspect will be dealt with. My questions come, as I say, in the stretching it out to see that the plan is survivable over 10 years, because that's what, in essence, it is, is 10-year approval for a project.

And we have enough changes that go on in 10-year periods to question whether this is survivable over that time, whether the current state of political affairs and citizen input deals with this in the same way. So those are my comments, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Cunningham. Others? Mr. Rice. All right. I appreciate Mr. Cunningham's history and the knowledge that we soak up from that, and it is a useful context. I wasn't here during the drama in 2002. I do appreciate the direction that your company has gone with us, and certainly there are significant improvements, which I think we should all recognize. The 10-foot sidewalk on the university, that's a big win. I came in here, you know, thinking adamantly, you know, 10-foot sidewalks, you know, are death.

You know, it's just that pedestrian infrastructure is a moneymaker. Walkability is good for business. And making sure that all the sidewalks are of adequate width really does support the Class A status of the building. Shrinking that interior courtyard, which the public won't benefit from, does seem like a good tradeoff to some extent, but recognizing those amenities are necessary to keep this attractive. I was concerned in reading through the plans about the comments about possibly relocating the stoplight, recognizing that we do have an entire development on the east side of Blenheim that would suffer from that. I would expect ongoing conversations with all of the neighboring properties at this point

to make sure that those plans are consistent and that they're included in feedback. Has there been discussion with the Fairfax Commons folks? Not yet. So let me back up a little bit, if I may. So all of our street network has been based on your small area plan. So we put our streets in the locations that the small area plan put them in, which included, for Phase 2, relocating the traffic signal to that location. That was not something that our designer said, this is a great idea, let's go do this. And we actually raised the concern of that it involves all of those properties and their condos. So it's a lot of property owners on the other side. So we are very excited and hopeful that we can have that further conversation with staff to say,

is the signal, is it really in our lifetime going to move? And should we put it in a, leave it where it is, put it to the north, which was an idea that staff had. But that's really a Phase 2 improvement. So for this phase before you all and what this first building would effectuate does not impact that signal. Okay. So in the future, perhaps democracy and blend it. I don't think we call it democracy there. But, yes, that connection over there. Sorry. That's why I'm pausing. I'm like, democracy is on the left side. So right now, this isn't a great image to show it, but I will. Right now, the signal is where my cursor is here. Yes. And the small area plan calls to move it down to this area. Okay.

That's a small area plan. Okay. But then in talking with staff, staff mentioned, well, maybe it actually makes sense to move it up here, which I think you're calling democracy, but it's plaza. Yeah. Yeah. And so we're happy to have those conversations. Our Phase 2 right now, it's really a building envelope to say, hey, within this envelope, we're going to put parking and a building and landscaping and amenities and a traffic light. I think there's just a great sensitivity over traffic and over congestion. And so my reading of the small area plan was perhaps not quite as literal, that this needs to be the location of that exit point. I think I looked at it with a little more qualitative lens.

And so certainly staff knows that plan better than I do. And your ongoing discussions with them, I think, should, you know, every ninth or tenth Senate should have Fairfax Commons in it and just an acknowledgment that changes on the site will impact everybody beyond. Just a couple other questions. I think the loading location has become sort of a metaphor for some developers, either lack of context and awareness of what that means. And so I think I'm not loading your group with baggage, but we had some other unfortunate plans come before us where that loading corridor is placed in the exact kind of center point feature, a highlight of the small area plan. And it was just quite unfortunate that apparently that conversation had never been had

and that had never been pointed out. So I do like your plans there. I really like the extra open space in the center and, you know, during phase two and expansion of that, and that really is something that we requested. Although the small area plans talked about circulation on the main streets, I think circulation through the center, pedestrian circulation through the center of, you know, between phase one and phase two, for me at least, is what I think of when I go there. And I used to walk my kids through that corridor every single weekend. And so we do know the area quite well and like it a lot. I'm regretful to think that some of the businesses that I go and patronize, Chubby Squirrel, Mama's Taste, I'll have a little revolution at home if Mama's Taste disappears.

And I do appreciate the fact that there will be some effort to help relocate the tenants. But there are some very highly esteemed businesses on that side that will disappear. And I appreciate your comments on that. Combined Properties, at its core, is a retail company. And they own four retail properties in the city. So they are uniquely positioned to try to retain those tenants and other properties that they own. And so we definitely will be engaging in that. Good. I have been around long enough to remember the prior discussion about Fairfax Circle. And the combined representation at the time said, well, we own other properties in the city. If this one works, given that we're not really a property development company as much as we're a property management company,

that if we can develop this and it works out well, then we'll do Courthouse Plaza. So if we reach that point where you deem Fairfax Circle a success and this is next? Yes. Okay. That is confident. I like that. I do like the changes. Sidewalks also are kind of, in my mind, a metaphor for how much the developer cares about the impact on the public. And so recognizing the value of those thoroughfares and looking at them as business generating instead of space constraining, I think, is useful. I do like in the plans how you discuss the tree grates and the possible extra width gained by making some of that available. And certainly we'll like to hear feedback from the urban forester to look at the sustainability of the planting plan

and some of the other things that are related to those tree grates in that area. Great. Yeah. There were two comments that I'd love to kind of pull the thread on a little bit more. One is the loading location. And then the other, when you talked about retailers, since you said, you know, you remember, you've been in the city long enough. For those who haven't been, Staples, which is now at Combined Properties Shopping Center over on Pickett, that used to be at Scout on the Circle. That was a Fairfax Circle business. So they've successfully retained and moved other tenants around. So we are excited and have the ability to do that again here. In terms of the loading location, this isn't the best image to show it, but it does show the location of our existing plan for that loading location.

Staff has asked us to evaluate incorporating it into the parking garage, and if that's not possible, locating it along Street 1. And so our architects and our engineers have been hard at work studying both of those. Ideally, we like it in the parking garage, but we can't get the turning movements and the clear heights with the grade change there to work. It would essentially be like a 15% steep grade ramp up into it. And then with the turning movements, it becomes incredibly complicated, which then pushes us down to be studying it on Street 1. This was not our preferred street because we see that as our front door. I'm seeing your expressions on the dais, but we'd love some feedback there because we are continuing to work with staff on figuring out the right location.

For us, we've put it where we did not only because of its relationship with the Safeway loading, because some will say, well, that will go away at some point. Yes, it will. But it allows us to create an entire retail corridor. So within Street 2, all of this will be retail along here. And then at the corner, we're proposing to put our leasing, right? And the reason that we're putting our leasing at the corner is because the retailers need access to a back corridor to get to their trash room. And so if we break that space up and put the leasing kind of internal to Street 1 such that you've got retail at the corner, then leasing, then more retail than the trash room, the flow of it doesn't work because your leasing amenity space wants to flow right out to your internal courtyard, right?

So all of these kind of decisions are very thoughtful from our design team about where things are located. And so if we end up having to put the loading on Street 1, then it changes kind of the operations of how that loading works and creates additional challenges. I think it's not generally something we would approve to have it on Street 1. But it does seem that its location in your plan is sort of the best among suboptimal decisions. Every building needs a back of house. And so we have tried to put it in the right spot. So thanks. So my final comment is the retail drops from 92,000 square feet to 74,000 square feet. So that's a 20% reduction in retail. We have expressed concerns in previous meetings about the degree to which a drop in retail shifts the revenue generation to property owners and to homeowners,

rather than that revenue coming from retail and commercial. Is there any world in which that 20% reduction in retail could be raised if there could be additional retail somewhere in here? So I'll speak to phase one because that's what we know and that's what's before us. At the end of phase one, we'll be at 79,000 square feet of retail across both parcels. That includes 12,500 square feet of brand new retail. It's a loss of 12,500 square feet. So I would argue, yes, I would agree, yes, we are decreasing retail by about 12,500 square feet. But we're putting back brand new retail, which is going to allow us to really activate the center. And so we do think that from an economic standpoint from the city, we're hopeful that you won't really see a change.

Okay. I appreciate the hedging statements on phase two, but it does make me uncomfortable. We've had some other examples of people coming in and not being willing to say, we're definitely going to build on this particular section of our plan development, and nothing's submerged. And we still have a vacant site on Fairfax Boulevard that we aggressively questioned and took exception with, and we haven't seen anything emerge. So I'm concerned at least about statements that may downplay the certainty of phase two happening. But I know it's a long-term development, and you can't predict everything, but I think it's honest for me to say it does make me a little bit uncomfortable. Understood and appreciate it.

I will say we are different from that Fairfax Boulevard site because we are retaining all the retail that's here. So that does set us apart that we're not taking down the retail that's shown here in pink. This will get improved and enhanced with this first phase. Mr. Cartwright. All right. I know it's getting late, so I'll try to be brief here. Appreciate the presentation. I think it's been very enlightening, and your responses have been very thorough, so I definitely appreciate that. I think big picture, you know, I like the way phase two looks, but it feels like in phase one we're being asked to sacrifice commercial retail for benefits that aren't really coming until phase two, the bigger green space.

I think phase one you're just at that 10% threshold as opposed to 20. And there's a big question mark on when and if phase two comes. And it seemed like from the commitments, that's kind of at your guys' discretion. Is that right? There's no hard trigger for phase two. It's when and if. So in terms of the overall redevelopment of phase two, that will be economy driven, right? We can't, we're not going to commit today to say, hey, in X years we'll do this because I can't predict it. But we have committed to provide that additional open space if we have not filed the phase two plan by 2034, I believe. We've got a date certain in the proffers by which that additional open space would come online if we have not moved forward with phase two.

Okay. And does that also include though that it's not restricted by lease? So like if you were to renew the lease? Which it will be. So the Safeway lease terms will have expired by that point. So any new lease either with Safeway or with someone else would give us the ability. We would work that into it knowing we made that commitment. That's why we've chosen that year. To do phase two? Okay. All right. Let me ask about traffic. Okay. I live on University Drive. I walk to this plaza with my kids every weekend. We go to Chubby Squirrel quite a bit. Your study says that there's, you looked at a shopping center like Courthouse Plaza that it would generate about 8,500 daily trips. And then based on your study, I think you're saying it would go down.

But the like language made me question, did you use like assumptions or is this based on actual traffic counts that are going into that plaza? Because I will tell you, I think one of the things people like about it right now is how sleepy it is. So I'm a little skeptical of these numbers. Yeah. Not you. I'm talking residents. But anyway, I'm just curious where those traffic numbers are coming from. Is that an assumption or is that actuals? Yeah. I so appreciate the question because I brought my entire team with me tonight. I was wondering who these people are. And I can get, I'm like, I can get Kayla Ord with Grove Slate, our traffic engineer. Hi, I'm Kayla Ord. Good. So the numbers that we used for that comparison is based on the Institute of Traffic Engineers, which is based on actual data.

Okay. And then that was to show that comparison. But for the analysis we did, we just layered it on top of the existing counts. So we didn't reduce the traffic that we were out there. We were looking at worst case. But we wanted to show that comparison for what that center could be accomplishing. So the number that's said here, the 84, 85, is that actual as of today or what it would be if it was? That's what it would be if it was. Do you know what it actually is? I can get that number. Okay. I think it's probably, I don't want to guess. I can look it up. I'm just curious if this is based on actuals. You know, like. The analysis that we did was based on actual counts. So we went out there and collected at the driveways and then layered traffic on top of it and analyzed that.

So that's what was analyzed. The numbers for comparison were just by right, what could this be doing versus what it will be doing. Okay. So just to be clear, based on actuals that are happening right now, this project would actually reduce the amount of traffic. Is that right? That's what was said in the plan, but it was. I think. No, this was in the traffic impact study. It's reducing what could be done at the site. For our analysis, we just layered on top to look at a worst case. But we are reducing some retail, so that will reduce traffic. We'll layer traffic on top, and then we're also creating the mix of units. So there will be some reduction in traffic in terms of residents that can walk to grocery rather than having to drive to grocery.

So it's also introducing that mode split and mix of modes. Okay. And did you allocate the traffic? Like, did you look at university versus Blenheim? Yeah. So what do we do to each of those streets? Yeah. So we scoped the study with the city and looked at existing kind of distributions of traffic. So we had some traffic going to university, some to Blenheim, some up to Layton Hall. So we do look at that split and look at that distribution. Okay. And what was the, like, the result of that? So in the study, we look at existing conditions. We grow the volumes to the future and then look at it with the development and without the development. And we look at the surrounding intersections to make sure there's not, like, a significant impact and the results were negligible.

There wasn't any degradation in level of service or delay. Okay. So we talked about the interim phase. I guess it was Molly, right? You had mentioned that, like, the streets are based on the small area plan. Is Street 2 something that you guys would have put in if you were designing it without that reference? I'm just wondering what, because it seems like that's an opportunity for more green space. And I'm not sure what that street's going to do. It's like you were here a year and a half ago. Well, I just joined a few months ago. So Street 2 used to, in this image here, Street 2 used to just wrap and go around in front of the retail. And we had that as an entire open space park in between our new building and Safeway.

We had it as all open space. Okay. But it is a road that's called for in the small area plan, and so staff asked us to create that connection now. To circle around the building? No, to create the connection of Street 2 up to Democracy. Oh, okay. I see. So that connection. I see your street under that. But next to the park, that park used to fill where the road is. So the park bridged the Safeway building to our new building, and there was no vehicular connection in that location. Okay. Just north of Safeway? Correct. Got it. All right. I won't relitigate that. The current tenants. Have you had discussions with them about this and the proposed assistance? I'm just curious what, if any, feedback you've gotten.

So I'm looking for, phone a friend. And the tenants are very aware of this project that's coming, and all of the tenants whose leases that I showed in the red area, all of their leases align to allow this development. So this will not be a surprise to them. Okay. But I also will note, even though we're in for entitlement now, we're still early in the process. Because after we get entitlement, then we still go through a site plan process with the city. And so we're still several years, you know, at least a year and a half away from being able to actually do anything with the site, given all those additional approvals. So it's not that it's happening tomorrow. Got it. I know one of them is very aware of the plan based on some feedback I got.

All right. I think my last question, the grocery store in Phase 2, will that be closed for a period of time? Like, will we have no grocery store as Safeways being rebuilt? To allow the Phase 2 development, the Safeway will have to be demolished. So, yes, there will be a period of time. All right. But we have committed that Phase 2 will bring on a grocer. So it would be interim that you wouldn't have one. Got it. That's it. Thank you. Ms. Lockhart? So I appreciate the thoughtful incorporation of feedback from both Planning Commission and Council. I'm going to chalk this up to you having to gotten to come to Planning Commission this time because we're just a much more collaborative body. Not that I'm biased.

I also feel like I need to represent our KJ students and ask if you've got commitments yet from Addicted or PacSun or any of their preferred retailers. You know, that's very important information to have. We did meet with them. Yeah. I was going to ask about the sidewalks, but I appreciate your explanation. To echo Commissioner Rice's comment, you know, maybe if there's a tradeoff to be made on that internal courtyard, it might be worthwhile. But I do appreciate that when you add in the tree grids that it does help a bit. And I would – I don't know that anyone else has spoken to it, but I would vote in favor of removing the second right in, right out piece. I think that that section of the traffic area and the parking gets a little bit convoluted.

So streamlining the entrance and exit there would be actually probably safer from visibility and movement perspective. Again, I, you know, appreciate the reframing of this to be more pedestrian oriented, to be more externally facing vice internal. Obviously, the, you know, increase in density is always a tough sell for the community. But, you know, I think this is a reasonable approach to what is a really high value site for the city. Thank you. A number of things. Ms. Schweiger, the traffic study. Has our traffic engineer reviewed it and concur with the potential changes that could occur? Yes. The traffic engineer has reviewed it. I don't – let me look and see what he said. Because I was struck by the same things that Mr. Karchi was of the potential for reduction in trips.

The other thing I am fully aware is these are based on models. And my engineering background I've learned over many years is all models are wrong and some are useful. So – I'm sorry. I forgot one more comment. May I? It's related to your comment. Okay. Please. Obviously, parcel consolidation is not in play at this point, although it's something that the Planning Commission likes to bring up. But I think in terms of Old Town specifically, amenity consolidation across parcels might be something worth considering. I don't see necessarily any public transit-oriented, hardcore additions to the plan outside of, like, bike parking. But if there were the opportunity to combine with other development proposals to provide a public amenity in the form of a public transport subsidy or alternative option, that would be very attractive to the city.

And I'm done now. Sorry. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Sutton, do you have a comment? Yes. Further comment on the transportation study. There is one focus area that our traffic engineer is looking at, which is the democracy intersection with University Drive. Given the higher, over the last couple years, higher percentage of pedestrian usage at that intersection, along with what we would hope would be a more walkable community with better assets with a redevelopment here, it may require additional timing and or facilities at that specific intersection. No significant concerns have been raised by the traffic engineer with the study, though it was scoped out with Mr. McCullough throughout the process.

They've evaluated every intersection and every project that's in a pipeline or is under construction. One additional comment I did want to make, and, Ms. Lockhart, your comment with amenity and adjoining sites just triggered something. One of you had mentioned earlier the office condos. You know, do they become orphaned in the future? There's this project, potentially a redevelopment with the office building that fronts on Leighton Hall. Out of curiosity, I did some rough rudimentary measurements in GIS just now. That office condo complex is approximately the same size as City Center West, same dimensions. Okay. A couple other things. Yeah, some of the same concerns have been expressed in that connection that the traffic light and Blenheim Boulevard, it's obviously a phase two thing.

Staff had raised some concerns about the additional building at the pad site, but you've addressed why that's not feasible. And I would have had some concerns about just adding additional construction disruption during phase one at that side of the property while we're busy working on the other side. So it's clear that that's not feasible anyway based on the lease. I agree with the swapping out drive aisle for open space. I was going to comment on that as well, so I'm glad that comment was made. Let me think. Change that. I've got that. As far as the things we're talking about with parking reductions and so forth, you may be aware that we're already talking about parking reduction changes in our activity centers and small area plans around multifamily development anyway.

So I don't know if these numbers, how they align with where our thinking is currently, but it seems like there's a case to entertain that. So I don't see that as an issue. It's the same thing with the 25% use for, you know, non-residential things. Something else we're also talking about in potential updates to the zoning ordinance to bring those in better alignment with our small area plans. So not going to be a great concern either. Overall, I like the concept. I think it's well thought out. Phase one, of course, is pretty well defined. And as much as we'd like to hear more about phase two, based on comments here from the city council, there is a reality that you can't predict the future. And you're constrained at this point what you can do anyway by the lease.

What I will say, however, is this is much better thought out than a couple of other recent developments in the city, which had an undefined phase two. At least a couple of properties we can think of. One, Northax West. One along the boulevard. There was just no plans. You have a concept, and I appreciate that. And the commitment that combined properties has made to the city and has performed well in the city in the past, I think, is something that we can take to the bank, as it were, recognizing we're not going to be able to predict the future. I think it does well at providing some of the housing that we feel like we should have for some of the people that need to live and work here. Provides the pedestrian access that I think we're talking about is a real benefit.

And it does provide updates to an aging and underperforming, what I would talk about is the amount of land in the city. We've got a whole lot of asphalt in this location, and we're bringing some higher and better use to that. Yes, it will bring more people. It may or may not bring more traffic, depending on how good the models are. But I think this is actually a good place. I think that's the sense I was getting from a comment Ms. Lockhart made anyway is this may be a good thing at this place at this time to pursue. Facing the net loss of commercial, there is a reality in the commercial market now, but I'm optimistic as well that that will bounce back. People who are going to live here are going to want to get out.

As Mr. Rice was alluding to, whether it's in green space or other retail or commercial uses. So I think this provides a good springboard for that. I think that's all I needed and wanted to say. So. All right. 6.15 Uber pickup. Thank you. I'll drive you. With that, I guess as I see it, what we're getting is the residential now and the rest of it later. I guess the question I'm going to ask then is that in light of the fact when you acquired the two pad sites a number of years ago, there was discussion of incorporating them into this overall development plan when it's redeveloped. I don't really see that happening. The pad sites are staying there and not included in the future. Since we're talking delaying five years, my question is, if we were to delay this entire process by five years,

that would put it close enough to the end of the Safeway lease that working through this process and following a unitized thing for the entire process could change the pad sites, could change what you're doing based on five years, but could end up with redevelopment of this entire parcel in a different way or in exactly the same way. And what would the impact of just delaying this whole thing for five years to do it as a unit as opposed to breaking it up piecemeal mean? Yeah. I'm happy you asked the question. By delaying this five years, it probably delays it 25 years, because they're going to go and sign leases for the spaces that they currently control. And so it's not just a five-year wait.

It's they need to make that decision and they need to say, hey, are we going to repurpose these leases that these spaces that are underutilized right now and make the improvements that we can make, or are we going to do this redevelopment that we've talked about? And so it's not really a wait five years, it's a wait 25 years if we make that decision. I'll also note this property, it's over 10 acres. It's a significant land mass in the city that actually does well to be broken down into phases, right? The first phase is about 300, 315 units, and that's kind of the sweet spot for what you want to develop. Allow that to get built, to get leased up, and then you can start moving into phase two. So the timing actually works pretty well from a construction and a demand standpoint.

Any other comments? Any questions from you or staff for the commission? You've given me good clarity, so thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. 615. Okay. We'll reconvene our regular meeting and go to our staff report. Mr. Dept. Thank you, Chair Feather, members of the Planning Commission. For tomorrow night's city council meeting, they will be making a final consideration on the city's green building policy. It's an update on where you may have last heard where that is going. The final proposal is to, at least in terms of private development, which would apply more to the Planning Commission, is to establish a base requirement for development to receive a lead silver equivalent type of amenity.

There's no recommendation in the final version to include incentive to go higher than that, as has been discussed in the past. And you may recall we discussed potentially including that as a bonus provision with the zoning order to amendments, and there wasn't support for that. So that's something that may come back in the future, but they are proceeding with a base requirement for silver or equivalent. City council will also be considering the subdivision review amendments that you adopted at your last meeting. They'll be receiving a presentation on the smaller year plan reviews, also that you received at your last meeting. I also wanted to point out that, actually following that, they will receive a brief summary of an upcoming effort to develop design guidelines for the North Vax Linear Park.

This is an effort that we are working on that will help harmonize the various types of entities that will come together as this linear park is developed. So, for example, the project you heard a briefing on today will provide a piece of that. Other properties will provide pieces as well. So the goal of this is that all those components come together, and it reads as a harmonious single facility. We have asked various boards and commissions to include a representative on a committee that will help with that process. This will be kind of a short process. So it will be meeting once, possibly twice over the course of the next couple of months. And so we have asked Commissioner McCarthy to participate in that.

And as far as we can tell, he has committed, but he hasn't confirmed the date yet. So if it doesn't work for him, then we might have to reach out to somebody else. So it's a heads up on that. Other boards and commissions that will be involved are the Environmental Sustainability Committee, Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, and the Board of Architects Review. City Council will not have a representative as were proposed. However, they will receive this briefing about this tomorrow, and will provide more information about this project to this planning commission as well. And then at their July 7 meeting, they'll be having a work session on the gallery at City Center proposal that you received on June 8th.

And then one last item of note, this Thursday will be the next comprehensive plan implementation group meeting, focusing on Old Town. That will be here in City Hall in the work session room at 9 a.m. As a reminder, this group meets quarterly. It's comprised of various city staff that are involved in different aspects of implementing recommendations of the comprehensive plan, but all meetings are open to the public, so anyone is welcome to attend. That's all I have for a staff report today. Thank you. Any questions for staff? The only thing I was wondering about, and that's just because I was cleaning up some files today, has there been any further discussion with the economic development folks about another get-together discussion?

I know they're working through onboarding a new director. Yeah, so there's been a bit of delay because of that and other things that are going on, but there has been discussions, and actually there's kind of a program of topics that we believe that the Planning Commission and the Economic Development Authority need to discuss. So we're going to propose a series of meetings, not just one. And the initial goal was to kick that off in July. I don't think that's going to happen at this point, but we will keep working with them on that and hopefully come up forward to you with a schedule in the fall. Okay, thank you. Thank you. I'm a representative to that. I participated remotely, and we had the discussion on the gallery development,

as well as a discussion of a refresh. It was a public hearing of the Duncan Fairfax Boulevard. No longer Dunkin' Donuts, but now Dunkin'. They're just recoloring and so forth, rebranding with the new schemes. I guess I think I mentioned last meeting, the prior BAR meeting discussed the Courthouse Plaza redevelopment. You heard some of the feedback tonight that Ms. Novotny presented and staff as well. Did have the discussion about red brick, and when you look at the flats, it's an interesting mix of red brick and other materials kind of scattered throughout. The proposal that we saw tonight showed red brick on the corners, and the BAR, I think, felt that it could be incorporated in a different manner,

probably more consistent with the flats, that better also blends the red brick with some more contemporary looks of materials. But I didn't want to comment on that because that's the BAR's purview, but I just thought I'd mention that because I came up in the BAR meeting two meetings ago. Okay. Mr. Rice. Good. The Parks and Recreation Board has had a busy few months. We established a foundation, or at least City Council formally established a foundation that would allow for some fundraising and 5013C, C3 designations, and they have a working website, ffxfoundation.org, amongst the various domains that were available. That was the best one at the time. So they are up and running, and a few alumni of our planning commission are part of that board,

so they're very capable and up and running. Every time I come home from a Parks and Recreation meeting, I'm just stunned at how complex the portfolio of projects are that they manage. So there are multiple multimillion-dollar projects going on simultaneously. Of those, Theis Park is set to substantially open at the end of July. Old Town Hall is currently scheduled for completion in the middle of October, and their window restoration in the building is one of these specialty items that's been rescheduled a little bit to find craftsmen that can, craftpersons that can fix the windows and get those up to the standard that they were at. Pat Rodeo Park is also in the process of plantings and playground,

and so there are multiple projects like this around the city happening at once. There's a good public works person that helps manage all the projects, and a very capable staff member, a Syed that's been singled out repeatedly by Parks about just the incredible helpfulness in helping manage their projects. And with that in mind, I just mentioned the, if you look at the org chart for Parks and Rec, it's just very, very surprising. One single department head and an otherwise totally flat organization that has seven or eight components. So there's no deputy administrator. There's no associate parks. It's one single person managing a completely flat organization, and I think that concerns a few of us on the board.

And just obviously the city's not in a position to staff up all the positions that we think would be nice to have. That's not going to happen. But in this case, it just surprises me every meeting to come away and realize how many significant financial projects are ongoing that are essentially managed by one administrator. So with that in mind, I know every city staffer works super hard, including the one I'm married to, and I'm just endlessly impressed by, you know, the competence and good judgment that are shown by people who are working for the city. And I appreciate everything that the planning staff do for us, and, you know, including on the fly, Mr. Sutton, doing a little GIS magic to make measurements and do things.

That's just, it's great to see. And we just have great city staff. So with that in mind, I'm just excited to continue as a member of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board until somebody else kicks me off. And that's it for now. Thanks. Thank you very much. With that, we are adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.