City Council Meeting

Shinneberryclerknon-residential uses on the ground floor, and special exceptions on the premises identified as 4131 Chambridge Road in tech imprints tax map 57-4-02-040 I'll recognize Albert Frederick city planner to provide a staff presentation

Albert Frederickstaffgeneral development plan with proffers special exceptions and a major certificate of appropriateness for architecture and landscaping again the site is located at 4131 Chambers Road the site is currently developed with a colonial style revival single-family home that was constructed around 1916 the photos on this monitor shows University Drive on the left side on the eastern side of the property the photo in the middle is of the single-family home and then the photo on the right shows Chamber Road on the western side of the property so again the subject property is located on the east eastern side of chambers Road at the intersection of judicial Drive in spans a block with frontage on the west side of University Drive across from Breckenridge Lane south

then you see the required bicycle parking facilities within both buildings in terms of the development standards the applicant is meeting the max lot coverage in the TOD of 90% the proposed building coverage is roughly 54% we'll get into building height and in density later within the special exceptions but it should be noted that the smaller your plans suggest a tailored approach to the height with the limit of four stories on University Drive and five stories on Chambers Road the smaller your plan also suggests that the bulk conformer over the maximum density has a near-term horizon of 15 years with the proposed increase of 1250 residential units so the applicant is proposing 276 units towards the towards the near-term goal in 15 years of roughly 1250 units so the

utility plan the applicant has provided a utility plan and all underground all utilities will be either removed or placed underground along chambered road in terms of the special exceptions I'll quickly try to walk through the special exceptions so the first one is the ground floor non-residential used in a mixed-use building the requirement is 75% and the applicant is seeking that reduction the the applicant has provided is required to provide 24,472 square feet the applicant has provided roughly 10,796 square feet of office and retail combined which would require a special exception for this I should be noted that the smaller plan does not recommend non-residential uses at this location and so the applicant has

along the buffer yard b and c on the east side a reduction in plantings on um for our c and d on the south side and a um a reduction in the number of plantings along the dna which is on the west side of the of the site so there's a number of special exceptions or a number of modifications to the transitional yard and um the applicant is meeting the requirement for the for the streetscape and the overall tree plantings however it's a modifications would be needed in order to provide the the transition transition yard calculations and the in the overall streetscape for for this project the applicant has has gone before the the BAR and the BAR recommended approval of this project with some modifications in your pocket in your packet the the board

recommended to City Council that they made a certificate of appropriateness and special exceptions be approved for by a vote of 5-0 and the applicant has provided quality building design shown here look at this is photos of the University Drive of building a and and this is a university driver building B and this is a Cambridge Road building a again the applicant is provided quality building design and materials along for both buildings in terms of the certificate of appropriateness again like I said the applicant has received an approval from from the board of board of board of architecture and review planning Commission on June 23rd met and recommended denial of the zoning map amendment the that the Plending Commission recommends denial of I vote

of 42 and the summaries in your packet of of the meeting and if we have any questions about that we could we can get into that discussion but that recommendation is for I was forwarded an hour 42 staff however recommends that be approved the general development plan be approved the special exceptions be approved and the major appropriateness be approved and staff stands by for any questions that you may have and the applicant has a presentation to talk about the project and some of the changes that have occurred since the work session and planning commission now I'll stand by for any questions you may have

Billy Batesyou I move that the city council adopt the attached resolution to approve the request of the hill a Davies family LLC for special exceptions pursuant to city code section 110 dash 6.7 to allow

I move that the city council adopt the attached resolution to approve the request of the hill a Davies family LLC for special exceptions pursuant to city code section 110 dash 6.7 to allow less ground floor non-residential use in a mixed-use building to allow more than 24 dwelling units per acre to allow height greater than 48 feet to eliminate the requirement for landscape strip and street trees along a private street to eliminate the requirement for a sidewalk on the northern side of the proposed private street to eliminate the requirement to provide vehicular access to abutting non-residential properties and to modify the transitional yard requirements on the premises known as davies property and more particularly described as and identified as

Shinneberryclerkmotion passed four to three we will go to our next public hearing item which is a public hearing and council action on a request from combined courthouse LLC for nine special exceptions for residential use standards density building height sidewalks street trees lot coverage interior clear height and via vehicular cross connectivity to allow an upper story mixed-use building that consists of 315 multifamily units and approximately 12,000 square feet of ground floor retail on the premises identified as 10300 Willard Way I'll recognize Claire Schweiger our city planner to provide the staff presentation good

Claire Schweigerstaffevening mayor and council tonight i'm presenting on a request for special exceptions for redevelopment of the

to the south. The proposal presented at the briefing was significantly different than what the applicant submitted in the formal application. So later in 2023 when the applicant submitted a formal land use application, this application removed phase two and heavily modified phase one. I'll discuss the current proposal in detail soon, but one thing worth mentioning is that the applicant did not end up including the site to the south where there's currently a building with no roof as part of this application. and for this application the applicant chose not to rezone the property and instead chose to move forward with by right development with special exceptions since the initial submittal there have been five resubmissions of

the plan and now the proposed plan is shown here on the right the applicant is requesting nine special exceptions and I'll go into detail on each of these later in my presentation. So assuming that the applicant provides 12,000 square feet of commercial space on the ground floor of the new building, the total number of parking spaces required is 648 spaces. The applicant is providing parking in the garage along proposed streets one and two and within the existing service parking lot. And I've outlined the parking in red on this slide. They're also proposing 42 bike spaces and 20 are required. And those are highlighted in green. Primary vehicular access to the site is from University Drive, Apropos Street 1 and Democracy

So now I'll get into the special exceptions. I'll talk about what the applicant is requesting, what's existing on the site currently, and what the applicant is proposing. Mixed use is permitted by right in the transition overlay district, subject to specific use standards. And one of these standards is that at least 75% of the ground floor of upper story residential and mixed-use buildings shall be used solely for non-residential uses. The remaining 25% of the first floor may be used for residential uses or residential accessory uses. The applicant proposes more than 25% of the ground floor to be residential uses or accessory uses. And currently all uses on the site are retail. retail. The current building area is approximately 83,000 square feet and the applicant is proposing

to the remaining buildings, but this is not part of the application at this time. The applicant proposes a condition of approval that facade upgrades to the remaining buildings would be considered by the Board of Architectural Review prior to site plan approval. At the July 16, 2025 Board of Architectural Review public hearing, the BAR recommended approval to the City Council for both the Certificate of Appropriateness and the Special Exceptions. So staff recommends denial of the Special Exceptions and believes that the application is not generally consistent with the Comprehensive Plan and the Small Area Plan. And staff recommends denial of the certificate of appropriateness and believes that the application does not comply with the approval criteria in the zoning ordinance and is not in general conformance with the design guidelines.

Colleen Gillisapplicantboth the special exceptions and the certificate of appropriateness. So let's talk about this corner. This corner shows you some ground floor space, and that can either be leasing space or retail space. This is, you can see also from this image how there's a grade change from along Road 1, which is what you can street 1, you can see on the right side here, from the University Boulevard side all the way up towards the retail center. And that grade change creates some challenges. But we're not, you can keep going, that that wall there, we're not going to leave it as a blank facade, and we're going to add murals and arts here to keep it vibrant, keep it active, which is one of those tenets of the small area plan.

So let's go through them. So there are two special exceptions for building height and for density. I said it earlier. The small area plan calls for six stories and 1,250 residential units. Unfortunately, the transition overlay district only permits 48 feet. So we need to go high. You can't fit six stories in 48 feet. And so we need that special exception. Additionally, we're asking for a special exception, as Clara said, to not have 80% of our upper floors have floor-to-ceiling heights of nine feet. I'm going to give you a sense. God bless you. I'm going to give you a sense for what we're asking for. We're asking not for nine feet. We're asking for eight feet and 11 inches. And as my grandmother would say,

Stacy Hallplace but it is a Korean barbecue yep exactly thank you my next question might be better for staff so there's nine special exceptions I think combined properties and others have highlighted why some of them are technically an or the nine feet versus the eight feet, 11 inches. It seems like, and I know I exchanged emails with Brooke earlier about this, and thank you, I didn't actually write back to you saying thank you for all the detailed information, but it seems like the small area plan says one thing, but the zoning guidelines and rules and all of that have not yet caught up with what previous councils said they want in the small area plan. And so I think it's frustrating, it's confusing,

Claire SchweigerstaffYeah, sure. Yeah, you're okay. I'll try to answer all of them So there are inconsistencies between the small area plan and the zoning ordinance. And we know that, and we're currently working on updating our zoning ordinance to better match the small area plans. The applicant has submitted nine special exceptions, which are a lot of special exceptions. But for a development of this size, it's not uncommon to have those nine special exceptions. there are two special exceptions that they've requested that are like you you mentioned like within that zone of like the inconsistencies between the zoning ordinance and the small area plan and those two are the height requirement and the height special exception request and also maybe the

density as well so those two are two where the small area plan does recommend a higher height maximum and a higher density the rest of the special exceptions are not they don't fall under that they don't it's it's not coming from a place of these are inconsistencies between the small area plan and the things that the developer or the applicant could remedy if they were to change their plans. What I look at as a planner when I'm evaluating special exception requests are three things. I'm looking at the zoning ordinance, I'm looking at the comprehensive plan, and I'm looking at the small area plan. That's what I'm comparing the requests to when I'm doing my review. questions?

Billy Batesyou I move to phone I move to defer action on the sir accident close it here Okay, I move to defer action on the attached resolution to approve the request of combined courthouse LLC by Molly Novotny agent for special exceptions to allow more than 25% to be residential uses and or residential accessory uses to offer greater than 24 dwelling units breaker to exceed the maximum height of 40 inches in the Old Town Fairfax transition overly district to reduce 10 foot sidewalk requirement to allow street trees to be more than 15 feet come