Planning Commission Regular Meeting/Work Session

James FeatherIt is moved and seconded to adopt those minutes as issued. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstain. Motion passes unanimously. Next item is items not requiring a public hearing. We have no such items on the agenda this evening, so we move on to item 6, which is public hearings. This is a proposed amendments to the code of the City of Fairfax chapter 110 zoning for portions of the articles and sections contained therein including zoning districts and regulations site development standards development review and definitions relating to a sex accessory drawing units occupancy reducing special use permits and other miscellaneous amendments. Mr. Foreman good to see you.

ForemanstaffGood to see you. much. Good evening. This agenda item is a public hearing. It's for a series of zoning text amendments, and these cover several topics. So as you see here, the main topics include removing some of the restrictions pertaining to accessory dwelling unit occupancy, also reducing the need for certain types of businesses to apply for special use permits. And we also have other amendments and they help out with the administration of our ordinance, things that clarify inconsistencies, simplify the text or just correct typographical issues. And all of this is the overarching goal of making our zoning administration more efficient and helping us to realize some of the goals that have been set forth in the comprehensive

is there's no reason to duplicate the language. This is the language from the definition. A duplicative language often results in problems. So this instead simply refers the reader to the definition as well. So this does not change any policy. It doesn't change any way of doing things. It simply, like it says here, revises language that's considered outdated at this point. So those are the proposed changes for the accessory dwelling unit occupancy standards. It's a decent time to pause, see if there's any questions on this before we move on to special use permits.

Thank you. Okay. We can move on to reducing special use permits. So I had mentioned we're proposing to revise some of the standards here. all really with the purpose, like it says here, of reducing the need for these special use permits for certain types of businesses. So just to provide an orientation for this discussion, so all uses are listed in the principal use table of the zoning ordinance. There's essentially three types of uses. So there's permitted uses, which are allowed in a given zoning district. Permitted uses aren't necessarily a free-for-all because there are frequently used standards that go along with those. But at the other end of the spectrum, there are uses that are not permitted

in any given zoning district, which is self-explanatory. But right there in the middle, that in-between category is the special use permit or a special use. So essentially, a business wishing to operate as a special use would file an application with the city And ultimately, that ends up in a public hearing before city council. Now, that process of a public hearing, it's justifiable in a lot of cases because the purpose of special use permits is to give city council the opportunity to exercise discretionary powers in considering whether or not to allow certain uses that just due to their characteristics might have adverse impacts, adverse impacts on either adjoining properties or the city overall. But requiring that kind of

permitting process for businesses that operate largely unobtrusively, that's something that's considered really to just set up barriers to business creation that don't necessarily need to exist. So this series of amendments, there's three types of businesses in general that we're talking about. These businesses require special use permits, but they tend to be rather unobtrusive uses. And staff feels that the permitting process would work better in these cases without these being a special use. And like we had talked about in May, these are cases really where the business models, common business models, have evolved from where they were just a few years ago or from a decade ago. So we'll take a look at each one of these. So the first one here

involves a use that's known as indoor recreation. So the the use interpretation and this year in the boxes from section 3-4, this describes indoor recreation as amusement or recreational activities carried on wholly within a building. And and this was intended to apply to big facilities, so things that could really characteristics or large crowds that the special use permit was really designed to handle. So things that would really warrant that special use consideration. Things like bowling alleys, skating rinks, big gyms, and so on. But what we've seen over the last few years is an increase in smaller types of businesses in this use category. So things like day spas, for instance, or small gyms.

recreation this sets that threshold at 30,000 square feet now this this amendment would maintain the current SUP status for larger uses in this category so something over 30,000 square feet so that would include bowling alleys would include skating rinks larger gyms and and so on but those smaller uses so those smaller gyms or mixed martial arts studios or day spas and whatnot, those would simply be considered personal service uses. And with being considered a personal service use, those businesses would not be required to go through special use permit process. They would not be required to have a public hearing before city council in order to open up. So as you may notice in your packets, these amendments contain a few other text changes,

but it's really that size threshold. That's the substantive change here. Again, with the intent, as all of these three special use permit series of amendments are, with the intent of just smoothing out the business process. Any questions on indoor recreation?

Paul Cunninghamcourt. Right. So that's the scale we're talking in special use permit where something like the gym down at the corner of Pickett and Main, that is a major facility, I believe is significantly over that, would still come through for uses. Correct. Okay. I think that gives a sense of what this is talking about. Thank you.

ForemanstaffAnd we're in a situation now where urgent cares really operate very similarly to a doctor's office. And doctor's offices and urgent cares have really blended together somewhat as well. A lot of doctor's offices and pediatrician's offices have urgent care functions. So given all of that, it really doesn't seem beneficial to require that urgent care facilities go through a special use permit when similar doctor's offices do not. So similar to indoor recreation, so this draft amendment, this sets a minimum size threshold for a use to be considered a medical care facility. So in this case, the threshold is 10,000 square feet. So the reason that that number was chosen was, again, because it's really urgent cares that we're looking at.

trying to figure out what would be classified as an urgent care and what would be classified as a doctor's office. So before we move on to the last of the special use permits, are there any questions about medical care facilities?

No, that's definitely true. And what we've seen over the past decade or so is we've seen doctor's offices that have opened up that come in with a proposal, and their sign says urgent care, but their application says doctor's office. So there is just no easy way around it. I absolutely understand what you're saying, and especially because urgent cares is one of the two things that's called out in the use standard for this use. So it is a little bit confusing, but it was considered important for things like big urgent cares or surgical centers for them really to remain a special use permit.

uses, making this, like it says on the right here, permitted in most commercial and industrial zones. Animal boarding, which it tends to be a little bit more intense, we would consider that to be kennels, basically. This would continue to be a special use in the more intense commercial zones. and this would continue to be permitted in industrial and in CG as well. The real meat of the matter here is getting veterinary clinics out of that special use permit. So here is the use interpretation for kennels. This is what is proposed. So you see that use interpretation there. I know we talked about this last time, but one thing that I'll mention a little bit here, line says that this is related to boarding of dogs.

for veterinary clinics. And you can see it's an establishment where animals are provided with medical or surgical care. And again, like it says here at the bottom, vet clinics would be a permitted use in a bunch of the common commercial and industrial zones, so CO, CR, CU being commercial urban and industrial zones and CG as well. So this would eliminate the requirement for vets to go through a special use permit process. And one more slide on animals. I had mentioned a few slides ago that this draft recommends updating the animal care use standards, which would now be kennels and vet clinics use standards. We went over these standards individually at the work session. What you see here are summaries of the actual standards.

is in your packets i'll go over them brief briefly here uh there there are use standards to require a certain amount of sound mitigation measures uh also a requirement that the operator control animal waste that's generated on the site by the business's customers those those two have been common uh conditions in special use permits so these weren't brought out of thin air. These are things that were frequently applied to vets and to kennels as well. There's a physical standard to require these facilities to include ventilation that would control off-premises odors, and that really is for a multi-tenant kind of situation. And also standards down here at the bottom regarding outdoor areas if they're provided. So