Planning Commission Regular Meeting/Work Session

Good evening. Welcome to the regularly scheduled meeting of the City of Fairfax Planning Commission for Monday, May 12th, 2025. It's good to see everybody back after an April with no meetings scheduled. 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 it stands, one nation, under God, individual, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Next order of business is discussion and adoption of the agenda. The agenda was issued ahead of the meeting as required. Are there any comments on the agenda? Mr. Chair, I move the agenda be adopted as presented. Second. Second by Dr. Rice. All those in favor, say aye.

Aye. Opposed? The motion passes unanimously. Third order of business is presentations by the public on any matter not calling for a public hearing. Has anybody signed up ahead of Madam Clerk? No. No. Okay. Are there others in the room who would like to address the commission? Seeing none, we'll move on. Next item is consideration of the March 24th, 2025 meeting minutes. Those two were issued ahead of our meeting. Any comments, questions, changes, corrections, or additions? Mr. Chair, I move that we adopt the March 24th, 2025 regular meeting minutes as issued. Moved and seconded. Comments, none. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Extensions? Passes unanimously. We have no items not requiring a public hearing this evening, nor do we have any public hearings,

so we'll recess our regular meeting and go into our work session. First item on the work session agenda is discussion of potential amendments to the City of Fairfax zoning ordinance related to the adopted small area plans. Mr. Napty. Thank you, Chair Feather and members of the Planning Commission. We last had a discussion on this topic back in January. At that time, our consultant, Whitesmith in Casino, had developed a list of issues to deal with with our zoning ordinance as it relates to adopted small area plans. This was based on feedback they'd received earlier in the process from stakeholder meetings, from analyzing our code, from analyzing state code, and so on. Since that time, they have prepared some recommendations on how we can deal with each of those issues.

And these recommendations are really conceptual about how we will go about or potentially amending the zoning ordinance as opposed to the amendments themselves. So the purpose of this work session, along with another work session we'll be having tomorrow with City Council, along with a public meeting we'll be having on this on Wednesday, is to receive feedback on these general ideas before we actually start preparing text amendments. So I'm going to turn it over to Justin Wallace from Whitesmith Casino, who will go through the presentation for you. And just as of note, there's a lot of material to cover. There are a lot of topics, and we want to make sure we hear from you on all of these individual items and nothing gets lost.

So as he goes through, he's going to stop at various places and ask for feedback. And at the end, there'll be another opportunity for general feedback. So as always, we're here to answer questions, and I'll turn it over to Justin. Thank you. Thank you, Paul. And good evening, commissioners, chairman. I also want to introduce my boss, Mark White, firm partner, attorney, and planner, who's also joining us here today and helping with questions and any questions that you all have. My name is Justin Wallace. I'm also with Whitesmith Casino. The last time I saw you was January, and we discussed the core issues that community members have expressed. And we've been working on a strategies and recommendations report

and are here to present those preliminary findings and recommendations. So without further ado, I will jump into our agenda. I'm going to give a brief update and overview of where we are in the project. And then we'll talk about some of the core issues. I've tried to create a concise presentation. Hopefully, you've read the document, but I know it was extensive. So we'll talk about the desired uses and development frontages, open space and tree canopy, character elements or land development, and height, density, and community benefits. And then we'll end with the zoning framework evaluation. So I probably don't need to go into too much detail with this, but the comprehensive plan was adopted, and it included as part of the future land use map.

The activity center areas, which calls for mixed use walkable development over time. And so the focus of this project is specific towards these activity centers. And so that really is the focus of the zoning updates. The small area plans goes into greater detail at a neighborhood scale level into each of these areas. And so we have guidance related to the character of these areas, related to the mix of uses, the density, building intensity, and the desired character and aesthetic, parking and open space, and how infrastructure is foreseen over the future in these areas. And so what we're tasked to do as part of this project is implement the land use policy. And these amendments will be potentially updated with the zoning ordinance to implement the land use policy in place.

So currently there is a gap between the policy and the zoning ordinance. And so we're really focused on addressing those issues and those gaps. For example, height. Right now there's a single maximum height cap, whereas the policy allows for some variation of height throughout the small area plans. And so we're looking at ways to address those issues and resolve those issues in the zoning ordinance itself. The zoning ordinance update. Again, we're looking to align with the policy of the small area plans. We want it to be purposeful and making the right things easy and streamlining and making things as straightforward as possible. And of course to clarify the community goals and objectives from residents here in Fairfax.

Where are we in the process? We're about midway in the project. We've been meeting with community members. We had a kickoff meeting back in August. We had focus group sessions in October. We had a community meeting in November. And we met with you guys in early January of this year. So right now we have been writing the report and are here to present recommendations. And the next phase in the project will hopefully be drafting and the adoption as phase three. I just went through, you know, a summary of community engagement. So I won't spend much time on this. But as Paul mentioned, we are meeting with council tomorrow to have a work session. And we have a community meeting scheduled on Wednesday, which is a full day of open house.

So members of the community can come and ask questions. And it will be educational in nature. And we'll take input from community members at that time. The issue summary is outlined in the report itself and goes into great detail about why these issues are important and why it's important to address them in the zoning ordinance. And so the core issues, I'll quickly go through these, are to align with the comprehensive plan, to create a zoning framework for these activity centers, to reinforce the character of the small area plans, and to establish a clear pathway for the desired uses that people want in these areas. To focus on development frontages, which is more of a design based approach for buildings.

We'd like to clarify the open space and tree canopy standards, to coordinate elements in the right of way, and then find a way to incentivize or encourage those community benefits, which are amenities and things that contribute to the general public in terms through the development process. So again, we have written a draft of our report with recommendations. And the report includes a lot of analysis. It is, includes best practices from other communities in Virginia, outside of Virginia, your peer competitors in Northern Virginia area. We've also looked at different options and evaluated different strategies and ultimately have come upon these preliminary recommendations. So we'll start with the development frontages.

And let's see. So the analysis summary goes into some background about what we heard through the community engagement process. And goes into detail about peer reviews and market studies for the Fairfax area. And what we heard is that people desire for more innovation and flexibility and creativity with how buildings are designed and how they meet the street. And we also read through the studies done by the Chamber that suggested that more place-based strategies for buildings would provide for more activity and engaging storefronts along the street. And so we believe that development frontages are the best approach to achieve that. And so what we are recommending is introducing development frontages for the zoning ordinance.

And that includes four that we have. And those are priority retail frontages, flexible commercial frontages, residential frontages, and open space frontages. And I'll talk a little bit about each one on the next few slides. But generally, the purpose of these are to provide more flexibility and design-based strategies for really the ground floor and the face of development. And so we would include build two lines and those setbacks. And we'll also define what those spatial qualities are for each of these frontage types. So here's an example. We pulled examples from other codes where they've used development frontages. So here's an example of each type of frontages. The priority retail would be for those traditional shopfronts or commercial storefront areas.

Residential would be for multifamily and townhouses and other types of residential developments of higher intensities. Flexible commercial is for those retail types that might have a different, might not be in a modern or urban format. So you think of big box retail or strip development retail formats or even those single pads that might have a driveway or drive-through attached to it. So those are different types of retail that might be accommodated in the flexible commercial frontage. And so that frontage will be focused more on how those types of development transition over time. And so that's specific to accommodating different formats of retail. And then, of course, the open space frontage is what it sounds like.

It's where buildings face onto parks, trailways, or any type of open space that's available and accessible to the public. With regards to mixed-use development, in all of the small area plans, it called for mixed-use development. So that is a type of development that's envisioned for all activity center areas. And currently, mixed-use projects with the upper-story residential requires a special use permit and is reviewed by city council. And it also requires that 75% non-residential on the ground floor. And so what we are recommending is a couple of different scenarios. The first is allowing mixed-use development to occur by right. And in exchange for that, we would have the development frontages that would address the conditions

and how the building fronts the street and focus on the design of the building itself. And so the balance here is that with the development frontages and other design criteria, you may not need the 75% non-residential requirement. And so that is just an idea that we'd like to point to you guys for some consideration. The second option or pathway is strengthening the zoning ordinance with standards for mixed-use development. So currently, there aren't necessarily design criteria specifically for mixed-use development. And so that is something that we could incorporate in the zoning ordinance itself so that when it does come before the boards and elected officials, there are some design review criteria in place that's baked into the zoning ordinance itself.

So that's another option. And the third option is updating the city's design guidelines. So right now, there are commercial guidelines in the city's design guidelines. But we feel that for mixed-use development and activity centers, that those standards or design guidelines could be updated and strengthened and to provide more guidance. So those are three different pathways that we feel might facilitate mixed-use development and activity center areas. And so just put a pin in that, and we'll pause in just a minute and talk through that a little bit more. For the retail uses, again, the preferred retail is urban mixed-use format. And so for that, we are introducing the priority retail frontage.

So those are areas where you want to concentrate retail for walkable, you know, those priority streets, whereas you might have a secondary frontage, the flexible commercial frontage, that addresses different types of retail that might occur elsewhere in activity centers. And what we found was that the retail market is evolving, and the zoning ordinance needs to be adaptable to those different configurations of retail, the big-box stores, the strip centers, and the pad sites. And then, as I mentioned before, the residential frontages would promote active and engaging fronts of buildings. So that could be through courtyard design, porches, stoops, patios, and balconies. And all of that could be addressed in the residential frontage type.

So there was also mentioned in the small area plans about specific uses that were desired in different areas or might not occur in every area but in one small area plan. For example, Boutique Hotel was mentioned in Old Town Fairfax. And so there are a couple ways we can fold that into the zoning ordinance. And one is simply addressing that in the use regulations themselves. And so that would simply be incorporating those conditions in the use regulations or supplemental use regulations and addressing those specific uses that way. The other option is finding an incentive approach to encourage those types of uses. And so there may be a bonus attached to these uses if they are proposed in development.

So Boutique Hotel was one specific use. Another use that was mentioned was artisan use or maker or production type uses. So those are just some considerations of how to incorporate that into the zoning ordinance. So this is our first pause. And so what we would like some feedback on are really reflecting on mixed use development and understanding what is necessary to move forward with mixed use development and facilitate mixed use development. And what we're proposing is to eliminate or mitigate the 75% non-residential ground floor requirement and to encourage mixed use development activity centers. And then introducing those development frontage types with design-based strategies and then thinking about incentivizing those unique uses that are called out in the small area plans.

So I'm going to stop here and open it up. And so I think we're just going to stop after each segment so that we can kind of talk through the previous slides and just allow you guys to talk through those or ask questions. Okay. Thank you. Good place to pause. Questions, comments at this point? Ms. Waller. I noticed that the commercial discussion focuses mostly on retail. Are we discussing office uses in this contract as well, or is that something that was not part of the discussion? That's a good question. It was focused on retail, but I think that's worth evaluating. I don't know if all the small area plans called for office, but that is something that we can either include or add to the discussion.

That's a good point. And I'll add to that. I mean, when you think of office, it's not as active as your storefront is going to be, so that is probably something that would be either through a different development type or we'll think through that about how to incorporate that. I think of cases where there might be services that could easily take that kind of frontage, like a veterinary clinic or something. I guess it's a service, not really retail, but it's something that people might see a storefront and bring their pets when they live nearby. Well, there have been real concerns and proposals that are replacing commercially zoned properties with residential right now that we are losing office space,

which is a unique differentiator to the city. So I want to make sure that's retained in the discussion. I think certainly in the Old Town small area plan, there's a significant office, small space office contingent. Mr. Rice. Yeah, I think proximity to the courts and proximity to Mason, the quick connections in and out of Old Town certainly make it an attractive office location. There is some kind of, I think as alluded to by my colleague here, there seems to be some hesitancy by developers to include retail or other uses on that ground floor, particularly on major thoroughfares, and we seem to get pushback. At the same time, we have presentations that suggest that our vacancy rate for our office space in the city

is lower than most of our neighboring jurisdictions. So it seems that we should be looking, rather than cannibalizing potential retail and office and other commercial uses on that ground floor with residential, we should be, I think, looking for ways to maybe be creative and think of other uses that are roughly within that same category of retail, commercial, office, services. The CPA frontage downtown that used to be in a running store is maybe a good example of a use of space like that. But those are just my ideas. Thanks. Thanks. Thank you. I guess as a starting point, since we're talking about the zoning ordinance and we're comparing it with the comprehensive plan, part of the question I will ask is,

how do we get something effective out of this? We've got a mayor who has expressed the opinion that maybe we just ought to throw the zoning ordinance out and let people develop whatever they want, wherever they want, in accordance with however they would do that, and everything would be fine. Now, that is somewhat out of character with what we have gone through in the past. But politics is a main driver for what happens in the city. And I will say that because during different administrations, different things have been allowed to happen, which is how we've gotten to where we are now. So when we talk about rewriting zoning and trying to get something, I'm not sure that we live with our existing zoning ordinance all that well.

And by way of example, I will talk about Eaton Place and Willowwood Plaza and a building that is primarily residential that's being put up on that property on the west side of it, which we were offered 5,000 square feet of space on the first floor as the mixed-use portion of it. I don't know. You just said 75%. We ought to do away with that. We already approved a building that doesn't come anywhere near 75%, and the compromise was that they would have three residential units on the first floor. Then in the future, if it was appropriate, they might convert to a commercial or other use than residential. So we already approved that sort of stuff. Now, how do we get past the politics of getting something that is effective in moving the city forward?

Right. That's a big question. But I agree. I think if you're already allowing, or maybe not allowing, but allowing... The council is the final decision-making authority. Whatever we recommend is a recommendation. Sure. And what I'm saying is if the process is allowed to happen and the decisions have been made with recent development, why not bake those types of decisions into the zoning code so that it's not such a process? I mean, if it is proven by recent development, what we're saying is to consider the zoning ordinance, including those types of standards, so that the process itself is not as belabored, I guess, for mixed-use development. I mean, if it's called out in the small area plans to, as a desired use,

what we're saying is that maybe the zoning ordinance could include standards that would facilitate that type of development. But I agree with you that, you know, not everyone's going to agree with that decision. So that is why we bring it to you to talk through these issues and understand where the temperature's at. And so... I guess for my second question then, how does construction du jour factor in to the zoning ordinance being affected? And what I mean by construction du jour is that there have been various times in the city in which certain things are economically popular. And so everybody wants to jump on the bandwagon. And there was a period in this century when suddenly we wanted to construct drugstores.

And so Rite Aid and CVS and Walgreens and any number of drugstores constructed large buildings here in the city. And where are we now? One is an Indian bazaar, an Indian grocery store. One is a cannabis oil shop as an empty building. Another one is a sports facility. It's now a vacant shell that has paddle ball played in it on numerous courts. So things come and go. After that, we had the small bank building construction du jour period where suddenly every bank wanted their own small building for customer service. And where is that now? One is a child care center. One is being repurposed at the moment and might still be a bank when we come out of it. One was at the end of the process and became a vacant stand-alone lot in what had been a building

because the bank wanted to own its own property and has just been approved to become a Taco Bell. So at this point, we had all of these come through at one time, and now we live with the outcome of those things. The current construction du jour, as I see it, is multifamily housing, primarily rental, some condo and some ownership. And so we are building. Scout at the circle. We're building whatever it was that became the Moxley that's now 50 at the point or that. So these things are changing as they are coming through. And primarily what we're seeing now is a desire to build residential because it's profitable at the moment. And there are a number, and we just talked about the one at Eaton Place,

of these kinds of things that are coming through. But nobody's talking about building office buildings. Nobody's talking about building additional commercial space. Nobody's talking about those kinds of things. But the playing field will change over time. So when we build a zoning ordinance, how do we accommodate those changes as they come through with a vision for maintaining the city? Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of that is a rhetorical question. I mean, my opinion on that is, you know, development frontages would help with that because I think that you're really focused on how the building presents itself to the street. And so no matter what, you know, the uses inside the building, you're allowing for design.

Your purview would be, you know, focused on the design and how the buildings are addressing each other. And so I think you can do that with the development frontages where the focus is more on the design and the face of the building and not so much on the changes of uses interior to the building. That's just my perspective on it. But I know that that's a debate in itself. So that would mean that if we zoned it commercial and we built a string of buildings that were first floor office with residential allowed on the two floors above, we'd accomplish the goal. So how many of that string of 10 or 12 constructed now buildings are actually businesses? So we're talking about, again, residential. And everything right now is tending toward residential development.

And I think there is some concern that we are getting over residential development because it is skewing the tax base to putting the burden on private property, not on businesses that are running profitably and generating a workload that helps carry and balance off the high cost of educating students and other things that cause city councils to become concerned at the tax rate time. I do think it's tricky to anticipate the different uses that go into these spaces because then you start getting into the market. And as you said, we don't know what those are going to be. But I think, you know, based off what we heard through the engagement and the small area plans, there was a need for more outdoor dining, more focus on variety and the building face.

And so that's where the idea of development frontages came from. And I think it would help address those issues and just provide more nuance and variety so that you're not getting those developments that you see in other communities. So this idea is to help create unique design opportunities no matter what the use is in the building. So that's kind of what we're proposing. It doesn't have to go forward, but I think it, you know, strengthens opportunities for design and variation in design. So any other thoughts on that? If we get all residential development with that that has a pretty face, is that meeting our goal for zoning? The question is, is it meeting our goal for the comprehensive plan?

For the community and for the comprehensive plan where we're going? Do we have a valid vision going forward in the comprehensive plan, which is somewhat what zoning is trying to work toward? Sure. The purpose of this project is to support the recommendations of the smaller area plans. The smaller area plans are division of the comprehensive plan. Those processes are what we're intended to tackle with the questions you're getting at. This project should not be looking at changing the direction of the smaller area plans or changing the recommendations. It's only about supporting implementation. There are opportunities for us to go back and look at the smaller area plans that we should do through a separate effort.

But essentially, what these observations are, what these recommendations are, are based on the discrepancies between the smaller area plans and the zoning ordinance. And the questions you're asking about are really about questions about whether the smaller area plans are recommending the correct thing or not. And that's something that we should be addressing separately from this project. Okay. We talked about Fern Street in Camp Washington. And among the things that were presented to us was a party area, the kind of frontage that would lead to what was described for that. And is the language we're working toward aimed at achieving that? Yes. I mean, those were the types of things I think that brought up this frontage observation.

So these recommendations, we're not the point of language yet, but these types of recommendations are trying to address those types of issues, looking at it not just from a use perspective but also a design perspective. And that's what they read when looking at the smaller area plans, which is why they're saying, is this the direction we want to go in? Okay. Okay. Go ahead. Others? Mr. Coleman? If we're looking at it through the context that Mr. Navarro just said, that we're trying to encourage what we've already said we want, removing barriers makes sense. Because we've already put our stamp on it and said this is what we want. So if we can encourage that, that makes sense. I also like kind of incentivizing developers too,

because as we already know, they're going to try and push every button they possibly can. So if we can almost have baked in levels with removing those barriers, I think it creates a good one-two punch, because what's the one thing they always want? Height. We can say, okay, we can potentially give you an extra floor. You have to hit 90% on the ground floor commercial or retail, or you have to have a green roof or so-and-so, something that is a measurable yes, no, not a gray area thing that can potentially trigger, like unlock a level per se. Okay. Springs, anything on this? I don't understand the removing of the retail completely, how that helps anything. Yeah, I was going to actually raise that.

Are we talking about eliminating that requirement entirely or changing it? If we lose all of it, then we don't have mixed use any longer. Sure. I think we were more focused on removing barriers, and based off what we heard, the 75% seemed excessive. Just based off, you know, from what we've heard and reviewed in other cities, this is a high percentage. And so, you know, ways to lower that, I think, would be, you know, our focus. I don't necessarily think we have to remove it entirely. Okay. I was wondering about what some of the peers' requirements have. I mean, there's still a long-established, relatively new townhouse community on the main street of Vienna, completely empty ground floor retail space that was built.

They've still not been able to lease it. Whatever. Whatever. Yeah, it's got some fun design to it as well, but anyway. If I... I mean, I see them as intrinsically linked, right, the development frontage and incentivizing interactive design, because certainly, you know, to your point about Vienna, there's also buildings in Arlington with ground floor retail that's just extremely difficult to access. And so they rotate tenants through, you know, it's not really activating the space because it wasn't thought of in terms of activating that commercial space only and providing additional residential. So I... In terms of, like, maintaining a standard, I think it goes along with what does the design look like, right?

What's the accessibility of the percentage that you are promising to? Obviously, it gets tricky when it comes to verbiage, but I see one and two as intrinsically linked. Mr. Scott. Thank you. Thank you. A point in the history of the city, then, is that when what's now 50 at the point goes back to being American Medical Labs, which was a building that had been industrial use and was primed for redevelopment, and it's working its way through the process to becoming what is now 50 at the point or the Moxley or whatever you want to call it, and it's primarily residential, one of the principal statements that was made in that time is that if you're looking at Camp Washington, if you're looking at the entire triangle,

we're going to build the residential in the middle, and the other people can build the retail around us. And we have built the residential in the middle, but part of our challenge is building the retail around it or the other interest points around it that we're going to redevelop. And that's where I think the small area plan was headed. Are we still headed in that direction would be my question. Is the retail going to come in around it, or is it all going to become residential development? And what's the implication if you do away with the rules of over-residential when it's the construction du jour, and then you decide you're going to need something, but you have no space for that in the future?

I do know the small area plans, they did contemplate those priority retail streets, and so there is a framework to work from when we think about where retail is placed, and so that is something that we can investigate further with placement of retail and residential. So we have a lot to cover. I would have thought the frontages was going to be less discussion than some of the others, so this could be an interesting challenge for the evening. Just a couple of questions on my part. When you talk about, you know, kind of the function and the form and what these things look like, that sounds like you could be driving toward some sort of form-based code as opposed to something else. How does this concept fit in the context

of a more traditional zoning ordinance? Because I'm not hearing, when I read through the report, this form-based code is probably not the way to go. Right. How does that work, these kind of things work within a more traditional zoning? Yep, and I think you're right on point. It is a, it would be a form-based approach. I don't think we're contemplating a form-based code itself, but we are looking at form-based strategies that may be integrated within the zoning ordinance. So it is different than the traditional, how the code is written today. It's a Euclidean-based code, and so this would be introducing design and form standards into the code. So it would be slightly different than what is there today.

And it does feel like if we're going to bring this new concept in, we would have to go back and update small area plans to describe what we want where. Right now it's just a line on a couple of buildings, retail frontage, that doesn't really go into this kind of depth or diversity in what we're talking about. So, okay. Sounds like there's more to it than that. Anything more on this subject before we move on? Ms. Briggs. I agree that the retail on the main floor has in the past been a little difficult to access. And is there a benefit to not having the retail in the building at all? Are we going to attract better projects? The more people we have in the city, the more need we will have for commercial eventually

if we're not having it now. But I'm just wondering if there's a benefit to not having, I mean, are we going to attract better projects? A benefit to not having the high percentage requirement? So I can answer based off what the research that I read and that, you know, retail has its own criteria of where tenants want to be placed, where businesses want to co-locate. And there's certain market-driven, you know, parameters when it comes to retail. And so by requiring in your zoning ordinance a high percentage, you're kind of going against what the market may or may not call for or like. And so what, as I understand it, it could potentially lead to turnover of tenants, vacancy, you know, vacant storefronts,

and those type of things that can negatively impact an activity center. And so that's what I think we're trying to avoid is those adverse effects. I think what you described actually gets to the Willowwood case that you talked about because where that apartment building is placed is kind of the backside, the northern end of the activity center. And they were concerned about the location of putting too much retail space back there because it's not in the middle of, you know, where the hubbub might actually be or draw people to until the rest of the whole area gets developed, but they're first. It's difficult to be first. Big risk because the rest may not get developed, and then you're stuck with the situation that you talked about.

Yeah, and, you know, if we change, if we make it more flexible as things develop, put some kind of base load in, you know, it gives us a little more leverage, but without being unreasonable. Mr. Rice. We've also recently had developers ideas of ground floor usage being rooms in a central pedestrian walkway that would be more or less holding their trash bins. And so to just put it bluntly, I'm real concerned about this idea of rolling back requirements because developers will do things that suit them, and sometimes they'll bring us stunningly bad ideas that have to be called out, and then they show back up and they're like, oh, that was a bad idea. You know, we're no longer going to keep our trash bins in this area that was the crown jewel of that small area plan.

It was a central walkway that would lead people essentially from this building all the way downtown. So along with this grand idea of flexibility and, you know, creativity, I think that has to be carefully metered out where it's due because we get a whole hell of a lot of bad ideas that are technically retail uses that just are disrespectful to the massive amount of work that was put forward to develop a concept of a central walkway through a small area. It just, anyway, sorry to be a tiny bit contrary there. I just have a little bit of anxiety about pushing that back. Even though we do see developments come in that say, yeah, we're not going to be able to fill up 75%. I get it. But it's not acceptable just to use it to store your dumpster.

That's just not going to work. Yeah, and I don't know if I hit on this earlier, but the idea behind the development frontages is that there would be design criteria in place. And so, you know, in the zoning ordinance, there would be, you know, the spatial quality, characteristics of what would be required on those open space frontages. And I think I understand what you're referencing. So it's important to have those criteria in place as well. And so that, one, gives confidence to you guys, but also expectations for the applicant so that they know what the expectations are for these types of conditions. So I'll move on. I know we have a lot to cover, but this was good feedback. I think this is why we wanted to bring this idea up in preliminary stages before it got too far down the line.

So the next topics or series of topics will be about open space and tree canopy. So what we heard is that people wanted consistency with the definitions for open space, with the expectations for open space, and they wanted clarity as to what is expected with open space. There was a lot of mention for the need for more green space in these developments in activity center areas. And that green space should represent community values. We heard a lot about interconnected network of open space and that open space should be at a variety of scales and programs. That space should be activated or programs. And open space should include resilient and sustainable species or plantings. And so what we are recommending is that there is an established minimum open space for activity centers.

And as an example, just as a reference point, 10 to 15 percent. And then we would define what those open space types could be. And we'd also, it would be important to delineate between public versus private courtyards and what counts and what doesn't. And again, we'd outline what those spatial qualities are and the design criteria for open spaces. We also think it would be important to highlight or assign value to desired open spaces. Because some open spaces are more, provide more public benefit than those residual spaces that, you know, serve utilities or other types of functions that aren't necessarily contributing to, you know, for community benefit. So we're also suggesting that there be a assigned value to open space types where the higher value would contribute.

Developers could use the higher value to satisfy the minimum requirement versus the lesser value options. And so in theory, they would use the higher, much higher value because it would satisfy the minimum requirements. So that is what we're recommending for open space and activity center areas. There's an example of here of how the value system would work. It's an example in Loudoun County, which just recently adopted their zoning ordinance update. We also, we ran this by the urban forester and they seemed receptive to the idea. They seemed to like that idea. With regards to minimum tree canopy, this is a topic that is limited in what we can do because of the Virginia code. It has strict requirements with what's feasible and what we can provide as options.

But the report goes into detail. Many people commented about invasive species and better management for those. And again, updating the resilient and sustainable tree and plant list. And then additional flexibility for smaller sites with placement and locating of tree canopy on site. And so in our evaluation, there are a couple of options available on site that could occur in the building frontage in front of the building, or it could occur above the building as long as it's meeting planting requirements and approved by the urban forester. So those are some design alternatives that might be available for meeting the minimum tree canopy requirements. And then there are other options that might be more of a last resort.

There are options for in lieu fee, which is currently supported, and an option for potentially a tree bank, which might be offsite or could be planted in a park or some other portion of the city. And so those are the options that we have. And again, we can evaluate the master tree list and update any standards related to resiliency, drought resistance, and sustainable trees and plants. And finally, with street trees, a lot of issues with site constraints or sidewalk constraints and how trees are located in the right of way when there's competing elements occurring along the street. And so what we're recommending here is simply establishing a straightforward hierarchy of to help facilitate the coordination between planning and public works and other agencies.

And so this just established the expectations and a stepped process of how applicants can navigate through that process. And we're also recommending the suspended pavement systems, which I believe is in the city design guidelines. And so we're recommending that those types of alternatives be included in the zoning ordinance. So that's the second segment. So I'll just recap. We're recommending establishing a minimum for open space and activity centers, defining open space typologies, and assigning value to those open space typologies, and offering alternative compliance for meeting the minimum tree canopy through the design alternatives on site, and then better coordination of street tree placement within the right of way off site.

So I'll- Can I ask for clarification? What is a suspended pavement system? I'm sorry. What is a suspended pavement system? It is a type- It's a technology where it's like a cage, and the concrete goes over top of the cage, and the root system expands underneath the sidewalk. And so it seems to be a best practice for a better root system. And you can also integrate pipes and other, you know, lighting channels. And so it can be used, and the surface is free to navigate and walk on. And so it's a good best practice. So it effectively provides more soil volume for trees to get in and around sidewalks. That's correct. Might otherwise be constrained. Okay. Thank you. Commissioners. Open space. Ms. Lopper.

I do not see there being an appetite in the city right now for anything that touches the minimum tree canopy requirement. I do have a question about what you propose is some of the alternatives or things to consider. Are those, you know, like frontage trees or, you know, green roof type things, are those not currently considered within the canopy allowance? If they are, they're not specifically or explicitly in the zoning ordinance. It may be that the- I don't know, but it may be the urban forester allows that to happen through an administrative process. But, Paul, do you know? Yes, or through special exception. The zoning orders has a dimensional requirement on how close or how far the street trees can be from the curb.

And we receive a lot of special exception requests from that due to utility conflicts and those types of issues. Sure. I was talking about the canopy requirement, though, like the one slide before that was saying, like, frontage trees might not be considered as part of a canopy coverage. Oh, yes. Trees that are in the right of way currently do not count toward the canopy requirement, only those that are on the property itself. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. The question is, should they be? If they're not there now and a developer is putting them in? Is that part of the question? I don't know. Yeah, I just want to understand- make sure I'm understanding, so- Sure. I'm thinking of street trees as like, no kidding, they are planted in a median, right?

Or they're alongside the road. If we're talking about a development that has trees in front of it, say, like leading out from an entrance to the street, are those street trees or would that count as part of the canopy for the property? The only way we make a distinction on what counts toward the canopy is not whether it's on the property or not. We do require developers to often install trees that are off their property, and those won't count toward the requirement even though they're providing the trees. Yeah. And so just to- One of the incentivizing things that if they're actually doing them because we asked for them, if they're not there now, they get credit for them? Well, something to think about, right?

That was just my point was I don't think there'll be an appetite for any sort of reduction. I don't see that being a point of negotiation right now. I think that's right. I've seen any of the recent meetings. There's a lot of passion around trees. Now, but you're offering alternatives of where those trees might be placed in the city. But I think personally, we need to make an enjoyable environment for people to live in too. Place devoid of trees is- it's undesirable. I think certain types of green roofs would probably get some traction in making up for a lack of tree canopy. I think that the benefits, especially if it's a more intensive green roof structure that has a soil volume that would filter rainwater that otherwise would run straight into the watershed,

the benefits of those can be real substantial. They do provide a very distinct cooling effect. The aesthetics are great. They're also a great advertisement for, you know, sustainability in the city. And I think I would be very keen, although I'm not flexible about retail on the ground floor, I'd be very happy to have a discussion about a trade-off that would be a significant green roof install, particularly an intensive green roof style install as a way of offsetting canopy coverage. Right. And I'll clarify because we are limited to what the code or the state code allows. And so I just want to be clear that, you know, there is a set minimum 10% in the state code. So they have to meet that. But the design alternatives would include planting trees either, you know, in front of buildings or, you know, it may be on the green roof.

But it would have to be a tree canopy. So that's more or less the definition of an intensive green roof is that has a soil volume that could support. It could be. We had arguments about definitions of trees here. I think this would technically be like a bush, something less than a tree, but much more than just ground cover. Right. Well, and I'm thinking, you know, patios like, you know, terraces where there could be trees as long as the soil volume is being satisfied. And again, it's approved through the urban forester. I think it's an option worth considering. But just, you know, a green roof with, with a shrub or sedums might, I don't think that would satisfy the state code, but just, just want to clarify that.

Let's go to him. Thank you. What's the average lifespan of a street tree? What's the average lifespan of a suspended sidewalk? What's the average lifespan of a brick sidewalk? All of these have ongoing costs. And I think with the brick sidewalk, we have found out that once you lay them, replacing them every couple of years and having to relay them becomes an expensive proposition. So how about a suspended sidewalk? What's its lifespan? And then what's the lifespan of street trees as we're using this for counting it and turning it over in that? That's not really natural habitat for most of these trees, but it's something that makes us feel good and appreciate the shade in the summer. Yeah, I think those are all good points to consider.

I know it's a best practice that's used in cities. It seems to be well adopted and well received. And again, it provides for walkable streets. You have the option to expand the sidewalk versus having those constraints for street trees that probably aren't as healthy. So while I don't know the exact date or how long the tree will last, but I do think it's for healthy soils and it allows for a more healthy tree. And it's supported by different cities and parks and recs and it's a good best practice. Some of us grew up in cities where we appreciated street trees because they were actually large trees that provided academy cover over the entire street and had a character from that standpoint. So those were trees that were mature, had a long lifespan and worked.

And most of the street trees that we seem to be dealing with today, we're talking about planting and getting to a certain size. And then with Virginia power and our overhead lines and the rest of that, we watch people come in and for safety purposes, modify the trees in order not to bother the overhead utilities. So we're talking about what we are as an image that's being painted. Do we get an accurate image? And is our zoning ordinance able to provide an accurate image of what we're trying to provide? There were just two topics here. One was the trees. The other was open space. Were there any thoughts about the open space discussion? I like the stratification. I think we might want to revisit that for purposes of the city's needs or what the city has compared to Loudoun.

But I thought that made sense to me. The tears. Robert? I would hope that we could provide more open space. The question again becomes who provides it? As you alluded to, is this private open space that is on privately owned land and that's just been left open so that the building and the businesses in it benefit from the open space? Or is this open space that the city is trying to acquire in order to have open space? I.e. the linear park in Northfax is going to be along the street and so the street right of way will be part of the developer providing it as public open space. So the kind of open space I think is important and the more open space probably the better if it's well designed and high value as you are.

Do you want to comment, Mr. Napty, on some of the thoughts about some of the public integration with some of these? Yeah, we actually have a separate project that we hope to begin soon. That would be looking at the public side of the small area plans. This is sort of the ordinance focusing on the private side because it's part of regulations. Through that process, we hope to identify where public investments will be needed, try to estimate what those will be, and determine how we go about achieving those. Or if we need to change the small area plans because they're unachievable. So that question will be further considered. Time wise though, this is probably going to be moving ahead of that. Thank you.

Anything else? I agree with Ms. Lockhart's comment, by the way. Support? Okay. Okay. Moving on. So this next segment deals with how land is developed. So we'll talk about some of the topics for development patterns. The first issue or topic is a master development plan. We found that this was the best available approach that could help with subdivision and development of property and activity centers. It would help with establish those connections with adjacent properties, but also for future anticipated alleyways or street connections that are called out in the small area plans. We also know that the plan development district currently requires the master development plan. So we have something to look at as a precedent.

And so what we're suggesting is to require this for all development and activity center. And, but with some clear exceptions or exemptions. For those smaller parcels under a certain threshold, currently the PDD has a threshold of two acres. So that is an example of setting a certain threshold that anything over two acres might be required for a master development plan. Also those developments that aren't proposing public right of way or public easements. So that is a certain threshold. So if you're looking at the smaller, incremental, they would be exempt from a master development plan. We also found that the smaller incremental infill for smaller development might find it challenging to meet certain thresholds.

So we might consider exemptions for the smaller infill developments, which I'll get into on the next slide. But the idea is to require master development plans with some simple and clear exemptions. So infill developments that I hinted at. What we heard and have found with other clients is that these smaller parcels and smaller spaces find it challenging to redevelop when there are excessive standards, such as parking buffers and other things that take up space on the site that otherwise could be used towards redevelopment and building better frontage conditions. So we also found that the smaller retail is beneficial for neighborhoods and that in activity center areas, a lot of the retail is predominantly neighborhood serving.

And those neighborhood services that benefits residents. And so we want to find ways to promote and encourage the small scale, the incremental development. And so one of the strategies that we are recommending is offering relief as a potential option for small scale development. And that could include parking. It could include buffer yards and some other regulations. But the trade off for that is that you create more space for amenities such as bicycles, more developable area and more tree canopy. And so that is one idea that might work in Old Town Fairfax or maybe another small activity center area. But we do feel like that is a good strategy to potentially implement. potentially implement.

On the other hand, we looked at how properties could assemble over time. And if that is a city goal to assemble and aggregate property, then potentially incentivizing that process is another tool that can be integrated into the zoning ordinance. And so the advantages of incentivizing land assembly is there is more buildable area for the developer. There is a potential for increased profit to the landowners because there is additional tenants and buildable area. And there is potential benefits in terms of amenity space with larger development. So there is a benefit to the public when there is land assembly. And so what we are suggesting is to offer an incentive. If land is aggregated, then you could, there is a trade off for either increased density or floor area ratio to incentivize land assembly over time.

And so this might not be a strategy for every activity center area. It might not be appropriate for old town Fairfax, but it could be used in other activity center areas to facilitate the type of development that you want to see in these activity centers. The next topic is parking. Parking obviously takes up a lot of space. Parking and we, we've completed a cursory review of the zoning ordinance parking ratios and compared them with peer cities. And so we found that the ratios are a bit higher than your peer communities. And so we are suggesting that the right approach would be right sizing or adjusting the, the parking standards. And the ways we can do that are evaluating the ratios for the city and making sure they're appropriate for more urban walkable areas.

And, and, and, and not tailored to something you would find in a, in a more suburban area. We could also look at including alternative parking plans. So those would be submitted by the developer and they could include, uh, uh, either a traffic impact study that would, um, make an argument for reducing, uh, parking ratios. We can also look at incentivizing reductions. So if, um, there are sustainable objectives being attained, maybe the, the trade off is, uh, a reduction in your, your parking. We can also look at, um, location and design standards criteria, uh, such as locating the parking interior to the block or requiring, requiring liner buildings around, um, structured parking. Uh, so those are things that we can include in, uh, the parking ordinance.

So these are just some ways, you know, as land is developed over time, these are ways that we can, uh, we can address, um, either incentives or just base requirements in the city zoning ordinance. And so again, we're, we'd like to require a master development plan with those exceptions, offering incentives for both infill development and for land assembly, and then adjusting the parking standards and ratios for activity centers. the shows that the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows the shows shows the

individuality of those centers? Do we need to tailor the zoning ordinance specifically for each one of the centers with what we are hoping to go on there since they have an individual character? When you're looking at incentives and if it's only incentives for design do we get a mix in the activity centers because that's the primary commercial space left in the city and we have little expectation in my view of allowing commercial or retail or office development in residential areas. So if there's going to be a future need that's where it's going to occur is in those areas. So in balancing are we looking at one set of rules that fits all and then how do you accommodate the differences or do we look at a set of rules for each? I think that is the question is that is

that's the question on the table is are these appropriate strategies for all areas which I don't think they are personally you know the infill development might be more suited for Old Town Fairfax and land assembly might benefit other areas so again they're just their options there are ways to incentivize the the kind of development that you want in activity center areas but I think what you asked is it's the question that I'm asking as well. The question I ask when you talk about assemblage and you say it's in the other areas but not Old Town and yet we've got an area just north of the building we're in if you go between University Drive and 123 and you go between the street out front between Armstrong and Sager Avenue you've got a large piece of land all of which is

potentially ripe for redevelopment and yet when you take that piece of land and draw in the individual lines right now if redevelopment has to occur within the individual lines of those pieces you have a challenge as Dr. Rice said in getting the kind of redevelopment you want and yet with all of it being ripe for redevelopment if you could take an eraser and wipe out all of those lines between pieces and work with a big piece and find a developer or two to come in and work with that area you could actually get something that would be pretty exciting and stand the community in good stead for a long time so how do you work between those two aspects or approaches that's how does our zoning ordinance work between those two

approaches to encourage something along that line yeah that's a good point I mean maybe the historical core is you know prioritize but the transition area it could be you know that that might be suited for the land assembly as you said if we go to the north side you've already had some future looking land assembly the shopping center bought the two little restaurant pad sites that are bordering the other major street Blenheim Boulevard so it has already assembled a larger piece if it's going to work with it so that you know could go further there as well so I don't know that we're limited in trying to encourage redevelopment if we can get a bigger better project out of it but if we're going to get little pieces going

together I don't know how the puzzle turns out I think we've talked about land assembly for quite some time and if there's a way to incentivize it I think we'd generally be supportive that we talked about it especially with these recent projects just north of us here but I'm sure will be other opportunities there's some fairly large parcels in Camp Washington but there still may be opportunity there for example so yeah I think it's hard to hard to argue against that the infill development that probably does most applicable to Old Town but I think as your report mentioned I got through a lot of it not all of it yet but talks about a study to identify where we've got sort of these small parcels scattered in amongst the activity centers where there may be

either opportunity for that or opportunity for assembly parcels so that's a study that would have to be done yeah for sure both of those all seem to be going to the right place how about parking we've spent a lot of time talking about parking you did make a point in your report it's time for us to look at our overall parking requirements also remind us that mr. Cunningham was here at the time anyway not long after I got on planning commission in 2019 we started to tackle townhouse parking never finished yeah there's lots of discussion what is right sizing parking is parking ever right sized probably not so to speak right all right there's probably not a right size but I think you know the idea is just adjusting the

standards to be less excessive and more more acceptable and more appropriate and more competitive with the pure cities and so that's what we mean by right sizing what is more competitive or that with a building when you build a small strip mall and put two or three popular little eating establishments in it it now has a parking problem because you can't get there during the popular times at other times you walk and you see a sea of empty spaces spaces where you think it's underutilized. You go to a city street where you're going to require two parking spaces in a garage, which is not the small areas I understand, but two spaces then in the driveway next to it, and then you have a narrow street which you go down one direction or the other

because parked on both sides, all of the families along that area have lots of vehicles. And then you get to some place that's a townhouse or a multifamily house and say, they're only going to have one car per vehicle or two cars, or we can cut it way back down because there won't be any vehicles there. But the parking seems to be fungible in most of these instances with the kind of people you get in there and how they have to get around. It's a challenge because we want to be transit oriented, but our transit may not be up to the way some of the people would like to commute. There have been discussions, a recent study on our city's Q bus, people would love more frequent service, but we're not in a position to provide that yet, so people are going to still want to use

cars. So it's a very difficult thing to deal with. But we have some basis for changing standards when we look at parking requirements in Old Town and the transition district for reduced parking minimums. Dense multifamily apartment complexes, we may see in the activity centers, small apartments, you know, one parking place per unit may be sufficient. I'm not sure what the requirements are. You have to account for visitors. I don't know what that study looks like, but right sizing probably makes some sense. To say nothing of trails and giving people alternate means to get around. Okay. Let's go tomorrow night. And I'll just say that, you know, we look at parking regulations and other jurisdictions,

so it is a topic that we are familiar with, and we can look at what that right sizing means and at least present it to you and see if it sticks. But I think, you know, we have some benchmarks to look at, and we use the ITE manual, so we can do our research and present our findings to you. Thank you. All right. So we'll talk about height, density, and community benefits. Density, we'll start off with, you know, what is density and why is it important. It is essential to cities. It's important to not, you know, it's not just a number. It is important measuring tool to gauge how cities are getting to their community goals, whether that's transit readiness or housing availability or parks. And so for me, density is a way to get

there. And it's, it should be used and looked at as a measuring tool. It is a bit challenging. If I say 24 dwelling units per acre, what does that mean? If some people, most people probably don't know what that means. But it is challenging to most people to have a perception of what the number actually means. And different jurisdictions measure it differently. And the city, Fairfax, measured it by dwelling unit per acre. But some cities measure it by bedroom. But it doesn't actually give you a precise number of people, which is also important to note. And so it, again, it just should be used as a measurement and a tool. And it should be tied to the community goals. And so our recommendations regarding density

is to establish a baseline cap for activity centers areas. And I'll show an example on the next slide of what are some ranges that we can consider. And so our preliminary recommendation is establishing a maximum cap. And then for developments that want to exceed that cap, there's, again, an exchange, an incentive for public space or historic preservation, some exchange of value that occurs after that maximum cap is exceeded. And again, it's also important to include those design parameters with density. What does the building look like at higher densities and how to address those design issues through either criteria or design guidelines or those development frontage design scenarios that we discussed before.

So staff put together this slide, which shows recent development. And just to give you an idea of of what, what, what density looks like in Fairfax, it looks differently in, in different communities. So here, this is showing a townhouse development, just under 14 dwelling units per acre. And then a multi-family development at 24 units per acre. In an activity center, the Scout and the Moxley were around just under 50 dwelling units per acre. And then Willowood and Circle Gateway, I mean, they were really high density developments. And so that's important to note is that you do have developments that are occurring at at exceedingly, increasingly high densities. And so we'll come back to density, but that's just kind of an overview.

So we're, we're wanting to establish a baseline density and then understand what trade-offs we want for developments that want to exceed that density cap. And similarly for building height, what we heard from the community is that there should be some predictability across, in the zoning ordinance. People want to know what to expect with development. And they also wanted to reinforce the transitions of height and massing to residential areas and to historic areas alike. The current commercial urban district allows up to five stories for reference and the comprehensive plan supports five stories or less and activity centers. So that gives us a benchmark to work from, and what we are recommending for building height is to set that five story within 60 feet as that baseline height.

And developments would have to transition either in height or massing step down in height to transition to historic areas or nearby residential areas. And anything above five stories or 60 feet would establish that, that trade-off, the discussion about what, what trade-off occurs with additional height. And this, well, the gray in the background, you can't see too well, but this shows you what heights are acceptable in the small, based off the small area plans. And so, um, all the small area plans allow or called for five stories. Um, and then anything, what we're showing in this slide is that anything above that five stories, uh, developments could, uh, potentially earn height in exchange for those community benefits.

And there would be designated areas for that to occur in. So that's an overview of how the zoning ordinance can address height. And this next slide, you know, I've talked a lot about community benefits, but what does that mean? And, um, you know, if, if we're allowing developers to go taller, wider or bigger, um, what are the trade-offs and what should be the priorities for the community? And the small area plans do call out specific, um, ideas. And so those are listed here, um, high performance buildings, public open space, sensitive environments and ecology, enhanced stormwater and infrastructure, public art, transportation and mobility, those unique specific uses, which we talked previously about,

and historic preservation and adaptive reuse of buildings. And so what this chart is, is helping us evaluate what is appropriate, uh, or what's a, what's suitable, um, to include in a community benefits program. Um, and so what we've done here is look at different ways the zoning ordinance can address community benefits. And as an example, historic preservation might be worth, um, might be worth, um, using as an example, uh, the cost of preserving historic building is much more than, um, you would possibly have for public art. So there's a cost, uh, cost benefit analysis that is included with this prioritization. And so what this table is showing us is that maybe some, uh, community benefits are more costly for the developer and worth, uh, looking at a development bonus,

whereas some other community benefits, we might just incentivize that or require it in the base zoning code itself. So I know that that was a lot of information. Um, but I'm going to give an example and I'm using public art as an example. Um, there we're proposing three options. So it could either be required in the base zoning. Um, so in this example, public art is required for, uh, certain developments over a certain threshold. We can incentivize public art or encourage it, uh, or incentivize it. Um, so if, if a developer adds public art, then maybe they get a reduction in their parking. Um, or we can, um, um, allow developers to, um, for a, a density bonus for public art. Um, and, and so that would be above

their existing entitlements. So this is just giving an example of, um, you know, maybe it's not public art, maybe it's historic preservation or, uh, public open space. So what we're asking you today is to consider, um, you know, prioritizing and the trade-offs for different community benefits that are, have been called out in the plan. Um, we're not necessarily proposing anything today, but we're just asking you to consider the menu of options, um, in the, on the table. So that was a lot of information. Um, what we're asking or recommending is to set a baseline for height and density and to offer, uh, incentivize, um, community benefits through added height and density. Um, happy to answer any questions or go back for the, through the material.

Mr. Coleman. I like this. Um, no surprise. I'm probably the only one up here that's really not afraid of density and height most of the time. Um, so I like the idea of setting kind of that baseline, that maximum of five stories because, okay, there's your benchmark and then, Hey, if you want to go a little bit higher, you can, I know on your slide, you had up to nine stories. I think that would be probably not feasible, even I'm saying that. Um, but you know, you can dangle a carrot one way or another. So I like the ideas of the incentive zoning and the bonus development. Um, I think that makes most sense because developers, like I said earlier, they're always going to try and do this push pull thing.

And they're always going to take the path of least resistance. What's going to make keep like save their bottom dollar. So I like that idea because it's like a, Hey, you know, here it is. But if you want to try and go for this, we just need this from you. Others? I agree. It makes sense. I don't have any concerns with offering incentives. Um, I think we've more been in a conversation recently where it's, uh, you know, we give something up for them producing more housing that they're selling at a profit. Um, I don't think we need to do that. Uh, and I think that if there is some very tangible public benefit, open space, public art, uh, yeah, we should, uh, consider ways to incentivize that or, uh, provide some sort of bonus, uh,

to allow that to happen. In the past, I think one of the values expressed was a desire not to create a skyline in the city. We were a small town and the intention was to keep it a small town and small towns don't have skylines that are defined other than the steeple on, uh, the classic courthouse, those kinds of things that are small. The question with density then coming is that I don't have a problem with density. And if you build nine stories down at Fairfax Circle, then it's not going to create a skyline when you look at the topography around it. If you look just east across the creek, outside the city, you'll see a very large building that's already there and has been there for the entire time I've lived in this city.

So, tall buildings around the city exist. So, density in certain areas, I think is appropriate and can be given. Density where it's going to create a skyline, uh, or buildings that are going to stick out and be visible from around the area, were never a community value. And that's why height has been restricted in certain areas of the city, in my memory. So, from that standpoint, I think bonus density for height is a good thing. If it's the only thing that's going to allow us, as we manage density, to get bigger with the land area we have and the character we're trying to maintain. So, bonus density and how you get there is something that I think should be looked at. And what are the things that will incentivize it to get good development? And I think that's more my concern is getting good development

for the bonus you're going to give as opposed to merely putting a guideline out there, uh, that we're going to give all of these things if you do this and that. And then you get poor development, development as referred to by Matt Rice, uh, that meets those criteria. So, how you get that language that language is your challenge to present it to us so that we buy it. And that, I think, is a worthwhile goal. A couple things. There is one significant community benefit that's not mentioned here and possibly because it's not mentioned in the small area plan, but it's fundamental to the comprehensive plan and that is affordable housing. I think if we're going to put incentives for some of this for density, we need to include affordable housing, uh, as it applies to our activity centers. Um,

do you want to add to that? I will add a caveat to that in that I think it's the kind of development you're getting. One of the things that I scratch my head about is an existing development that's in the Old Town Overlay District on the west side that is fairly tall and is going to have upscale, extremely expensive, uh, apartments or condominiums above a couple of floors of commercial and office. And the way it has been laid out, putting affordable housing in every unit to me seems to, to beg a question. How, how do you get people on an affordable income into an extremely upscale development that has a small number of high end, very high cost units? Uh, including it in that building, I find problematic. The fact that the developer has to provide affordable housing

doesn't bother me in the least. Uh, but that is, and that's in the zoning ordinance. And that's the way it goes in the zoning ordinance that is, I think, something that needs to be corrected. But I'm talking about additional incentive for additional height. Most of our developments are not these kinds of things. Right. Most of our, but, but, but those kind of conundrums I think we need to stay away from because that is one of the things that gives developers a challenge with how to deal with, with meeting our requirements. We're gonna have a lot of five story buildings. Can I ask a clarifying question? Uh, the comment about incorporating, um, affordable housing in here, this was intentionally omitted because that is

something that is already in our code. In addition, um, with the way this is described in the report, you'll see uh, says we haven't arrived at how this will be measured yet. So it could be the kind of thing where some of these are required everywhere. Some are required in some places. There could be a point system where somebody could select what type of community benefits to provide and that could tally up their benefit. And affordable housing is something the city has already committed to. Is that something that would be non-negotiable? Affordable housing in the city is the base requirement. We're talking about incentives over and above. So you're suggesting going beyond that? Over and above. Okay. Understood.

So we're talking about a lot of buildings with a lot of one bedroom apartments or studios. And so anyway, I want to put that out there. The other community benefit, um, and I don't know how we deal with it. When we talk about adding density and if you've listened to any of the city council meetings discussing the budget and the serious impacts on the budget of the schools is how we fund the additional load on our schools with added residents. Um, the last, um, Mr. Hardin sat through a very lengthy meeting the other night and the schools came up in funding and, and some of the concerns raised with some of the development in the city. I don't know how we capture it. If there's a way to do it. I know,

you know, you know, you talk about proffers, which aren't applicable to certain types of, you know, zoning districts, but I got to think about what do we do about schools if we're adding, uh, residences and looking for more density and go ahead. Go ahead. No, go ahead. One, one perspective on that. Uh, right now it costs $20,000 to educate one child for one year in the Fairfax city school system and the public school system. $20,000 is essentially the property tax on a $2 million house or residents in the city. I don't know exactly how many $2 million residences we have in this city, but I don't think it's that many, which means that if you have one child and live in a $2 million house, you're essentially paying for that education and nothing else in the way of city services or contribution.

If you have anything less than a $2 million house, which is the bulk of the city's housing, you're paying for a portion of a student when it comes down to budgeting. So that when we talk about density and we're talking about adding affordable housing and more housing that is going to be priced down at an affordable range, which is a million and less when those people come with children, that's where the budget impact begins to become distorted. And now you either have to have commercial or you have to have rich people, or you have to have a lot of people making a contribution just to support the school system. And that's something that the council, I think was wrestling very heavily with and something that we need to be aware of in zoning.

And that's, I think, the challenge we have in trying to balance the requirements. I mean, we all can write a zoning requirement that we think is great and we love, but if it's not functional, then it creates other problems that have to be dealt with. Yeah, that's where it's going. The council is very concerned about adding more and more students and not being able to pay for them adequately. So if we're looking at incentivizing density, is there a way we can help the schools and fund the schools? It's just, I'm putting it out there. I don't know the answer, whether it's even feasible or legal, but I just want to add it. But affordable and workforce housing is a big part. Well, I was pointing at Mark, because it sounds like...

Is it a little outside of the scope of this project? If we're talking about incentive, providing incentives for more, what are the community benefits we might get? It would be a community benefit if development in the city better helps support the schools. That's a community benefit. Let me go through the list of other community benefits that are here. There's a seriatim here. Not all of them are really tangible, far-reaching community benefits. So I think we'd need to prioritize some of these. Providing public open space, pretty good, strong benefit to the general public. Public art? Art's a matter of taste. Is that a community benefit that's really worth providing significant incentives for?

I wouldn't think so. Transportation and mobility? Sure, big community benefit overall. So we'll need to think about which of this laundry list of perceived benefits are really worth incentivizing or providing incentives for additional density or height. They're not all equal for sure. So I just wanted to put that out there. Yeah, and I'll also add, when you think of public art, outside of the zoning ordinance itself, there are other mechanisms that might be available through grants or just other potential pathways to achieve some of these. But public art is a particular example that I think is worth pointing out. And sometimes developers view that as the low-hanging fruit. And so, again, going back to the cost implications of some of these programs,

I think some are more costly than others. Would I rather have a developer paint a mirror on the side of a building or provide some additional trees or open space? I think it's the latter. That's what I'm thinking. There's a serianometer. Okay. Okay. Other comments on this subject? Mr. Rice. We've talked a few times about the need for transportation hubs within the small areas. And certainly, if a developer was willing to forego development on part of the parcel to allow a place for buses to circulate, I mean, I would be very reluctant. They could ask for almost anything, and I'd seriously consider it. That's just such an important need, especially in Camp Washington. It's something that we incorporated into the small area plan.

And I think transportation mobility, for me, would be at the top of the list. Are you referring to bus slips, or you're talking about something more robust than that? All of it. Okay. All of it. Especially things that are flexible enough that they could accommodate what may come at us in the future. And if we can position ourselves to allow that to happen, for instance, places for autonomous vehicles to circulate while they're waiting for a pickup, it would dramatically change the way people perceive the city. Multimodal trails also could fall into that, too. We're sort of multi-use trails, I mean. Appreciate that. Okay. Well, moving on. This is the last segment. So these are the zoning framework scenarios.

And in the report, this was actually the first chapter. And so what we did is evaluate different alternatives or scenarios that the city could consider for the activity center areas. And so we're calling these zoning frameworks. They're different approaches that we looked at drawbacks, advantages. We looked at different cities, at different case studies, and just weighed the different strengths and weaknesses of each zoning approach. I'll read them quickly. The first one is reusing the existing commercial urban zoning district. The second one is creating a new zoning district. The third one is using the plan development district, but modifying it for activity centers. The fourth is creating a new overlay.

The fifth is updating the design guidelines for activity centers. The sixth is using performance-based zoning. The seventh is creating development patterns. And the eighth is creating a form-based code. And there's also one incentive, using incentive zoning, or a blend of some or all of the above. So we have another chart. And this chart is useful because it helps us make more informed decisions about the advantages of the different approaches and how they can help us achieve the strategies which we've been discussing in previous slides. And so on the chart, there's empty cells which may not be feasible or the best use of the zoning approach. There are circles which might be feasible options but not the best or most effective option.

And then the darker circles represent the most suitable or most effective options based off of our analysis in the report. And so without giving any, you know, official or firm recommendations, we're asking you to consider some of the criteria in the report. I don't mind, you know, giving some key takeaways, my observations. So a new zoning district and plan development might be more versatile option. They have the most darker circles and help us achieve the different zoning strategies. When you look at form-based zoning, we had talked earlier about, you know, a code versus form-based approaches. And so form-based approaches might help us with those design, design-related zoning standards. And then incentives zoning stands out because it can help us achieve those community benefits that we discussed.

And so some of these don't have any dark circles. That doesn't necessarily mean they're not viable, but they're probably not going to be the most effective use. And so that, having said that, I think we'd like for you to kind of talk through and consider, you know, which zoning frameworks. It might be one. It might be several. It might be we need more time to think about it. But I'll turn it over to you. And I'm happy to answer any questions about any of these. So just after this section of the report is lengthy and dense. And I think it really is worth a read. I did read through it. So I do have some thoughts. But I don't know whether any of the rest of you have or just some high-level discussions we've had tonight and from these, this very high-level summary.

If you have a sense yourself, yourselves of what you might think about or not. But I'll go last. I've read it. That's what this part fascinates me. It's an engineer. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. are we are going from this point trying to move forward as we have been all along and saying how do you do it better as i started my conversation tonight which wasn't based on just the small area

plans moving forward is a challenging process so i'm willing to to make whatever changes will fit the area each area i would like to see it somewhat individualized because they are individualized as we looked at it and when cunningham quill went through and developed our small area plans they worked with the people in each area which gave them an identity and we've had focus groups working on the individual identities of the areas so a one-size-fits-all approach to me doesn't seem to to really be moving in a satisfactory manner to where we're going to go these give us individual groups i'm not sure that we can't mesh a couple of groups to come up with something better moving forward you know as new zoning district along with incentive worked into

it somehow you know something along that line might be workable that would give us the individuality for the areas but but in moving forward that's where i think we need to be going and i think we need to be mindful of the fact that at least in my experiences having worked with the council under mayor john mason under rob letterer under scott silverthorne you know under david meyer now we're dealing with an entirely new council and playing field we're not sure exactly where we're going at the moment and i don't think the council is either so the guidance we're we're building here is is to enhance the vision and give us the tools we need to work with in a changing playing field so there is no one right answer here as i would see it but there are good ideas that can be mixed i would keep them

tailored toward the individual playing fields the individual ball fields and i would keep them loose enough that they will provide guidance but not be restrictive and i would recognize i guess as we're writing the zoning ordinance that as soon as you're done with it everybody that's going to deal with it needs is going to come in and look at how they can best use it to their benefit and when i say that i not only mean the residents who will be coming in to look at it and say i don't want this in my backyard or the developers who've got the money and the skill to come in and say that's a good project if i do that it will benefit the community and i'll make money for it and it's a win-win situation

so we've got a couple of audiences we're playing to and that's where i think you need to have the flexibility and the zoning ordinance to accommodate some of it without leaving it a wide open door and i think you need to be able to make sure that any one of the groups can come through except city council who has the final approval authority and actually impose their will on any of the other groups and i don't know if that makes sense or not but i think if you look at tailoring these it's not one or the other there may be some mishmash that you can you can make some adjustment and keep it there but that's my sense of moving forward with the small area plans in keeping with with what the city's vision is

and i'm not sure i know what the city's vision is at the moment for the small areas thank you others wait one away nope i'll give you my impression um and i'd be interested in hearing from staff that's what happened oh mr coleman i'm sorry you're a little subtle over there okay all problem i mean i remember our first chat with you in january it was there's some big things and there's no silver bullet to really solve any of these solutions right away so i think kind of looking at it holistically and just figuring out okay we can use this toolkit for here we can use this toolkit here for here but i think the one thing that is important is making sure that we're creating a framework of stuff that we want rather than stuff that we don't want because we when we

create the stuff that we don't want all we're doing is just giving developers a problem to figure out okay how do i not make this and we're going to get something that we don't necessarily the unintended consequences so i think making sure that we're creating an environment or a framework that fosters what we do want to have as an end product that vision and as we said you know who knows what that vision is right now but that's really something that we want to definitely be working towards others when i look when i looked at the options that were out here and and reading the report um of course i've landed on the hybrid approach but it utilizes two of the things you have on this one is the new zoning district with the incentivized you know options the one thing that struck me uh which i

think is probably a good idea is um having some districts because there are some distinct differences among the activity centers you described that option uh some jurisdictions have used uh which could be useful to incorporate because clearly distinct characters between old town say and some of the other activity centers maybe old town deserves its own sub district under this new zoning district or something but it seemed like that would be a reasonable approach commercial urban um you know what i always wondered what it was for when i've read the zoning ordinance countless times and it's being used and it seems like it was sort of intended for these areas but they don't quite you know capture the the the vision and you

know the i was developed before there were small area plans um uh the price thinking makes sense to start with a clean sheet of paper rather than trying to tweak something that others have already been attempting to use so um you know that's kind of why i dismissed that plan development has you know my definition has its own constraints and things um particularly when i think you mentioned the proffers an inability to get proffers through a plan development and other districts you have that opportunity um so that may be a reason not to pursue plan development either and it's you know having to redefine what those already are in their countless plan development districts already in the city try to develop a new one with the constraints that come with plan development may not be the right

solution either overlays i think add complexity we already have a few overlays that we're having to deal with i don't know that we want to create any more of those uh design guidelines are design guidelines they're not really zoning and they should stay that way but we do need to avoid it's already a huge document it's a shame for it to get any huger and more confusing um you know performance zoning and form-based zoning they sort of have their own character and i don't know that something like that is needed for the jurisdiction the size that we have with these limited areas that we have that we're looking to redevelop so that's kind of how i ended up but my thoughts is where we might want to think about going but uh just want to lay that out there for

you from my perspective any thoughts or comments from others it's staff weighed this mr napty and we haven't discussed a preference yet and in all honesty my hope from what we heard from you all tonight was was less about this and more about all the issues that we had discussed um to let us know what we should be going forward with and what ideas will work and then uh hopefully when considering all of that this would this would naturally fall in i will say that um the incentive zoning piece you know this is something that could obviously not work on its own but that's something that's i think it's very important uh for the smaller plans because there are things in there that cannot be achieved through conventional zoning um and that is the the best way to go about doing it so

i think that's that's clear through through this chart that that would be important um i agree with everything you said about commercial urban plan development um plan developments are really if we want to go down the path of not wanting to what not wanting to prepare our own regulations plan developments are all about negotiating um which is what we're trying to get away with get away from so that is probably not the not the best fit um but but other than that it's it's you know trying to hear what we we hear tonight and tomorrow from council about the other topics we discussed and then seeing how it all all all fits with this do you think you heard enough about the other topics for most well look at both of you oh yeah i i think so but i defer to you as well yeah i think we have

something to work no that's fine if it's okay to ask for more yeah no i think um you know the feedback so far has been um it's workable so i appreciate all the feedback received so far um and yeah i don't think there's anything in particular that um i think we need to revisit at this time um but appreciate everyone's insights um any other closing thoughts on the the project it's important that we do this you know what we've been going through raises lots of questions among the community among council members with tons of special exceptions the optics aren't good when it looks like we're asking for a bunch of special exceptions countless times we hear the comments about how many special exceptions for these things

but what's being asked for is consistent with the small area plans this is the right thing to do i say the sooner we can do it the better this is a big task ahead to do this um and we'll continue to see development proposals in the city so i don't envy staff the challenge of putting something together and moving it forward a pace so that we can keep up with what developers want to do and get it right so but yeah mr cunningham thank you one of the challenges i think we have is that we spend a lot of time writing a comprehensive plan and working with staff back and forth on what the content of that plan should be we spend a lot of time reading material like this and reading the zoning ordinance and working through

the changes that are going to occur in the zoning ordinance and then we spend time when a developer comes in and in essence wants relief on height wants relief on setback wants relief on bulk angle of plane wants relief on working in a floodplain wants relief on everything and we have a page long laundry list of things that are outside any of the guidelines and so the question that got asked of that developer for all the time we spent trying to put some paperwork and guidelines and that to tell you how to get through this process as easily as possible with at least turmoil possible you brought us this what did we get right in all the work we did in other words if nothing we've got in any of our guidelines works for

what somebody wants to bring in and develop it is it us or is it them not understanding what we want and and that's part of what we get down to with zoning is how do we make this process as easy and efficient as possible so that the development fit fits what the city wants to become and that's where i think most of our time has been spent and the reason we spend time crafting the rules or working through this is to try to make it easier for the process to work to ease the workload on staff and every time we end up with projects coming through that complicates staff workload and make us question what's going on and leads to council you know having less time to focus on an individual development than the other work they're

doing i think it complicates the process that we're trying to make easier so that's one of the things our zoning ordinance is supposed to do is help us make it easier for the process to work to make it more efficient rather than less efficient but that doesn't mean we're going to be able to keep an individual developer who comes in with a process that doesn't fit anything from wanting to walk it through the system and see what works and what doesn't and what they can get out of it and that's i think the the challenge we have with what we're doing here is giving it the most flexibility to get a desired result thank you others okay thank you thank you thank you okay next item on our work session is the discussion of potential zoning text amendments regarding accessory

dwelling units occupancy reducing special use permits and other miscellaneous amendments nice to see you back mr foreman it's good to be back and i'll find the presentation we're discussing some uh more potential amendments to our zoning ordinance tonight so these are different different types of amendments than uh what was discussed in the last agenda item and uh these cover cover several topics what we hope is that taken all together they can improve our city's operations can help us realize some of our goals in our comprehensive plan and also make our zoning ordinance administration be a lot more efficient uh more responsive to residents more responsive to businesses that rely on it so we'll get started and as you undoubtedly know our zoning ordinance was extensively updated back in 2016

so zoning ordinances are routinely amended so for us we've had amendments every year since 2016 and the potential amendments we're talking about tonight include a few different topics so first are amendments related to accessory dwelling unit occupancy planning commission and city council both held work sessions on accessory dwelling units or adus in general adus overall this is a very complex topic and the city is planning a comprehensive review of adu regulations over the next year but this one element this element of eliminating occupancy requirements for age and disability this is something that both planning commission and city council identified as a priority and it's something that can be done independently of

a larger adu review so that's the first item that we'll be talking about uh the second one here pertains to a few different topics all grouped together all under the theme of reducing the need for special use permits the the objective here really is to reduce barriers for businesses that are in practice uh low intensity uses but in reality they're uses that currently require applicants to go through a full special use permit process and uh then we also have some other amendments uh down there at the bottom uh amendments that could help with administration of our ordinances ordinance things that clarify inconsistencies simplify the text correct errors and so on i'll i'll pause after the adu occupancy section and i'll pause elsewhere for questions and of course any of us on staff can answer questions at the end of the presentation as well

so first up we'll discuss the potential adu occupancy amendments and as i'd mentioned the overall topic of accessory dwelling units this is something that planning commission and city council have discussed and staff has been asked to examine adu standards in in total so the big topics with that include things like physical characteristics of adus or or where or how they're permitted but there there's also some existing standards on adu occupancy and like it says here both planning commission and city council discussed these occupancy standards at their work sessions both bodies saw benefits to eliminating some of these standards and this particular topic it's reasonable to address separately from other adu issues because it's relatively minor it's really a regulatory change

it does not involve changing the physical standards of adus doesn't change where they can be permitted it's really intended to remove what folks consider an outdated regulatory hurdle for adu occupancy now in in the context of this discussion i think it's helpful to very quickly go over just what an accessory dwelling unit actually is i know we've talked about this before and there is a definition in the zoning ordinance which is is right here and in everyday terms the the definition really says that an adu is a full dwelling unit it's part of another house and it's subordinate or its accessory to the main house and all that means it is that the adu is significantly smaller than the main house that it's attached to

the adu now aside from this definition there are also use standards in the zoning ordinance and you can find them in section 355 those use standards set standards for adus and they largely involve physical standards so things like measurements but also they include the standards for occupancy and that's what we're discussing tonight so we'll take a look at these occupancy standards that are currently in the adu use standards there's three of them uh three main occupancy standards you see them here uh and it's really this one in the middle uh the one that's highlighted here uh that we're discussing tonight because again there is support for eliminating these requirements and we'll get to the details of it in a few minutes but uh first i just

wanted to mention this top one that says owner occupied this top one is a provision in the use standards and it says that the property owner must live in either the house or the accessory dwelling unit the amendments that we're talking about tonight would not change this standard so this is in the ordinance it's proposed to remain in the ordinance the uh middle one here that's highlighted in green this is the age and disability requirements that we're discussing and and what these requirements mean is that again either the main house or the accessory dwelling unit must be occupied currently uh by either someone who's age 55 plus or someone with a disability now at our work sessions at our planning commission and city council work sessions and at our adu meeting

in the fall there was support for removing these requirements the the thinking with that being that this is really unnecessarily restrictive creates a hurdle for both landlords and for tenants and really does all of that without providing an overall benefit to the city as a whole now now before we get into specifics i'll just mention this bottom item here uh we're also recommending changing one detail with this bottom item so it says here uh that the adu and the house are counted together as a single household for determining total occupancy and that's really in the the process of overcrowding situations the reason for measuring occupancy with any dwelling unit is to minimize the likelihood of houses being used as high

occupancy boarding houses or something like that so trying to maintain safety occupancy safety and trying to maintain neighborhood character we are not recommending changing this standard but these amendments do if you look through your packets they include some text changes to remove some outdated language that's currently in this text so we'll get to that in a few minutes but i just wanted to touch on the these uh points right now so we can move on to the actual amendments themselves and and really with all of that background out of the way the amendments themselves are fairly straightforward subsection e here is where the occupancy standards reside the first standard that you see up here number one is the owner occupier

provision so that remains as is remains the same here now under number two uh here you see uh that the age requirement and that's under romanette one uh and the disability requirement which is romanette two uh this amendment proposes to strike this language uh so to delete it uh like what is shown on the slide so all of this text would be removed and doing so this removes those age and disability requirements entirely now there is under subsection e there is a romanette three and that involves what i'd mentioned about measuring occupancy uh that the house and the adu are counted together uh for overcrowding standards so i'll just take a moment to talk about this uh this is what i had mentioned about updating some outdated

language and what i meant by that uh this subsection here again says that the uh house and adu uh must contain one household now uh the term that's used here right now is family it's not household the reason for that is because that term family had been used to refer to this back before 2016 when the ordinance was rewritten it was changed in the definition section the text in this particular section was simply overlooked as far as updating it so this amendment would change that term household that term family to household and also eliminates the uh section at at the end which is a description of what a household entails and instead just replaces that uh referring uh referring uh the reader to the definition itself and that's a better way of

handling this in a zoning ordinance rather than saying the same thing multiple times so i i said all of that because i want to make it clear that this does not change any policy does not change any way of of doing things uh this simply like it says here revises language that's now outdated it's something that was just overlooked a few years ago uh when the ordinance was rewritten and and this just corrects that issue uh since we're modifying other things in this subsection as well uh yes the the definition that that's not the verbatim definition but the definition of household says that uh essentially any number a household can contain any number of people who are related can contain up to four unrelated people so this would be borders roommates

whatever you would want to call them uh or also can contain a statutory group home uh which is in state code and that's a up to eight people in total so that that is all of the accessory dwelling unit of recommendations so it's a good good time to pause for uh questions either about the occupancy or or the agent disability commissioners mr gunnion why are we doing away with the age and disability what's the purpose and and doing that just didn't seem to bring any benefits to the the city it was it was an odd restriction uh that somebody had to be either age 55 or over either the homeowner or a resident of the uh of the adu uh seem seem to be rather limiting uh folks who we talked about when when we talked about it folks just didn't see

the benefit and it may have been the things have changed since adus were first established and it was first intended as you know possibly a home for aging parents or a home for a disabled relative but uh really adus are viewed more broadly than that right now uh it seems seems awfully limiting and folks just didn't see the benefit of of this continuing or the city trying to verify uh you know the identity or the disability status of folks who live in a particular unit okay that seemed to relate to people who cared for each other or had some relationship or not right this eliminates that so in essence is this part of a process to address the housing stock and make more housing available i.e if you do away with that

that it will increase any additional dwelling units to the four unrelated people and making much more of this stock available to rental purposes or other purposes with non-family it it was hoped to make it an easier process so both both for a potential landlord so a homeowner looking to create an accessory dwelling unit not also for residents looking or or tenants looking to move into a an adu it was just hope that that would make it a little bit of an easier process does this impact any other business activity or or regulating activity in the city such as the requirement to uh to register as a rental housing unit or uh voting rights or residency addresses or anything like that no nothing else changes other than removing the age and disability requirements does the city have a

requirement if you're going to rent out a part for your house that you register that with the city or is that just totally unregulated uh yes that that that's true they they do have to be registered with with the city so that does not change change that uh the the city does not look as as far as renting out a portion of a house so if somebody were to rent out a bedroom in an existing house that's not something that has to be registered but an accessory dwelling unit because it is a separate dwelling unit there are standards like uh fire code standards and and whatnot so that does have to be regulated or does does have to be registered and this does not change that status okay is there any language or way to refer people or

ensure the consistency of meeting all the city standards that's tied in all of the city standards there in in section 355 there are numerous standards so both for uh you know for physical standards uh there are standards in order to get approved for this a unit would have to meet code administration standards so all of that is a process that is gone through and that that would not change with this requirement okay thank you mr royce was the original age restriction geared more toward the student housing dynamic and limiting the rentals uh by students on the south side of the city was that part of the discussion about the history of the age restriction this goes back an awful long way so i can't it predates

my time in the city so i can't answer that with uh i i know i mean so you know some things do actually but i i can't answer that with authority but i i would presume that there was some reluctance to increase student rentals and and that may have had some something to do with it uh but that that's just a presumption okay we've had discussions before about the difficulty in ascertaining how many housing units in the city are actually used as rentals and i think our at least let me let me put this on myself the estimate was 50 percent of the units which are used as rentals are registered the other 50 percent are just done under the radar um do you foresee these changes and a perception of sort of opening up and being somewhat flexible to increase the uh number of units that go ahead and

register and get inspected and get a business license and conform to all the requirements would that be a possible outcome of this i i would presume this would increase i i don't think this alone would increase it a lot because there's there's still a process to go through and the code standards are are still something that's that's stringent enough that somebody can't just close a door to to their basement and call it an accessory dwelling unit so you know i i think those physical standards are probably more of an impediment than this particular standard okay thank you move on okay so our next big category here it is uh that group of potential amendments that we're calling reducing the need for special use permits and really reducing the need for

for special use permits from certain types of businesses now uh all all uses all business uses in the city are listed in the ordinances principal use table uh it's 331 uh there's essentially three types of uses so permitted uses these are allowed in a given zoning district so permitted uses are allowed but it's not necessarily a free for all uh because there's often use standards that are associated with each use uh the use standards are rules that have to be followed just to ensure that the use is compatible with the the city so it's a way to get com somewhat complex uses uh in that permitted category at the other end of the spectrum are uses that are not permitted in a given zoning ordinance zoning district but then there's

that in between category and that in between category is the special use permit the the process for this it's in the zoning ordinance in section six seven but essentially a business wishing to operate uh in in one of these uses that's a a special use uh would file an application with the city and ultimately that ends up in a public hearing uh before city council so that process adds complexity it adds time uh frequently adds cost to the process of opening a business and and that's justifiable in a lot of cases because the purpose of a special use permit is to give city council the opportunity to exercise discretionary powers in considering whether or not a certain use uh that due to its characteristics uh you know really belongs in the city because of potential

impacts that that use may have impacts either to adjacent properties or in impacts to the city overall but requiring that permitting process for businesses that you know really operate rather unobtrusively you know that that is thought to set up barriers to business creation barriers that don't really need to you know to exist so these next three series of amendments fit into that category so types of businesses that currently require special use permits but really tend to be rather unobtrusive uses and uh staff feels that the permitting process could work better in these cases without it being a special use so uh should be noted that these are cases where business models have really evolved from where they were

a decade ago zoning ordinances do need to evolve along with common business models and and these are cases where that's relevant so we'll go ahead and take a look at each one of them uh the first one here involves the use that's known in the ordinances indoor recreation so the use interpretation again use interpretations are in section three four the use interpretation describes this as what it says here amusement or recreational activities carried on wholly within a building and then includes a bunch of examples so it could include bowling alleys day spas gyms skating rinks health clubs and and so on so this was intended to apply to large facilities the things that could have unusual operating characteristics or things that would have large crowds

uh things that really would warrant special consideration from city council but what we've seen in recent years is has been an increase in the smaller businesses in in this use category so things like day spas for instance there's quite a few of these that operate in office condos or in office buildings or small gyms again it's not uncommon for that kind of tenant to be in a shopping center or another kind of retail type of environment those tend those those types of businesses tend to be uh unobtrusive in their environments they tend not to attract large crowds have disturbances have the kind of characteristics uh that really weren't special uses and uh one other thing about this grouping of uses is is the nature of these types of businesses and

especially those on the small side often overlaps with what's considered to be personal services so uh in in the odd ways of our zoning ordinance a gym is a indoor recreation use but a fitness center is a personal service use a day spa is indoor recreation massage therapy is personal services a health club is indoor recreation a dance studio is personal services and and so on and and that's something that leads to complications on the zoning administrators and about how to classify these businesses and it and it really does make a difference when one is a special use and one is a permitted use so the potential amendment here seeks to remedy that situation and and does so by setting a minimum size

threshold for a use to be considered indoor recreation location this this sets that threshold at 30 000 square feet of floor area so that threshold would maintain the current sup status for larger uses so uses like bowling alleys or skating rinks larger gyms and and so on would continue to be special uses 30 000 square feet is also consistent with another part of the zoning ordinance because that's the same size threshold of the zoning ordinance that's the same size of the zoning ordinance that's the zoning ordinance that's the zoning ordinance uh so that's uh that that's a number that has some precedent in the zoning ordinance uh but but what this would mean for those smaller uses so those smaller gyms or athletic places mixed martial martial arts studios day spas that kind of thing uh those would simply be considered personal service uses uh they they would be able to operate

uh able to uh operate on a permitted basis and uh on account of of that uh those businesses would not be required to go through the special use permit process uh now the these amendments also contain a few text changes uh but it it it's really that size threshold that's the substantive change here uh the the intent of smoothing the business process business process uh if there's any any questions on indoor recreation i think rather than going through all of them and having to cycle back we can take questions on on this now if anyone has a recreation question what size was the safeway i mean was the cvs at the safeway shopping center what size is that oh there there there's a question i wasn't expecting i'm i'm i'm gonna say 15 000 square feet okay so

converting it to pickleball puts it on one size of a threshold but it also gives us a sense then of how big is 30 000 square feet right so so another a similar kind of use is the big swimming pool or swimming facility in fair city mall big big blue is it big big blue uh so big big blue is under 30 000 square feet that might be 20 000 square feet so the the reason we we think that that uh it isn't really quite the same as a bigger use is first of all the size and also those uh smaller facilities like pickleball or the swimming place are are really on a uh it it it's not a everyone can come at once kind of thing you need a reservation reservation or need a membership it's not the kind of thing that would really be overcrowded

uh and and those are the type of situations where the special use permit really kind of can come into play and the fitness center then down at the other end is a fair city mall that's that's pretty big i mean that's that's over 30 000 square feet so that would still require for that size yes that's great that that size of gym would still require a special use permit your estimate is almost right on the nose we wouldn't expect any less from the foremost authority at providing estimates to our schools but it looks like it's about 13 500. wow thank you good yeah thank you quick quick answer i love i love that okay we we can move on if there's any other questions as we come along we can always uh jump back uh move along to medical care facilities which is our our next

topic in here so the the use interpretation for medical care facilities is right here but it's uh probably most helpful to see how this fits in with other medical uses there there's three types of medical uses in in the ordinance on on one hand there's medical offices so medical offices or doctors dentists and so on uh so these are permitted in all commercial and all industrial zones you can open up a doctor's office anywhere the the other extremes what you see on the right here so hospitals hospitals are an intense use and accordingly it's a uh it's a special use in industrial zones and in the more intense commercial zones as well now what we call medical care facilities in our ordinance so this is something

that's in the middle of these two and and like the use interpretation up top shows that this includes urgent care and includes surgical centers and these can be more intense than a doctor's office uh but not quite like a hospital and and as a result of that uh this is permitted in industrial and in the cg zone which is the most intensive uh commercial zone and is a special use in commercial office and commercial retail and those are the zone commercial zones that make up the bulk of our commercial space now it's really urgent cares that have become noteworthy here so not too long ago urgent care facilities were considered to be similar to a hospital emergency room uh so in in other words a rather intense medical use but really over the past decade

or so urgent cares have become you know essentially an everyday type of medical care so this is now we're a a whole lot of people go for common medical care uh services and uh not not only do most urgent cares operate similar to doctors offices but a lot of doctors offices and pediatricians offices now contain urgent care functions so it's one of those things that's becoming more difficult to separate because they've really blended together so given all of that it really doesn't seem beneficial to require urgent care facilities to go through a special use permit process and especially when doctors offices which are essentially similar do not so uh similar with indoor recreation this this draft uh sets a minimum size

threshold uh for a use to be considered a medical care facility in in this case the the threshold is 10 000 square feet so the reason this number was chosen uh it is really because it's urgent cares the that we're looking at here we looked at about 20 urgent cares throughout northern virginia so in all different kinds of settings so some uh that are in shopping centers some that are standalone retail some that are in office buildings and and whatnot the the use tends to average about 4 000 square feet the the biggest examples tend to be some of the standalone type of facilities uh that are just over 7 000 square feet so we we believe that that 10 000 square foot number would care comfortably include urgent cares

and something beyond that numbers of something like a surgical center or if there were to be a very large urgent care uh that that that would still be included in medical care facilities and would still be a special use uh and and like indoor recreation there would be no change to those larger uses that are in this category so again uh you know we believe that this this change would you know reduce a barrier to what's become a rather common type of business over uh the past decade or so since these regulations were put in place so i think that's that's it for medical care any uh questions on medical care facilities what's the size of the medical care facility at the corner of university and leighton hall drive

so so that is a multi-use building uh so that that's that's like an office building that's medical use so that's not one tenant so okay that that doesn't count then as medical right if that building were to convert to something like a surgical center then that would be a special use requirement and the size of the surgical center on main street right exceeds 10 000 square feet yes so it's not impacted that that's correct okay gives a sense thank you okay uh we can move move on to this is the last of those amendments dealing with reducing special use permits so this includes animal care facilities and uh you you see the use interpretation for animal animal care facilities up here it is basically a place where animals are are cared for nice simple

sentence i mean it's it's nice when the zoning ordinance tries for simplicity but we we've got it here so right now animal care facilities uh are these are permitted in industrial zones and again in cg but they are a special use in commercial office and commercial retail which again is the bulk of our commercial space now the issue here is is that as it currently is written it's a rather broad type of use and it really includes two very discrete types of businesses so and each of those has different types or different intensities of of impacts let's so like it says down here at the bottom uh those two types really boiled down to facilities that involve boarding animals and uh facilities that involve veterinary

care so the the situation that's created with with this we have two uses with very different impacts both end up being a special use because they're grouped into the same category so the draft amendment here uh separates those two uh doing so means creating two new use interpretations and and we'll get to those on the next slide uh we're also and we'll get to this in a few slides we're updating the commercial use standards for animal care uh like i said the commercial use standards are basically the rules that businesses uh need to operate by we're recommending standards for for these types of uses that combine some of the current standards because there are current standards in the ordinance uh along with those conditions that have

been commonly approved in special use permits for animal care uh so we'll get again get to that in a few slides but really the most significant recommendations are what you see here in the middle and that is making veterinary clinics and you see that on the right making veterinary clinics permitted in most commercial and industrial zones so veterinarians would not be a special use permit any longer according to this uh animal boarding which is what you see on on the left we really consider that to be kennels uh kennels uh kennels would continue to be a special use in uh the more in uh uh the the more common commercial zones right now animal care is a special use in co and cr we would recommend adding cu to that as

as as well uh but this would continue to be permitted in the industrial zones and in commercial general uh it would just be a be a special use in the commercial zones so here uh this is what the draft use interpretation for kennels read so a kennel would be like it says here an establishment for the keeping or boarding of dogs more than four months of age for care daycare or for the or for the keeping or boarding of dogs or other common household pets more than four months of age for the purpose of breeding training sale or adoption uh now a few things just to note here uh you know the first line here says that this is related to dogs the reason for that language it is that dogs just have certain characteristics that can cause adverse impacts on adjacent properties so barking or

uh you know odor from animal waste boarding of other pets so cats for example uh don't don't have these characteristics so you you didn't think that we'd be talking about the difference between dogs and cats tonight but we are cats don't bark you know they they don't uh so so because of that what we're recommending is uh what it says here at the bottom boarding of animals other than dogs uh is recommended to be added to general services and and what that essentially means is a cat daycare and there is such a thing as cat daycares uh cat daycares would be permitted in most commercial and industrial zones would not have to follow the same special use that a dog daycare would so that that's that's that reason for the other animals

so if a veterinary clinic wanted to offer boarding to its customers it would still have to apply for the special use i'm sorry could you say that again oh if a veterinary clinic wanted to offer boarding for its customers it would still need to apply for the special use it would offer general boarding yes we we do have a carve out in the use interpretation for veterinary clinics saying that vet clinics can board animals for medical or surgical reasons so it's not uncommon for an animal to undergo surgery and then have to stay at the veterinarian for a while so that would not be considered boarding but but something that combines uh boarding of dogs with a veterinary clinic would still have to go through a special use uh so this this is the uh draft interpretation for vet clinics uh again you

you see that carve out there uh vet clinics that include facilities for the temporary indoor housing of animals uh shall not constitute a kennel uh so that that's just making doubly sure that that doesn't trip up uh veterinarians uh but again vet clinics would be a permitted use in co in cr cu cg and in industrial zones this would eliminate the requirement of veterinarians to go through that special use permit process uh so two two slides on use standards i mentioned this a few slides ago the the draft recommends updating the animal care use standards this is all in your draft and you can see how it's been changed uh and and what's been carried over but it you know essentially we're recommending a common set of use

standards for both kennels and vet clinics uh since the big issues and the big issues really being noise and odors uh can be consistent with both of of these uses uh so you know like i mentioned these use standards combine some of the current animal care standards these two are relatively similar to what's in there now combines these with uh certain conditions that have commonly been approved with animal care sups uh so what you see here uh on on the screen is a summary of the actual language the full text is in your packets but i'll just go over these briefly these are the first two uh number one here requires a certain degree of sound mitigation measures uh for the these uses uh the second one here requires that the operator

uh control animal waste that's created on site uh by the business's customers so that's one of the issues uh with these uses is animal waste and and this requires them to pick up animal waste uh from from their site and there are some others as well uh number three here requires the facilities to uh include ventilation again decide to design to control off-site uh odors off-premises odors uh four and five here relate to outdoor areas so if outdoor areas are are provided so saying that those kind of areas must be at least 300 feet from the nearest residence and can only be used in daylight again to minimize impacts on nearby properties so that is it for animal care and that's again the last of the uh special use permit

topics so if there's any questions on animal care or or on the other sup topics i'd be glad to talk about it now commissioners okay thank you okay please move on other topics are a bit a bit simpler so uh there are a few amendments here uh intended either to simplify the ordinance or to clarify what's meant by certain sections so this is one includes the use interpretation for restaurants use interpretation for restaurants if you look it up in the zoning ordinance this takes up almost a whole page describing what a restaurant is the reason for that is because the text describes and goes into a lot of detail about the types of restaurants and their characteristics so what defines a fast food restaurant what defines a delicatessen a specialty restaurant which is coffee shops and whatnot

and so on so at one point there was a reason for this level of detail in the in the zoning ordinance so uh back before the 2016 rewrite different types of restaurants were actually treated differently from a zoning perspective uh but now it's been simplified so that all restaurants are treated the same so uh same as far as use use uh permission same as uh parking standards and and whatnot all of this detail is just not needed uh so this draft here simplifies the ordinance text it removes all of that detail about various restaurant types and uh what we're left with is a is a much more concise paragraph of explanation uh the next topic is another example of of simplifying or clarifying these types of donation containers they're

currently permitted under certain conditions uh they are permitted with use standards however if you read through the ordinance you see that there's different terms that are used to describe these at different points in the ordinance so sometimes they're called containers sometimes they're referred to as boxes sometimes facilities and so on and and that's really added some confusion for folks and for property owners trying to understand the city's standards on this topic so these amendments standardize all of that text uh calls these consistently calls them donation drop-off containers and uh part of the issue with how these are dealt with in the ordinance and some of the uh troubles folks had trying to figure out what's meant is that there is no

definition of this in the ordinance right now so we're proposing adding a definition of these containers to section 9 3 and that'll further clarify the ordinance's intent and make it certain that all of this refers to one thing that this definition explains what a donation drop-off container is and also gives examples of what it is not so does not include storage pods trash recycle receptacles and and so on uh next topic this this is pretty obscure for most folks it involves public notices can we go back to the yes go back one of the things i drove by on my bike today around the city are all these little little free libraries things like that books are kept periodically people come and go and take right there's no size

constraint or uh threshold listed in your definition is one needed to make sure we're not trying to over regulate those there are little food pantries that people set up right so so the the uh i'm trying to remember what the term is for that you'll you'll find that in the permitted encroachments section uh and and there there's there's a term in the permitted encroachment section that applies to that i'm not sure that it includes a size standard or not i think it may and i i'm i'm trying to think of what what what that was called i just bicycle by one today made me think of this yeah i'll i'll i'll look it up and i'll i'll get back to you on that that that is actually not a donation drop-off container uh by the

definition yeah if if you mentioned books here so that's why right uh if it was it wouldn't be permitted in residential areas so that's part of the reason to permitted and permitted encroachments if i could make one suggestion yes in the last sentence there trash receptacles are recycling maybe say conventional recycling because some of these boxes are like shoes for recycling and textiles for recycling things that are not part of the the regular single stream so we will make a note of that the uh we'll we'll try to come up with a term that better reflects that what we were thinking of is the things like those purple glass recycling bins uh so we we didn't want that to get caught up in the donation drop-off containers uh but we will some some of those donation containers do say the word

recycling so we'll we'll try to figure out a way to yeah i think pacers used to have like an old shoe recycling right yeah we'll figure out a way to uh make that clearer anything else on uh drop-off containers okay so uh back back to the public notices so uh public hearings related to zoning and uh that sort of thing are required to be advertised so this is all specified in the code of virginia and in our zoning ordinance the relevant state code sections are repeated uh just as they pertain to zoning matters uh now this had been the same for years upon years and then for the past three years state legislation has changed some details of of these advertisements so most notably the timing of when the ads are required to

appear before a hearing um this is what it currently says in the ordinance this is from 2023 uh public hearings must be advertised in a newspaper twice and then it gives the timing that the first advertisement must appear no more than 14 days before the hearing uh the revised standard which was revised from this year's legislative session uh same two advertisements but you see down there a different time frame for the ads to appear first advertisement must be no more than 28 days before a hearing and the second no less than five days before a hearing this will actually not change what the city does right now because what we do right now is within this threshold anyway uh this will go into effect july 1st whether or not it's in

our ordinance because it's required by state code but these amendments will simply keep our ordinance updated with state code and finally uh some other miscellaneous amendments there are some incorrect references in section 610 tree removal permits so this takes care of those references and there's some other typographical formatting issues that are being addressed and this is all in your packet as well and that is the extent of the amendments you may recall from previous amendment processes this work session tonight is really the beginning of the process as for what's coming next city council will hold a work session to discuss these amendments on june 3rd and uh now the planning commission can formally initiate the zoning text amendments and

this can be done at a uh future meeting but once initiated uh the actual public hearings on on this would occur after that and after the city council work session and uh with with that i'm glad or any other staff here i would be happy to answer any questions anything folks thank you very much okay i know it feels like a lot of details but it's important that we keep this ordinance current and make it sensible as well so all thought out well thought out changes all right we'll reconvene our regular meeting and move to the staff report from mr napty thank you chair feather members of the planning commission it has been quite a while since we've met going back to march however uh when updating you on what the city council has been doing the majority

of their meetings during that time have been focused on the budget which was adopted on may 6. however a couple of items did come up within those meetings that might be of interest on april 22nd there was a work session on the fire station number three fills the feasibility study providing update on that project there was also a general discussion on trails at which time the country club hills connector trail what was currently designed was cancelled the picket road connector trail uh was frozen and to come back at a later date and there was a discussion to review the george schneider trail and that'll be going back to the city council for further discussion at tomorrow's meeting uh also on that same meeting a award of construction

awarded for the mclean warwick avenue fairfax boulevard uh intersection improvement project so we'll be seeing some work start there fairly soon for tomorrow's city council meeting may 13 a couple of items of interest uh there's a discussion on applications for the transportation alternatives funding grants uh this includes among other things the north facts east west road which is included in the conference of plan and the north facts small area plan there's discussion on the virginia commercial property assessed clean energy program also known as c pace and on whether or not and how the city would proceed with providing this program as the planning commission may be aware this has been specifically identified in the conference of plans since 2019.

the state has been working to make it easier to implement this program over the past couple of years by setting up a specific organization to manage it and other jurisdictions have begun to uh to put it in place so hopefully that is something that the city will be able to move forward with i note that also while it says commercial properties that can also be applied to multi-family rental properties which are considered commercial separate from the april 22nd discussion on the fire station number three feasibility study there'll be discussion tomorrow on the potential for public private partnerships on the fire station number three site this involves potential uses for the current fire station three site if the site if the fire station is built on

the adjacent property that was purchased by the city for that purpose lastly tomorrow the city council will be considering uh incorporation of a committee to support the safe streets for all transportation project which will include a planning commission representative so i want to give you a heads up so people can start to think if you want to serve in that role uh if they do move forward with that then at the next meeting we will ask the planning commission to identify a representative as a reminder this project includes not just the safe streets for all transportation plan but also the pedestrian master plan uh the planning commission has been advocated for for quite some time as well as the old town circulation study that's recommended the old town smaller plan

uh just for reference uh it's expected that this group would meet approximately six times in person over the course of the project which is anticipated to take about 18 months for upcoming planning commission meetings our next meeting is may 26 which is a city holiday so that meeting will be cancelled uh and then as we discussed before uh joint work session has been scheduled with the city council on july 1st to discuss to have an introduction on the safety action plan i've heard from commissioners lockhart cunningham and rice that they can attend anyone else who can attend that day please let me know and then lastly last week you received an email from mr foreman uh with the historic resources reports

for several properties uh those conducted for those properties in the generally in the old town area and for germantown cemetery among those reports it included the davies property at 4131 chainbridge road for which there is an application for redevelopment in and is expected we don't have a date yet but expected that planning commission will have a public hearing on that project before the august recess and so the city council will be receiving a work session presentation on that project on june 3rd because city council has to give staff guidance on how to proceed with next steps on those recommendations but if it's the interest of the planning commission we can request that to be a joint work session

if you're able to attend if not i would also encourage planning commissioners to watch that work session because questions will come up about how the that report should impact the review of the application for that site um so i will send an email about that and you can all kind of respond to me on that that's all i have for the staff report today questions for staff uh mr nappy the safety action plan take action i think it's a consent agenda item tomorrow is there anticipated start date for that for when the uh when the group starts to meet there is nothing has been identified yet but the project has officially begun and as we said you uh planning convention city council will receive a introduction briefing on july 1st

i anticipate the group would begin meeting fairly soon after that probably july august or september at the the latest okay all right so thank you all right commission comments mr coleman mr rice so i attended the parks and recreation advisory board meeting in april and um so reporting on that we discussed a number of projects that are ongoing um we'll be having a joint school board meeting in may on the 19th to coordinate with the school board currently uh prominent things being worked on include uh the splash pad that's being renovated and my children have kind of aged out of the splash pad so i haven't checked it myself to see whether it's reopened but it will be reopened soon in near term um there's a delay of some sort in the uh culmination of uh renovations of old town hall and so there's um maybe some additional information there you know it's been almost a month since that meeting and so

conceivably some of those issues have been worked out um parks has a vast list of ongoing projects and so um um we get frequent updates on a huge number of them but i think those are the main ones uh that we could perhaps uh uh kind of communicate here um and i think that's it for me thanks um just just a couple things um besides needing a representative for the safe streets or safety action plan team we still need a representative for the board of architectural review i don't know really whether council has suspended appointments but since this is a required one anyway it seems to me if we have a someone to appoint we can they can move ahead with that but i haven't seen any hands go up yet and of course we're still operating down commissioner as well um just wanted to acknowledge

here and for those who may be watching uh the recognition of dr rice for his uh jack wood award for town town town relations and the uh campus staff whatever category um with all the contributions he's made uh he's a great advocate for the city on campus and likewise represents well the university and the city he's brought a lot to especially in the area of gis and working with our staff in that area so just again congratulations thank you i think at the very same time i'd like just to recognize um council member billy bates who will be graduating with a master's degree in physics in just a few days and so um there are multiple avenues where the city and city employees and city staff are kind of kind of showing up at mason and getting attention so and uh council member anthony amos was

also one of those recognized in that award from his time as a student as i recall but yeah so city our city volunteers are well represented so um other than that i guess we will see what develops for our june meeting schedule um and uh if there's nothing else you're adjourned thank you