Planning Commission Regular Meeting/Work Session

James FeatherGood 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.

Paul CunninghamI pledge allegiance to the flag of

James Featherthe United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible,

Paul Cunninghamwith liberty and justice for all.

James FeatherThank you. Next order of business is discussion and adoption of the agenda. The agenda was issued ahead of meeting as required.

Paul CunninghamMr. Chair, I move the agenda be adopted as presented.

James FeatherSecond. Second by Dr. Rice. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? 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 the head Madam Clerk? 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 24, 2025 meeting minutes. Those two were issued ahead of our meeting. Any comments, questions, changes, corrections, or additions?

Kirsten Lockhartby voiceMr. Chair, I move that we adopt the March 24, 2025 regular meeting minutes as issued.

James FeatherMoved 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 hearing 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 Mr. Napty.

Paul NaptystaffThank 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 adopt a 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 White Smith 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.

Eric Formanstaffby voiceThank you, Paul,

Justin Wallaceand 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 White Smith Cusinome. 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 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 these 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 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 zoning ordinance update we're 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 a community meeting in november and we've 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 It'll be educational in nature and will 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 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 and 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 are would provide for more activity and engaging storefronts along the street and so we believe that development furnishes 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 front 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 the ground floor in the face of development and so we would include build

two lines 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 they've used development frontages so here's an example of each type of frontages the for those traditional shop fronts or commercial storefront areas residential would be for multifamily and townhouses and other types of residential development developments of higher intensities flexible flexible commercial is for those retail types that might have a difference that might 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 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. that we could incorporate in the zoning ordinance itself so that when it does become 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 for mixed-use development and activity centers that those standards or design guidelines could be updated and strengthened and to provide more 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 we'll 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 in development so boutique hotel was one one specific use another Another use that was mentioned was artisan use or maker 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 gonna stop here and open it up and so I think we're just gonna stop it after each segment so that we can kind of talk through the previous slides and just allow allow you guys to talk through those or ask questions.

James FeatherOkay thank you good place to pause. Questions, comments at this point? Ms. Waller.

Kirsten Lockhartby voiceI noticed that the commercial discussion focuses mostly on retail. Are we discussing office uses in this contracts as well or is that something that was not part of the discussion?

Justin WallaceThat's a good question. It was focused on retail but that 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 because I now add to that I mean when you think of office it's not as active as your storefronts gonna be so 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.

James FeatherI 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,

Kirsten Lockhartby voicethere 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.

Matthew RiceMr. 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 is alluded to by my colleague here there seems to be some hesitancy by developers to include to include retail or other uses on that ground floor particularly on major thoroughfares and we seem to get pushback yet 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 the 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.

James FeatherMr. Culley.

Paul CunninghamThank 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. 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 percent 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 approve that sort of stuff now how do we get past the politics of getting something that is effective in moving the city forward

Justin Wallaceright that's a big question but i i agree i think you know if you're already allowing or maybe not allowing but allowing the

Paul Cunninghamcouncil is the final decision making authority whatever we recommend is a recommendation.

Justin WallaceSure. And if that, 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 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 that 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.

Paul CunninghamOkay. I guess for my second question then, how does construction du jour factor in to the zoning ordinance 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 standalone 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, scouted 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

Justin Wallacei mean i 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 use is inside the building, you're allowing for design. Your purview would be, you know focused on the design and and how the the buildings are addressing each other and so i think you can do that with the the development furnages 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 i know that that's a debate in itself so

So

Paul Cunninghamthat 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. 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 tax rate time. I

Justin Wallacedo 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 furnaces 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 strengthens opportunities for design and variation in design. So any other?

Paul CunninghamIf we get all residential development with that that has a pretty face, is that meeting our goal for zoning?

James FeatherThe question is, is it meeting our goal for the comprehensive

Paul Cunninghamplan? 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.

James Featherthe

Paul Naptystaffpurpose of this project is to support the recommendations of the smaller plans the smaller plans are division of the comprehensive plan those processes are what we're intended to tackle the questions you're getting at this project should not be looking at changing the direction of the smaller plans or changing the recommendations it's only about supporting implementation there are opportunities for us to go back and look at the smaller 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 small air plants and the zoning ordinance. And the questions you're asking about are really about questions about whether the small

air plants are recommending the correct thing or not. And that's something that we should be addressing separately from this project.

Paul CunninghamOkay. 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?

Paul NaptystaffYes. Those were the types of things I think that brought up this frontage observation. So these recommendations, we're not at 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 plans, which is why they're saying, is this the direction we want to go in?

Paul CunninghamOkay. Go ahead.

James FeatherOthers? Mr. Coleman?

Anthony ColemanIf we're looking at it through the context, 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 enough like unlock a level per se

Betsy BriggsI don't understand the removing of the retail completely, how that helps anything.

James FeatherI 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.

Justin WallaceI 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.

James FeatherOkay. 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. Yeah it's got some fun design to it as well but anyway.

Kirsten Lockhartby voiceIf I,

James FeatherI

Kirsten Lockhartby voicemean 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 in 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 too. Obviously it gets tricky when it comes to verbiage but I see one and two

as intrinsically linked.

Paul CunninghamMr. Cunningham.

Kirsten Lockhartby voiceThank you.

Paul CunninghamA 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. 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 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

Justin Wallaceand the small I do know the small area plans they did contemplate those priority retail streets and so there 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.

James FeatherWE HAVE A LOT TO COVER. I WOULD HAVE THOUGHT THE FRONTAGE 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 it 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, 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?

Justin Wallaceyou're right on point it is a it would be a form based approach I don't think we're contemplating a phone bait a form based code itself but we are looking at form based strategies that may be integrated within the zoning order 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

James Featherand it does feel like if we're going to bring this new concept in we do have 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 but doesn't really go into this kind of depth or diversity and what we're talking about Sounds like there's more to it than that. Anything more on the subject before we move on? Ms. Briggs.

Betsy BriggsI 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 we're going to attract better projects a

Justin Wallacebenefit to not having the 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 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 those adverse effects I

James Featherthink what you described actually gets to the Willowwood case that you talked about because where that those apartment that apartment building is placed it's kind of the backside of 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 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're talking about. Yeah, and if we make it more flexible as things develop, put some kind of base load in, it gives us a little more leverage, but without being unreasonable.

Matthew RiceWe'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. 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 of a central walkway through a small area. 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 so

Justin Wallaceyeah and i don't know if i hit on this earlier but the the idea behind the development furnages is that there would be design criteria in place and so um there you know in the zoning ordinance there would be um you know the spatial quality characteristics of what would be required on those open space frontages and I think I understand the what you're referencing so I 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 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 a 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 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. it. So we're also suggesting that there be an assigned value to OpenSpace 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 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 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's options for in luffy which is currently

supported and an option for potentially a tree bank which might be off-site or it 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 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 in 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.

Can I ask for

James Featherclarification? What is a suspended pavement system? I'm sorry. What is a suspended pavement system?

Justin WallaceIt is 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 lighting channels. and the surface is free to navigate and walk on, and so it's a good best practice.

James FeatherSo it effectively provides more soil volume for trees to get in and around sidewalks. That's correct. Might otherwise be constrained.

Justin WallaceOkay.

James FeatherThank you. Commissioners, open space.

Kirsten Lockhartby voiceI 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 as some of the alternatives or things to consider. you know like frontage trees or or you know green roof type things are those not currently considered within the canopy if

Justin Wallacethey 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 forcer allows that to happen through an administrative process but Paul do you know

Paul Naptystaffyes or through special exception the zoning orders has a dimensional requirement on how close or how far the and we receive a lot of special exception requests from that due to utility conflicts and those types of issues.

Kirsten Lockhartby voiceSure I was talking about the canopy requirement though like the ones one slide before that was saying like frontage trees might not be considered as part of a

Paul Naptystaffcanopy 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.

James FeatherThe question is should they be? If they're not there now and a developer is putting them in is that part of the question yeah

Justin WallaceI would just want to understand make sure I'm understanding so sure

Kirsten Lockhartby voiceI'm thinking of street trees as like no kidding they're 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 a entrance to the street are those street trees or does that count as part of the canopy for the property

Paul Naptystaffthe only way we did we make a distinction is not whether it's on the property or not so 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

Justin Wallaceand and so just to the

James Featherincentivizing 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

Kirsten Lockhartby voicesomething

James Featherto

Kirsten Lockhartby voicethink about that was just my point was I don't think there'll be an appetite for any sort of I don't see that being a point

James Featherof 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. A place devoid of trees is undesirable.

Matthew RiceI think certain types of green roofs would probably get some traction in 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 you know 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

Justin Wallaceright now 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.

Matthew RiceSo that's more or less the definition of an intensive green roof is that has a soil volume that could support. 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.

Justin WallaceRight. 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

James Featherlet's go to him thank you

Paul Cunninghamwhat'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? And 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.

Justin WallaceI 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 well I don't know the you know the exact date or how long the tree will last but I do think it's for healthy soils and it allows for more healthy tree and it's supported by different cities and parks and recs and it's a good best practice.

Paul CunninghamSome 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 is is 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

James FeatherThere were two topics here. One was the trees. The other was open space. Were there any thoughts about the open space discussion?

Kirsten Lockhartby voiceI 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 tiers. Robert?

Paul CunninghamI would hope that we could provide more open space. 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.

James Featherdo you want to comment mr napty on some of the thoughts about some of the public integration with some of these

Paul Naptystaffyeah 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 order is focusing on the private side because it's apart 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 year 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.

James FeatherThank you. Anything else? I agree with Ms. Lockhart's comment by the way. Support?

Justin WallaceOkay.

James FeatherOkay.

Justin WallaceMove on. Moving on. So this next segment deals with how land is developed. And 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 or 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, 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, 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 development 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 a 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 a good strategy to 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's a potential for increased profit to the landowners because there's additional tenants and buildable area. And there's potential benefits in terms of amenity space with larger development. So there's a benefit to the public when there's land assembly. So what we're suggesting is to offer an incentive. If land is aggregated, then you could, there's 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 activities centers.

The next topic is parking. Parking obviously takes up a lot of space. And 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 not tailored to something you would find 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 a

traffic impact study that would make an argument for reducing parking ratios we can also look at incentivizing reductions so if there are sustainable objectives being attained maybe the the trade-off is a reduction in your your parking we can also look at location and design standards criteria such as locating the parking interior to the block or requiring requiring liner buildings around structured parking so those are things that we can include in the parking ordinance so these are just some ways you know as land is developed over time these are ways that we can address either incentives or just base requirements in the city's 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

James Featherwe sure mr. Cunningham

Paul Cunninghamwe've got five activity centers as noted we've got one without a formal small area plan. Do we need one size fits all for our zoning if we're going to maintain 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 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

Betsy Briggsyeah

Justin Wallacei think that is the question is um that is that's the question on the table is um 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

Paul Cunninghamwell 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 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 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

Justin Wallaceyeah that's a good point I mean maybe the historical core is you know prioritized but the transition area it could be you know that that might be for the land assembly, as you said.

Paul CunninghamIf we go to the north side, you've already had some future-looking land assembly. The shopping center bought the two little restaurant pad sides 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 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.

James FeatherOthers? On the subject? I think we've talked about land assembly for quite some time, and if there's a way to incentivize it, We'd generally be supportive of that. We've talked about it, especially with these recent projects just north of us here. But I'm sure there 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 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 yet for sure. Both of those all seem to be going in 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. It also reminds 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 and never finished. Yeah, there's lots of discussion. What

Paul Cunninghamis right-sizing parking? Is parking ever right-sized, so to speak? Right.

Justin WallaceThere's probably not a right size, but I think the idea is just adjusting the standards to be less excessive and more acceptable and more appropriate and more competitive with the pure cities. And so that's what we mean by right-sizing.

Paul CunninghamWhat 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 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 someplace 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

James Featherit's a challenge because yeah we want to be transit oriented but our transit may not be up to the way some of the people would like to commute you know there's been discussions a recent study on our city's Q bus people would love more frequent service but you know we're not in the position to provide that yet so people going to still want to use cars so it's a very difficult thing to deal with but we have some basis for a changing standards when we look at parking requirements in old town and the the transition district for reduced parking minimums dense multi-family 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

Paul Cunninghamsizing probably

James Feathermakes

Paul Cunninghamsome sense. To say nothing of trails and giving people alternate means to get around.

James FeatherOkay. For tomorrow night.

Justin WallaceAnd I would just say that 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 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 will 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 their community goals whether that's transit readiness or housing availability or

parks and so for me density is 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 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 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 an 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 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 multifamily development at 24 units per acre in an activity 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 high density developments. And so that's important to note is that you do have developments that are occurring at increasingly high densities. And so we'll come back to density but that's just kind of an overview. So we're wanting to establish a baseline density and then understand what tradeoffs

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 oh 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 all the small area plans allow or called for five stories and then anything what we're showing in this slide is that anything above that five stories developments could 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. In this next slide, you know, I've talked a lot about community benefits, but what does that mean? And, you know, if we're allowing developers to go taller, wider, or bigger, what are the trade-offs and what should be the community and the small area plans do call out specific ideas and so those are listed here high performance buildings public open space sensitive environments and ecology enhanced storm water and infrastructure public art transportation and mobility those unique specific uses which we talked previously about and historic preservation of buildings and so what this chart is is helping us evaluate what is appropriate or what's a what's suitable to include in a community benefits

program 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 using as an example, the cost of preserving a historic building is much more than you would possibly have for public art. So there's a cost benefit analysis that is included with this prioritization. And so what this table is showing us is that maybe some community benefits are more costly for the developer and worth 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, but I'm going to give an example.

And I'm using public art as an example. There were proposing three options, so it could either be required in the base zoning. So in this example, public art is required for certain developments over a certain threshold. We can incentivize public art or encourage it or incentivize it. So if a developer adds public art, then maybe they get a reduction in their parking. or we can allow developers to for a density bonus for public art and so that would be above their

Anthony Colemanexisting entitlements so

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

Anthony ColemanI like this no surprise I'm probably the only one up here that's really not afraid of density and height most of the time. 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. 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. I think that 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 save their bottom dollar.

So I like that idea because it's like, hey, here it is, but if you want to try and go for this, we just need this from you.

Matthew RiceOthers? I agree. It makes sense. I don't have any concerns with offering incentives. I think we've more been in a conversation recently where it's you know we give something up for Them producing more housing that they're selling at a profit. I don't think we need to do that And I think that if there is some very tangible public benefit open space public art Yeah, we should consider ways to incentivize that or provide some sort of bonus to allow that happen

Paul Cunninghamin 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 skylines that are defined other than the steeple on 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 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 or buildings that are going to stick out and be visible from We're 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. 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 that we're going to give all of these things you do this and that and then you get poor development as referred to by Matt Rice that meets those criteria. So how you get that language is your challenge to present it to us so that we buy it and and that I think is a worthwhile goal.

James Feathera couple things there is one significant community benefit that's not mentioned here in possibly because it's not mentioned in 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 as it applies to our activity centers I will

Paul Cunninghamadd 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 tall and is going to have upscale extremely expensive 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 beg a question 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 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 but that is and that's in the

James Featherzoning

Paul Cunninghamand that's the way it goes in the zoning ordinance Is I think something that needs to be corrected,

James Featherbut I'm talking about additional incentive for additional height most of our developments are not these kind of things

Paul CunninghamRight well start

James Featherbut

Paul Cunninghambut 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

James FeatherCan

Paul NaptystaffI ask a clarifying question? the comment about incorporating affordable housing in here this was intentionally omitted because that is something that is already in our code in addition with the way this is described in the report you'll see says we haven't arrived at how this would 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 we

James Featherhousing the city is the base requirement we're talking about incentives over and above serious that's what I'm talking going beyond

Paul Naptystaffthat

James Featherover and above okay because we're talking about a lot of buildings with one-bedroom apartments or studios and so anyway I want to put that out there the

Paul Cunninghamother

James Feathercommunity benefit and I don't 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 schools is how we fund the additional load on our schools with added residents. The last Mr. Hardin sat through a very lengthy meeting the other night and the schools came up in funding 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 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 residences and looking for more density and

Matthew Ricego

James Featherahead

Paul Cunninghamone one perspective on that 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 residence 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 two million dollar 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, then 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, 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 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

James Featheryeah 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

Justin Wallacewell it's pointing out and mark is it sounds like

Paul Naptystaffif

James Featherwe're talking about incentive to providing incentives for more

Paul Naptystaffwhat

James Featherare 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. 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

Justin Wallaceand I'll also add when you think of public art outside of the zoning ordinance itself there are other mechanisms that might be available 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 these programs I think you know some are more costly than others

James Featherbut would I rather have a developer paint a mirror on the side of the building or provide some additional trees or open space I think it's the latter okay that's what thinking there's a Syriana here okay other comments on this mr. rice

Matthew Ricewe'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 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.

Justin WallaceAre you referring to bus slips, or you're talking about something more robust than that? All of it. Okay, all of it.

Matthew Riceflexible enough that they could accommodate What may come at us in the future and if we can position ourselves to allow that 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

James FeatherBut multimodal trails also could fall into that too we serve multi-use trails. I mean

Justin WallaceAppreciate 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. zoning frameworks there are 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 second one is creating a new zoning district the third one is using but modifying it for activity centers.

The fourth is creating a new overlay. Fifth is updating the design guidelines for activity centers. The sixth is using performance-based zoning. 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 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 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 they have the most darker circles and help us achieve the different zoning strategies when you look at form-based zoning we We had talked earlier about a code versus form-based approaches. And so form-based approaches might help us with those 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

James Featherso just not sure the section of the report is 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 from the 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 because I've read it that's what this part fascinates me it's an engineer

Paul Cunningham145 pages worth of staff report and 45 pages for the slides only got me to 190 pages worth of reading about something that's light and focused on the zoning it tied in I think with a lot of history that we have worked through to get to the point we 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 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 work 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 Lederer, under Scott Silverthorne, 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 building here 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. 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. 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 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

James Featherothers nope I'll give you my impression and I'll be interested in hearing from staff oh mr. Colton I'm sorry you'll settle over there I

Justin Wallacedon't think there's a one-time problem.

Anthony ColemanI 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 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 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 gonna 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 really something that we want to definitely be working towards

James Featherothers hmm when I look when I look at the options that were out here and and reading the report 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 which I think is is having sub-districts because there are some distinct differences among the activity centers. You described that option some jurisdictions have used, which could be useful to incorporate because there's 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.

I always wondered what it was for. 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 capture the vision. I was developed before there were small area plans. It probably just 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 that's kind of why I dismissed that. Plan development has, by definition, has its own constraints and things, particularly when I think you mentioned the proffers and inability to get proffers through a plan development. And other districts have that opportunity. So that may be a reason not to pursue plan development either.

And it's having to redefine what those already are and there are countless plan development districts already 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 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. Performance zoning and form-based zoning, they sort of have their own character. 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. That's kind of how I ended up. My thoughts is where we might want to think about going. I just want to lay that out there for you from my perspective. Any thoughts or comments from others? Has staff weighed this from Mr. Napdy?

Paul NaptystaffWe haven't discussed a preference yet, and in all honesty, my hope from what we heard from you all tonight was less about this and more about all the issues that we had discussed to let us know what we should be going forward with and what ideas will work, and then hopefully when considering all of that this would this would naturally fall in I will say that 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 for the smaller plans because there are things in there that can not be achieved through conventional zoning and that is the best way to go about doing it so I think that's that's clear through through this chart but that would be

important I agree with everything you said about commercial urban plan development a 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 to all that's all about negotiating which is what we're trying to get away with get away from so that is probably not that's not the best fit but but other than that it's it's you know trying to hear what we hear tonight and tomorrow from council about the other topics we discussed and then seeing how it all all fits with this.

James FeatherDo you think you heard enough about the other topics from us?

Paul NaptystaffYeah, I think so, but I defer to you as well.

Justin WallaceYeah, I think we have something to work with.

James FeatherIt's okay to ask for more.

Justin WallaceYeah, no, I think, you know, the feedback so far has been, and it's workable. So I appreciate all the feedback received so far. And, yeah, I don't think there's anything in particular that I think we need to revisit at this time. But appreciate everyone's insights. Any other closing thoughts on the project?

James FeatherIt'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, 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 apace so that we can keep up with what developers want to do

and get it right. So, yeah. Mr. Cunningham.

Paul CunninghamThank you. One of the challenges I think we have is that we spend a lot of time 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 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 sit 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.

James FeatherThank you. Others? Okay, thank you.

Justin WallaceThank you very much.

James FeatherThank you. Okay. Next item on our work session is a 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.

Eric Formanstaffby voiceIt's good to be back. I'll find the presentation. We're discussing some more potential amendments to our zoning ordinance tonight. These are different types of amendments than what was discussed in the last agenda item. These 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 more efficient, 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.

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 objective here really is to reduce barriers for businesses that are in practice, low intensity uses, but in reality, they're uses that currently require applicants to go through a full special use permit process. And then we also have some other amendments down there at the bottom, amendments that could help with administration of our ordinances, things that clarify inconsistencies, simplify the text, correct errors, and so on. 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 things like physical characteristics of ADUs or where or how they're permitted. But there's also some existing standards on ADU occupancy. And like it says here, both Planning Commission and City Council discuss 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 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 right here. And in everyday terms, 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 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, three main occupancy standards. You see them here and it's really this one in the middle, the one that's highlighted here 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 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 middle one here that's highlighted in green, this is the age and disability requirements that we're discussing. And what these requirements mean is that, again, either the main house or the accessory dwelling unit must be occupied currently by either someone who's age 55 plus or someone with a

disability uh 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, before we get into specifics, I'll just mention this bottom item here. We're also recommending changing one detail with this bottom item. So it says here that the ADU and the house are counted together as a single household for determining total occupancy, and that's really in 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, are trying to maintain safety occupant safety 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 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, here you see the age requirement, and that's under Romanet 1, and the disability requirement, which is Romanet 2. This amendment proposes to strike this language, so to delete it, 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 Romanet 3, That involves what I'd mentioned about measuring occupancy, that the house and the ADU are counted together for overcrowding standards.

So I'll just take a moment to talk about this. This is what I had mentioned about updating some outdated language. And what I meant by that, this subsection here, again, says that the house and ADU must contain one household. household. Now, 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 section at the end which is a description of

what a household entails and instead just replaces that referring 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 said all of that because I want to make it clear that this does not change any policy does not change any way of doing things. This simply, like it says here, revises language that's now outdated. It's something that was just overlooked a few years ago when the ordinance was rewritten. And this just corrects that issue since we're modifying other things in this subsection as well. Yes, the definition, that's not the verbatim definition, but the definition of household says Essentially, a household can contain any number of people who are related, can contain up to four unrelated people.

So this would be boarders, roommates, whatever you would want to call them. Or also can contain a statutory group home, which is in state code, and that's up to eight people in total. So that is all of the accessory dwelling unit recommendations. to pause for questions either about the occupancy or the age and disability.

James FeatherCommissioners? Mr. Cunningham?

Paul CunninghamWhy are we doing away with the age and disability? What's the purpose in doing that?

Eric Formanstaffby voiceIt just didn't seem to bring any benefits to the city. It was an odd restriction that somebody had to be either age 55 or over, either the homeowner or a resident of the ADU seemed to be rather limiting. Folks who we talked about, 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 really ADUs are viewed more broadly than that right now it seems awfully limiting and folks just didn't see the benefit of this continuing or the city trying to verify you know the identity or the disability status of folks who live in a particular unit

Paul Cunninghamokay that seemed to 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, 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.

Eric Formanstaffby voiceIt was hoped to make it an easier process, so both for a potential landlord, so a homeowner looking to create an accessory dwelling unit, and also for residents looking or tenants looking to move into an ADU. It was just hoped that that would make it a little bit of an easier process. Does

Paul Cunninghamthis impact any other business activity or regulating activity in the city, such as the requirement to register as a rental housing unit or voting rights or residency addresses or anything like that? No,

Eric Formanstaffby voicenothing else changes other than removing the age and disability requirements.

Paul CunninghamDoes 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?

Eric Formanstaffby voiceYes, that's true. They do have to be registered with the city so that does not change that. The city does not look 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 fire code standards and whatnot. So that does have to be regulated or does have to be registered, and this does not change that status.

Paul Cunninghamokay is there any language or way to refer people or ensure the consistency of meeting all the city standards that's tied all of

Eric Formanstaffby voicethe 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

Paul Cunninghamokay thank you

Matthew Ricewas the original age restriction geared more toward the

Paul Naptystaffstudent housing

Matthew Ricedynamic

Paul Naptystaffand

Matthew Ricelimiting the rentals by students on the south side of the city. Was that part of the discussion about the history of the age restriction?

Eric Formanstaffby voiceThis goes back an awful long way. It predates my time in the city, so I can't answer that with... I know, some things do, actually. I can't answer that with authority, but I would presume that there was some reluctance to increase student rentals, and that may have had something to do with it. presumption

Matthew RiceOkay, 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 Put this on myself. The estimate was 50% of The units which are Used as rentals are registered the other 50% are just done under the radar do you foresee these changes and a perception of sort of opening up and being somewhat flexible to increase the 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

Eric Formanstaffby voiceI 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 still something that's stringent enough that somebody can't just close a door to their basement and call it an accessory dwelling unit. So, you know, I think those physical standards are probably more of an impediment than this particular standard.

James FeatherOkay.

Paul CunninghamThank you.

James FeatherMove on. Okay.

Eric Formanstaffby voiceSo our next big category here, it is that group of potential amendments that we're calling reducing the need for special use permits and really reducing the need 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 it's 331. 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 because there's often use standards that are associated with each use. The use standards are rules that have to be followed just to ensure that the use is compatible with the city. So it's a way to get somewhat complex uses in that permitted category.

At the other end of the spectrum are uses that are not permitted in a given zoning district, but then there's that in-between category, and that in-between category is the special use permit. The process for this, it's in the zoning ordinance in Section 6-7, but essentially a business wishing to operate in one of these uses that's a special use would file an application with the city, and ultimately that ends up in a public hearing before city council. So that process adds complexity. It adds time, frequently adds cost. to the process of opening a business. 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 that due to its characteristics, really belongs in the city because of potential impacts that that use may have, impacts either to adjacent properties or impacts to the city overall. But requiring that permitting process for businesses that really operate rather unobtrusively, that is thought to set up barriers to business creation, barriers that don't really need 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 staff feels that the permitting process could work better in these cases without it being a special use.

So 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 these are cases where that's relevant. So we'll go ahead and take a look at each one of them. The first one here involves a use that's known in the ordinance as indoor recreation. So the use interpretation, again, use interpretations are in Section 3.4. 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. day spas, gyms, skating rinks, health clubs, 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, things that really would warrant special consideration from city council. But what we've seen in recent years has been an increase in the smaller businesses in this use categories. 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 types of businesses tend to be unobtrusive in their environments. They tend not to attract disturbances have the kind of characteristics that really warrant special uses.

And one other thing about this grouping of uses 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 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 so on. And that's something that leads to complications on the zoning administrators end about how to classify these businesses. 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. 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 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 as large format retail. Large format retail is a special use, whereas smaller retail under 30,000 square feet is not. So that's a the zoning ordinance. But what this would mean for those smaller uses, so those smaller gyms or

athletic places, mixed martial arts studios, day spas, that kind of thing, those would simply be considered personal service uses. They would be able to operate on a permitted basis. And on account of that, those businesses would not be required to go through the special use permit process. Now these amendments also contain a few text changes, but it's really that size threshold that's the substantive change here, the intent of smoothing the business process. If there's any questions on indoor recreation, I think rather than going through all of them and having to cycle back, we can take questions on this now. If anyone has a recreation question.

Paul CunninghamWhat size was the Safeway? I mean, was the CVS at the Safeway shopping center? What size is that?

Eric Formanstaffby voiceOh, there's a question I wasn't expecting. I'm going to say 15,000 square feet.

Anthony ColemanOkay.

Paul CunninghamSo 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

Eric Formanstaffby voicefeet. Right. So another similar kind of use is the big swimming pool or swimming facility in Fair City Mall, Big Blue. Is it Big Blue? So Big Blue is under 30,000 square feet. That might be 20,000 square feet. So the reason we think that it isn't really quite the same as a bigger use is, first of all, the size, and also those smaller facilities like pickleball or the swimming place are really on a 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 and and those are the type of situations where the special use permit really kind of can come into play

Paul Cunninghamand the fitness center than down at the other end is

Eric Formanstaffby voicea fair city mall that's that's pretty big i mean that's that's over 30 000.

Paul Cunninghamso that would still require for that size

Eric Formanstaffby voiceyes that's great that that size of gym would still require a special use perfect

Matthew Riceyour 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.

Eric Formanstaffby voiceWow. Thank you.

Matthew RiceYeah, thank you.

Eric Formanstaffby voiceQuick answer. I love that. Okay, we can move on. If there's any other questions as we come along, we can always jump back, move along to medical care facilities, which is our next topic in here. So the use interpretation for medical care facilities is right here, but it's probably most helpful to see how this fits in with other medical uses. There's three types of medical uses in the ordinance. On one hand, there's medical offices, so medical offices are doctors, dentists, and so on. So these are permitted in all commercial in all industrial zones. You can open up a doctor's office anywhere. The other extremes, what you see on the right here, so hospitals. Hospitals are an intense use, and accordingly 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 like the use interpretation up top shows that this includes urgent cares and includes surgical centers. And these can be more intense than a doctor's office, but not quite like a hospital. And as a result of that, this is permitted in industrial and in the CG zone, which is the most intensive commercial zone, and is a special use in commercial office and commercial retail. and those are the 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. So in other words, a rather intense medical use, but really over the past decade or so, urgent cares have become essentially an everyday type of medical care. So this is now where a whole lot of people go for common medical care services. And 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 doctor's offices, which are essentially similar, do not. So similar with indoor recreation, this draft sets a minimum size threshold for a use to be considered a medical care facility. In this case, the threshold is 10,000 square feet. So the reason this number was chosen is really because it's urgent cares 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 that are in shopping centers, some that are standalone retail, some that are in office buildings and whatnot. The use tends to average about 4,000 square feet. examples tend to be some of the standalone type of facilities that are just over 7,000 square feet.

So we believe that that 10,000 square foot number would comfortably include urgent cares, and something beyond that number is something like a surgical center, or if there were to be a very large urgent care, that that would still be included in medical care facilities and would still be a special use. And like indoor recreation, there would be no change to those larger uses that are in this category. So again, we believe that this change would reduce a barrier to what's become a rather common type of business over the past decade or so since these regulations were put in place. So I think that's it for medical care. Any questions on medical care facilities?

Paul CunninghamWhat's the size of the medical care facility at the corner of University and Leighton Hall Drive?

Eric Formanstaffby voiceSo that is a multi-use building. So that's like an office building that's medical use. So that's

Paul CunninghamOkay, that doesn't count then as medical.

Eric Formanstaffby voiceRight. If that building were to convert to something like a surgical center, then that would be a special use requirement.

Paul CunninghamAnd the size of the surgical center on Main Street exceeds 10,000 square feet? Yes. So it's not impacted?

Eric Formanstaffby voiceThat's correct.

Paul CunninghamOkay, gives a sense. Thank you.

Eric Formanstaffby voiceOkay. We can move on to this is the last of those amendments dealing with reducing special use permits, so this includes animal care facilities. And you see the use interpretation for animal care facilities up here. It is basically a place where animals are cared for. Nice simple sentence. I mean, it's nice when the zoning ordinance tries for simplicity, but we've got it here. So right now, animal care facilities 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 that as it currently is written, it's a rather broad type of use, and it really includes two very discrete types of businesses.

different types or different intensities of impacts. Like it says down here at the bottom, those two types really boiled down to facilities that involve boarding animals and facilities that involve veterinary care. So the situation that's created 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 separates those two. Doing so means creating two new use interpretations, and we'll get to those on the next slide. We're also, and we'll get to this in a few slides, we're updating the commercial use standards for animal care. Like I said, the commercial use standards are basically the rules that businesses need to operate by.

we're recommending standards for these types of uses that combine some of the current standards, because there are current standards in the ordinance, along with those conditions that have been commonly approved in special use permits for animal care. 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, veterinary clinics permitted in most commercial and industrial zones so veterinarians would not be a special use permit any longer according to this. Animal boarding, which is what you see on the left, we really consider that to be kennels. Kennels would continue to be a special use in the more in 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 well. But this would continue to be permitted in the industrial zones and in commercial general. It would just be a special use in the commercial zones. so here 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. Now, a few things just to note here. You know, the first line here says that this is related to dogs.

The reason for that language is that dogs just have certain characteristics that can cause adverse impacts on adjacent properties, so barking or, you know, odor from animal waste. boarding of other pets, so cats, for example, don't have these characteristics. You didn't think that we'd be talking about the difference between dogs and cats tonight, but we are. Cats don't bark. They don't. So because of that, what we're recommending is what it says here at the bottom, boarding of animals other than dogs is recommended to be added to general services. What that essentially means is a cat daycare, and there is such a thing as cat daycares. 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's that reason for the other animals.

Kirsten Lockhartby voiceSo if a veterinary clinic wanted to offer boarding to its customers, it would still have to apply for the special use.

Eric Formanstaffby voiceI'm sorry, could you say that again? Oh,

Kirsten Lockhartby voiceif a veterinary clinic wanted to offer boarding for its customers, it would still need to apply for the special use.

Eric Formanstaffby voiceBoarding, yes. 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 something that combines boarding of dogs with a veterinary clinic would still have to go through a special use. So this is the draft interpretation for vet clinics. Again, you see that carve out there, vet clinics that include facilities for the temporary indoor housing of animals shall not constitute a kennel. So that's just making doubly sure that that doesn't trip up veterinarians.

But again, vet clinics would be a permitted use in CO, in CR, CU, CG, and industrial zones. This would eliminate the requirement of veterinarians to go through that special use permit process. So two slides on use standards. I mentioned this a few slides ago. The draft recommends updating the animal care use standards. This is all in your draft, and you can see how it's been changed 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, since the big issues, and the big issues really being noise and odors, can be consistent with both of these uses. 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 certain conditions that have commonly been approved with animal care So what you see here 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. Number one here requires a certain degree of sound mitigation measures for these uses. The second one here requires that the operator control animal waste that's created on site by the business's customers. with these uses is animal waste and this requires them to pick up animal waste from their site. And there are some others as well. Number three here requires the facilities to include ventilation, again, designed to control off-site odors, off-premises odors.

Four and five here relate to outdoor areas. So if outdoor areas 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 special use permit topics. So if there's any questions on animal care or on the other SUP topics, I'd be glad to talk about it now.

James FeatherCommissioners? Thank you.

Eric Formanstaffby voiceOkay. Please move on. Other topics are a bit simpler. So there are a few amendments here intended either to simplify the ordinance or to clarify what's meant by certain sections. 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. At one point, there was a reason for this level of detail in the zoning ordinance.

So back before the 2016 rewrite different types of restaurants were actually treated differently from a zoning perspective. But now it's been simplified so that all restaurants are treated the same. So same as far as use use permission, same as parking standards and whatnot. All of this detail is just not needed. So this draft here simplifies the ordinance text. It removes all of that detail about various restaurant types, and what we're left with is a much more concise paragraph of explanation. The next topic is another example of simplifying or clarifying. These types of donation containers, they're currently permitted under certain conditions. 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 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, calls them donation drop-off containers and part of the issue with how these are dealt with in the ordinance and some of the 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 ordinances intent and make it certain that all of this refers to one thing. This definition explains what a donation drop-off container is and also gives examples of what it is not. So it does not include storage pods, trash receptacles, and so on. Next topic. This is pretty obscure for most folks. It involves public notices. Can we go back to the storage container? Yes, go back to... One

James Featherof the things I I rode by on my bike today. Around the city are all these little free libraries, things like that. Books are kept periodically. People come and go and take

Eric Formanstaffby voicethem.

James FeatherThere's no size constraint or threshold listed in your definition. Is one needed to make sure we're not trying to overregulate those? There are little food pantries that people set up. Right.

Eric Formanstaffby voiceI'm trying to remember what the term is for that. you'll find that in the permitted encroachments section and and 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'm trying to think of what what that was called

James Featherjust bicycle by one today made me think of this

Eric Formanstaffby voiceyeah I'll look it up and I'll get back to you on that that That is actually not a donation drop-off container. By the definition. Yeah. You mentioned books here, so that's

James Featherwhy.

Eric Formanstaffby voiceRight. If it was, it wouldn't be permitted in residential areas. So that's part of the reason to permit it in permitted encroachments.

Kirsten Lockhartby voiceIf 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 regular single stream.

Eric Formanstaffby voiceWe will make a note of that. We'll try to come up with a term that better reflects that. What we were thinking of is things like those purple glass recycling bins. So we didn't want that to get caught up in the donation drop-off containers, but some of those donation containers do say the word recycling, so we'll try to figure out a way to Yeah,

Kirsten Lockhartby voiceI think Pacers used to have an old shoe recycling Right,

Eric Formanstaffby voiceyeah We'll figure out a way to make that clearer Anything else on drop-off containers? Okay So back to the public notices so public hearings related to zoning 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 just as they pertain to zoning matters. Now this had been the same for years upon years and then for the past three years, state legislation has changed some details of these advertisements and most notably the timing of when the ads are required to appear before a hearing. This is what it currently says in the ordinance. This is from 2023. 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. The revised standard, which was revised from this year's legislative session, same two advertisements, but you see down there a different timeframe 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. 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, 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 now the Planning Commission can formally initiate the zoning text amendments and this can be done at a future meeting but once initiated the actual public hearings on this would occur after that

and after the City Council work session and with that I'm glad or any other staff here I would be happy to answer any questions thank

James Featheryou 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 you'll reconvene our regular meeting and move to the from mr napty

Paul Naptystaffthank 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 feels update on that project there is also a general discussion on trails at which time the country Club Hills connector trail what was currently designed was canceled picket Road connector trail was frozen and to come back at a later date and there was a discussion to review the George Snyder trail and I'll be going

back to the City Council for further discussion at tomorrow's meeting also on that same meeting a award of construction was awarded for the McLean Warwick 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 this includes among other things the north facts east west road which is included in the comprehensive plan and the north effect small area plan there's discussion on the virginia commercial property assessed clean energy also known as CPACE 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 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 multifamily 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 Fire Station 3 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 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. If they do move forward with that then at the next meeting we will ask the Planning Commission a representative as a reminder this project includes not just the safe

streets for all transportation plan but also the pedestrian master plan 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 your plan just for a reference 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 which is a city holiday so that meeting will be cancelled and then as we discussed before a 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 with the historic properties that was 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 it's expected we don't have a date yet but expected that the 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 City Council has to give staff guidance on how to proceed with next steps 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 that report should impact the review of the application for that site so I will send an email about that and you all can respond to me on that that's all I have for the staff report today

James Featherquestions for staff mr. nappy the safety action plan mmm take action I think it's a consent agenda item tomorrow is there anticipated start date for that

Paul Naptystafffor when the when the group starts to meet there is nothing has been identified yet but the project has officially begun and as we said you a planning convention City Council receive a introduction briefing on July 1st I anticipate the group would begin meeting fairly soon after that probably July August or September the latest

James Featherall right so thank you all right commission comments mr. Coleman

Matthew RiceMr. Rice. So I attended the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board meeting in April, and so reporting on that, we discussed a number of projects that are ongoing. We'll be having a joint school board meeting in May on the 19th to coordinate with the school board. currently prominent things being worked on include 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 there's a delay of some sort in the culmination of renovations of old town hall and so there's some 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 parks has a vast list of ongoing projects and so 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 kind of communicate here and I think that's it for me. Thanks.

James FeatherJust a couple things. Besides needing a representative for the Safe Streets or Safety Action Plan team, we still need a representative for the Board of Architecture review. I don't know really whether council has suspended appointments, but since this is a required one anyway, me if we have someone to appoint, they can move ahead with that. I haven't seen any hands go up yet. Of course, we're still operating down a commissioner as well. I just wanted to acknowledge here and for those who may be watching the recognition of Dr. Rice for his Jack Wood Award for town-gown relations in the campus staff, whatever category, and all the contributions he's made. 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 us, especially in the area of GIS and working with our staff in that area. So just, again, congratulations.

Matthew RiceThank you. the very same time I'd like just to recognize Councilmember Billy Bates who will be graduating with a master's degree in physics in just a few days and so there are multiple avenues where the city and city employees and city staff are kind of showing up at Mason and getting attention so

James Featherand Councilmember Anthony Amos was also one of those recognized in that award from his time as as I recall. So city volunteers are

Justin Wallacewell represented.

James FeatherOther than that, I guess we will see what develops for our June meeting schedule. And if there's nothing else, we're adjourned. Thank you.