Planning Commission Regular Meeting/Work Session

Good evening. Welcome to the continuation of the regularly scheduled meeting of the City of Fairfax Planning Commission for Monday, March 24th. We just came out of an informal work session with City Council to introduce ourselves to them and discuss the Planning Commission's role and have some very valuable dialogue. So we're now continuing for our regular meeting. We'll begin this meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. For those of you who are watching, thank you for your patience as we regroup back into this room.

First order of business after the Pledge is discussion and adoption of the agenda. It was issued ahead of time as required. Are there any comments on the agenda? I'll entertain a motion to adopt the agenda. Mr. Chairman, I move the agenda be adopted as presented. Second. Then moved and seconded to adopt the agenda as presented. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstain? Motion passes unanimously. Next order of business is presentations by the public on any matter not calling for a public hearing. We have no public hearings this evening. If anyone is present who would like to speak to the commission, you may do so at this time. Seeing none, we will move on to consideration of the February 10th, 2025 meeting minutes.

Those were issued ahead of time as well. Are there any comments or changes to those minutes? If not? Mr. Chairman, I move that the council commission adopt the February 10th, 2025 meeting minutes as issued. Second. It moved and seconded to adopt as issued. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Ashes? Unanimously. Items, we have no items not requiring a public hearing this evening, nor do we have any public hearings this evening, so we will recess our regular meeting and go into our work session, which is a discussion of a potential review of the City of Fairfax 2035 comprehensive plan related to mixed-use development outside of activity centers, and Mr. Napty will present the staff report.

Thank you, Chair Feather and members of the Planning Commission. This discussion was initiated with a proposal for what is known as Gatewood Plaza, which is a site on Fairfax Boulevard, and what is identified as commercial corridor in the comprehensive plan is not an activity center, and in the current comprehensive plan, mixed-use development, including both residential and commercial uses, can only be accommodated in activity centers as well as to specific sites that were identified through the comprehensive plan process. This meant that with this proposal, even with the Planning Commission, and if the Planning Commission and City Council supported it, there was no mechanism to allow it to be supported

by staff because it would remain inconsistent with the comprehensive plan. So based on this, we heard feedback from some Planning Commissioners as well as some City Council members that asked what it would take for proposals such as this to be able to be supported. We wanted to point out that this would require a more significant review than just looking at this one site, that we should go back at the guidance that we developed through the comprehensive plan review process that was done last year and reevaluate how that was conducted and determine if other sites should be included in this as well. So for this meeting, we'll be requesting from the, we'll be providing background information and a staff recommendation, but we'll request feedback from the Planning Commission on whether

or not we want to proceed with this effort, and we will have a similar discussion with the City Council at such time that we are ready. So the format we will go through, first we'll provide a history of mixed use support in the comprehensive plan. Looking back at how mixed use development has been supported over the years and how it has changed to be what it is today. We did not go through this type of discussion when we did the comprehensive plan review this year, so there might be some new information that might impact some of the opinions of the Planning Commission. We will look at the current comprehensive plan and what that guidance includes for mixed use development, about why we ended up with only supporting mixed use development in activity

centers and why we identified those two specific sites where we could further support it. We will look at if we chose to amend the comprehensive plan to be more broad and to support additional areas for mixed use development, what types of considerations should be taken into account. Particularly, there are some concerns that were raised during the comprehensive plan review process from both staff in community development planning as well as economic development as well as other boards and commissions. We will take a look at the Gatewood proposal as it is now. This is not an official review. But we recognize that when the Planning Commission City Council received the staff reports on this proposal, it was based on the request that was made for that project to change the place

type in the comprehensive plan to a multifamily neighborhood from its current commercial corridor. And the reason this request was made is because using the mixed use place type was not an option based on the reasons we described earlier. And so we thought it would be beneficial to show the Planning Commission if this place type was available for that proposal, how it would be reviewed differently. And then lastly, we will wrap it up with some specific questions of the Planning Commission to help us identify next steps. We will also ask if there is other information that might be needed before we go to the City Council to have this type of discussion as well. So a quick history of mixed use development in the comprehensive plan.

Historically, the Old Town, what is now known as the Old Town Activity Center, but essentially the Old Town Fairfax area, being a historic core and always having a mixed use character to it. Every comprehensive plan has been developed since the city was created in 1961 has supported mixed use development in Old Town. So that's nothing new. The characters of it have changed. A lot of other things have changed. But since we're specifically talking about mixed use here, that is something that is not necessarily wasn't necessarily born at a certain time. So we'll focus more on primarily the Fairfax Boulevard corridor because as that is an area where has traditionally been a commercial area. But in recent years, the city has been leaning more towards mixed use development there.

And this actually began in the 1990s. That was in that time frame, a lot of the commercial development that had happened around the mid-century era was starting to show signs of aging. There was more increasing desire to encourage redevelopment of some properties. And this became developed as a way to help incentivize that. This included allowing residential uses in some cases. And this was first specifically identified in the 1997 comprehensive plan where three urban zones were identified as well as other areas of the Fairfax Boulevard corridor that were called Business Boulevard and the Natural Preservation Zone. The Natural Preservation Zone being the area around Fairfax Parkway where we have the Accu-Ting Creek kind of switches back and forth across the Fairfax Boulevard.

There's a lot of protected areas there. But for the most part, the rest of the Boulevard was identified as Business Boulevard was to remain as a commercial area. But then in the urban zones, there was new support for residential and mixed use development. Following that, the 1999 Lee Highway Revitalization Study further evaluated this, looked at increasing densities, referred to the urban zone as nodes and the other areas as connectors. However, this study focused less on residential, supporting residential uses, but more on increasing density for commercial uses. Then with the 2004 comprehensive plan, mixed use for the first time was identified on the future land use map. You can see that map on the bottom right.

The purple areas are the areas that were the future land use map supported mixed use development. These areas were conceptually identified as centers and the other portions of Fairfax Boulevard were identified as corridors. And you can see those purple areas essentially are in the same general locations as most of our current activity centers, though they've been modified in many cases. One of the big changes or I should say one of the big components to add a lot more information to our history and gave us a lot of direction going forward was the 2007 Fairfax Boulevard master plan. The actual master plan effort was a fairly short effort. It included a lot of background research and analysis and it was supported by the Fairfax Boulevard business improvement district that had been established two years earlier.

But the actual process for the design itself composed of a single day charrette followed by a four day work period by the consultant who developed the plan. This resulted in ultimately 130 page document which summarized both the process for developing the plan included detailed recommendations and it included an implementation plan. However, the full Fairfax Boulevard master plan was not adopted by city council. It wasn't until 2012 that a four page summary was adopted as appendix to the comprehensive plan. And so while the four page summary was really the only adopted portion of the Fairfax Boulevard master plan, we did want to look at some of the guidance that was included in the original document because that provided some of the background information

as to why the activity centers were identified where they were and why they were seen as different from the other sections of the Fairfax Boulevard corridor. So some of these things are identified here. These bullets show what the major differences were between the centers and connectors as was described in the full document of the Fairfax Boulevard master plan. Many of these got carried forward to the summary document, but not all of them. And some of these were actually added in in the summary document. So it's not showing everything. And I won't go through all these. Many of these we see are similar to what we're calling for today with our activity centers, such as the park one strategy and centers adding a green network of small parks, supporting mixed use and those types of things.

But a couple of things I wanted to point out were the first three bullets under centers, where it calls for initial efforts to focus on the centers. And this is talking about initial efforts for redevelopment. And the reason was it was speculated at that time that there was not enough market demand to support mixed use everywhere along the entire length of Fairfax Boulevard. And so the thought was that we should spend more effort on those centers. And then you see under connectors, the first bullet says long term prospects or as needs arise. And so the language is a little bit vague, but the thought there again is that once we have concentrated efforts, we're seeing redevelopment happen in centers in the longer term, then we can look to the connectors and see if we want to support mixed use development in those areas as well.

The vague part is where it says as needs arise and that can be defined in any kind of way. So it provides a little bit more flexibility. The next two bullets under centers says that they are located at key intersections and they are designed or identified as such a way so that they have a five minute walk radius. So the edges of the activity center should be no more than a five minute walk from the center. This is something that we could have speculated by looking at the earlier plans that identified as well. The earlier plans that identified these centers, this is the first time it was identified in a document that said these were reasons they're at these locations. They're at key intersections because that allows easiest access in multiple directions and that they are sized in such a way that they can support a five minute walk to create that cohesive community.

And then under connectors, the second bullet, you notice that it says narrow parcels that abut residential. So while this document didn't specifically say that centers were desirable for having deeper lots, it does say that connectors were less desirable because they have shallower lots. That means it's more difficult to accommodate cohesive development. It's more difficult to transition building heights down to surrounding neighborhoods and those types of things. So again, this was part of the document that was not adopted, but it did provide the background as to why some of the decisions were made in the actual adopted document. Moving forward from there, as I mentioned, a 2012 comprehensive plan included the four page summary of the Fairfax Boulevard Master Plan.

And this was the only component that was ever adopted. And that actually included this graphic here, which provided a summary of it. So the context was there, the ideas, it just didn't have all the detail that was developed during the Fairfax Boulevard Master Plan. And it also lacked the detail that we strove to create in future efforts, including our small area plans. When the comprehensive plan was rewritten in 2019, the idea for mixed use development at these locations continued, as well as keeping the primarily commercial context along the corridors that separate them. So terminology change, we now call them activity centers. And the connectors were really just following our land use type, which was commercial corridors.

The boundaries were revised through additional efforts and looking at where we thought development could happen most appropriately. And then for some of the activity centers, the boundaries were further revised as we developed the small area plans. Pickett, Maine was added in 2019 as an activity center that was based on feedback from the Planning Commission and City Council at that time. And this was the first time where it was specifically recommended that we developed small area plans for each activity center. And this would provide us the additional detail needed to help when we are considering redevelopment and where we are programming for public investments. And so with the 2024 review, the concept is generally the same as what it was in 2019.

A couple of the boundaries for the activity centers were revised slightly again based on the recommendations of the small area plans. But we wanted to point out here, there's a two arrows that point to the, I'm not sure if this is working. Oh, there it is. Two locations in the city where we are now potentially supporting mixed use development that are outside of the activity centers. We went through a substantial review process for this and we'll go through that later in the presentation. But through the discussions that came up in the review process, it was suggested that we look at whether and where we should support additional mixed use development outside activity centers. And through that evaluation, these two sites came up.

They are not mapped on the future land use map as mixed use. However, they have a description in the partial specific considerations section that suggests that the mixed use place type could be applied as an alternative. And we'll talk about that in more detail as well. Looking at the activity centers and how they are used in our planning for the capital improvement program. We wanted to point out that the activity centers have been locations for significant investment. This is a graphic from the presentation on the capital improvement program from this past year showing the types of investment that are in that document within each of the activity centers. And this is something that we've been doing regularly since they were established in 2019.

And so that summarizes what the comprehensive plan currently supports and and how it is used. So we wanted to go back and maybe pause for a second. That was a good summary of history. I'm not sure our resident historian could have done such a fine job. Are there any questions about the history, perhaps background before we move? I think this might be a good place to pause. Yes, that'd be great. Mr. Cunningham. I think that was an excellent summary of the process as it has evolved over time. I will congratulate Mr. Naphti and the staff for doing that because that is very concisely put as to what has happened and how things have been looked at. And underlying that, you will note there is not always agreement by all the parties that are involved in these things.

For instance, you will note that for all of the work that went into the Boulevard Master Planning process and the bid process and the rest with the council adopting a four page summary five years later, that may not have been something that was supported very carefully by all involved in the process. And that's all I'll say about that. Ms. Briggs, do you have a comment? Since we're thinking about expanding these areas, I'm just wondering what the qualifier is for an area to be called the mixed-use area or activity center? I think maybe that's coming up. The activity centers, that was the history. Yes, as well as the two locations that are already identified. Your question is a question that we will present back to you at the end of the presentation.

Well, how did we choose to make these activity centers? Oh, that goes back to we don't have all of the information. Perhaps Commissioner Cunningham might have more of it going. They were first identified back in the 1997 Conference of Plans. We don't have all the background information, but what we can glean is what we saw from the 2007 Fairfax Boulevard Master Plan that specifically said these are the locations with the best transportation access because they're at major intersections. And they have the larger parcel sizes that would allow for redevelopment to have them work cohesively and allow transitions to surrounding neighborhoods. These were the principal business and industrial areas in the city.

The connectors were strips along the street that were all for business, but these were the larger areas where you had other business activity going on, either car dealership lots that were spread through them or businesses. If you look at Camp Washington in the central part where you now have what used to be, I guess, the Moxley and is now .50 or something else by name, or the point at 50, that was American Medical Labs. That was an industrial lab site where medical testing was done so that your blood could be tested and all sorts of things along that line before it was closed down. And Sundog, which is a t-shirt manufacturing business, moved into there into a relatively underutilized and vacant site for a number of years until redevelopment could come along.

So these nodes, as they were called, or the small areas, were the business areas principally in those areas. And the rest was reserved for residential except along the major traffic thoroughfares, which was largely kept to business and kept commercial or industrial. Mr. Lockhart, did you have something to add? Hello? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So now we'll do a quick review of the discussion that we had as we were reviewing the comprehensive plan last year. When, through the process, the early phases of the process that happened in fall of 2023, we were receiving feedback from various boards and commissions we were talking to, from the general public and other stakeholders.

And the question came up a few times about whether or not we should look into expanding opportunities for mixed use outside of activity centers, primarily focusing on commercial corridors. At the time, just to clarify what the comprehensive plan said, specifically residential uses were not supported in commercial corridors. And activity centers were the only place type that specifically allowed both commercial and residential uses. And so there really were no places outside of activity centers where such uses could be supported. On top of that, typically for most place types on the comprehensive plan, if a property owner is seeking to do or develop something on their property that is not consistent with what is shown for their current designation on this map, they can request a future land use map amendment.

And there's a whole application for that. And there's a whole application for that. It goes along with any rezoning to other land use approvals. And so it's essentially a process where those requests can be made. However, they cannot be made for activity centers because the activity centers are specific named areas with a small area plan. And we can't change a designation from one future land use map place type to an activity center if it won't have a smaller plan support to go with it. So we have not been supporting those. And so if anyone want to do any kind of mixed-use development outside of activity centers, there's no mechanism for the city to support it. And so we started looking into how we whether we should and how we should address this.

And just to point out on this for the next couple of slides, these were mainly taking from a series of presentations that were held during the conversations on the comprehensive plan review. And so you see the yellow yellow box that shows when that happened. Some of these we adapted because we have new information now where we consolidated them together because we don't know all the detail, but that just shows what that is. And so this first one is something that we showed during our presentations that looked at where our activity centers are and how much land they entailed compared to our commercial quarters. And you can see that even at that time there was more land area in the city that was dedicated to activity centers than commercial corridors.

And since then we've had some slight expansions with the adoption of the Fairfax Circle smaller plan to add some land to it. So there should be a little bit more activity center area and a little bit less commercial corridor area. So just a clarification, just because there's a what looks like a block that's red doesn't mean that's one property. A number of individual properties within each of those blocks, right? Yes, that is correct. The future landings map does not show property lines. And so we'd have to look at if we want to see that we look at specific maps. So some of the feedback received during these processes, we had discussions with the Economic Development Authority, the Planning Commission, City Council also received feedback during public meetings.

So some of that is summarized here, particularly the Economic Development Authority. When they had discussions on this topic, they generally supported the idea, but had concerns about too much loss of commercial space. They want to make sure it was limited. And what they mean by this, I think we'll talk about this in a future slide, is that they wanted to be able to support redevelopment of lesser performing properties, but not support it on higher value properties, which is something that's very difficult to regulate with a comprehensive plan. Another concern they had was about displacing industrial uses, because this is something that we have very limited supply of in the city, and it is not being replaced.

Similarly, we don't see office development being replaced either. During our discussions with the Planning Commission and City Council, here's the language about encouraging replacement of underutilized properties. This also, I should say, came from Economic Development Authority and Economic Development Staff. But again, very difficult to regulate in the language of the comprehensive plan. Supported expansion with limitations. Again, don't overdo it. Be prepared to accommodate the market. So we'll talk about the market in a little bit as well. But the thought here was that we don't want to displace too much commercial. As we heard in our discussion earlier with City Council, we have a pretty strong commercial tax base, and we don't want to displace too much of that.

But we do need to recognize that the commercial market is changing in a very volatile moment right now. And so we should be prepared to be able to accommodate it. And then lastly, I want to point out that the housing assessment that was conducted in 2022 included a survey with several questions about where we should accommodate new residential growth. And a slight majority of the respondents to that survey said that they either somewhat support or support replacing some commercial lots with residential development. And this was another reason that we thought it would be a good idea to look at this during the comprehensive plan review. So when we came to the planning commission with thoughts on how we can go about accommodating additional mixed use development outside activity centers, we prepared a range of options.

And those are summarized here with these five bullets. And they're listed in order of the least restrictive, meaning the most broad that could support the most residential development or the most mixed use development in place of commercial corridors. And then going down to the most restrictive, which is make no changes and use what the comprehensive plan already said. And in between, we have first supporting residential and commercial corridors basically meant just changing the language for commercial corridors to support it, not having any restrictions beyond that. Expanding the applicability of activity centers meant that there would be opportunities to allow new properties to be designated as activity center.

As I mentioned, we couldn't do that with a comprehensive plan as it was. Establishing a new mixed use place type and identifying specific sites in partial specific considerations. And then lastly, make no changes. I made the most, as I said, they're the most restrictive. So that what we heard from the planning commission during that discussion was really an emphasis on those bottom three. So these are the three most restrictive. I would just say it was not unanimous. So we had to come back with more information on how to proceed. And what we ended up with based on the feedback from the planning commission was combining options three or four. So the idea was to establish a mixed use place type and then using the partial specific considerations to identify where the mixed use place type should be located.

I guess I should. I know the planning commission is familiar with this, but just in case anyone else is watching the partial specific considerations are a component of the comprehensive plan where specific sites that are in the city that have unique attributes have language that recommend alternative land uses. And so this process would add sites where mixed use might be a good alternative to what is shown on the future land use map. Adding those sites to the partial specific considerations and then explaining why they could potentially be mixed use and any other attributes that should be taken into consideration. So that was a structure that we came up with. And also as a planning commission may recall, when we were talking about where mixed use should be supported or how mixed use should be supported outside of activity centers, we want to be able to identify both the location, meaning where we would support it as well as design limitations, meaning where we would support it as well as design limitations.

Meaning what it should look like and how it should function within those locations. And we needed to be able to cover both. And so by using this process, we could use the partial specific considerations to identify those locations and then the descriptions in those partial specific considerations to provide language about how those sites should look or function. And so once we had our preferred mechanism, we went through a process with the planning commission to help determine which properties should be identified as a potential mixed use alternative. And so we looked at these attributes here at a building value as a percentage of total assessed value for the properties. This was based on the feedback about wanting to focus on the lower value properties.

We looked at parcel sizes with the thought that larger parcels would be able to accommodate a more cohesive mixed use environment since they wouldn't be able to rely on surrounding properties as you can in the activity centers. We looked at proximity to activity centers. We looked at proximity to activity centers. So something else suggested as a with the thought that these could potentially serve as de facto extensions of the activity centers. And then we looked at a combination of some of these attributes. So I won't spend too much time looking at these, but just to maybe make one addition. Yeah. The other thing that I know we talked about at least one or two parcels were parcels that had a potential risk of being more impactful on environmental concerns like RPAs, things like that.

Yes, we did. Weren't that many work too many like that? Yes. What's up and we spent a little time talking about? We did. And I'm sorry that's not in this bullet list. Well, you'll see in one of our coming slides, one of the graphics we looked at that helped us made those decisions. So yeah, sorry I skipped that one. So the map on the left shows the building value as a percentage of total assessed value for all properties that were in commercial corridors. So this does not include properties in activity centers or any other place-top, only commercial corridors. And essentially, without going into the details of the key, the red properties are those that have a lower value, which would be the most desirable for redevelopment, just considering this factor alone.

And then the greens that have the are the ones that have the higher building to land value, which would be the least desirable or least likely to redevelop. The map on the right color codes by property sizes. So we started off by looking at this, but then we also look at started looking at consolidated property sizes where one owner owned several adjacent properties, which makes for a larger property size. So this shows properties that we should look at from from that perspective. And then this one is a combination that looked at both the property sizes and the building to land value ratios. And so you can see a couple of the properties that popped out here. In particular, this one down here that's in red is a Fairfax Square combination of properties, which is the one that ended up being added to the parcel specific considerations to support the mixed use place type.

And then these two show the one on the left showing proximity to activity centers. This one we didn't end up focusing on as much after looking at the graphic. And then the one on the right shows the environmental constraints, as Chair Feather mentioned. And you can see that a couple of the properties that we were looking at actually do have some of those constraints. So what we ended up with based on that analysis, as I mentioned, the Fairfax Square properties was the one that jumped out as the most desirable. And so that is shown here as being identified for potential mixed use as alternative use. It would remain with its commercial corridor designation as it is on a future land use map, but could support mixed use as long as possible.

So there was an alternative and then there's language that was added to the parcel specific considerations about what development could look like on that site. Then I want to point out the ANOVA property, the site on the bottom. This was not included in any of our analysis because it was not at the time a commercial corridor place type, and those were the only ones included. However, upon reviewing the previous comprehensive plan, there was already language that supported mixed use development on that site. And so we amended that language to support this place type to support those recommendations. So I will stop here. Question. Can I just quibble a little bit with the choice of language most desirable for mixed use?

I feel like, at least from my perspective when we were going through these discussions, it wasn't so much most desirable as sort of closest to achieving mixed use. Because there are a lot of places that it could be desirable to have mixed use, but we were not considering them because there is no plan for development of that area right now. Right? Like even places immediately adjacent to small area plans. But these were sort of projects that we either know are coming or, you know, have been introduced to the city. So they were sort of the most viable applications of the mixed use place type. I don't know that most desirable is necessarily the right adjective to attain, attached to them. I mean, not that they aren't, but.

Right. Well, I mean, I will acknowledge that both of these properties we have had conversations with property owners. And you might recall the Fairfax Square site representatives were actually involved in this process. But the reason we went through this process to looking at all these different attributes was to see if we were looking at all of our properties equally. If we're going to support it here, are there other properties that we should support it? And we didn't end up coming up with anything that jumped out at us. So I think that you're certainly right. There was these two sites particularly. We know it is more viable on these sites. But I think there was some evaluation on whether or not it would be more desirable in other locations.

Could you clarify for me a little bit? The building value is a percentage of total assessed value. Is your categorization based primarily on the fact that the building itself is not big relative to the size of the parcel? Or is it that the building is inherently not valuable with respect to the size of the parcel? It is the second part of what you said inherently not value in respective to I would say to the value of the parcel, which is often influenced heavily by the size of it. And the building value could be influenced by two things. One could be the age and condition. The other could simply be the size. Yeah. So that was the question. The size versus age, I guess, is the differentiator.

Is there some clear sense in your part about how something ends up in that red category? Is it because the buildings are older or are they just not as densely built or as large? I think it is a combination of both. I would say the majority of them are likely because the buildings are not as large. Just from recalling as we looked at it. But there are some of each in combination of it. Mr. Connington. In light of what was just said, in one of your earlier slides you talked about the nodes and the connectors. And you talked about the building sizes that were intended to be in each one, up to five stories in the nodes, one to three stories in the connectors. And one of the interesting ironies is that on that entire two and a half mile strip that we're talking about, there are, I think, three five story buildings that come to mind.

One is in the Fairfax circle area. And the other two are in the connector. And one of those that's in the connector is in the right hand red space you're showing right there. So we have two five story buildings there and about three blocks west of there is the other five story building, which is Gatewood Plaza that we're going to talk about. And nobody recognizes those as five story buildings. Why? Because Gatewood Plaza is built on a hill. It's actually a seven story building if you add the hill into it. But it is set back far enough and has a row of trees in front of it and enough landscaping that it is not an issue as a big building. The building down in the red space we're talking about here is a five story office building, frequently referred to, I guess, as the State Farm Building or that because of one of the tenants that has been in it.

But it is set back far enough from the road and has enough landscaping and that around it that you don't register that you've got a five story building there. So when we were a process of trying to squash our building sizes and the connectors from the direction we got from the governing body, we already had two five story buildings there. So how do you do it and make community so that it makes sense and fits is one of our challenges and one that we wrestle with, I think, when we come to building height and other things like that. How obtrusive is the building going to be as opposed to how does it make best use of the space available? And that's a challenge. One other comment that I will make at this point goes down to talking about commercial corridors and trying to maintain commercial space.

And why is that important? There are two aspects of that that come to my mind. One with our aging commercial corridor. We're traveling from a time when we were gifted, if you will, as a city where 50 to 60% of our real estate tax base was paid by commercial. And less than 50% down to 40% was paid by residential. So the citizens of the city got a huge benefit from the fact that most of the residential taxes were paid for them, which helps support schools and everything else. We have had that situation change to the point that now 32% of our residential tax base is paid by commercial. And part of that is the fact that we haven't adequately redeveloped it, as you have pointed out, to get value in the buildings for taxation purposes.

And right now I think we're up to 66, 67% of our tax base for property purposes is paid by residents. So the more residents we bring in, the more we are putting the tax burden on our citizens, not the businesses we have operating in our jurisdiction. So being careful on the balance, we're just making that more and more challenging as we raise the residential taxes without bringing in the kind of residential income and base we need to adequately support everybody. And that makes it a big challenge, I guess, from my perspective. And the other thing is that when we talk mixed use, which is what we have been doing more and more, the original intent on mixed use, when we talked about it a long time ago, was that the first floor would remain accessible to all the residents of the city.

So you'd have businesses, you'd have offices, you'd have commercial, something on the first floor that meant that everybody in the city would have access to it. And especially in the dense commercial areas where we're going to put residential. And the residential would be constructed above it and protected in that way. And yet most of the mixed use development that we see come through has a very small piece of commercial or office on the first floor. And the rest of the first floor is taken up by residential along with all of the space above it. So residential is the focus that developers bring us to approve. And that's what we have been doing. So that's where I think it's important when we look at this and say how are we going to change it, that we keep those points in mind because we're going to live with the end result.

And if we get to the point where our commercial is either all old and aging or small business and unable to carry the tax base and the residential has got to take care of it, then I think we've got a different problem. We have to figure out where we're taking ourselves. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So one more last piece on where we are now with the most recent amendments to the comprehensive plan, as I mentioned, the addition of the mixed use place type and only supporting that where we have parcel specific considerations that can support that place type. So the physical criteria happens in two places. One in general for the mixed use place type, as with all of our place types, we have general recommendations.

And then for each partial specific consideration, there are additional discussion points. So this is the criteria that's in the mixed use place type, just a quick rundown supporting maximum height of five stories, 40 dwelling units per acre if it's residential, not supporting residential on the ground floor facing major roads, having buildings facing the street, having direct pedestrian access to building access points, providing parking to the rear side or below grade, and then having cross access to adjacent commercial and mixed use properties. And these recommendations were developed based on the combination of conversations with the planning commission. And also looking at the recommendations we already had for both the commercial corridor place type and the activity center place type, because this falls somewhere in between.

And then also, as I mentioned, on the parcel specific considerations for those two properties, Fairfax Square and the Innova site, some of the key components of those for Fairfax Square, the language includes a recommendation for no net loss of commercial space if redevelopment is to occur, and to ensure that redevelopment is supportive of the surrounding apartment complex. And for Innova, the recommendations are to step down building heights to surrounding neighborhoods and specifically not supporting more than three stories on the north, east and south property lines, which is where it's surrounded by residential uses. So to summarize what is in the comprehensive plan now, we already talked about having the activity centers where mixed use can be supported and then these additional two sites.

And I want to highlight down on here that additions cannot be requested through a comprehensive plan amendment application as they could be through for any other place type. So this is not making a significant change from what we had in the comprehensive plan before, because I mentioned, you cannot make a future land use map amendment request to be an activity center, because they are named areas and defined as supported by a smaller plan. So now we have this new mixed use place type, and we're only supporting it in two locations, and it's really restricted beyond that. The one difference is something we haven't actually talked about is if we will have opportunities to make changes to this list of just two sites at this point.

And for comparison, this is kind of a similar structure to what they have in Fairfax County. They have specific language for a lot of their potential redevelopment sites, and they have a specific process where property owners can request to be part of a comprehensive plan review, and their site can be added to that where they would come up with specific language. It's more complicated than a simple future land use map amendment, so it can't happen concurrently with a land use application. And we haven't suggested that that is something that we would be doing, but the structure is here if that is something we want to do. And in the bottom two bullets here, just to clarify that we are still restricting mixed use development in other locations, because residential uses cannot be supported in commercial corridors,

and commercial uses cannot be supported in any of the residential place types. So with that in mind, that's where we are now. Some things to consider if we want to go back and look at changes to the comprehensive plan to explain the applicability of mixed use development outside of activity centers. So there are two main points that have come up during our initial discussions on this, and these also came up during the comprehensive plan review that we did last year. The first, and we've already heard it tonight, concern about loss of viable commercial space. When looking at long-term economic conditions, staff in the Fairfax City Economic Development and with the EDA have concerns about repurposing significant amounts of commercial, particularly office,

because it makes it more difficult to attract new tenants because we would have a limited supply of new office to attract them to. Fiscal impact is something that has come up with a concern. This is what Commissioner Cunningham was just talking about. It's difficult to actually pinpoint on where this is, but in general, commercial development has less of a fiscal impact than residential, because we don't have particularly school students, which are one of the bigger impacts with new development. However, this varies based on a lot of specifics of the site, what the value is of the current commercial site, what type of residential development occurs, because some generates more school students than others.

And so it's very difficult to say, you know, residential development for sure has a negative fiscal impact, when in some cases it might not. And then the potential to displace successfully performing commercial properties. If we're too broad with this, there are some properties in the city, while our overall office market is, tends to be older and not as competitive, and not as modern as a lot of surrounding areas. It is performing well. We'll look at that in a minute. And so the concern is that some of our better ones, which tend to be built in the 1980s and that era, could be lost and they're not being replaced or not receiving new office development, because the demand just isn't there. So once it's gone, it's gone.

The second point about scattering new residential development, this gets to the point earlier about why attracting residential development to our activity centers is important. Because it can help create that cohesive environment, it helps build new neighborhoods and having just a single residential or mixed use development really only does so much to do that. It's really, we're dependent on having multiple of them, multiple versions of them adjacent to each other to create that type of neighborhood. And then we have a lot of recommendations in the small area plans, which only focus on the activity centers, which look at things like how streets get connected, where open space can best serve the community and those types of things.

And we don't have that guidance outside of activity centers. So when we are supporting development in those areas, then it's less cohesive and it could be making it less attractive in the activity centers because there's only so much demand. And we'll look at that in a minute as well. So first looking at our office space, this is something we looked at last year. We've updated it to have the most current statistics for our office vacancy rate. And this is to show that the trend continues that we were looking at last year. So what this shows is the office vacancy rate for Fairfax City being the dark red line compared to other jurisdictions in Northern Virginia. And what you can see is that for some jurisdictions, not all, around 2020, we started to see an uptick in vacancy rates for obvious reasons.

However, that did not occur here and it did not occur in some of our peer jurisdictions. For Northern Virginia as a whole, you can see the solid blue line, you can see that that uptake on average occurred about that time and it continues. But for us, we continue to see decreased vacancy rates and we're now steadily below 10%. I do want to acknowledge that this only goes back to 2014 and we had significant changes even more so than we had had at COVID during the 2008 recession. And before that time, our vacancy rates were typically below 10%. And we went through some periods where we were below 5% for long periods of time. So what this is to show is that we aren't experiencing the urgency that a lot of other jurisdictions are.

And we see a lot of other jurisdictions that are supporting replacement of office uses or repurposing of office uses because they are facing bigger struggles than we are. However, this does show that compared to where we were back in the early 2000s and going back to the 1980s, our vacancy rates are higher than they have been in the past. And so it is still volatile. And so we still want to be prepared to address this if it does become an issue. And a lot of reasons, for a lot of reasons, this could change very quickly. So we need to be ready for that. Can I ask one question to clarify? The graph title is viable commercial space. But a couple times you mentioned office. So are we talking commercial meaning office plus retail?

Or are we talking just office? The language that we've heard when it was voiced to us was loss of viable commercial space. However, as the discussion occurs, it seems to be more about office space. I think retail is also a concern. Retail benefits the community provides, you know, that third space and there's always a benefit. And so I think that concern is out there. But this focus seems to be more on office because that is where we seem to have the targets for redevelopment just based on what we're seeing primarily with jurisdictions around us. Do you know how QBA provides, like, a deeper dive into this sort of data? Because, I mean, at surface value what this tells me is that the available commercial property in the city matches what our businesses are.

You know, we have office space for attorneys going to the courthouse. And we have, you know, workspace for people with small businesses. But, you know, that gets into, like, are the larger office spaces less utilized than smaller ones? Or is the commercial space woefully underutilized compared to the office space, et cetera? So if they have more granularity to this, that might be really interesting to look at when evaluating specific properties. Okay. I'll see if they have any more information on that. I guess something that's super subdivided, you know, for small businesses more, is there more of an appetite for that than something with larger office spaces for redevelopment? Mr. Coleman. I can tell you what I'm seeing is CoStar has all that data.

CoStar guards it closely because they want you to pay for it, but they have it. It's out there. What I know where a lot of my commercial agents are seeing right now, the highest demand is in medical space. If you have anything that can be in a medical space, it's being snatched up like that. I had 5,000 square feet in McLean that everyone was chomping at the bit, but I couldn't use it as medical. So it took me forever to be able to sublease it. So there's, it really depends on what the actual use is and how the building is set up. So it's, there's no one size fits all for that puzzle. Yes. And one further, I guess, dicing or clarification. Are we talking about vacancy rates or are we talking about actually losing space, losing buildings that are being torn down, redeveloped, used for something else?

Uh, and we've got 10% of our remaining after we've lost a number of spaces that have been taken out of play altogether. My, I thought we were talking office vacancy rates here, not the loss of office space. And we have experienced a loss of office space, but most of this I thought was vacancy. I think that's good. Yeah. But understanding where those vacancies are, right? If they're concentrated in buildings with large offices because no one's renting 7,000, 8,000, 9,000 square feet at a time anymore, you know, that would be useful to know about those types of buildings. Right. You're talking to Foster Building downtown on their, their first floor has a large vacancy because their primary tenant has moved out into other office space in the county as opposed to, uh, economic development working in Willowood Plaza with keeping a tenant long-term in an arrangement there.

So the vacancy space is what we're talking about. And then the other major issue for us is the utilization of that space. The next area of concern, uh, this is primarily from staff is looking at, um, as I mentioned earlier, if we have investment of residential units, uh, outside of activity centers, what does that do? To the potential to add residential to the activity centers? And so, um, this is just looking at numbers. Uh, and so we can't really draw any complete conclusions to this, but I do want to point out that, uh, we have two combinations of, uh, of studies and reports that give us some information on this. Uh, the first, uh, with the numbers on the bottom is the housing assessment and strategy report, which, as I said, was, uh, completed in 2022.

It looked at total residential demand throughout the city, uh, for both for sale and for rent units. So for sale units could be anything from single family homes to townhomes to condos, anything like that. This is looking at the total demand for residential development over the next 10 years from that time. Um, and that this, this total was 4,589 units. So this is based on their market analysis. Uh, for the smaller plans, uh, similar analysis were done for each of the activity centers, but only focusing on within those activity centers. Uh, and you can see when we total those up for the four completed smaller your plans, we have 4,650 residential units. So just looking at these numbers combined, um, the based on this, the total demand for residential units in theory, uh, could be accommodated just in our activity centers over the next 10 to 15 years and not even including picket and main.

Uh, now, again, this is somewhat theoretical, um, because when we, we think about housing supply, uh, there are a lot of influencing factors to that. Some of that could be availability of land for redevelopment. And so if we opened up more land, then it might be more opportunities. So this is not to mean that, um, that we would necessarily take all the demand away from activity centers if we opened up anywhere else. But I did want to point out that what we're supporting in the activity centers, um, essentially, um, does meet what is theoretically the demand for what the city could see as a whole over the next 10 years. Um, so we're looking at that 4,650 number. Um, this doesn't include any, you know, smaller star divisions or things like that could occur by right or through other mechanisms outside of activity centers.

Uh, so something to be aware of just food for thought. Um, I know this isn't, this kind of analysis can't really, shouldn't be used alone to make these kind of decisions, but, um, for awareness. There's sort of a range that goes along with that because that's if everything is built according to how the small area plan is designed. Like, do they put some boundaries on the likelihood in the 10 to 15 year range of units available? Uh, this, it actually doesn't look at the physical plans for the smaller planes. This is just based on their market analysis for those areas. Uh, and actually we did some followup analysis that looked at, for example, in Camp Washington, if 1100 units were actually built there,

that would only be a fraction of the building footprint that's shown in Camp Washington. Um, and so this is, yeah, strictly looking at market analysis, not necessarily their building plans. They're building plans. And it doesn't include the two properties we've just talked about that are not in activity centers. Right. And that could be several hundred more. Um, Metropolitan Washington Council on Governments made a separate analysis that, uh, this was around 2020-ish that gave a number for the entire region for the housing that would be needed for the future workforce. And their number was 320,000 units that would be needed in the region. So at some point I talked to Eric about this and we did some division and we came up with a number that would be allocated proportionally based on population to the city of Fairfax.

And I hate to put words in his mouth, but at least from my perspective, it seemed like we were on track to satisfy those goals that had been identified by MW COG to, uh, supply the housing we needed. And that we weren't in a position as a city with a huge deficiency in housing that we were actually doing well. And I think, um, I've asked him that a few times from the stand when he's been here and I think he's answered affirmatively. Yes. We're, we're not even though the narrative, at least the naive kind of version on the streets is, you know, more and more housing. We need more housing and the city seems to be doing a pretty good job supplying the housing. And if we could meet all of that need just in activity centers in the small areas, we, that would be, uh, certainly that would be good.

Um, I think Mr. Foreman's feedback is always high quality and, um, his presentations on housing dynamics, um, have always been some of the highlights of our, uh, of my experience, at least as a, um, planning commissioner. And, um, I do think at least the numbers that we calculated seem to suggest we were already on target and that we weren't operating at a deficit that we will get proposals from the city. Um, we, uh, proposals for housing, but we don't necessarily need to be in a position where we have to say yes, because we're already meeting the goals generally from the region. Um, what are your comments on that? Yes, we've had those same kind of conversations and I, I'm trying to recall if it is, uh, if it was based on what our policy would support or what is actually being approved.

I think it was about what's actually being approved. And that, of course, can fluctuate. We go through periods where, uh, a lot of development is approved, uh, is approved and then, uh, periods where, where less so. Um, so it goes up and down. Um, but, uh, I will chat with him about that and see if we have any more direct figures that we can share with the Kishman commission as well. Mr. Cunningham. I think one comment on that is the basic approach or the, the idea that you're, you're agreeing to various things. And the question I would put to that is we are a city. We became a city in the sixties instead of meaning a town, uh, largely under the jurisdiction of the county. There was a purpose for that potentially.

Do we feel that we have a strong need to do our portion or our fair share of the redevelopment in the area? Uh, should we also keep in mind that we want to keep the character of a city and keep it livable for the residents who are here as opposed to trying to look outside and say there is a fair share that we should be considering, uh, in terms of the whole. And when we get to the basis of that, what kind of housing do we have our proportion of various types of housing? That question was addressed in the nineties with the 2020 commission when it was recognized that essentially all of the city's housing was downscale housing. And the statement at that time is there's no move up housing in the city.

If you want to leave your house, you're going to have to leave the city to go find an adequate place to live. The genesis of that was the redevelopment of a number of, uh, areas in the city where upscale housing was built. So we now have a mix of housing in the city and we have come to a concern with a affordable housing, which in the current economic environment is hard to figure out. Why do you want to provide subsidized housing so that you can pay somebody less than that in order to get your services provided? Uh, and they have no future. When I walked out of voting this last time, I talked to a lady who has been employed for a little over 20 years in the city. Uh, she has been a renter that entire time.

She is now facing retirement. And her comment to me was, you know, retirement's a mixed bag. I can't afford to live here. I'm going to have to go someplace else because I worked my entire life here, but now I can't stay. So I'm being driven out. Now, when we have that mix, this is a highly transient area. But if we're going to only focus on providing things in our current environment that are skewed toward one end or the other, we keep making our budget more challenging to meet. So what, what are we doing to base what we're doing on building the community we want, which will provide for that end of the spectrum. And we had at one time an excellent way to do that, but economics have, have changed the calculus.

And what are we doing? So being cognizant of what's coming in from COG and the other things and percentage wise, as we look at what we have got here and what we're proposing to bring in, uh, we're meeting most of those parameters, but not because we're meeting somebody else's expectation, because we think it's in our best interest to redevelop these properties that will benefit us as a city. In other words, most of the people in the city don't work in the city. And most of the people that work in the city don't live in the city. It's, it's an interesting mix of population movement in the density in this area. Fairfax County is now one of 50 counties in the entire United States out of all the counties in the U.S. has a population greater than a million.

And got there in 2003. And we're in the middle of that massive humanity. And that has what's changed our transportation issue from the 1980s to the present. You know, we're not going to get rid of the cars in the city with any transportation plan if the county continues to put more and more cows around us that need a cut through. That's, it's hard. It's a challenge. And that's why we're here with all of our brain power and all of our best thinking to, to try to keep it as workable as possible. Okay. Let's move on. Okay. The last thing we wanted to touch on, we wanted to look at the Gatewood proposal specifically. We won't look at this in detail. You have received the staff presentation on this and you will continue to have dialogue on that project.

But we wanted to point out that the, as I mentioned earlier on, the, the, the applicant for that project was requesting a change in the future land use map place type for their property from commercial corridor to multifamily residential. The reason they're requesting multifamily residential is because they don't have another option. As we said, they don't have the option of, of requesting a change to activity center for those reasons we stated or to the mixed use place type based on the criteria we established with this. So, neither the commercial corridor place type, which is their, their current designation or the multifamily place type, which is their proposed designation support the mix of uses.

So for this reason, that proposal is, is, is kind of stuck. It's not gonna be able to receive staff report, staff support. So we wanted to see what would happen if this mixed use place type was available to them in looking at the primary, primarily the design type criteria that we've established in the conference plan, how it would stack up and, um, in, in your staff report, you'll see, we have this analysis that also compares the commercial corridor in the multifamily place type. But here, we're just gonna look at the mixed use place type. And these are all the bullet points that we looked at earlier, uh, for what the, uh, the characteristics, uh, within the mixed use place type are in general.

Um, and the items in red are the ones where we have a conflict. Uh, the design of the site essentially is in line with, with what is desired through the comprehensive plan. But in looking at the height, um, seven stories is provided where five stories would be supported through the mixed use place type as is currently written. Uh, in addition to this, um, that property is not meeting the bulk reclaim requirements, meaning is, it does not have enough setback from surrounding properties. This is the kind of thing that we would look at when trying to justify exceeding the height limit, uh, from the comprehensive plan. Um, if they're not meeting that criteria, then it's something that likely would not be able to be supported by staff.

Uh, the density also, uh, we established a recommended maximum density of 48 dwellings per acre for residential development in the mixed use place type. Uh, and that proposal as it currently stands, uh, is 111.5 dwelling units per acre. Uh, in addition to this, um, we would, if we were to establish, um, that site using the standards that we have for the other sites, we would establish separate criteria specifically for that site in the parcel specific consideration. Uh, and we had to have a separate discussion about what that would be. So I can't really, uh, chime in on that, but there would be other things that we would be looking at. And it might involve things like topography that was mentioned earlier surrounding single family residential uses and those types of things.

Could you please remind me the land type or land use for city center West? It is in the, uh, old town activity center. The parcel itself doesn't have a land use designation. No, uh, any site in the activity center would not have to have. Uh, so that brings us to our next steps. Um, we are having this conversation here to hear the planning commission's thoughts on how we should proceed forward. If we want to, uh, tackle this type of issue, uh, and also your thoughts on how we would go about doing that. We will have a conversation with city council, uh, that is not scheduled yet. We want to hear, we hear, uh, from the planning commission first, and we're, we're happy to come back and have some followup conversations before we go to city council.

Uh, the staff's recommendation at this point is not to proceed with the reevaluation. Um, for the reasons that we stated earlier, primarily that the defined activity centers are the preferred locations for mixed use development. As considered through the multiple plans that have occurred through the years and for the reasons that we stated, including, uh, those being the best locations for transportation access, having deeper lots and space for transitions to surrounding neighborhoods. Um, with the smaller plans, uh, being planned for cohesive neighborhoods, uh, that can allow multiple properties to relate to each other. Uh, we mentioned the public investments today by looking at the capital improvement program.

This is where the city has been, uh, putting our efforts into, into supporting them as new neighborhoods through our public investments. Um, and it's not to say any investments haven't happened outside those areas, but the smaller plans have certainly helped to guide a number of them. And the last one we, we didn't talk about, and I won't go into too much detail on. Um, and it's something we don't, don't talk about very much with the smaller plans. Uh, but per the state code, those areas are exempt from the proper legislation that limits what the city can, um, can receive as voluntary contributions from developers. Um, that means that in those areas, uh, developers can provide monetary contributions to offset impacts, which is more difficult to do, uh, outside of activity centers.

Um, which is something that we are, we are, we are often, often hopeful to receive. Uh, continuing on staff recommendation, um, the changes, uh, or the status of the current conference plan is based on recent changes, uh, on the deep review of the issues that we had during the conference of the plan review. Uh, there are concerns about that. If there's other things that we should look at, we're, we're happy to chat, chat about that. Um, as I mentioned, and looking at the vacancy rates, the market does not indicate urgency and a loss of, uh, commercial space could be detrimental to the city. That is a concern from, uh, Fairfax City economic development and the EDA. Um, as I mentioned though, while the market does not indicate urgency, we have a structure in place that I believe, uh, could be tweaked, um, in case that does change.

Because while it's not urgent, it is volatile. Uh, the potential to dilute investment in activity centers, uh, by looking at the, the housing demand, um, that, um, allowing too much residential development outside of activity centers. Uh, could take away from the demand in activity centers, which is where we have been planning to have it. Uh, and then this very last bullet, another one we haven't talked about, um, is that doing this could require, um, or I should say, it would require a, a fairly significant effort. Um, I, I don't want to say this is as significant as the complete conference of plan review that we did. But I did want to remind the commission that as we were developing that comprehensive plan review, uh, we had numerous, um, coordination with other boards of commissions, conversations with city council, uh, opportunities for public input.

And so if we're going to make these kinds of changes, we should at least open the door for public input. Um, and so this, this may be something that is, is on the planning commission's mind, but I did want to make it clear that, um, this would have to be more of an effort than simply, um, making tweaks to the language of the comprehensive plan. So with that, uh, our question to the planning commission tonight, uh, should the recently adopted guidance in the comprehensive plan be reconsidered? If so, uh, what aspects should be reconsidered? So when we think about aspects, we look at the location attributes as well as the design attributes and how should we look at reevaluating those? Um, what, what criteria should we have?

And then lastly, um, do we need additional information to determine how to proceed? So I had some questions tonight on some of the data we have, if there are other things that the planning commission would like to hear that you'd like staff to look into before you're ready to provide any kind of recommendation to city council. Um, we're happy to do that. Like I said, we're not on a tight tie line here. Um, so we can have another conversation on this before going to city council. Um, if there are certain things that you would like us to look into and with that, I'll turn it over to the commission. Okay. We've heard a lot. Open for discussion comments. Mr. Rice. So I think, uh, getting as much information as possible about housing, uh, the city council, uh, the city council, uh, the city council, uh, the city council, uh, the city council, uh, the city council.

Um, uh, about housing demand and housing market fluctuations, um, would obviously provide a good context. Redoing the calculations I spoke about earlier are assumption of our fair share, which Mr. Cunningham addressed based just on population density. Um, and based on where people are living in a region of 6 million people, the 24,000 person city of Fairfax, our share was 1280 units. Um, and I think between 2020 and now we've already approved more than that. Um, we're suggesting, um, an additional 4,650 in small areas. Um, that's four times the multiple that MW cog guests that we needed. So I think additional information about that would be helpful. Um, I think the point which I will take home with me tonight is the kind of comment from Mr. Cunningham about the percentage of our kind of, uh, revenue that's generated by homeowners as opposed to commercial businesses.

Um, and that fiscal impact, um, of potentially changing the balance between commercial and residential is significant. Um, I think I've always imagined that one thing that we could do as a way of kind of reconsidering is to look at proximity. That if a parcel is within a certain distance of a small area, then maybe we think of it differently. But I actually don't, I think I've changed my mind there. It's that within the small area, there are things that we can do. Um, we can't just say, well, you're kind of, you're kind of close. Um, we'll treat you a little bit like the small area because you're close. And I think the inequity, you know, to developers that can make an argument like that and, you know, have a, um, listen to that's perhaps not a good way to operate.

So, um, I think in general, I really do support the staff's recommendation that we, that we learn more about this, but that we don't reconsider the guidance in the comprehensive policy. And the comprehensive plan. Mr. Chairman. So I, I'm, I'm duly admonished by Mr. Hardin in terms of the legality of certain language that we put forward. Personally, though, I felt like when we had this extensive discussion last summer that we, we intentionally left it that there could be consideration of future parcels for, for categorization under this, under these criteria. And that's why we spent time thinking about what should the criteria be, et cetera. So, if we failed then to, to follow that train of thought and add an, add an onboarding ramp, then that's on us.

Um, and I would like to reconsider that in terms of the, what legal language and processes we need to include. Um, but going back to the evaluation of the proposal at hand, I find some of those claims a little spurious because we're talking about a single property owner, a single property. You know, if this were a massive conglomerate kind of, that wanted to develop something away from an activity center because it was cheaper versus doing something in an activity center, then maybe we would be, you know, facing a determination of disincentivizing activity center development. But we know we have to evaluate what comes in. And generally that's a single property owner with a single project. So, to say that development here is necessarily an automatically disincentivizing development in a small area plan, I don't think is a fair criteria to apply to a single applicant.

So, I want to be very careful on that front. But yeah, I mean, in terms of data collection, I, the legal considerations certainly too of, of, of, if we can have an on-ramp, which I believe was our intention, what does that on-ramp need to look like? Mr. Coleman. I think most of you guys know that density doesn't scare me. Height generally doesn't scare me either. I love how the market generally dictates it. And I think Dr. Rice put it very well that if we were to go down this rabbit hole, and I think it is a rabbit hole, then we have the potential to make our activity centers and our small area plans almost obsolete. It's like, what was the point? We're almost going against the grain of our own charge.

So, I kind of agree that we don't really need to change it. There's no real pressing force that says, hey, this is a good idea. The language is not in our favor. We've done all this work on small area plans, activity centers, and it's kind of, it would almost be, eh, just throw it away. So, I'm, I am in very much in favor of just letting it, kind of taking the staff recommendation and we don't need to do anything with it. I agree with taking the staff recommendation. That's all. Ms. Scunningham. Thank you. I think staff did an excellent job early in the briefing of laying out the history of how we got from there to here. And for me, that was building the vision of where we're headed as a city.

And it has been modified over time and tweaked. Uh, I think it has been well developed and it has transitioned various changes in the political leadership in the city and various economic changes in the playing field or conditions we're, we're dealing with on a daily basis economically. So, I think it is a well grounded, uh, vision to be carried forward. Uh, I concur with the staff's recommendation. I would say that the next time that this should be revisited is probably four years from now when we start the next five year cycle to revise the comp plan again. And if it's an alive and well issue at that point, it is there. Uh, I think there are various challenges that come along that we have to deal with.

And those challenges occur when things happen in the city. And I will refer one major example, which should be still fresh in everybody's mind, of a group of individuals who banded together and chose to make a major improvement to a facility they had an interest in. And I will couch that in terms of, they were taxpayers in the city for many of them and many of them lived in the county. So they were looking at a facility for which many of them paid taxes for our educational base, but chose to pay even additional costs to get what they wanted, which was the modification of their educational facility to improve the athletic facilities. And that was the parents at Paul VI banding together to improve the facility.

And there was one individual in particular who organized the residents to oppose that. And got the political structure at the time to support it. Now at the beginning of this process, no one had a vision for what the outcome was going to be. And now that that process has concluded, no one who was involved in the original process felt that that was the intended outcome that they wanted. Because most of them don't want what happened next as it went down the line. So many of the decisions we make snowball to take you to some place you may or may not be able to predict or may or may not like any better when you get there. So I would caution because the principal individual who was an instigator in starting this process when it was over chose to move out of the area and go to another place.

So didn't have to live with the consequences. But most of the rest of the neighbors did. And the city will. So when we're talking about doing these kinds of things and laying the groundwork for these things, these kinds of changes, I think we need to be careful and considered and not basis on a single property with someone we don't know who has come in to effect a change that may look great taken out of context, but when into context, doesn't fit any of the parameters we've laid down. And I will refer back to the statement I made when we had the hearing, the work session on that. And my question when saying height doesn't work for you, bulk angle of plane doesn't work for you, setback doesn't work for you, there are special exceptions, there are special exemptions.

Everything that you want is out of the careful architecture we've tried to lay to get to Mr. Hardin's idea that if we have an efficient process, then we don't need to comment on special exceptions. They can streamline it and take it through. But when they don't meet a single criteria in the playing field we've laid out and we're not playing the same game, then what are we doing? The developer had that criteria in the first place and if he chose to go within all of it, it probably would fly very quickly and very easily. But now that everything we've done, my question to the developer was, what have we done right in trying to lay out how we want the playing field, how we want the process to develop?

And we both chuckled about it because we didn't do anything right from what they were asking for. So it's important if we're going to lay out the parameters that we want to see for development and we're serious about it, to work with staff, to work with a planning commission, to construct a comprehensive plan to put a zoning ordinance in place that can be modified to fit the city if we're going to be a responsible jurisdiction. So from that standpoint, this particular proposal is so far out that I don't think it should be considered at this point for us to change everything we're doing. I agree totally with staff. We should not do anything about it at this point and let the council know that that's our feeling and if they choose to deal with it differently then that's their prerogative.

But we do good work. I'll thank all of my fellow planning commissioners for the work we put into it. I'll thank the staff for the excellent work that goes into preparing our documents. Now how do we get a good city out of it and that's sticking to somewhat what we do. So, you know, if I were going to have to vote on it tonight or my sense with it going forward is that this proposal probably doesn't warrant more than a secret ballot to say no. It shouldn't go forward as far as I'm concerned. But if we take this proposal out of it, let's say that this is, there was never a proposal for this particular property let's say. Let's just think in general now that it's come to light that our parcel specific recommendations are limited to exactly what's in the comprehensive plan with no defined process for additional allowances of that regard.

What if, for example, the country club property came up in the next four years or, you know, the city was gifted a property along 236. Once the new fire station is moved, you know, the existing fire station property will be a question. Don't we want to have the ability, should we feel it's right, to bring those into a mixed use or not mixed use, excuse me, a parcel specific consideration and how would we do so? Then you're going to go back five years and more when it was suggested that Paul VI came up and no one had given it a thought. The planning commission, the citizens of the city, no one thought that that school could possibly go away or anything could happen to it. It was just a fixture here.

It's the old Fairfax High School. We have a lot of residents still in this city who graduated from that old building, not the new one. And they all came out in the process of redevelopment to let us know that. So we had talked and in the 2019 comp plan, we had a number of properties designated to be looked at as right potentially for redevelopment. And what would you want to happen there? And it was suggested, especially as you say, Army, Navy, Country Club, that is a huge property. You want to have looked at that property and say, what does the city think that should become in this same context before it happens? Because once they come in and have told somebody else that they're going to sell it to them, then they have the ability to move forward and do it by right.

And we would end up with 540 single family homes, design whatever, so that somebody could make a lot of money and that would flow through. And if we haven't looked at it and we're late coming into the process to look at it, that's on us. Because it's been suggested to do it. But we have a staff that's busy, that's overrun, that's overloaded, that's busy every day. And how much can they handle? So they're weighing the odds of, well, Army, Navy went through, they're going to sell, now they're not going to sell. Now we've got an agreement that's going to be good until 28 and it's probably going to be renewed. So it takes the pressure off of us looking at it. But does it really? But does it really?

So there are lots of properties like this that we should look at and say, what would you want to happen with this if it were going to? Is it going to be grossly different than what's there? Is it something we should be concerned about? And the two properties we're talking about tonight are properties that are ripe for redevelopment and have been in play, so to speak, for a while. They've telegraphed that they're ripe for change. So we should be looking at those. But there are more properties in the city we should be looking at also. And Army, Navy is one. Are there other big properties if the climate were to change? So those we should look at and say, what do you want to become of it if it's going to mean something significant?

I agree with you totally. There needs to be a process to do that. It was there five years ago and then we streamlined the process this time and cut it down. But it could go up again. Good question. Others? Okay, my two cents. Let's sit back and look at what our real goal is. Is it to build residences in the city or is it to build community? We've heard time and again how important community is to the people who already live in this city. I think the place we're going to get community is in the activity centers, certainly communities. We're going to be able to do that first. Mr. Rice asked a good question about the mayor revisit on the numbers for housing. You know, what we got are predictions or estimates based on the small area plan work that was done by Cunningham Quill,

somewhat supported by the council and governments. If we prorate it, it sounds like we're kind of reasonably in the ballpark. Baseball season now. We'll use that analogy. But I'm also hearing that we're not, if you look at North America, the number of residences there isn't really the capacity for residences there. There's probably greater capacity there. We're going to get more community and probably draw in more mixed use, meaning commercial and particular retail kind of businesses, where there's greater residential density. I'm concerned about scattering them a bit. The word scattered was used. Sure, the gate wood is not that far away, but it's also not particularly adjacent to other desirable uses currently.

We've got a lot of parking lot in our earlier work session with the city council. It's interesting mention of the amount of car lots we have. This is a case that's next to a car lot. Seven stories requested. We proposed five. If they got there seven, they'd take it all the way to as far back in the property as they can. What's there today? A two-story parking deck well below the sight line from the community. That's kind of a good transition. Mr. Cunningham pointed out the current building that is five stories set far enough back from the road, five stories set far enough back from the residential community, works. It makes sense. It's not intrusive. So we'd have to be very careful about what our criteria are.

To that end, if we were to ever contemplate doing this, and I actually don't support moving forward at this point, I'd like to work in parallel, which we failed to do with the small area plans, work in parallel whatever zoning changes we may need to protect the residential communities nearby. Because these commercial corridors are just that. They immediately abut residential communities virtually everywhere. The criteria we put out were kind of felt good at the time. They made sense, I think. I'm not sure I had enough analysis, but I don't want to go into analysis paralysis either. But my concern is what our goal is. I'd rather build community rather than just residences. And the place to put community is our activity centers right now.

The vision was sort of established long ago. It was reinforced in 2019 with these activities. And when they saw the comp plan was majorly revised, we thought about it again this time around. I agree, Mr. Cunningham, maybe the time to revisit is at our next five-year review. We're just getting started on redevelopment in these activity centers now. We're coming out of the post-pandemic doldrums. Interest rates may be stabilizing, if not coming down. Developers are starting to get interested. I feel we should do what we can to encourage the development where we want it, in the form we want it, and try to build some of these communities, give those communities a chance to fill out, develop today.

So I actually have written down something that Mr. Cunningham alluded to as well. Actually, the capacity of staff to undertake yet another study like this when we have all these development proposals coming through now. What are staff's priorities? To me, it's let's move these things we have on the table now forward and not divert staff resources in a time, as we know, what will be very tight budgets. We're not going to be seeing money available for new staff, I think. Let's focus on what I think are the important things right now, moving forward with our plans, building community rather than just buildings with apartments in them. It summarizes my thoughts. I'm hearing general, not unanimous, consensus that we pause on any further action than this right now.

And what I or any of us can do to work with you as you summarize this, put thoughts together, and work with city council in reporting to them, happy to do it. Have you heard anything else different or whatever? No, that sounds good. And we can summarize, I think, how we will present the planning commission's thoughts to city council and share that with all of you and see if you have any thoughts before we go talk to them. I also heard a couple of requests for data tonight, so we will get back to you on what we can gather with that and see if that results in any new conversations. But other than that, I think we have heard a direction to move in. Anything else before we move on? Thank you so much for all your preparation.

Mr. Napty, Mr. Harden and your staff, I'm sure he had good backup. Very, very helpful. And commissioners, thank you so much. This is a very lively engagement. I think you hovered near this button that goes on. The discussion was robust and I think I appreciate all the thought you put into it coming into the meeting. Thank you. Okay, we will reconvene our regular meeting and move on to the staff reports. Thank you, Chair Feather, members of the planning commission. It's been a while since we've met, so going back to city council meetings into February, on February 25th, they had work sessions on the five chimneys proposal that the planning commission received on February 10th. And on the Mantua townhomes proposal that the planning commission also heard on February 10th, as well as a work session on the proposal to redevelop courthouse plaza, which as the planning commission knows, does not require planning commission review.

On the March 4th meeting, a lot of discussion was about budget and they had a joint work session with the school board. One thing of interest, they received an update on the transit development plan. This project is still in its early phases, but we'll ultimately be looking at the Q bus service and whether or not any changes to that should occur. March 11th, budget discussions continued and had a work session on the George Snyder trail. That item will be coming back for further discussion. And then tomorrow, March 25th, among other items, there will be a public hearing, no action needed on the Cambridge Road Eaton Place intersection project. As a planning commission might recall, this intersection was looked at during the development of the Norfolk's small area plan.

At that time, the thought was that a traffic signal or a traffic circle would be a preferred intersection design that has since changed significantly due to various factors. So a couple issues to be worked out, but that is coming to maybe to a final design. One thing to note on that is that the proposed design includes dual left turns going southbound from Cambridge Road on the Eaton Place. That's actually the current configuration, the change that was made since the smaller plane was adopted. And that presents challenges to the design of Eaton Place that was proposed in the smaller plane because that was a road diet. And so we will be looking at that in the future. We certainly heard during the development of that plan there were concerns about pedestrian access along and across Eaton Place.

And so we have not lost sight of that and we'll be looking at what we can do with that new with those new changes. For the planning commission, the April 14 meeting will likely be canceled. This is your next meeting. Myself and Chair Feather will both be not able to attend. If anything comes up that is an emergency that we will have the meeting and we will have other people phone in for us. And then as of now, planning commission is scheduled to receive an update on the potential zoning ordinance amendments related to smaller plans on May 12th. We are looking to have a combination or series of meetings on May 12th with planning commission, May 13th with city council and then a general public meeting on May 14th on that project.

That's up in the air now as we're still trying to confirm our date with city council. Some general information as I'm sure the planning commission has heard there will be a budget open house on April 2nd. They'll be heard held at the Sherwood Center from 4 PM to 8 PM. And also as a planning commission is aware council or sorry, commissioner Denton has stepped down as discussed earlier due to his change in job responsibilities is unable to continue to make the commitment to the planning commission. He was the planning commission's representative to the BIR. So if anyone else is interested in fulfilling that role, then we are looking for someone to do that. Another project that is coming up through our transportation division is the safety action plan.

This is something the planning commission has expressed interest in for a number of years, particularly through the CIP process, because it's not just a safety action plan is a combination of that as well as the citywide pedestrian master plan and a traffic circulation study for old town. That is in support of the small area plan. We are potentially having a introduction and work session on that with the planning commission jointly with city council on July 1st. That is a city council meeting date, not a planning commission date. So I want to throw that out there. If you check your calendars, let me know if you have any thoughts and we will get back to you on that. In February, we had a safety training scheduled with the planning commission and other boards of commission to use this room and the work session room to talk about what to do in case emergencies during our meetings that had to be canceled because of weather events.

We're now looking at rescheduling that. I sent out an email about that a week or so ago. I heard back from commissioners, uh, Lockhart rice, Briggs and feather on your availability. Um, the rest of you, uh, let me know if you can, by the end of the day, tomorrow, uh, would like to, um, work with the city clerk to get that set up. Um, just let me know generally what time of the week works best for you evenings during the daytime, um, any days of the week or better or not, or even weekends. Um, and that's all we have for the staff report. Thank you. Any questions for staff? Mr. Connagham. On your safety training meeting, what timeframe are you looking at? Sooner or later or? Uh, relatively soon.

Um, I think it's going to be particularly difficult for chair feather, um, come may. Uh, also April is out of the works. I don't know, to be honest, but sometime in the next, I say two to three months. I, I think I've got a conflict with chair feather in that I am going the first half of the month. He is going the second half of the month and may. So it's mutually exclusive somewhat. Uh, so pick, pick a good date and go with it. And I will be there if I can. Okay. Thank you. Um, commission comments. Ms. Briggs anything? It's going to be out. No comment. No comment. No comment. So I'm going to be out. Oh, you're also out of 14. Okay. Okay. We're getting smaller and smaller. What we have a quorum.

I'm back for the 14th. All right. So we'd have a quorum if we need something. Okay. Thank you. Um, commission comments. Ms. Briggs anything? It's getting out. No comment. All right. Mr. Rice. Mr. Coleman. I'm not, I'm not going to let it. I'm not going to end it. Um, a couple of things. Um, I attended on Friday, uh, at the invitation of former council member Staley, a very interesting workshop on autonomous transportation. This is something that's being worked through one of the regional bodies that he's part of. Um, it was very interesting discussion. Um, one of the key topics they didn't actually get to, so I hope they reconvene on autonomous road vehicles. So we'll see. And, and you know how we might adapt to those in the area.

You, I think you would very much appreciate this. Yeah. We just got quite a bit of funding to, uh, study micro mobility. And that includes autonomous vehicles. So there's some things happening at Mason that may be relevant and may provide, um, a way of studying some things in the city. And so I'm going to bring one of my faculty colleagues and invite you and Mr. Hardin and, um, maybe Mr. Summers and, uh, um, Wendy Sanford to, uh, sit down and talk a little bit about what we will be obliged to do for research and whether or not the city can, um, be a part of it. I will say the city was well represented there. Not only was I there, but the mayor was there as someone from the economic development office.

So fascinating. Um, I attended the board of architecture review meeting the other night. Mr. Denton wasn't there. I sat in the audience. I actually offered a couple of comments on what I saw coming up on courthouse plaza. Since we don't get a, a formal review process, I wanted to offer some comments. So I, I did that with a planning hat on, but not representing the planning commission because we don't have that authority. Um, one of the things I did learn since we mentioned the Inova property tonight, a comment was made in their staff report about appears to be moving forward with the demolition of the unused part of that site soon. Having living down there, I see some activity down there. So I think it's, it's coming.

Um, but I'm not sure what the redevelopment plans are. There, I think the goal initially is to, is to raise the building and get rid of some nuisances that are associated with that site. So. Right. The active emergency room. They're very committed to that facility there. And it came up in the context of the bar because they'll have to make some physical changes where the separation occurs that the bar will have to get a look at, which I think is why it came up. But it's, it's a little ways down the road yet. All the structures are still there. The few of us who live at that end of the city, um, are keeping an eye on it. But, um, that is all I have. Nothing else? дедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедедеде

Thank you.