And someday. You Good evening.
I would like to call the
regular meeting of JULY 28th,
2026 to order if you are able
and so choose, please rise for
the Pledge of Allegiance.
Pledge allegiance to the flag
of the United States of America
and to the Republic for which
it Republic Republic for which
Republic it Republic stands,
one nation under GOD,
indivisible with liberty and
justice abroad. I would now
like to invite the Parks and
Recreation Department to come
down for the proclamation
acknowledging JULY as Parks and
Recreation Month. Everybody
looks wonderful. Yes ok. All
right then. Whereas The city of
Fairfax Parks and Recreation
Department is dedicated to
developing and maintaining
beautiful, safe, and
environmentally friendly open
spaces for the public to use
and enjoy affordable,
comprehensive and amazing
experiences, a sense of
community that enriches
people
s lives, contributing to
the well-being of the
individual, family, and
visitors to our city. And
whereas a strategic master plan
for parks and recreation was
passed unanimously by the
Fairfax City Council in 2014,
committing city resources to
ongoing investment in our 25
public parks, walking trails,
open space, recreational
programming, cultural arts, and
events. And whereas programming
is offered to serve children
through camps, older adults
through the senior center at
Green Acres and classes for all
ages held year-round at
locations across the city,
offering opportunities for
educational enrichment, skill
building, and recreation. And
whereas Fairfax City events
draw people from all over the
region for our chocolate lovers
festival, our independence Day
parade, most years, Fall
Festival, and other
celebrations, including Rock
the Block from MAY to OCTOBER,
all made possible by Parks and
Recreation staff and their
collaborative partnerships with
other Fairfax City departments,
and whereas cultural arts
events such as the spotlight on
the arts, City of Fairfax band
performances and other theater
and dance performances held at
venue. Throughout Fairfax City
are facilitated and supported
by the work of our parks and
recreation staff. And whereas
environmental sustainability
and stewardship is central to
our parks, trails, and open
spaces, prioritizing a healthy
tree canopy and working to
implement best practices
regarding the planting and care
of the city
s green spaces, and
whereas a vibrant community
with events and parks is
central to sustaining and
growing our economic
development, drawing visitors
to our city and attracting new
residents who choose to make
their home here. And whereas
playgrounds, ball fields,
practice fields, and pavilions
within our city provide
children and their families a
safe, accessible, and
well-located area in which to
enjoy outdoor play, sports, and
celebrations. And whereas the
us House of Representatives
representatives have, has
designated JULY as Parks and
Recreation Month, now therefore
I, Catherine s. Reed, mayor of
the city of Fairfax, on behalf
of all residents of the city of
Fairfax. Declare the month of
JULY with celebrations
extending through AUGUST as
Parks and Recreation Month in
the city of Fairfax, and i
encourage residents and
visitors to enjoy, enjoy all
that our city has to offer
through our investments made in
parks, trails, programs,
cultural arts, and special
events. Let
s give it up for
Parks and Rec. Thank you, uh,
we just want to thank Mayor and
council for acknowledging us
through this proclamation, and
we, we are also lucky to work
in a community that is so
supportive of Parks and
Recreation and our parks
facilities, trails, and
programs are so amazing because
we have an incredible team, so
thank you, and now a photograph.
All right, sir, squinch in.
Sure, people in the back. Ok.
All right, and big smiles.
Couple more. But not you, Katie
McCammon. I need you back here,
who, who
s taking this? We
ll
see. Hurt you. So Catherine
McCammon. Also known
affectionately throughout the
city, is Katie Mack. We have
something special for you. And
let me just start by saying for
people who do not know, Katie
Mack, she has been with us for
almost 15 years. She started
out here. 14 years ago for sure
Is a camp counselor was hired
as an intern and was hired in
cultural arts events management,
have worked your way all the
way up to recreation manager.
And in that time. She has
committed herself to so many
things in this city that are
not even part of her job
description, which is why Today,
we are going to honor Katie for
this right here, the beautiful
design you saw all over this
city for the 250th anniversary
the celebration celebration was
designed by Katie Mack because
she is talented, because she is
talented and she is generous
and she does things for the
city because after almost 15
years, everything she does.
Reflects how much she cares
about all of us. So in light,
and I
m gonna show you this
right here because it has, it
has the, has the logo on it.
Katie McCammon. For your
Exceptional talent, creativity
and dedication in designing the
official logo of the city of
Fairfax commemorating the 250th
anniversary of the United
States Declaration of
Independence, your contribution
will serve as a source of
community pride and a
meaningful emblem of this
historic milestone, helping to
unite residents in the
celebration of 250 years of
history, achievement, and
progress, thank you, Katie, for
all you do for us every single
day, but particularly for your
gift and your talent. Talent
that really set us apart in
this national celebration,
would you like to say a few
words? Thank you, I guess, um,
did not know this was happening,
so, um, I appreciate it and I
love working here, so thank you
all for everything that you do
to support our department and
allow us to make all these
things happen. Ok, now a
picture and a picture. Yes. Big
smile. Yes. Yes, hang on to it,
for those of you who got a yard
sign, and for those of you who
have t-shirts, you know, the
emblems on the t-shirts. Hang
on to those things, really, we
have the best looking logo in
the entire nation. I, I feel
firmly confident about that. We
will now move on to, um, the
agenda a Adoption. Is there a
motion to approve the agenda. I
move to adopt the agenda as
presented. Second. Ok, a motion
has been made in, uh, seconded
a roll call vote. Council
member Amos Council Member Hall
Council member Hardy Hardy
Hardy Chandler Hardy Council
member Peterson Council member
Bates Councilor McClellan,
motion passed unanimously. We
will go on to initial general
public comment. I had 3 people
sign up by 5 o
clock P.M. Today,
and I
m gonna call the first
speaker up, which is Stacy
Langton. 3. Good evening, um.
In the fall of 2020, this city
council apparently went along
with the Fairfax County Board
of Supervisors to remove
so-called offensive monuments
and landmarks. They voted on
SEPTEMBER 15th of that year to
remove 2 us Navy Civil War era
howitzer cannons, which stood
on the lawn of the historic
Fairfax County Courthouse here
in Fairfax City, along with a
large stone monument that
marked this place as one of the
locations of the first battles
of the Civil War, and it marked
the death of John Quincy
Meagher on JUNE 1st of 1861,
the very first Confederate
soldier to die at the hands of
a Union soldier in the Civil
War. That summer, 2020 was the
summer of woke when political
correctness ran amok nationwide
along with all of the looters
and protesters of Antifa and
other leftist groups who burned
the downtown areas of several
cities across our land, the
idea of political correctness
is a distinctly communist
phenomenon, it was created by
the Bolsheviks in 1918 when
they murdered the czar and the
royal family in Russia and took
over the government. Karl Marx
and Vladimir Lenin emphasized
that strong adherence to the
ideology of their new regime
was an essential requirement of
citizens if you deviated from
their political correctness,
you would be severely punished.
You would lose the ability to
buy or sell, and you might even
lose your life. The bulls, the
Bolsheviks promulgation of Karl
Marx
s communist Manifesto
Destroyed their society for the
next 70 years and starved 60
million people to death. Now
here we are 100 years later,
and our country, the one that
was founded upon the ideals and
the bedrock of personal freedom
and liberty is doing exactly
what the communists did, Lenin
had an agenda he called the
plan for monumental propaganda,
his monuments policy called for
the removal of all monuments
and statues dedicated to the
czars as they were of no
historic or artistic interest.
Sound familiar? I believe that
was the exact excuse given in
2020 to remove the cannons.
Here
s a photo of them being
taken out under the cover of
darkness in the middle of the
night. PRESIDENT Trump
s March
27th, 2025, executive order
restoration of truth in
American History executive
order number 14253, uh, states,
we must take action to
reinstate preexisting monuments,
more memorials, statues, or
markers that have been removed
to perpetuate a false
reconstruction of American
history, I submit to you the
general public is now sick of
wokeness in society. It is
communist in origin, and it is
fundamental. Ally un-American,
and it is time to put the
cannons and the monument back,
thank you. Our next speaker is
Melody Bentley. Good evening. I
am PRESIDENT Of the u, excuse
me, Old Fairfax Muses Home
Owners Association, and I would
like to address the combined
properties proposal for the
redevelopment of Courthouse
Plaza. Our community of 74 town
homes is situated diagonally
across University Drive from
Courthouse Plaza. Everyone who
lives there appreciates the
proximity of this plaza, which
provides us walkable access to
retail, especially the
desirable convenience of a
nearby grocery store. We have a
keen interest, um. And any
changes to this plaza. We
appreciate several things about
this new proposal, the combined
prob uh properties has
submitted. There will be
additional retail. The mixed
use will provide much-needed
housing in our area and a park
is included in the plan.
However, we have the same
concerns now as with the first
proposal that combined
properties submitted and which
was detailed in a petition we
sent to city council last
SEPTEMBER. The building
proposal is still 6 stories. It
is 2 stories taller than the
small area plan allows, it will
dwarf and overshadow the rest
of Old Town. A further reason,
uh, to respect the 4-story
limitation concerns traffic.
University Drive will soon be
reduced to 1 lane in each
direction in the vicinity of
the plaza to accommodate bike
paths. It will be quite enough
to ask this road to handle the
additional vehicles of 3
stories of apartment dwellers
and retail. 5 stories of
apartment dwellers will
introduce too much traffic
congestion to this neighborhood.
Finally, there is the proposed
architecture which has barely
changed from the first proposal.
It is modern. Busy, stark. And
depressing with its large
swaths of black facing. It is a
jarring contrast to Old Town
and can hardly be considered
transitional architecture. I
think combined properties is
missing a huge opportunity.
Their site, with its proximity
to Old Town, if designed well,
could become a locus of
downtown activity. Imagine, for
example, a public square
surrounded on 3 sides with a
retail below and apartments
above, with restaurants and
outdoor seating, a public
square, which commu uh where
community gatherings and events
could happen. Then Courthouse
Plaza could really live up to
its name. Thank you so much for
your attention. I appreciate it.
Our last speaker under this
item is Katie Johnson. Katie
Johnson and the clerk has my
address. Um, this is a quote
from MR. Cunningham from one of
the previous, um, planning
commissions. It says from a
perspective of zero residential
units, we are now essentially
at 2000 bedrooms in this space
with the possibility of adding
more. Smart growth is just a
euphemism for density. Back in
and I
m saying, please, please,
please, when you are discussing
this afternoon or at the later
this evening, um, the major
density projects. I ask that
your decisions be made to put
everything on hold until the
citywide level of service, um,
study comes back, it
s not
prudent to Put commitment to
things that we don
t know how
much they cost. We shouldn
t be
committing our city without
fully understanding the true
cost and the impacts of them.
So Also, a month
s subscription
to Capital Bike Share and a
prepaid MetroCard is not
adequate traffic mitigation. So,
of those 2000, if just 15
percent of those 2000 bedrooms
are school-age children, that
would add $7,159,200 per year
to our budget, and that
s only
going to go up, so please do
not sacrifice our, our little
city
s cherished community
character for the sake of
density, so thank you. We can
move to the consent agenda. Are
there any questions on any of
the items on the consent agenda.
Are there any items canceled
like pulled from the consent
agenda. Is there a motion to
approve the consent agenda. I
moved to approve the consent
agenda item 6a throughc as
presented, uh, JULY 28th, 2026,
accompanying motions in the
staff reports and the
accompanying motions in the
staff reports. Second. A motion
has been made by a council
member Hardy Chandler and
seconded by Council member
Peterson, a roll call vote.
COUNCILMAN McQuillan, Council
Member Bates Council member
Peterson Council member Hardy
Chandler, Council member Hall,
Council member Amos motion
passed unanimously. We will go
on to consideration of
appointments to boards,
commissions, and advisory
committees. Is there a motion
to approve the appointments to
boards, commissions, and
advisory committees. I move to
appoint the, uh, the following
applicants Board of
Architecture Review reappoint.
Kemsuwan as the architect and
business representative for a
3-year term extending through
JUNE 13th, 2029. Commission for
Women reappoint Amini Bonani
for a 3-year term extending
through JULY 1st, 2029,
reappoint Brenda Coleman for a
3-year term extending through
JUNE 30th, 2029, Commission on
the Arts, appoint Kirknoll for
a remainder of a 3-year term
extending Though DECEMBER 11th,
2026 with an extension of a
3-year term extending through
JULY 2020, JULY 28th, 2029.
Fairfax Commission on Aging
reappoint v Meesha Maskey for a
2-year term extending through
JULY 9th, 2028, Fairfax County
Public Library Board of
Trustees reappoint Suzanne Levy
for a 4-year term extending
through JUNE 10th, 2030. Second,
the motion has been made and
seconded a roll call vote.
Council member Amos Council
Member Hall, Council member
Hardy Chandler, Council member
Peterson, Council member Bates,
Councilor McQuillan motion
passed unanimously, we
ll go on
to public hearings. The only
public hearing tonight is a
public hearing and council
action on proposed amendments
to the code of the city of
Fairfax chapter 110 and parent
zoning to amend portions of the
articles and sections contained
therein, including introductory
provisions, zoning Districts
and regulations and definitions
relating to detached accessory
dwelling units, I
m gonna
recognize Eric Forman, our city
planner for the staff
presentation. Well, thank you
very much, good evening. Uh,
this agenda item is a public
hearing. It
s for a series of
zoning text amendments that
would permit detached accessory
dwelling units or ADUs. In
Fairfax City, if you recall,
city council held a work
session in MAY to discuss this
topic and at that work session,
council requested that a public
hearing be scheduled to
consider these amendments and
counsel also asked for analysis
of certain data requests, so
tonight
s presentation is
really in 2 parts, you know,
the first part is an overview
of the amendment itself, and
thi this is largely similar to
what we had reviewed at the a
work session. The second part
looks at the specific data
requests that council had asked
for in MAY. We
ve held quite a
few meetings on the topic of
ADUs with various amounts of
detail, we held some high-level
work sessions and a community
meeting in 2024. Last year we
held work sessions with
planning commission and with
city council where we reviewed
options to potentially
accommodate detached accessory
dwelling units. In the fall,
council asks staff to draft
potential amendments to modify
our existing adu standards in
order to permit detached units,
and that
s what we discussed
back in MAY, focusing on uh
potential amendment details for
detached accessory dwelling
units. I, I should mention as
well that the planning
commission held a public
hearing on these amendments
last month, the commission
recommended approval and I
ll
discuss the planning commission
meeting, uh, a bit more in a
few slides from now. And as you
likely know, accessory dwelling
units are currently allowed in
the city under certain
conditions are specifically
EDUs are currently need to be
within the home itself or
attached rather than detached.
8 ADUs were first permitted in
2003 in Fairfax City, they were
at that time considered a
special use, meaning that
homeowners needed to come to
city council and ask for
approval, uh, that lasted until
2016 when ADUs became a
permitted use, meaning that
they
re permitted with, uh,
subject to conditions. They
also used to be an occupancy
limitation limiting adu
residents to seniors or to
disabled people, city council
removed that provision last
year. Now detached accessory
dwelling units didn
t just pop
up out of last year
s work
sessions, the comprehensive
plan recommends this, uh,
recommends to look at expanding
ADUs and, and this is important,
uh, while ensuring that they do
not negatively impact
surrounding neighborhoods. And
like we talked about at our
work sessions, this is, is
really the critical element
when it comes to creating
standards for ADUs. Now the,
the main characteristics of any
amendment to allow detached Aid
to use would really be physical
standards for the structures
themselves, and there are other
elements as well, but these
physical standards, these are
really key to making this work,
and to re reducing any kinds of
negative externalities that the
comprehensive plan mentions. Uh,
like we had talked about in MAY,
the, the subtlety from a policy
perspective is that this is a
balancing act, so trying to
juggle that flexibility,
flexibility for property owners
juggling that with the
neighborhood impact that that
flexibility might bring. So
most of the standards that you
see here today are similar to
those that we discussed in MAY,
and I
ll point out where they
differ. The first of these that
we
ll talk about is setbacks,
and in our single family zoning
districts, the required rear
yard setback for most houses is
25 ft. The required side yard
varies by zoning district, it
s
1012, or 15 ft, depending on
where it is. Now we had
mentioned in our last work
session that there are
provisions in our zoning
ordinance for affordable
dwelling units. This was added
as part of the Affordable
dwelling unit ordinance back in
2020, and those affordable
dwelling provisions include
slightly reduced setbacks from
what we call the general or
standard setbacks and the
rationale is to provide some
extra flexibility, but provide
that flexibility without over
overly impacting the
surrounding ing neighborhood
and As we talked about in MAY,
these accessory dwelling unit
amendments recommend setbacks
really that correspond to those
affordable dwelling provisions,
and for the same reason, this
is a way to balance that
flexibility to give some
preference to accessory
dwelling units, but at the same
time keeping the guardrails in
place to reduce those negative
effects on neighbors
properties. So like it shows
here, those recommended
setbacks, and this is what
s in
the amendment before you, uh,
the recommended setbacks are 20
ft in the rear, so that
s as
opposed to 25 ft. And about a
20% reduction or about a 2 to 3
ft reduction on the side lock
line, so 8 ft in most zoning
districts, 12 ft in the rl
district. And, uh, as we can
see on the screen, uh, you
could see what it means to adu
placements in, in this kind of
hypothetical scenario, an adu
could go anywhere in the
unshaded areas so we can go
here or here or here and so on.
Uh, so like it says here that
this looks to balance again
that property owner flexibility,
balance it with potential
neighborhood impact. Now
planning commission did have a
recommendation at one of their
work sessions that
s been
incorporated into this proposed
amendment that involves ADUs
that might be located on the
side of houses where there
s
enough space to do that. The
commission was concerned about
the aesthetic effects of having
a detached accessory dwelling
unit in a side yard and
recommended standards to ensure
that any side yard ADUs would
be located near. The rear of
the house and that, again, has
been incorporated in into these
Uh, recommended amendments. And
now for setbacks in, in general,
I think it helps to show how
the proposed adu setbacks
compare with setbacks for other
structures. So this shows a
sample lot. This is in the rh
district, shows 3 examples of
behind the house setbacks. On
the left here, this is the
setback for main dwellings
themselves, so if this house
s
owners were to build an
addition, or if the house
itself were torn down and
replaced, the house could not
extend into that green shaded
area, so that
s the setback,
that
s the required yard. Again,
4 dwellings, 4 houses. In the
middle here, these are the side
and rear setbacks for accessory
structures, so things like
garages, and like it says at
the bottom here, these are less
inte intense uses than a
dwelling, than a house, and the
reason is because no one lives
in a garage, no one lives in a
gazebo, and, and so on. So
these are permitted to be
closer to the lot lines than
the dwellings themselves, and,
and in this case, a minimum of
5 ft from the rear lot line or
the side lot line. Now, on the
right here, this is what
s in
the proposed amendment for
detached accessory dwelling
units, and again, this mirrors
the ordinance
s existing
standards for affordable
dwelling setbacks and this
recognizes that an accessory
dwelling units have similar
levels of intensity as other
dwellings, but it provides more
flexibility, it provides
flexibility by permitting these
structures to be a little
closer to the lot line than the
main house can can be. Just 1
more slide on, on setbacks here
at our fall work session, uh,
city council mentioned that
detached ADUs can be thought of
as an alternative to building a
very large houses, and that
that alternative might be able
to fit more appropriately into
our neighborhoods, and that
s a
significant guiding principle
because these standards view
ADUs as that kind of
alternative, and importantly,
the setback standard that
s In
these amendments would avoid
cases of property owners
maximizing both house size and
having an adu on, having a
detached adu on the same lot.
Again, part of that balancing
act, this, this slide shows an
example of that. These are 2
houses side by side on
identically sized lots, uh, the
house on the left is a newer
house. It doesn
t completely
maximize the buildable area,
but you can see it comes
somewhat close. Uh, the house
on the right has a smaller
overall footprint for the house
itself, it has a more open lot.
Mhm These amendment standards
would enable that house on the
right to build an adu. Now that
house on the right could also
build in addition, it could be
replaced by another house and,
and so on, uh, but as it is now,
that house could build an adu
in, in the yard for the house
on the left. These standards
basically say that the square
footage that could have been
used for an adu has already
been used for the house itself.
So again, avoids the instance
of having a maximum sized house
with a detached adu on the same
lot. Now the other significant
physical standard is height,
there is a good amount of
discussion on height standards
at the work sessions. The main
issue being implications for
neighboring properties. These
amendment standards set a limit
of 20 ft. Or the measured
height of the main house and
whichever is less. Now 20 ft,
this is roughly 1.5 stories.
The intent here is to ensure
the detached ADUs don
t
overwhelm the lots that they
re
on don
t overwhelm the main
house or neighboring properties,
uh, and 1.5 stories would still
provide for design flexibility,
uh, provides for the
structure
s placement on the
lot and layout and, and so on.
This gives kind of a quick
visual representation of what
we
re talking about, so for a
multi-storey house like the one
on the left. A detached adu
would have a maximum height of
20 ft. So again, that
s about
1.5 stories. For houses like
the house on the right here,
houses that are themselves less
than 20 ft, the maximum adu
height would be equivalent to
the house
s height, so again,
uh, the recommendation in these
amendments is that adu height
MAY not exceed 20 ft. Or the
height of the house, and again,
whichever is less. There are
some other, uh, physical
standards that are currently in
place, these amendments, uh,
recommend keeping those
standards. I won
t spend too
much time on these right now
since we talked about these
standards of previous meetings,
but these standards are all
proposed to remain the same as
they are now, uh, you can see
here there are standards for
accessory structure, footprint,
uh, also standards for adu
square footage, and again these
are recommended to be kept, uh,
like it says at, at the bottom.
Here are these standards really
can work together to account
for different sized lots,
different house sizes, multiple
stories, and so on. The zoning
ordinance also has standards on
lot and building coverage, so
both for lots in general and
also for lots with accessory
structures, uh, so these
likewise are proposed to remain
the same. And you can tell
these are all interrelated, and
again, each of these addresses
a specific issue. Uh, the
amendments again propose
keeping these standards intact.
Moving on to parking, uh, as
you MAY recall, our zoning
ordinance right now does have a
standard for adu parking, uh,
but that standard is based on
vehicles that are used by adu
residents, it
s just not
effective, it
s not enforceable
in our work sessions, uh, both
planning commission and city
council were interested in
exploring a different approach
to adu parking. So the standard
proposed here takes a different
approach, so like it says here,
uh, it says that a lot, a
property with an adu must
provide no less than the
minimum number of parking
spaces, uh, that are specified
in the off-street parking
section of the ordinance, which
is Section 4.2. Uh, so that
standard for detached houses
and for duplex houses, uh, that
standard, like it says at the
bottom here is a minimum of 2
off-street parking spaces for a
house, and that that means 2
driveway spaces effectively, uh,
so what that means is that if a
house already has at least 2
driveway spaces than that house
would comply with this standard.
Now some houses don
t have a
driveway or like in the house
that
s shown here, I have just
a small driveway that just fits
1 car, so in those cases, uh,
the house would need to be
brought up to the city
s
regular parking standards in
order to have an adu. So this
house that
s shown here, if, if
the owners were to add an adu.
They would need to enlarge the
driveway so that it could fit
another vehicle before getting,
before the city would issue an
adu permit. The reason for this
standard is to not
automatically trigger a parking
shortage with the addition of
an accessory dwelling unit, but
still to guard against parking
shortfalls where they might be
more uh for particularly
problematic. Uh, now, planning
commission did express some
concern about parking at their
public hearing, the concern was
that this standard MAY not go
far enough. Our planning
commission
s hesitation seem to
be that some neighborhoods
already have not enough parking,
and that adding the possibility
of more ADUs might make that
kind of situation worse. Uh,
now the, the flip side, and
this was discussed at the
planning commission meeting as,
as well, is that it
s tough to
make the case that an adu would
generate more parking demand
than an addition to a house. So,
for example, uh, right down the
road from City Hall, we have a
house that has 10 bedrooms, for
instance, uh, that kind of
addition can be built. Without
having any parking requirement,
uh, so it, it
s, uh, a
difficult leap to make to say
that that kind of thing can be
built without a parking
requirement, but adding a. 500
sq ft cottage in the backyard
triggers parking requirement.
So there
s a lot going on with
the parking, uh Discussion, a
few planning commissioners felt
uneasy about this. Now, not
enough to suggest changes to
the amendments, but just a
feeling that there
s an
existing problem that might be
made worse, might be made more
problematic, I guess, by
allowing detached accessory
dwelling units. Uh, now, one
more topic here, and then we
ll
move on to some of the analysis
that city council had asked for.
We had talked before about how
to best deal with the potential
conversion of existing
structures to ADUs, and
specifically existing
structures that do not meet
whatever standards are in place
for ADUs themselves, meaning
that they would be considered
nonconforming. So under these
proposed amendments if a
property owner, uh, would wish
to convert an existing
nonconforming structure to an
accessory dwelling unit that
property owner would go through
the board of zoning appeals,
and this is the same as we had
discussed in MAY. I, I bring it
up because one of, uh, the city
council
s request has to do
with city with accessory
structures. Bza is set up
really to handle exactly that,
this kind of situation, special
exceptions that can be dealt
with on a case by case basis,
and, and this is really the
default set up with our zoning
ordinance, and there are just
so many potential variations of
nonconformities like this, uh,
that it
s a issue that
s best
addressed outside of rigid type
of standards. So those are the
main standards for what
s
proposed here in the detached
adu amendment that you have
before you, the full amendment
text is in, in your packets.
Like I said, I went through
kind of quickly. I can always
go back and and explain some,
some more of this, but. As I
had mentioned, counsel
requested additional analysis
on certain topics and staff has
done that analysis, and the
next few slides will summarize
the results. City council, then
again, this is back in MAY, had
asked a few questions regarding
potential impacts that detached
ADUs MAY have on real estate
assessments, so both on the
adu
s property itself and also
in general or citywide. Uh,
like it says up here under
direct impacts, When a detached
adu is built, that adu would be
assessed similar to other
structures or similar to other
additions, and what that means
is on a per square foot basis,
uh, so there
s no set amount
for valuation, it would vary,
like it says here would vary
based on the details of the adu
itself. Now counsel also asked
if a jurisdiction allows
detached ADUs. Would that
permissiveness result in
increased property values
citywide, so not just for the
properties that have ADUs but a
general increase in property
values, the concern here was
whether that by enabling
property owners to build these
kind of structures with
property values increase in
general and really since there
would be a new Option for
essentially monetizing
properties to a greater extent
would that raise property
values, raise property taxes,
and harm affordability. Our
real estate staff examined this
question, uh, determined that
across the board, property
value impacts due to a detached
adu ordinance is not something
that we would expect. Now to
reach that determination, our
assessor
s office reviewed
existing studies on ADUs did
not find evidence of this kind
of effect. Uh, they also
conducted their own local
analysis, so based on Arlington
County, Arlington is the
jurisdiction around here that
s
had detached ADUs for the
longest. Uh, like it says here,
uh, our staff, again, the real
estate staff analyzed
neighborhoods in Arlington that
have had detached adu property
sales, so properties that have
detached ADUs and have sold,
analyze these neighborhoods
over a 5-year period, and, uh,
the finding was that the
general property appreciation
in those neighborhoods tracked
extremely close to the
countywide average for
appreciation and counting. Wide
is Arlington County because
that
s what, what this is
looking at, so by extremely
close, uh, I, I mean within 11
of 1% of the countywide average.
So the, these neighborhoods
actually went down by 0.11%,
but really, that
s so close to
the baseline that we would
consider it, uh, like it says
down here, just not indicative
of adu influence. Uh, just to
put it in a dollar amount that
0.11%, uh, which we would
consider really a plus or minus
is about $10 in property, uh,
tax payments. Another request
from city council was to see
for other Northern Virginia
jurisdictions, or jurisdictions
that have already approved
detached adu ordinances, uh,
how many of these units have
actually been approved within
those jurisdictions. The most
instructive localities around
here are Arlington and
Alexandria, uh, both of those
have had permitted detached
ADUs now for 5 or 7 years. Uh,
you see the numbers up here,
this is the number of permits
issued, what
s perhaps most
instructive here is the uh
average annual number of
permits issued, and you see
that here it
s 11 in Arlington
County, and this goes back a
5-year period of 2021 to 202025,
uh, 14 annual average in
Alexandria. And uh you see it
at the bottom, how that
translates into annual permits
per 1000 homes, so that
s
helpful because it accounts for
the difference in, in size
between the jurisdictions. Oh.
Our counsel also asked for
information on Falls Church in
Fairfax County, uh, Fairfax
County allows detached ADUs, uh,
right now on properties that
are larger than 2 acres, the
county has issued 10 permits
for these types of ADUs since
2021. Falls Church is the most
recent jurisdiction locally to
allow detached ADUs, they have
issued 1 permit. So far, uh.
Now that that number per 1000
houses. If you take these 2
numbers that are on the screen
for Arlington and Alexandria,
if you combine those two with
Fairfax County, uh, so again, 2
plus acres, but Fairfax County
has 7000 homes over 2 plus
acres, so that
s a pretty big
data set. I if you take the, uh,
houses, the ADUs per 1000
houses, apply that to the city
of Fairfax, uh, you know, I, I
hate to make direct comparisons
because each jurisdiction is
different, uh, but that would.
Get us in the area of about 50
detached ADUs over a decade. Uh,
now I, I, I said I
m a little
bit uncomfortable saying that,
but of course, I just said it.
I
d, I
d give it a, a bigger
window, I
d say a few dozen, uh,
over a decade, uh, make, make
that a, a pretty big plus or
minus, but, uh, hopefully that
gives some kind of indication
of the prevalence of detached
ADUs locally in Northern
Virginia, uh, in, in places
where, where they
re allowed.
And another question, uh, like
I had mentioned before,
involved existing structures,
uh, council wanted to know just
as a frame of reference, uh,
how many of these kinds of
structures are in the city
right now. So for this, we, we
looked at property records, we
looked at all existing
residential structures so of
all types, not just garages,
but any res any structure that,
uh, but with a minimum of 350
square feet in size, which are
more likely to be converted to.
ADUs. Uh, in total, there
s
slightly under 400 of such
structures in the city right
now on residential lots, about
a quarter of those, or like it
says up here, 104. Are within
what we would call the
buildable setback area for
detached ADUs, so if you think
back to the previous slide with
the green area that would be,
uh, outside of the green area.
So 104 are within that
buildable setback area. The
remainder are, like it says
here, outside of that buildable
area, uh, so that gives some
kind of an idea of the number
of these structures in the city,
it is very important, though,
the point that
s at, at the
bottom, we can examine the
number, we can examine the size
and the placement of these
structures, but like it says at
the bottom here, not all of
these are really convertible to
some place where people would,
would want to live, so he
Either from the standpoint of
the type of construction, the
foundation, uh, the cost of
modifying the structure and,
and so on, so, uh, just an
important thing to keep in mind,
that
s something that
s
non-quantifiable, uh, but we,
we gave you here the, uh,
information that can be
quantified on the number of
existing structures. And now
finally, there were some
questions about the permitting
process and, uh, specifically
whether the city, uh, the main
question that came up in MAY
s
meeting was whether the city
would verify that properties
containing detached ADUs are in
fact owner-occupied, it is
required, it
s required in the
zoning standards, its current
requirement that we
re
recommending to keep in place,
uh, that the property owner
live in either the main house
or the Accessory dwelling unit.
Uh, now, first of all, city
staff will update the permit
procedures if detached ad ADUs
are allowed by city council, so
this will be updated, uh, and
one area where detached ADUs
would differ from attached ADUs
is that they would be subject
to the city
s rental occupancy
permit program. So this is a
program, uh, it
s an existing
program in the city where
rental houses are registered
and are periodically inspected.
Uh, because detached ADUs are
separate structures, they would
be made part of this program,
and those periodic inspections
would include a verification
that the property is
owner-occupied. Uh, so thi this
is, is not a verification that
would happen on a an annual
basis, uh, it
s a verification
that would happen when the
property is inspected, uh, but
that is one, additional level
of check that would not
ordinarily be there. Uh, and
aside from that city staff
would still be able to respond
to complaints about potential
zoning violations and that
includes uh occupancy,
potential occupancy violations
as well, uh, as is currently
the case. So that concludes
staff
s presentation for
tonight. I had mentioned that
the planning commission held a
public hearing on these
amendments in JUNE, the
commission recommended approval.
It was a unanimous
recommendation. The planning
commission did express some
concerns about parking, like I
had mentioned, planning
commission also expressed some
concerns about overcrowding and
occupancy enforcement. Uh, so
regarding overcrowding and
occupancies, some, some of that
discussion pertained to whether,
uh, you know, really similar to
the parking issue, uh, whether
the option of having detached
accessory dwelling units would
make existing overcrowding
issues worse, and whether the
city
s enforcement mechanisms
for all rentals were sufficient
to be on guard for overcrowding,
uh, types of situations. Some
of the discussion really
drifted into a more general
overcrowding and inspection
type of discussion, uh,
planning commissioners did
realize that that
s somewhat
outside of the boundary of
what
s being discussed here,
you know, with a specific focus
on detached ADUs. So outside of
the, the boundary of these
amendments, but it was
identified as a concern by
several planning commissioners,
and there was a bit of a
discussion on this topic at the
public hearing, so, uh, with
that, we
d be glad to answer
any questions that you all MAY
have. Thank you so much for the
presentation, uh, Council
member McQuillan. Thank you,
thank you so much. That
presentation was fantastic. Um,
I am looking at slide 5, about
the setbacks. Can you explain
why 8 ft versus 10 ft was
chosen for the ADUs. Uh, so we,
we did want to align it with
the Uh, existing affordable
dwelling unit setbacks, uh, you
know, the affordable dwelling
unit setbacks were put in place
again to give a little bit more
flexibility to something that
was considered desirable, but
to still maintain neighborhood
character and maintain a decent
amount of separation between 1
property and, and the other, uh,
8 8 8 ft was considered to be
appropriate for the affordable
dwelling unit ordinance it
achieves the same type of goal
that we
re looking at with, uh,
accessory. Ok, so the, for the
flexibility, just the extra
flexibility additional
flexibility while keeping those
kind of guardrails, not letting
these dwellings and the
dwellings have a higher. Bit of
intensity than other structures,
not letting those dwellings
being too close to the property
line. Thank you, I was just
curious as to why they didn
t
choose the 10 ft like they do
with the, um, but it sounds
like they need more flexibility,
um, is there considerate, was
there consideration regarding
topography? Of the Lock and we
we
re discussing the height,
and I
m thinking about the
height and how you mentioned
you didn
t want it looking over
or looming onto the permanent
dwelling, um, that
s there
already, so was that already
taken in as far as height, yes,
and that
s part of the reason
why the recommendation was 20
ft was basically 1.5 stories
instead of 2 stories, uh,
because if it is built on a
hill that 1.5 stories would
look more. Would look bigger
than 1.5 stories. Uh we didn
t
want anything too large.
2-story accessory dwelling
built in that situation on a
hill, uh, would, would just be
too looming, so 1.5 felt that
was perfect. Ok, good. So you
did consider that as far as far
as that kind of topography, yes,
the kind of topography that we
just can
t consider is if if a
certain uh Portion of a yard is
sloping to the point where it
makes construction difficult.
On a map like this, it might
seem like there
s plenty of
room to build an adu, but there
MAY not be. Same kind of thing
with trees in in in the way and
that there are cer certain
types of things that we just
can
t. Account for typography
and trees are 2 of those. Thank
you. I just want to make sure
that that was considered
exactly what you said with, you
know, if the lot was increasing
in height. In the back, um, is
there a financial cost for the
applicant to convert the
existing structure to an adu
conversion. There, there is a
zoning permit cost which i
believe is $70 or or so. Uh,
now the, any, you know, there
are, depending on what is
required, there would be
inspections from Code
Administration as well. Uh,
these things would really pale
in comparison to the actual
cost of construction or the
cost of providing utilities and,
and whatnot. They
re, there, it
is a minimal city cost uh to to
some of this, but it
s, it
s
very small in the overall
picture. Ok, good to know, and
then, um, of the, the local
cities that you use to, um,
make a comparison. Um, which
one most closely aligns with
the ordinance that we
re
currently being presented this
evening. I, I would say
Arlington and Falls Church
would most closely align at
Alexandria is much more
permissive in terms of setbacks,
and I think that has to do with
the types of houses and the
types of neighborhoods they
have in Alexandria and a lot of
existing structures that were
built. Long, long ago, uh, and,
and are already there, but
Arlington and Falls Church are
excellent, thank you, that
s
all my questions. I appreciate
it. Council member Amos. Thank
you, uh, excellent presentation,
the more comment than question,
the only thing I would flag, I,
I do echo the planning
commission
s concerns with
parking, and I know that came
up in our one on ones as well,
and I imagine that
s a concern
that many of us share the main
thing I would recommend, uh,
just because it
s very And I do
appreciate the language you
added to make it more
enforceable. I think that does
a good job. I, I would just
recommend tracking, uh, code
violations over a certain
period of time, and similar to
that tracking the number of
permits that are applied for
and comparing the two. We also
don
t want it to be a case
where We have a certain number
of, uh, violations, but they
re
all attributed to similar
properties or 1 or 2 outliers.
By by code violations, what
kind of code violations do you
have rather than code
violations, just violations,
for example, uh, for not
providing adequate parking or
overparking in certain areas.
So applications that, that tri
trigger that need for an
additional parking space, ok,
yes, got you. Council member
Hall. Thank you and thank you
for the extra time and energy
that went into asking or
answering the questions that we
had posed previously and, and
the other concerns, um, so I
ll
be honest, I thought you were
making a mistake when you
called them affordable dwelling
units, but then you made a
reference between 8 ft and 10
ft for affordable dwelling unit
versus accessory, detached
accessory dwelling unit. So,
i
ve been over here trying to
do some additional research,
but can you, there, there is an
affordable dwelling unit
ordinance folks aren
t very
familiar with it as a Pertains
to single-family houses because
we haven
t had anything like
that since 2020 when it was
approved, but the affordable
dwelling ordinance that you all
are more familiar with
requiring a certain percentage
of 6% of multi-family
residences be affordable. There
is an equivalent for detached
homes as well, uh, and just
like the, uh, building
standards were relaxed a bit
for the affordable dwelling
unit or affordable dwelling
units in multi-family. They
were Relaxed a little bit for.
Single family as well, and that
was increasing the. Setbacks or
decreasing the setbacks, so
that, that
s, that
s
where that comes from, thank
you, yes, yeah, I feel like we
need new acronyms that are Not
identical. Excuse me. Um, page
7 with regard to the parking, I,
I do, I, I know we like to
think that people are going to
bike everywhere and walk
everywhere and take shuttles,
but I, I really have concerns
about the parking, especially
in neighborhoods that already
have Um, you know, parking
issues, I don
t think it
s too
much to ask to move this to 3
spots as opposed to 2 spots. Um,
i think the picture that
s on
slide 11 is kind of a prime
example, as you were saying,
you know, there
s a requirement
to do this for the 2 required
spots. I was thinking to some
of the neighborhoods that are
in the city where they don
t
have a driveway at all, or they
have a short driveway just like
that, and I was like, well,
those don
t That
s not how
things are right now. So I
recognize that it would need to
be brought up to code in order
to do that, but I, I don
t
think it
ll hurt in most cases
to add a third spot, uh,
instead of just 2. Um, and then
page 11. Think, oh, sorry, that
was the same thing. Yeah, uh,
bring up the code for 2 spots.
Um And I
m so ok, so I
m
flipping back and forth a
little bit between the staff
report and the presentation. So
on page 8 of the presentation.
Uh, it talks about the height
of, of the, um, the houses here.
So I think, you know, in the
city, we have a lot of houses
that might not be Cookie cutter
in some ways or they might have
like my house specifically, we
have, you know, we put in like
16-foot ceilings, which you
don
t see from the outside
because it looks like the same
height, but then in the front,
when we did our garage, we did
a Peak, I guess, whatever, I
don
t know what it
s called,
like the one roof goes this way
and the other one goes that way,
hipped, I think, yes, thank you,
the hip, yes. How, how do those
hips get decided, like what
s
the height that you
re looking
at when you see a tall portion
of a house versus the majority
of the roof is another height.
How does that work? So a hip
roof and a regular peaked roof
are measured the same way that
the height is measured halfway
between the eve and the peak.
Ok. So, uh, in, in this case,
20, so a house can be 35 ft
tall, that 35 ft is not
measured to the peak, it
s
measured at the halfway point
between the eve and the. Peak.
Same thing with the 20 ft here,
uh, it, it
s measured halfway,
uh, between the, um, between
the eve and the peak and also
halfway between the slope of
the ground, if, if the ground
slopes, it, it is a complicated
procedure. We don
t feel that
it
s something that we
re
dumping on residents as much
because if you have one of
these built, you have an
architect who has to take those
measurements in all cases, uh,
so the same architect can take
measurements of, of the house
as well. Well, it
s not a bit
of information the property
owners would tend to have at
the ready for their own
property, but it
s something
that in the course of
construction is, is routine. Ok,
and so then let
s picture that
you have a lot where the back
is significantly higher or
lower, how does that factor
into the roof of that space. So,
so the measurement is taken if,
if the ground slopes like this,
the measurement is taken from
the halfway point, uh, of the
high point and the low point.
Of, of the structure, so the
halfway point of the ground to
the halfway point of the roof.
Ok, so that
s your 35 ft or
your 20 ft, ok, so let
s say my
house out front is normal when
it comes to my neighbors, but
then my yard significantly goes
up, am I going to be able to
build a house that is as tall
as my house, which means now
this house in behind is
significantly taller, or am I
limited to the height, even
with the additional Hill in the
back, so if your house is on a
slope, and if the measurement
for your house come comes out
that your house is 25 ft. Tall,
for instance, uh The maximum
height of the adu would be 20
ft because that
s the tallest
that it could possibly go. Ok,
so I, I understand you
re
explaining the same thing to me
multiple times in different
ways. I
m still not visually
height measurement is not easy
to understand. No, it
s not the,
the, the 2 structures would be
measured independently of each
other. So if, if, if, if your
house. Is measured at over 20
ft. Your adu could be a maximum
of 20 ft regardless of what the
topography is. Ok, so it is
possible then if you have a
very large hill in the back
that your secondary. Adu could
be significantly taller than
your front house. That, that,
that would be extremely
unlikely. I
m, I
m, I, I, I
don
t want to say it can
t
happen. Ok. I, I, I, I feel. I
feel it would be very unlikely.
It it would be a, you know,
like if you had this house on
the right, and then you had the
property slope down a lot in
the back. Uh, then. You MAY
have a situation where that
looks the case, but it would
still have to keep to 16 ft.
And, and the, and the reason
that we have It as The, the
reason we have it is that is to
build in some additional
flexibility, uh, because we, we
didn
t want houses, we didn
t
want a situation where a house
where an adu would have to be
an unreasonably small. Number.
Right, and, but on the flip
side, we also don
t now that
this house is going to be
significantly closer to a side
yard. We also don
t want it to
be towering over where the
front house wasn
t already just
because of a topography thing,
so just trying to understand
that those nuances. Ok. Um, On,
uh, in the staff report, I
think this is on page 6, Item l,
it
s on page 7, it talks about
the zoning administrator MAY
inspect the property if If
there is a complaint registered
with the city or if the
official has other reason to
believe that the owner or
occupants are in violation of
the accessory dwelling unit
approval. From what I
understand of our. Enforcement
abilities, there
s not a lot of
teeth to them. And I totally
support people
s right to do
what they want with their own
houses, but I also don
t want
to see that right impede upon
their neighbors. And so I, I, I
know we
ve had issues in the
past where we as a council have
been notified that, you know,
there might be x number of
people living in a house and
they
re like, no, it
s
boyfriends, girlfriends, but
they
re really there all the
time, but they don
t Qualify as
as house residents, but there
s
a parking situation that comes
or other things that come with
that. So I I would like to see
a little bit more enforcement
ability, whether or not we have
enforcement power or enough
staff members to do that. I
think that
s likely not going
to be something that we need to
add in order to manage this,
but that
s, those are part of
my concerns. Um, the next one
also goes then to item, um, n
as in Nancy, where it talks
about, um, if there
s a change,
sorry, they took that out. If
an accessory dwelling unit no
longer complies with the
conditions, then The, uh, use
of the space as a separate
dwelling unit shall cease the
physical arrangement of the
space that created an
independent housekeeping unit
shall be integrated into the
primary dwelling unit and the
space shall not be
independently leased as a
separate dwelling unit. Again,
I feel like that
s something
where we tell someone they
can
t do something because they
violated a rule or, you know,
an ordinance, but again, we
don
t have a lot of ability to
go back and actually follow up
on it. So I just think there
needs to be something in there
that
s a little bit stronger
because from what I understand,
if we go and we knock on the
door and no one answers, well,
we might go back another day
and no one answers again.
Legally, and we shouldn
t have
the ability to enter their yard
to do things, but If they
re
not complying with something,
it, it seems like there needs
to be some other way to have
some additional enforcement. So
I, I
m not suggesting You know,
I mean, tax levies, like
there
s all these different
things that people can do, like
they boot your car, right? Like
all those things that they do
when you don
t pay your parking
tickets. I just think that
there needs to be some other
conversation that is in place
to be able to move forward with
this. And, and that
s not
dissimilar to the conversation
the planning commission had
last month, uh, it, it just and,
and, you know, we reminded
planning commission of, of this
as well, and, uh, occupancy
enforcement is awfully tricky
from the city
s perspective
because there
s no way to check
on the occupancy of a dwelling
without having city staff go
into that dwelling and look at
the beds and look at the
bedrooms, and that
s something
obviously that
s not taken
lightly by the city, there
s
just no other way of, of doing
it, so. Yeah, well, it does
kind of, you know, wander into
another discussion on, on
occupancy and General, but it
s
a pertinent discussion. Yeah,
well, I know like with the
noise ordinance, right? If, if
you
re not getting the response
you need and the neighbor is
still continuing to do things,
there
s an option now to go to
the courthouse and swear out a
warrant and, and go that legal
route, obviously a, a
disgruntled neighbor is not
gonna be able to go and swear
out a warrant against their
neighbor for not having the
right number of people in their
house or whatever it is. So I
just think some of these things
are just a slippery slope, and
I think The, the more we can be
on top of them and try to have
stronger language where needed.
Again, just gives us a little
bit more opportunity to have
that conversation rather than
realizing it was too soft and
then we can
t go back and do
anything about it. Um, My also
my other question about that
section and it, it, um, talks
about like when the, I
m sorry,
it was, uh, section k talks
about the, they do an initial
inspection of the accessory
dwelling unit, um, and then in
addition to any renewal of the
accessory dwelling unit, use or
transfer of ownership, so. When
would a renewal apply? Are
people applying for an adu? For
1 year, 3 years, 5 years, or
it
s for the life of their
property in which they live,
and then it transfers to the
new owner. Uh, I, I think the
renewal applies to the transfer
of ownership. I
m not sure why
it
s wri written as an or
situation, the, the, the zoning
permit, uh, the applicant signs
an affidavit acknowledging that,
uh, it has to be renewed when
the property transfers, ok, I,
I will say the, the wording of
this made me think, and I guess
similar with the planning
commission was saying, and I
also You know, I think people
are landlords for a very long
time and People don
t always
check up on the house or make
sure that it
s being maintained
in the way that it should be,
especially when you might have
college kids renting and
there
s a lot of transiency and
things like that, but maybe we
do as a separate conversation
need a little bit more of a
stronger conversation around
making sure that when a tenant
takes possession of the home
that it really is truly in a
good, safe rentable smoke
detectors are working, all of
that kind of thing. Um, you
know, I know that they pay an
annual fee to have a rental
unit, but I, I think we could
potentially be doing our
renters as a disservice by not
making sure that things are up
to date, um, I know they used
to do it in, you know, college
and all that, so it
s just a
thought. Um, Page 17. I guess I
already asked this was how do
we respond to a violation if
there
s no one answers the door,
um, ok. And then, um, my last
question, and i
ve been asking
this since I think the
beginning is why are we so
afraid of doing this by special
use permit. I recognize that we
think there
s only gonna be a
handful. You said that there
might be Did you say 50/10
years? Right. Ok, so We
re
doing special use permits for
chickens. We
re doing them for
daycares. This this to me is
something that It impacts you
as a homeowner that lives there,
but it also impacts every
neighbor that
s around you, and
I know that when we were doing
our renovation and we wanted to
get an exception to the, which
is now, it
s even smaller than
what we asked for, but for the,
the side yard, I mean, we had
to send out certified postcards
and have all of our neighbors
not really have a problem with
it and, and have that
conversation to me this is a
really big decision that you
are making as a homeowner that
is impacting all of those
around you, and. I, I just, I,
I, I would have a much easier
Ability to accept this if it
was a spy special use, but just
willy-nilly by right, I, I
think. I
m hopeful that there
s
not going to be an
extraordinary amount of these,
but I, I don
t think it hurts
to do the special use. I think
it makes sure that we just have
that extra layer of You know,
rubber stamping it essentially
to make sure that it, it is
what it is. And I think it
gives, like I said, the
neighbors around them a real
opportunity to understand
what
s gonna be happening next
to them and what they
re gonna
be living next to. So I, I
would really, really like to
see that added in here. I, I
think the aversion to having
ADUs be a special use permit,
uh, just drawing back to 2016
when that was discussed because,
uh, ADUs used to be a special
use permit. I, I think council
felt uncomfortable about having
individual homeowners come, uh,
to a meeting like this at city
council to explain improvements
that they wanted to do in in
their home while other, uh, you
know. A brand new home could be
built 3-story, 35 ft high, 5000
sq ft home could be built
without coming to city council,
uh, but adding an accessory
dwelling unit brings people to
city council to a meeting like
this, uh, the, the Chicken.
This this was before chickens.
Before the chicken I think I, I
think the, uh, you know, the,
the thought is that counsel
doesn
t necessarily want more
individual property cases
coming to public hearings like
chickens. I think this council
member does, to be totally
honest. Um, and I You said back
in 2016 when they did this, but
we didn
t have detached
accessory dwelling units. We
had attached accessory dwelling
units, so you
re saying that
that Um, requirement was
removed in 2016 for attached
dwelling units. Correct, ok,
and, and I understand what
you
re saying about tear down
and build a 35-foot house. I
mean, I think we
ve all seen
the one on Warwick, um, but
again, I think you have very
angry neighbors that are really
unhappy with what happened
there. So I, I think if we
re
really only expecting 50 over a
10-year period to me. Check the
box. Special permit, special
use permit, easy breezy and we
get it going. So I, I
m not
sure that I can support this
without that. Thank you.
Council member Bates. So, uh,
with regard to height, um, well,
uh, well actually both height
and setbacks, uh. The
requirements that are proposed
here actually more strict than,
uh, the existing requirements
for, uh, non-dwelling unit
accessory structures, is that
right? Correct, yeah, um, and
then, uh, Um, which, you know,
also certainly don
t require
any additional parking, granted,
they don
t have anybody living
there, but, um You know, and
additionally. Residents are
able to, as you mentioned,
build additions onto their
house, add additional bedrooms,
um, and then, of course, we
have Uh, attached accessory
dwelling units allowed. Um, and
so really, to my mind, this is
taking what is already allowed
and providing some simply
additional flexibility in terms
of where it can be located. Um,
and perhaps even additional
flexibility to allow for it to
be even less overwhelming to
the existing structure since it
can be separated a bit from the
existing house. Um, and, uh,
you know, additionally, as you
mentioned, Someone can, um, can
build a, you know, a house, uh,
without a permit. And of course,
we
ve seen Uh, additional
houses built on, um, uh, lots.
That have been subdivided and
sold off. And so this, to my
mind, also provides an
alternative to that, you know,
that is perhaps a bit less, uh,
disruptive, you know, or less
impactful. To the, um, you know,
the streetscape, the, uh,
existing, uh, aesthetic of the
property. And, uh, with regard
to, um The question of
requiring a special use permit,
would that require the
applicant to pay the special
use permit fee as well, correct?
Yeah, yeah, so I have concerns
about that, um, given that, you
know, for chickens, for daycare,
you know, that kind of thing,
um, you know, certainly you can
say that, uh Um, you know,
hands produce eggs, uh. Daycare
provides an income stream, but
it
s not something that is, uh,
directly Uh, necessity for the,
you know, the people living
there, necessarily, but of
course, housing is for the, you
know, the people who live in
the accessible dwelling unit
itself. And so from a housing
availability perspective, I
would have concerns about, um,
the burden that that fee might
place on people who want to do
this. And also I would imagine
that the process for that would
be a lot more, um. Labor
intensive, uh, right then, you
know, for, for chickens or
daycare because it
s a matter
of building an additional
structure on the lot. Um, so
there would be a You know, the
process involved for that. So,
um Yeah, and then again, you
know, parking. Um, We can, you
know, of course, an additional
house on, you know, subdivided
lot does require additional
parking, but other than that,
um, you know, additions. Or, uh,
attached dwelling units, I
believe are under similar
conditions, they have to
fulfill the parking
requirements for, you know, the
house. Um, but don
t have to
add additional spots for those,
is that right? Yeah, so. Um,
from that perspective, I see
what
s proposed as really only
fair to the homeowners in the
city. Council member Hardy
Chandler. So I wanna thank you
for the report, and I also want
to, um, thank you for certainly
following up on the wide array
of questions that we had, I
know I was particularly
interested in looking at our
neighbors and what
s happening
around there, um, I was
surprised that the low numbers,
um, that are pretty consistent
across this region, um, so
we
re talking about 50 pos
possibly 50 over the course of
10 years when we go back to the
parking, is there any
Indication that, uh, the
existing Uh, Dwelling units
that are attached, are they
clustered in our city in any
way, or are they spread
dispersed throughout our city.
They, they are, they are spread
out. There
s about 2 dozen or,
or so, and, and there
s no
neighborhood pattern, no
geographic pattern to where
they are. And and there
s the
expectation that this would
follow that same pattern or
there
s no information to
indicate that these might be
just clustered in one
neighborhood, causing some kind
of parking problem for at 5 a
year. Right, there
s no,
there
s not a unique enough
element, uh, to, to say that
certain neighborhoods would
only, you know, be suitable for
these or, or not, yeah, and I
go back to just sort of our
general desire to have a wide
variety of housing options, um,
and our policy of, or our
desired policy, or aspiration
of wanting to have people who
are single family owners,
accommodate, uh, renters, those
kinds of things, I see this as
another viable option it is.
Isn
t a huge option, clearly
the data, um, that we requested
looking at the region shows
that this is a possibility for
some, um, but it opens up an
opportunity for some families.
i know of a neighbor who has an
attached dwelling unit and the
prior owner of the house is
living in that and her children
are living in the main house,
it
s a wonderful arrangement,
these kinds of opportunities
for homeowners, um, are ones
that I Absolutely support.
We
re not talking about large
volumes, we
re not talking
about, um, you know, ah. Every
household having a hill that
s
gonna distort, uh, the height,
but I do think we
re talking
about an opportunity that
s
going to make a major
difference, uh, for families
that choose this option, so
thank you for your report, I
appreciate all of the, um,
information that you gathered
to answer our questions.
Council member Peterson. So
what is the list of different
Permits that um the homeowner
would have to obtain to
actually put in place Detached
adu. From a zoning perspective,
there would be a zoning permit,
and then there would be code
administration building permits
as needed, so just, just like
any, any other construction
project. And that is the
equivalent of a construction
permit. Correct. Ok, so those
are 2, all right, um. And just,
I think one quick note on the
special use permit question.
One thing that seems a little
bit different here is a
detached uh adu. Has proximity
implications for neighbors that
are different than an attached
adu and that MAY raise the bar
a little bit in terms of
reactions that people have in
terms of something being
proposed and built, so it
s
probably worth considering as
we think about whether or not a
special use permit is something
that we should do. I, I would
like to go back to the parking
issue and I know we
ve said a
lot about it, but, uh, and I
just want to say also I
appreciate very much, um, we
had an opportunity to have some
staff. Briefings on this and
had some conversation around
street parking. And I
d like to
go back and just understand
there, there
s a potential, at
least in some places. That
there
s a risk that the amount
of street parking would
increase in certain locations.
It could be for a couple of
different reasons, there just
isn
t sufficient expansion
capacity on the lot, whatever,
what
s the remedy if that does
appear to be the case. So a, a
remedy from a neighborhood
perspective would be to
petition the city for a parking
district. Uh, so that, that
would be if, if a neighborhood
has. A parking problem that is
the remedy that the city has
established, is, is that the?
Answer that you
re Looking for.
Well, I
m not sure what the
answer is, I
m just needing to,
you know, understand for those
situations where that could be
a problem, where that goes in
terms of being able to address
it, um, I
m not sure what
s
involved in becoming a parking
district, but I just wonder, um,
maybe this gets back also to
the question mark. About a
special use permit. Is that a
way in which that kind of a
situation would be caught and
addressed if it is that one of
the options for that or no? I,
I suppose that
s a
consideration that counsel
could Use in a special use
permit situation if, if, if it
was a special use permit. Ok,
and the issue is not that there
would be So many detached ADUs
in one place that it would
contribute to volume. The issue
is more site-specific where
you
d have a circumstance where
there just isn
t a
configuration for off-street
parking sufficient, so you
re
forcing it on street where you
already MAY have it, so it
stretches that, yeah, so, so
the the special use permit
being at the discretion of
counsel, counsel can pick and
choose, and that
s the plus and
that
s the minus of the special
use permit, you know, the plus
side, it is the council can
make that. Spot determination,
you know, the downside from a
homeowner
s perspective is the
unknown that that they have to
go to city council and petition
for this to be done. Right. If
I could just switch gears to
the numbers game a little bit,
I think the Thank you for doing
the assessments there are 2 of
them that I think we asked for
that, uh, very helpful. One is.
The effect on property
assessments for uh people who
choose not to build just
because the legal option is
created and it looks like
that
s a non-issue. Uh, but
there
s a little bit of a
caveat in that I think are.
Comparative data on this. Is
coming from places that are
inside the Beltway,
predominantly the outside the
Beltway with Fairfax County is
a little bit different because
those are 2 acre lot minimums,
so we
re a little bit different
territory. Sounds like it
doesn
t look like there would
be an issue here, but I just
want to note there
s a little
bit of um. Variation in the
data sources here. The other
thing is the numbers and if I
understand at the end of the
day, our best estimate again
with some of the same
Uncertainty. Because of apples
and oranges here, we
re looking
at like maybe 5 a year. Is that
where this landed, right? Ok.
Helpful to know for a couple of
different reasons, it doesn
t
look like there is likely to be
a land rush, um, but it also
looks like 5 a year. Is a
manageable number if it was
determined that we did need to
do a special use permit, so it
wouldn
t be an overwhelming
surge. I
m not arguing for or
against at this stage, except
I
m sympathetic to the concerns
that arise and lead to the need
possibly for a special use
permit here. I think the other
thing that when we discuss this,
it was just helpful, um. Know
is this, uh, while we do have
attached ADUs. We have a lot of
experience with that. The
detached AUs are a little bit
different ballgame, not exactly
the same, and it sounds like
there is some merit in taking
it a step at a time in terms of
how we implement a new policy
so that we are going through a
process of discovery in terms
of how this works and being
cautious at the early stages
until we get a better feel for
what we are really in for in
terms of the volume, the
complexity, the impacts, and
all that. I don
t want to
overplay it because at 5 a year
it doesn
t sound like a big
deal. On the other hand, that,
um, it does sound like it would
be prudent to Approach this in
a way that is a little bit step
at a time and helps us get the
feedback we need to determine
whether or not and at what
point, um, this can be a more
automated, if you will,
approach to this that would
argue again back for at least
considering the possibility of
special use permit in the early
stages to see how this goes,
but I didn
t want to just bring
that conversation forward
because I appreciate the fact
that we talked about that and
that from a policy
implementation perspective that
it
s almost like treating this
as a pile. And taking some
special care in its early
stages. Uh, otherwise, uh, do
wanna thank you for. All of the
work that you
ve done here,
there
s been a lot of
assessment, it
s been
responsive and, uh, there
s
been a lot of work done on both
the design and the assessment
side of this that I think has
been very helpful, so much
appreciated. Thank you. Council
member Hall, thank you. Excuse
me, thank you. I just had one
follow-up question, um, I just
did a quick search and it looks
like the special use permit is
$600. Does that sound ok, that
might might be correct. I
m,
I
m not certain offhand. Ok,
yeah, no, I just wanted to see
what it was, um, and I also did
some additional research and it
looks like to build a 400
square foot house, you
re
looking between 1 and 75,000
and $275,000 and to build an
800 to 1000 sq ft adu looking
at 300,000 to 450,000, so I do
recognize that 600 is an extra
fee. But I feel like for people
that are likely going to be
doing this, $600 is kind of a
drop in the bucket with all of
the other costs. So I still
strongly support, uh, special
use permit. Thank you. Thank
you for the presentation. I do,
uh, agree it was thorough and
you did answer questions that
previously came up in the work
session. As far as the parking
goes, there is a parking
problem. We have a lot of
rentals in the city that have
college students in them. And
there
s no mechanism for
enforcing limitations on how
many vehicles a rental can have.
So what we
re basically saying
is, if there
s a parking
problem in a neighborhood
because we have a rental with
no mechanism for limiting the
number of vehicles, whether
it
s 345 or 6. Instead, we
re
going to The burden on an adu
to meet these requirements. We
have a parking issue. I grant
you. But, but giving a free
pass to renters in this city
and putting the burden on
renters of an adu or even not
even renters because I think
we
re overlooking the fact that
a lot of these ADUs MAY be for
family use and they
re not
rental properties at all. I
don
t think there should be a
greater burden on properties
with an adu, then we are
placing on lots of rental
properties that have lots of
vehicles. So that would be my
feedback. On that, um, and as
far as as the buy right use of
a of building an adu, the city
is full of yards that have
sheds and garages and lots of
external uses that are the
basic footprint. Not maybe not
the height of the square foot,
basic footprint of we
re talk,
what we
re talking about with
an accessory dwelling unit. And
while there might not be people
Living in there, the fact of
the matter is, the city is full
of yards that have sheds and
garages in them, and, and no
one came to us to ask if we
like the design or the location
or anything else. We can do it
by right. We can do it by right
because we own the property.
And so I do have an issue with,
with thinking that that this
dias, or any dias or every dias
that
s elected every other year,
should have an up or down vote
on what people want to build in
their yard because we don
t do
that for the other structures
they
re currently building in
their yard. So I fully support
the fact that 2 parking spaces
is adequate, understanding that
parking is, is not an
insignificant issue for
neighborhoods, but we
ve
already got a problem with
vehicles for rental properties
anyway. And the fact that it
should be by right because at
$300,000 we are not going to
have a lot of people who invest
in that. Think to yourself, if
you build something for
$300,000 how many renters you
d
have to have over what period
of time to make your investment
back. My feeling is probably
that people are going to choose
this because they have
Significantly greater reasons
having to do with their family
to invest $300,000 and that it
is not a money-making
enterprise because that kind of
money-making enterprise makes
no sense financially. So just
putting that out there. And
with that, I will ask if there
is a motion. Oh, sorry, public
hearing, hearing. Skipped a
step, sorry. Ok, I will open
the public hearing, MISS
Shenenbury has this public
hearing been properly
advertised? Yes it has. Someone
has signed up prior to the
meeting to speak, and then
after that person speaks, we
ll
open the floor if there
s
anybody else in the room, so
the one person that spoke is
Katie Johnson, or we
ll be
speaking with Katie Johnson.
Katie Johnson and the clerk has
my address. I came tonight to
ask that ADOs be approved by
special use permit. I, I
m
happy to hear, um, council
member Hall
s concern, I share
those concerns. I generally
support ADUs but only with very
strong guardrails. I asked the
city to retain the ability to
ensure appropriateness and
ensure no negative impacts on
neighbors or neighborhoods,
parking is absolutely a concern
and should have a plan for
enforcement. Cities should also
have In place of process much
like the city retains the right
to inspect chicken coops. The
city must have the ability to
enforce the ordinances. The
shed on my at my house, I,
there are places that I cannot
put my
. I cannot put my
in the rpa. I cannot put my
shed. I had to get special
exception to put my shed where
it is. So there are rules about
where sheds belong, but my
concern also is we have the
ability to inspect chicken
coops to ensure that the
chickens are safe. Why do we
not have the same ability. Why
can
t the city retain the same
ability to make sure and ensure
that the people living in the
small places are safe as well.
Thank you. Ok, is there anybody
else in the room that would
like to speak on this agenda
item? Good evening, Mayor Reed,
members of council. I
m Jim
Gillespie. I live at 3604
Colony Road. Uh, I
m speaking,
uh, tonight on behalf, on
behalf of the adu ordinance
amendment, um, as we all know,
there
s a regional shortage of
housing, um, housing at all
price points. There
s a
shortage of housing for young
adults. There
s a shortage of
housing for seniors, there
s a
shortage of housing for
everybody in between, and the
ad eu unit, uh, ordinance would
be a modest but meaningful, uh,
step in the direction of
providing housing for some
people who need it. Now you MAY
think 50 housing units over a
decade or so, uh, well, does
that really do anything? Well,
it does a lot for those 50
people. They are, they are
getting a home when they did
not have it before. And I think
a little bit about, uh, a
situation in my own extended
family. Uh, I have a close
relative who is roughly my age,
uh, who is disabled, and at
this point is, uh, living in a
senior living residence and
barely affording it, and, um,
and I think about what it would
be like to have that person
come and live in my home, and
we could make it work, but it
would be difficult, it would be
a sacrifice for us. It would be
a um a real sacrifice to the
dignity of this person to be a,
a borderer in my home, uh, and
an adu kind of arrangement
would provide that person with
more autonomy, the, uh, uh,
feeling of living independently,
of having more responsibility
for their own life. So, I thank
you for all of the work, uh,
the staff has done for all the
many efforts that you have done
to study this issue, to assess
it, and I hope you will vote
yes. Thank you. Is there
anybody else in the room that
would like to speak? Is their
emotion. I move to approve an
ordinance amending chapter 110,
zoning, to amend portions of
the article of articles and
sections contained therein,
including introductory
provisions, zoning districts,
and regulations and definitions.
Is there a second. Uh, motion
has been made by council member
Hardy Chandler and seconded by
council member Peterson, a roll
call vote. Hang on, are we
gonna have discussion? Oh, is
there a discussion on the
motion? Council member Peterson,
yes, is this something that we
need to do tonight, or is it
possible that this could be
allowed some further public
review of what we just saw
tonight before we make a
decision here. Counsel always
has the discretion to defer
action on an item with an
appropriate motion. And I would
be interested in the sense of
the body here, whether that
s
something that would be
acceptable. It does seem that
We
re voting on something we
just saw, I know it
s been
around for a while, on the
other hand, we
ve seen some new
information. Do you want to
make a substitute motion? Is
that how we would proceed, uh,
MR. Lubkeman. That would be the
mechanism do you want to make a
substitute motion? Yes, and I
will need help from MR.
Lubkeman to get the exact
wording correct, so if I MAY, I
assume you
ll just be asking to
defer. Action. On this item to
a date certain of blank. It, it,
the next time we get together
next earliest time we get
together, I think SEPTEMBER, I
believe that
d be SEPTEMBER the
8th. That would be fine from my
standpoint, but I
m Need to
make a motion. Let
s defer
consideration until SEPTEMBER
8th. Is there a second? Second,
a motion
s been made by council
member Peterson and seconded by
council member Hall, a roll
call vote. Is there a comment
available at this time? Do you
want to, yes, discussion on the
motion. Yeah, I just, I, I
really, I, I think that we give
a lot of time for the noise
ordinance and then the city of
Fairfax government put out a
post and people are all up in
arms about it, um, and I, I
just think that something of
this magnitude, while it very
well MAY pass and people might
be very, very supportive of it
I think that the timing of the
more finalized versions of this
came out in JUNE. Now we
re
doing this in JULY. These are
historically vacation months.
People are not here, so I just
think that We need a little bit
more time to be able to give
people to. Understand this, I
d
love to see the city put out
something about this so that we
can, you know, share it all
around and, and really garner
some additional support,
whether in favor or against,
just so we know that we
re
making a decision with more
information. Thank you. Council
member Amos. Uh, just 2 quick
comments, the, the first being,
you know, part of it is, we
re
we
re not gonna know what needs
to be fixed until it
s
implemented, unfortunately,
especially when it comes to
parking, to the actual number
of ADUs and we gauge interest
on where this is popping up and
if we
re gonna hit that 50
target in the next 10 years or
maybe lower, if it
s higher,
that
s something we
ll need to
track. The other I
m very
hesitant on The special use
permit particularly because I
just feel like that people have
a right to their property, and
they should be allowed to
develop it within reason. I do
feel like the Board of Zoning
Appeals is capable of assessing
that. The point about deferral
and the discussion on the
motion. I guess my question
would be, why wouldn
t we defer
more actions that happen over
summer and in general when
people are traveling, uh.
Unfortunately, you know,
business has to get, has to get
done. It
s my personal feeling
on that. Council member
McQuillan. I would like a defer
because I would like to ask a
little bit more information,
gather more information
regarding the special use
permit process, my
understanding that is that it
can take quite a long time for
some people, so I, I want to
better understand that process
more, um, this is something
that just came up this evening.
This isn
t something that we
really discussed in detail
prior, so deferring this to the
next meeting would allow me
that ability. Thank you.
Council member Bates. Um, so
first off, uh, this is
something that as I recall, has
been in the works since at
least last year, is, is that
right? Um, if not earlier, um,
and so it
s not something that
was introduced. You know, just
a, a month or two ago, um, you
know, it
s been on public
agendas, um, we
ve received
feedback about it. Um, with
regard to the special use
permit, um, first off, a, uh,
is a resident required to pay
that fee, uh, regardless of
whether or not the city council
ultimately votes it up or down.
Yes, that
s correct, um, so
again. You know, we don
t know
what the financial means of the
applicant, you know, every
single applicant is going to be,
um, they MAY have an agreement
with someone who MAY be the,
the very first occupant of that
unit where, you know, they pay
to build it, what have you, um,
and then they
re in a situation
where they
re out almost $1000
and plus the, you know,
whatever additional costs they
MAY have incurred through
having somebody help prepare
whatever documentation they
might need or what have you,
you don
t know what goes into
that. Um, and, you know,
without anything to really show
for it. Um, and, uh,
additionally, The, um Uh, you
know, the, I recall from
reviewing the language of the
ordinance. That, um, and I
believe is also actually
mentioned here tonight. If, um
The, uh, the property is, you
know, due to whatever
circumstances, um, it gets to a
point where it
s no longer in
conformance with the
requirements set forth there,
they
re no longer allowed to,
um, use that adu, is that right?
Yes, um, and that exists
regardless of whether or not
there
s a special use permit
process. And, um, would there
be any difference in
enforcement of that if there is
a special use permit process or
not. Uh, well, that, that
s up
to council, the, the bare
minimum for a special use
permit, what, what the changes
would be in the zoning
ordinance, there
s a table in
the zoning ordinance called the
Accessory use table, uh,
accessory dwelling units are
listed in there, uh, accessory
dwelling units are listed as
permitted uses in the rhrl and
rm zones, uh, that could be
changed to a special use permit
to cover all ADUs. Or it could
be split into in accessory
dwelling units attached and
accessory unit, accessory
dwelling units detached. One
would be special, one would be
permitted, in that case we
would need a definition of each
in the definition section, uh,
but that
s the bare minimum, uh,
and the standards that we
reviewed today could stay the
same. If, if that
s council
s
wishes, if council wishes to
add other standards you all
could do that as well, yeah,
yeah, but with, so with regard
to the enforcement mechanism,
um, would that be any different
in terms of, you know, there,
there
s, there
s similar
enforcement mechanisms to SUPs
that the sup is permitted. You
know, for whatever is applied
for, and if that changes, then,
uh, that would be out of
conformity and the property
owner would have to come back
for a, a new sup if that
changes. Mhm. But, um, in terms
of how that
s enforced with
regard to, you know, what
s
proposed, um. It
s, would you
say that it
s similar to, um,
you know, that provision that
s
currently in there, you know,
and it
s not in conformance and
it no longer functions, correct,
that, that would be similar,
the difference would be if
counsel imposes additional
requirements as part of the sup
process that that that would be
something that
s above and
beyond what
s in the zoning
ordinance, right, right, but we
could also, um, if we wanted to
amend, um, or, you know, set
the Uh, requirements as is, you
know, regardless of whether
there
s an, an sup or not,
correct, yeah, yeah, and so
we
ve already discussed those,
uh, requirements previously.
Anyway, so just, you know, some
clarification, uh, that
s very
helpful. Thank you. Council
member Hardy Chandler. I think,
uh. Put simply, what concerns
me is adding a burden to people
who MAY want to pursue this
option, um, and a burden that
Wouldn
t it be in place if they
were doing something else like
simply improving their property
in a different way, um, so the,
the added burden that does not
feel fair to me is not
something that I
m wanting to
consider, I wanted to be an
encouragement for people to
consider this when it
s right
for their family and right for
their for their financial
circumstances rather than sort
of punishing them and adding
extra hoops for them to jump
through in order to have this
happen, um, so I
m in support
of con Continuing with the vote
today. Council member Peterson,
just to clarify my interest
here was actually not to
address the special use permit
issue which Sounds like there
s
still some conversation around,
but really to give residents a
chance to digest this a little
bit, sometimes it seems like
it
s a little bit much for us
to receive new information,
people are giving invite people
to do a public hearing the same
night, and they
ve just seen it,
and in some cases have not even
yet seen it. It
s difficult for
people to be able to access
some of this information ahead
of time and digest it, we
re
actually getting explanations
here that help them do that,
and then we turn right around
and we vote, and if there
s no
harm in giving a little bit
more time for people to digest
this in case there is something
out of that that
s meaningful.
I, I don
t see why we wouldn
t
delay, and I, in terms of the
JULY time frame, I mean, people
are Busy all the time, I will
say, however, I have received
some comments from residents
who have expressed the concern
that they
ve been out of pocket
pretty badly in JULY and are
having a hard time keeping up
with what
s going on in terms
of city business, so this is a
time when it
s been a little
bit tougher probably than
normal to do that, and I would
think because of significant
new information. That we
re
having in front of us tonight
on the lack of the opportunity
for people to really have time
to digest it and for us to be
able to hear from them, and
again, there MAY be no feedback
whatsoever, but as in the case
of the noise ordinance there
MAY be quite a bit of feedback
in any case, it would be great
to give us that opportunity if
possible, and I, I don
t think
it
s a major burden in terms of
a postponement here for another
decision. I also don
t think it
would require a particularly
large amount of time. To, uh,
act on this when it does come
back, so that was really the
intention that I had here.
Thank you. House member hall.
Thank you. I do also want to
remind everyone that this was
the body earlier this month who
delayed the implementation of
an otherwise agreed upon
council, um. Uh, code of ethics
to allow our boards and
commissions time to review it
when it wasn
t even decided
that they were going to be
subject to it, so I just have a
hard time. Not allowing
additional time for our 24,000
residents to make sure that
they
ve wrapped their heads
around this potential change to
their neighborhoods. Amos. And
just for clarification on that
in that meeting, uh, I asked MR.
Lubcomman if the timeline was
affected if we did that action,
and he said no. So the timeline
was not changed because of that.
So if there
s no further
discussion on this motion to
defer, can we take a roll call
vote. Nashinabury. Council
member Amos. No. Council Member
Hall, Council member Hardy
Chandler. Council member
Peterson. Council Member Bates
Councilor McClellan, yes,
motion failed 3 to 3. So The
original motion which was made
by Council member Hardy
Chandler and seconded by
Council member Peterson. Is
there discussion on the
original motion before we take
a roll call vote, Council
Member Hall. I
d like to make
it very clear that I think that
this could be an excellent
opportunity for our community,
for our residents, I simply do
not feel that those that are
away and that have spent the
summer since their kids have
been out of school have
sufficient time to truly
understand and digest what is
included here, which is why I
strongly supported and was
going to ask for a delay myself.
So my vote tonight is not a no
against ADUs. It
s a no against
the process. That is not
allowing our residents
sufficient time to absorb this
information, thank you. Any
other discussion on the motion,
and I will simply say we
ve
been working on this adu
amendment, I believe, since I
was elected mayor. So it is not
something new. We have had work
sessions on it, there MAY not
have been work sessions you saw
previous to being on this
council, but we have been
talking about this adu
ordinance since at least 2024.
They have not 2023. So, with
that, a roll call vote. Ok,
council member McQuillan. I too
wanted to state on the record
that I, um, will be voting no
on this because I too in our
last meeting was, um, convinced
and in being collaborative and
trying to ensure that everyone
and my colleagues had enough
time to speak with their
constituents and do their due
diligence, I decided to go
ahead and agree with the rest
of council that we would delay,
um, adopting our code of ethics
and this evening I was also
kind of in the same Boat here
where I was going, ok, a
special use permit for $600
that
s a lot of money. I know
some of the, the timing, the
process can take a long time,
however, I
m not even given
enough time to to speak with
constituents and talk to them
about this, um, to ensure that
they understand that this is
what
s going to happen when
this is approved this evening,
um, so I just want to let
everyone know that I
m not
saying no to ADUs because I
actually support them fully.
i
m very frustrated that the
process tonight that we
re
saying. Saying that we don
t
care about what our
constituents think about this.
We have all of this set out
really nicely now. We know
exactly what it entails and our
constituents can look it over
and give us really good
accurate feedback. They
re all
on vacation. Everybody is gone
this summer. We know this.
They
re going to return next
month because school starts in
AUGUST. Can we really wait for
1 month? Yes, we could, but
we
re not going to tonight. So
my vote will be a no, but it
s
not against ADUs because I do
want affordability and I want
housing here. However, However,
I
m very frustrated that we
feel like it
s ok to just push
things along and not give a
deferment. Thank you. Well
Council member Peterson. Yeah,
it is, uh, I think a little bit
frustrating for everybody to be
in this position. I, I, I
support the detached adu
approach, I do think there
s a
little bit of unfinished
business here, and if we
re not
going to be able to give
ourselves some breathing room
to let people give us feedback
and tie this up with a nice bow
when we get back the way we
really ought to, I would just
say that I would hope Uh, that
our city manager and city staff
would move forward in a manner
that would retain flexibility.
As needed to address needs that
MAY come up as a consequence of
public feedback that we receive
after, uh, this evening
s vote,
and that we stay flexible and
responsive every step of the
way, and that could be special
use permit, but it could be any
number of other things as I
mentioned earlier, this is
going to go into an early
implementation phase, it will
be an early period of discovery.
It will be much like a pilot.
And I will support this, but it
will be based on the assumption
that we will take seriously
feedback that we receive and
that we will act on that
feedback without hesitation as
necessary and retain the
flexibility we need to do that,
and so I will be supporting
this, but I must say I have
real reservations about, um,
the way in which we
re doing
this and we
re not giving
people a chance to have a last
look at something that has some
new elements to it. Thank you.
Any other comments, seeing none
a roll call vote. Council
member Amos. Council member
Hall, Council member Hardy
Chandler. Council Member
Peterson Council Member Bates
COUNCILMAN McClellan. No. Ok,
motion passed 4 to 2. Ok, we
will go on to the second
general public comment, is
there anybody in the room that
would like to make a general
public comment tonight. Ok. All
right, seeing none, we will now
recess the regular meeting to
go into a work session. We
ll
take a 5-minute recession
recess to move it to the work
session room. Mhm. I. And
welcome to our work session.
Before we begin the work
session, I want to give a
background on the development
review process for applications.
The development review process
was established through a
series of mayor and city
council retreats to ensure
development concepts are
presented to the mayor and
counts city council as a whole,
rather than through individual
meetings. This approach
promotes transparency by
ensuring all elected officials
receive the same information at
the same time. Pre-application
briefings occur before a formal
application is submitted at
this stage, city staff provides
a high level overview of a
proposed concept and the
potential applicant is
available to answer questions.
The plans are conceptual and
the mayor and city council MAY
offer general observations as
guidance. Once a formal
application is submitted and
accepted city staff conducts a
detailed review for compliance
with applicable codes. And
policies, post submission work
sessions include an in-depth
staff analysis and typically
occur after the applicant has
addressed initial staff
comments and before the
application proceeds to public
hearings. The process has been
reviewed and refined over time
by successive mayor and city
councils. Changes have included
clarifying materials to
distinguish pre-application
briefings from post submission
work sessions and allowing
potential applicants to answer
questions during
pre-application briefings to
provide additional context for
conceptual proposals. So we are
just setting the stage for
where we are with this work
session, MS. Shniberry, what
here. Our first item is a
pre-application briefing on a
request by Network Realty
Partners for the redevelopment
of 3541 Chambridge Road. I
m
gonna recognize Clara Schweiger,
our city planner for the staff
presentation. Good evening,
Mayor and Council, first up
tonight for work sessions is a
discussion on a potential
redevelopment at 3541
Chainbridge Road. We are
currently in the
pre-application stage of the
development review process, so
a formal land use application
has not yet been submitted.
City staff have met with the
potential applicant and
provided initial feedback on
the potential proposal. So the
top left image here is an
aerial of the site. The site is
located at the southeast corner
of Chambridge Road and Eaton
Place, west of University Drive
and north of Fairfax Boulevard.
The Future land use designation
for this site is the activity
center place type and the site
is located in the Northfas
Activity Center and a subject
to the North Facts Small area
plan. The site is currently
zoned cr Commercial Retail and
the potential applicant
proposes to rezone to cu
commercial urban. This slide
shows proposed residential
development in the Northfax
Activity Center. This table is
also provided in your briefing
packet, but just to give a
quick summary in Northfas, the
small area plan estimates 1400
new residential units in the
near term. To date, there are
1,088 units currently in some
phase of the land use process
in the North Facts Activity
Center. And all activity
centers, the small area plans
estimate 4700 new units in the
near term. To date, 2,753 units
are in some phase of the land
use process in all activity
centers. Outside of the
activity centers, 3,022 units
are in the land use pipeline.
And then the table on the
bottom here shows each project
in Northfax with the status and
the number of units proposed.
Now, going back to the
potential project for tonight
s
discussion, existing on the
development site are 2 2-story
office buildings and 124
parking spaces on approximately
2.09 acres. This is the concept
plan. The potential applicant
proposes 29 townhouses and 8
2/2 units with the proposed
height maximum of 4 stories.
They proposed 2750 square feet
of retail on University Drive,
a new private street, a widened
10-foot sidewalk on Eaton Place
and an 8 ft sidewalk on
University Drive. And an
internal 6 ft sidewalk leading
to units. The potential appro
applicant proposes a 4200 sq ft
linear park 8300 square feet of
open space and an interpersonal
connection to the south. Here
are renderings of the potential
proposal. So these are looking
at the stacked townhouses, so
the 2 of 2s. And hear more
renderings on the left is, um,
a retail building, and then on
the right you
re seeing the
townhouses. So city staff met
with the applicant, um, the
potential applicant and has
provided preliminary feedback
on the potential proposal, um,
this list was included in your
briefing packet. And on JUNE
22nd, the planning commission
held a pre-application briefing
with the applicant, and gave
the applicant feedback. Um, a
summary of this, um, feedback
has also been included in your
briefing packet. Potential land
use requests for the proposal
would be a rezoning from cr
Commercial retail to see you
commercial urban and the
architectural control overlay
district, a special use permit
for townhouses and multi-family,
a general development plan and
a major certificate of
appropriateness for
architecture and landscaping.
So the next steps are a land
use application submission.
Staff review, work sessions
with the planning commission,
the bar and city council, and
then public hearings. And that
concludes my presentation. I
m
here to answer any questions
that you have, the potential
applicant is also standing by
for questions. But Thank you
for the presentation, Council
Member Amos. Thank you very
much, uh, for the very, uh,
brief presentation, uh, just to
quickly go over what I
d liked
that I saw the Sidewalk widths,
I think are appropriate. I
think 1010 ft on Eaton, 8 ft on
university, I think that makes
a lot of sense. Uh, I do like
the university connection and
access from Cambridge. I
actually, my understanding
based off of what I saw on the
plan, the access point to the
property from Eden is removed,
correct? I, I do like that
element of it as well, uh,
taking that off. I also really,
yes, right there, thank you. I
also like the linear park and
green space concepts, so I, I
do like to see that you have a,
a good amount of green space
proposed from this initial
application, uh, just a few
questions, um, it might be a
little too early, but I imagine
in terms of stormwater, if I
recall correctly, this is kind
of on a slope, uh, in terms of
storm water, we
re looking at
an underground tank is what
s
there sufficient or what would
be, uh, implemented for that, I
guess that would be to the
applicant. Just early thoughts.
Thank you, uh, MADAM Mayor,
members of City Council, Bob
Brandt with the law firm of
Walsh Colucci on behalf of the
applicant this evening, I
m,
I
m joined by Greg Trimmer from
Network Realty Partners and
appreciate the opportunity to
come before council and get
feedback, answer questions, and
hopefully begin this process.
Um, Council member Amos, you
asked about stormwater
management, um, we have not yet
fully designed it. We
re still
very early. This is the concept
plan. This is really the extent
of what we designed so far, um,
but make no mistake about it,
there will be stormwater
management facilities provided
on site. Um, what we
re
anticipating is exactly what
you, what you described,
underground facilities,
detention, stormwater quantity,
quality controls, things like
that, um, it will be a
significant benefit over what
s
there today. This this property
was developed in the early
1970s and, um, I think it
s
safe to say is probably
entirely lacking in terms of
stormwater controls. So that
s
one of the several benefits
that the redevelopment of this
property will just inherently
bring forward. Thank you. Uh,
my next question in terms of
height, so the, what
s
currently there, I think I saw
on the plane, it was 28 ft if
I
m correct, and then you have
proposed 4 stories. What
s the,
the gap there? What
s the
difference? That
s, that
s
correct, the 2-story buildings,
I think you
re, you
re
correct or Route 25 28 30 ft
story, uh, excuse me, feet high,
uh, what we are proposing at
this point is a maximum height
of 4 stories or 60 ft. The 60
ft would be the, uh, 2/2 units,
the Stack townhouse units. On
the left side of your screen,
the west side of the site
fronting on Chambridge Road, um,
those will be a little bit
taller than the, the
single-family attached, the
townhouse units, one of the
reasons we did that was to kind
of establish that frontage,
establish that book end of the
site, create kind of a gateway
as you
re coming into the city
by concentrating that mass
there, but that 4-story,
60-foot height would be the
maximum the townhouses would
likely be a bit shorter than
that, but again, we
re early in
the process and so all of that
information will be provided if
and when this moves forward.
Absolutely, I, and I know it
s
early in the process, so for
example, you know, I, I
d be
curious, our economic
development director
s thoughts,
what exactly is driving this?
Is it vacancy rates, is it, I
mean, what are we, what are we
looking at for this? Yeah, and
I
ll ask Greg to chime in with
a little bit more detail, but,
um, the reality is these, these
buildings are really
approaching or at the end of
their useful life, um, they
re
about 50 years old at this
point, and, um, they
re
deteriorating and frankly, the
costs of, um, getting them back
to where they need to be to
release these, the these.
Spaces are, it
s, it
s
approaching to the point where
it
s cost prohibitive, and so
that
s why the property owner
is in the position now where
they
re looking to the next
phase, the next step for this
property, and so, um, what
we
ve come forward with is what
we think and what we hope
council agrees is a step in the
right direction, something
that
s consistent with the
small area plan and continuing
the, the, the, the progress of
development here in Northfax,
Greg, do you wanna add to that?
That, that
s exactly right in
terms of the condition of the
buildings and in, in terms of
the product mix and the
direction of the plan, um, we
looked kind of holistically in
this. Broader market, and we
re
really excited about kind of
the canvas that
s been painted
already. We have a senior
housing building, we have a, uh,
a rental apartment building
coming out of the ground, uh,
what we don
t have is, um, home,
homeownership opportunities.
And in this small little plan,
um, we fit a lot of, we think
great things. There
s, uh, the
2/2 units, which will be the
smaller of the smallest of the
units, and then a mixture of 16
ft wide and 20 ft wide towns.
So in this plan, you have 3
different types of home
ownership opportunities that
will be the first kind of this
broader, uh, area. And we think
think that all of that, uh,
residential activity, in
addition to the 2 hotels that
already exist, brings a kind of
a nice diversity of, of, of
pedestrian activity and we
ll
kind of start to activate it as
a whole. So we
re really
excited about that. Thank you,
my last question is related to
the retail portion, uh, and
there
s kind of 2 things built
into that. 1 for the retail, I
mean, when, when you say retail,
do you mean more commercial
office space, or do you more so
mean, for example, restaurant
usage or something like that.
Just for clarification, so our
hope is that it
s neighborhood
serving retail, uh, we
intentionally had it in front
on the linear Park, uh, because
we like that interface between
that activity, um, uh, in the
park, interacting with, uh, uh,
with the retail. It
s very,
very early to, uh, uh, to try
and determine what will lease
in that space, our hope would
be though, it would be
neighborhood serving retail
rather than commercial uses,
understood, and part of the
reason I asked that is because
it just felt a little odd to
have that retail space fronting,
well, not fronting, Technically,
but closer to the Chambridge
roadside, I would think.
Considering you have an
adjacent shopping center on the
University Drive portion, you
might get more consistency
putting that on the university
drive side. I wasn
t sure what
went through your thought
process on that. Yeah, so, uh,
the, the retail actually is on
the right side, east side of
the site on University Drive,
correct, and, and the reason
for that, just, just so you
re
aware, um, and, you know, when
we first met with, with staff
about this, they, they
emphasize the importance of
having that retail frontage
there because that
s what the
small area plan recommends. If
you look at this site, um, this
site, the hotel site to the
south, And even points to the
north across Eaton Place it
s
envisioned in the small area
plan that, that Linear Park has
a retail frontage, and so, um,
what you see here is the
product of several
conversations we had with staff
early on to advance that design.
I am very happy to hear I was
wrong about that, so thank you.
Uh, so I didn
t say you were
wrong per se. I
ll say it to
myself, uh, no, that
s good to
know, um, and that was it for
my questions. Thank you. Thank
you. Uh, COUNCILMAN McQuillan.
Thank you, um, how much
commercial will be preserved,
uh, so the, the existing office
buildings are about 16,000
square feet, a little over that,
uh, council member McQuillan,
those will be, those will be
removed and replaced with the
proposed retail that we have
here, which is just over 2700
square feet. 100. Ok, and then,
um, how much How How much room
is there for, I
m looking at
the renderings and they I like,
I actually really like this
plan a lot. I
ll be honest with
you. I, I really like this plan
a lot. I like the retail on the
side, um, but the renderings,
is there a lot of room for
Changing the look to look less
square and modern and like
everything else I see in
everybody else
s city that
s
being built absolutely, um,
when, and this is probably my
first opportunity to work
together and, and he said, you
know, you don
t really need, uh,
renderings at this point. It
s
just conceptual. I said, let
s
put something in there and
facilitate a conversation, so
the answer is absolutely, and
we want that feedback and we,
and we want this whole project
to feel like it
s part of the
fabric of the city of Fairfax,
I really, I do like the setup.
I like the green space. I like
where You have the retail, I
d
like to see a little or the
commercial, I
d like to see a
little bit more preservation
for commercial, but, um, I, I,
the renderings and the look of,
of the appearance, I think you
could go a long way if it
really matches our community
well and keeps to the character.
So thank you. Thank you.
Council member Peterson. Yeah,
I
ve got it for staff, a couple
of questions here just on page
1. And uh, just a couple of
quick math questions for you on
the far right bottom activity
centers plus outside of number
of units. And there
s, you drop
down, you go to a total of
3,022, what does is that number?
Ok, sorry, can you repeat your
question? I was looking at my
presentation at the staff
report. So I
m going to the
staff report. Yes, and I
m
going down to. Uh, bottom right
corner of page 1. Ok, so you
ve
got a couple tables here. Uh,
that give you the tally. Of
what are known what you
re
benchmark estimates, but I
ll
circle back to the very far
right, and they have numbers
for the 1st 2 for North Facts
and then Activity Centers plus
combined. The last one is
activity centers plus outside
of, and it
s blank. But if you
drop down to the very bottom,
it
s 3,022. What does that mean?
Yeah, that
s all like 1 table,
so that means The projects that
are in a land use process right
now, including activity
including including activity
including centers and those
outside of activity centers.
Those are in a land use process,
how do you reconcile that with
the 1st 2 boxes, 1 for North
Facts and 1 for Activity
centers combined. The Norfax
one has 1400 and the, uh,
smaller plan benchmark estimate
for activity centers is 4700
and, and MS. Schweiger, if you
could pull up that slide as
well. I think that might be
helpful. So the 1400 units
council member Peterson is the
benchmark estimate for the
North facts. Small area plan
and so that
s what identified
in the plan in terms of a
benchmark estimate over the, uh,
near term development. In
Northfaxs. Um, so there is not
a benchmark estimate for areas
outside of activity centers, so
in that final table on the far
right of this slide, you don
t
see a benchmark estimate, so
what
s included there is in
total number of residential
units at some place within the
development review process.
That could be considered by
city council at some point in
time if those, uh, proposals or
projects proceed, those are the
figures associated with that.
So under construction approved.
Under review and in a
pre-application phase, and so
those are the units that are
somewhere in the development
review process with the city.
That
s the 3022. Yes sir.
Alright, so just. Checked my
math. So if you look at Current
Population in the city of
Fairfax, which is 26,340 or
something like that. And you
add 47 to it, that
s 4700,
that
s knocking the door at an
18% increase. You had another,
um. 3000 to it, it
s like a 29%
increase over base. So, just
adding the numbers up again,
just a math thing trying to
where you, we have a current
population. I
m trying to get a
sense of how much that current
population expands I
ll take
your word for it, council
member Peterson, blame it on
the iPhone if it
s wrong, ok,
and my thumbs, which I have too
many of right now. All right,
so, so, so there
s that just,
uh Then I you said near term,
what does that mean? The small
area plans identify a 10 to 15
year near term. Development
window, and so as, as shown in
those plans, there There
s a
full illustrative build out of
what redevelopment in those
areas which are designated
redevelopment areas in the city
might look like as those plans
were being developed based upon
market conditions, what is
included is what, um, is
estimated redevelopment
activity could, um, result in.
Over that 10 to 15-year period.
So for Northfas, uh, it was
1400 units. Great, but so, and
we
ve talked about this, so
you
ll correct me if I don
t
exactly get it right, but those
benchmark estimates are What
market conditions could result
in, that is not, however, a
public policy goal that
s been
adopted by the city. That is
correct, and that
s a very
critical point for everybody to
recognize. So I, I think we
need to be cautious about, um,
any presentation, and I
m not
pointing fingers at this one
that might suggest that we are
trying to attain this
particular goals, that is not
the case. We
re simply tracking
metrics, but I
m curious also,
I don
t see our economic
development director here,
although maybe she
s hiding
somewhere, uh, but we have a
metric here, which is housing
units, um, are we also. Uh,
estimating Commercial, uh,
expansion, uh, market potential,
and for that matter, retail.
And I don
t even talk about
industrial, but let
s just talk
about commercial and retail
over the same period. I don
t
see those benchmarks here. Uh,
we are, um, and, and that
s
information that we can provide.
To city council moving forward,
I think this table is put
together in response to a
previous request, so we
included it in this
presentation, but we can add
additional information
regarding commercial square
footage is as well. Well, I
mean, it gets to a strategic
question, I think, for the
council in the city as it is
trying to address public
interest, and that is the, um
Goal that Either we have or
we
ve certainly discussed of
expanding. Um, the presence of
commercial redevelopment and or
development in the city, and we
don
t have parallel numbers
here to tell us what those
numbers look like next to
residential numbers, so the
conversation a little bit
one-sided. We
re just talking
residential. We
re not talking
commercial here. This is a case
where we
re reducing the and so
there is certainly an interest
in expanding commercial and,
and in this case, we
re
actually reducing it. From
16,000 to 2700 square feet. I
think that
s a really big hit
on a commercial, uh, square
footage. And again, our
economic development director
is not here, but she will, I
m
sure, be listening in on this.
It
s my understanding that just
across the street, At Bright
View, one of the objectives
there, uh, to address this very
problem. Is to add 7000 square
feet at least of commercial
there. So I, I guess my
question is if, if we are
trying to expand commercial in
this area, um, why aren
t we
focusing the approach on this
particular site in a manner
that
s consistent with that
because that would seem to be
consistent with the city
s
goals. Mhm. I
ll, I
ll defer to
the applicant or the potential
applicant regarding this
potential site. Sure thing,
thanks, thanks, MR. Hart, and
thanks, Council Member Peterson
for the question. I think it
s
a good one, right, um, you know,
this site has been a commercial
use for the last 50 or so years,
um, for the reasons I described
the, the existing facilities on
the site, the, the buildings
themselves are just, they, you
know, they
re, they
re,
they
re at the end of their,
their lifespan, and so the
question then becomes, what
s
next, and so, uh, when we
looked at this property and
working with the owner, um,
trying to figure out what made
the best sense for Northfas,
what made the best sense for
the city as Greg was mentioning.
Earlier, we thought that
introducing opportunities for
homeownership here where
appropriate. Now, I, I
acknowledge that there will be
a reduction in the amount of
commercial space, certainly
compared to what
s there today,
we are bringing forward what
what I do believe is a
meaningful number, 2700 square
feet. But I think looking at
the bigger picture here, what
these these future residents
will do is support the existing
commercial uses that are
already in the area, the
shopping centers down the
street, the future growth yet
to come in Northfax, and so I
do think that This application,
this proposal, which is a
relatively small piece of North
Facts and the bigger picture
does have a role to play. Um,
you
ve got the botanist coming
online right now, um, it
s
under construction. I think
that
s bringing about 5000
square feet. I forget if you
mentioned that or not, Council
member Peterson, but, um,
looking at this site and, and,
and, and working through this
development program, we felt
that this was the highest and
the best use for it, and
certainly something that can be
a valuable part of the overall
Northfax community. So I think
it would be great to maybe, um,
have an expanded conversation
that I would like, um, if
possible, to have the benefit
of our economic development
director to be a part of to
understand the commercial, um,
status mix and potential goals
in that area because right
across the street, there is, of
course, quite substantial, uh,
commercial redevelopment going
on, and I don
t think the issue
here is trying to make use of
the 50-year-old building, so I
think it
s pretty clear that
this is a redevelopment
scenario under any scenario
here that
s taking place, but I
think the question is whether
it
s really the right time and
place to be knocking out so
much commercial given these
circumstances, and I
d, I
d
certainly like to understand
that more clearly. Uh, the
other thing that factors into
that in is um In terms of the
type of commercial development
that Is consistent with future
market conditions and could
actually, uh, those conditions
could be shaped a bit by
proactive things that we might
do here. Uh, my understanding,
uh, from our economic
development director is that uh
Where the city shines and could
shine is smaller scale, uh.
Commercial sites that would be
of interest to firms. That
don
t want to go into the
really big, um, office building
developments that are outside
of the city, but are looking
for, um Smaller scale, more and
by definition, uh, more
affordable also that are
monetized and it creates a set
of conditions that those firms
are looking for, and we have
some competitive advantages
there, and this would be a case
where, you know, this is a site
that could potentially be
acting on them. I
m not sure
how much of the formulation of
this proposal has involved
conversations around economic
development and commercial
development in the city, but to
me that
s kind of the, uh The
white elephant here, um, I
appreciate what you brought
forward, but I, I do want to
acknowledge that we have kind
of a big picture issue here, uh,
for the city in this particular,
uh, location that I, I would
feel more comfortable if we had
a chance to unpack that a
little bit here as we decide
what, what works best here.
Thank you. Thank you, Council
member Hardy Chandler. Uh,
thank you, um. I really
appreciate slide 4 because I
think as I mentioned in a
previous meeting, sometimes we
look at projects individually
and we don
t consider what else
is going on in the area. So I
think that we did ask for, uh,
particularly on the residential
side, what else is going on and
where this falls, so in
Northfax is this proposal
included in the pre-application
number that
s in the upper left
side. Ok. Thank you. Um, the
other question that I had was
for retail you mentioned
neighborhood serving. What does
that mean specifically? Can you
break down what that means for
me? Sure, sure, and I think
might shop there
s things like
small, small boutiques, perhaps
a coffee shop, a cafe, a small
restaurant, things that could,
as I was mentioning before, you
know, be used by the, the
future residents here. And so,
um, I
m sure Greg would agree
with me. It
s still, again,
we
re on step 1 of 1. 100 of
this process, um, it
s still
relatively early. I think as we
move forward, hopefully that
vision gets fleshed out a
little bit more at this point
anyway, we
re hoping to
maintain as much flexibility as
we can to expand the, the
universe of potential uses, but
what we
re thinking is most
likely is something like I
described a small restaurant
cafe, store, something like
that you, I just wanted to
understand the category, um, I
did read in the report where
you were talking about the
buildings being at the end of
their life. So can you talk a
little bit about the current
tenants and so it
s at the of
its life, something is going to
have to happen, right? These
buildings are not sustainable
at all. Some choices gonna have
to be made, um, so for the
current Tenants, I guess a
couple of questions there, um,
any very early thoughts about
what might happen with them in
terms of a plan and also what
is the current vacancy of those
buildings, the, the current
vacancy is about 40%, um, and
that
s going to grow, um, to
the, the buildings are set to
go entirely vacant over the
next 18 months, um, the, the
buildings are structurally, you
know, I don
t wanna say unsound,
but in poor condition and it no
longer makes sense to continue.
Invest them. So, in any
scenario, those buildings will
be closed here in the next 18
to 24 months. Ok, and you
mentioned If I heard you
correctly and another response,
you mentioned this as being
different from some of the
other projects that you
re
involved in, is that what went
into the decision for this
particular kind of Proposal
because I think there was a
mention of rental properties
and other properties, so was
this to diversify? Well, in
terms of this particular plan,
it was diversifying the housing
opportunities in this submarket
right now, right now there
s a
rental product coming up and
there
s a senior housing and so
forth and so we saw a distinct
opportunity, um, specifically
in townhouses that are smaller,
more attainable, uh, the 2 over
2s will be even a lower price
point, so we felt like that hit
a real sweet spot that wasn
t
an opportunity there. So having
differentiated product was, was
very interesting. The other
thing that
s about the site
that, uh, is important to note
is it
s a small site, um, it
s
Just over 2 acres, um, with the
hotel to the south, there
s no
real opportunity to grow that
to do a more substantial
project, um, and so this was an
opportunity to kind of pack a
lot into a small bag, so, um,
if, if checked a lot of boxes.
Thank you, I appreciate that
it
s my questions for now.
Thank you. COUNCILMAN Hall.
Sorry, can you give me another
minute, please? Thanks. Council
member Bates. Um, I certainly
do. Overall, um. Like some
aspects of this project, the,
uh, the layout of, um, overall
the sidewalks and, uh, side
access. Um, I will say that the
smaller area plan envisions
this site being all commercial,
um, understanding that, you
know, there might be room for
compromise here, but, um, I
would like to see, ideally, at
least half the commercial space
that
s there, um, replaced, and,
uh, you know, there are things
that could be done in terms of
perhaps structured parking, um,
you know, we
ve seen other
sites in the city where there
s,
uh, you know, a small office
building with a small, uh,
parking garage or something
like that. That, um, and in
addition to, you know, the
retail frontage is certainly um
Uh, needed there, you know, at
an absolute minimum. But the
smaller area plan envisions
that fronting onto the linear
park, um, which I think is
perhaps maybe just a matter of
moving that sidewalk around to
the other side and, you know,
having it front onto that
sidewalk on that side, um, but
yeah, again, more commercial
space, uh, office and or retail,
um, but still certainly, you
know, I think that having some
for sale units here, add some
diversity to The, the housing
stock in this part of Northfaxs.
Thank you. Council Member Hall,
thank you. Sorry, I forgot my
reading glasses so I
m having
to like zoom in or go over to
the screen, sucks getting old.
Um, I have a couple, I don
t
know if they
re Clara questions
or not, but back to slide 4. I
know we
re spending a lot of
time on that, um, the, the
benchmark estimates of 1400 for
North Facts and 4700 for the
activity centers combined. That
equates to 6100 units, correct?
If you, you
re adding those two
together, or is the 4700
inclusive of the 4? Inclusive,
4700 total among all of the
activities centers, so sorry,
we
re gonna have to do math
real quick. Because I did it
the other way so what I found,
uh, sorry, wrong buttons. 41.
Ok, so 4700. 45, ok, so what I
found, um, with a quick search
was that in 2024, the total
dwelling units in the city was
10,467. So these proposed
residential development plans
to add 4700 units. Which is 45%
of what we currently have
available for dwelling units.
So we are Adding and an
extraordinary amount. Um, in
this. Overall proposal, not
your specific proposal. We
ll
be clear on that. Um. And then
of the 914 units that are
currently under construction.
Or am I doing that wrong? It
should be 4:30 under
construction or is it 484 total
under construction. 484 total
under construction among all 4
of the activity centers, yeah,
so then 484 divided by 467 gets
me to, let
s call it about 5%.
So there is 5% of the total
dwelling units in 2024 that is
currently under construction in
the city. I trust your math. I
didn
t at first, but then I
went back and did it the right
way, um, ok, so what I
m
hearing is that we
re going to
be adding based upon this slide,
45% of our existing housing
stock, we
re going to be adding
an additional 45% of that total
based on what we have on this
slide. I think those are really
important numbers. Um Now, to
your specific proposal, and
this might be, again, a clarity
question first, but on page 6,
the residents in that is right
near this, I believe that is a
4-story building. Which is
roughly 48 ft tall. I believe
it
s 5. I
m going by memory. I
googled it, but it said 4, but
is it 5? I think so. I believe
so. Ok, so 5 ft would be
roughly 60 ft tall. Ok, so
you
re building then. Where
that frontage there is going to
be similar to the residents in,
ok, I will say that makes me
feel a little better, but still
not great, so I actually live
across the street on Eaton
Place. If you go across and
down, I
m in that neighborhood
there. So this is, this is very,
very close to home for me. Um,
you might be surprised based
upon my other comments along
the way that I actually do like
this, um, I do have some
suggestions though. Um, I do
feel even though the residents
in apparently is taller Than I
thought, I do feel personally
that townhouses where the
stackable units are would make
more sense. I think it would
keep the height a little bit
lower there as you
re driving
along Chambridge Road, and then
maybe you could potentially
repurpose some of the Interior
town homes to be the stackable
units, that way you have that
extra height, but it
s not
looming over the street there.
Um, I know across the street
from there is the Assembly
Townhomes, I believe, again,
someone can correct me, I think
they are 3 stories tall, so
might give a little bit more
balance to what
s there, um, I
like the green space. I cannot
wait until those connections on
that service road are closed
off, so this gets us there a
little bit faster, um, very
happy to see the 10. Foot
sidewalk uneaten, the 8 ft
sidewalk on university, um. The
parking that is available, the
88 parking spaces. Uh, again,
my old eyes are failing me
today, but it looks like there
are some, um, guest parking
spots, Amazon drop off
deliveries, though kind of
spots available in addition to
what
s at the residences
themselves. Correct. So, so the
surface parking spaces are
really, they could be used for
both. So the ones on the left
side, so the west side of the
site adjacent to the townhouses,
there
s, I think there
s 8 or 9
spaces there, but some of those
would be kind of dedicated to
the, to the stack townhouses,
the stack townhouses will have
1 car garages. And so the rest
of the parking would be
provided in that surface
parking area on the left, um,
the surface parking area on the
right primarily would be
devoted to the, the retail, the
commercial uses, but, you know,
after hours in the evenings on
weekends when that space is
maybe not, maybe not
functioning. Um, those would be
theoretically available for
guests, visitors, things like
that. Ok. While I, while I have
the opportunity to speak with
you, Council Member Hall, just
real briefly, one of the
reasons we provided that open
space area on the south part of
the screen here was to serve as
a buffer between those units
and the residents and, um, it
s
about 8000 square feet, give or
take, and we thought it was the
right move to provide a little
bit of a buffer there, but I, I
appreciate your suggestions
about potentially looking at
shifting things around a little
bit. We
ll look at that. I just
didn
t want to MISS That. Ok,
no, I appreciate that, uh, and
I do also appreciate the buffer,
and I
m sure people that live
there will also appreciate it.
Um, the, these are all going to
be for sale units, correct? Ok,
and based upon the number that
you
re putting in 6% of them
will be affordable? Uh, I
believe for the townhouses,
it
s 10%. MR. Harden
s nodding
his head, correct? 6% would
apply to multi-family. Ok, I
wasn
t sure if the combination
of the townhouses and the and
it would be split. So 10% on
the, the townhouse and on the,
the 2/2 is a stack to those
would be multi-family per
zoning, and so that would be 6%
on this. So I think it
s 3 or
43 or 43 or 4, I think. Ok, uh,
and I don
t mean to be naive
about the 2/2 units, but when
it says 82/2, does that mean 16
units total, or that means 8
units, like 4 of 8 total. Ok,
correct. Ok, um, I
m happy to
see the dwelling units per acre
at a reasonable 17.7 in my
opinion. Um The private street
you
re referring to, is this,
this, the trash and all of
those things would be handled
entirely by the complex itself.
Because they
re townhouses,
right? So they don
t, oh, so
they do get city services the
townhouses would get city
services, yes. Stacked units
would not. That
s correct. I
don
t know how that
s gonna
work. Um, similar situation in
Mount Vineyard at the corner of
Oak and Main Street has similar
setup townhouses and 2 of her
tubs and, and condominiums in
that development, so it is
split. Ok, different colored
trash cans on different units,
I think I was gonna say I was
gonna fighting over some
dumpster, but maybe not, um,
and again, I know this is step
1 of 100. Um, I do think, again,
I, I live right near here, what
I think we are lacking is, like
you said, a cafe style place, a
place that does sandwiches, a
place that does a nice lunch,
you can get some stuff for
dinner, takeout, um, I love
coffee shops, but when they
don
t serve sufficient food
like we have enough coffee
shops right now. So again, I
know that that
s in the weeds,
but I live here, I have a
vested interest in, in seeing
something like that succeed, um,
but I, I have to say I, I am
pleasantly surprised and I
m
sure those that are watching at
home are like, wow, she
s
actually supporting something,
right? Um, and, and I am, I, I
again, I would like to see
maybe the, the shift of the
stackable over to the back, but,
um, I, I think there
s a lot of
really good things here, um,
you did mention that the
current tenants were 40%. 40%
vacant right now and expected
to transition out in the next
18 months is that simply
because the owner of the
building knows he wants to do,
he or she wants to do something
and is not renewing leases. The,
uh, the value of the leases are
far below the, the cost of, uh,
fix the building up to the
state where we remain leasable,
so it doesn
t make any economic
sense any any longer. And what
is currently in space it
s
about and about 2/3 office, so
they kind of local small office
kind of users. Ok, do, do we
know if we anticipate the
people that are there currently
wanting to remain in the city,
are there options for them, or
is that just they
re likely
gone. Yeah, I think, and you
know, the owner
s not with us
this evening, but, you know,
we
ve had conversations with
them. I think we would be
absolutely very open to working
with economic development and
facilitating relocation in the
city if that, if that is a
possibility. Um, the, the
ownership group that owns this,
this, these buildings today
have owned for quite a long
time. And so, um, you know,
they have, they, they, they
very much want to do. Do right
by their attendants as, as they,
as they move on, as they move
out, and so that
s something
that
ll be working through
throughout this process and,
and beyond, um, one more thing
while I have the microphone and
I, I
d be remis with that at
the risk of snatching defeat
from the jaws of victory here.
Um, green space you mentioned
on, on Chambridge Road here,
just to be very clear, what we
did there is we, we took, um,
what
s in the city
s plans
right now for the intersection
improvements at Eaton Place in
University, and we kind of
overlaid that, what that
s
going to look like in the
future. Just to be very clear,
ok, so not a pocket park there.
Correct. This, this, that
s
really for illustrative
purposes, that
s going to be
done in the future when the
intersection improvement
project goes forward. And so
what we did is we just simply
overlaid the city
s plans onto
these drawings to show what it
will look like in the future
when it
s all said and done, I
appreciate your honesty and
transparency on that one the
other spaces on the site, we
ll
take care of those. Ok, great.
Thank you very much. Council
member Peterson. Yeah, I was
wrong on my math. And council
member Hall was kind enough to
recut the numbers, and I just
wanted to, um, reinforce that,
uh, the 45% growth in
households over 1015 years, but
let
s call it 10 years, um, is
more than 4 times, it
s 4.5
times the rate of household
growth that occurred in the
last in the period of 2020 to
2025 in the city. So this just,
again, this is not an issue
with this particular proposal,
but it is a general question
and concern about the overall
volume and rate of growth for
residential units because it
far surpasses both in rate and
volume, what we
ve seen in the
last 5 years. Of of course, the
backdrop is we
re down economic
and population growth, so it
s,
it
s even more reason to be
wondering, um, how best to
approach these things. I think
it underscores the need to have
this conversation about the
commercial. Strategy for this
area and what that looks like
and whether there are yet
opportunities that you all
haven
t been able to capture
yet that might tap into that.
Um, and I think it also, uh,
makes us think a little bit
twice about, um, how we
re
approaching the residential
unit additions, um, across the
board in small area plans. I
appreciate what you all have
done and I appreciate your
flexibility and openness here,
and this is a first swing, what
you
ve done, but I, I think it
is good and fair to give you
sort of some feedback. In terms
of this whole commercial issue
and hope that we maybe can look
into that a little bit more
clearly as we go forward. Thank
you. Councilmember Bates. Just
an additional comment, um In,
uh, the interest of perhaps
having some give and take here,
um, I could see, and um, you
know, maybe this is something
that you might not necessarily
even want to do, given, uh,
marking conditions, but I could
see in exchange for, uh, more
significant amount of
commercial space, uh, going to
all 2 over 2s, for example, to
maintain, you know, the number
of units roughly that you
ve
proposed. Um, in exchange for
providing additional commercial
space here. Um, again, ideally,
at least half what
s there. But,
um, also just want to point out
that in addition to the 5-story
hotel that
s, um, directly to
the south, the office building
next to the assembly on the
west side of Chambridge Road,
uh, that basically backs right
up to the community. There is
also 4 stories, so very in
keeping with the current
character of that area. Um, and
additionally, the small area
planner recommends a maximum of
7 stories here. So you even
have some additional
flexibility, but I think that 4
stories throughout the site, um,
would certainly be reasonable.
Other questions or comments? Ok,
so, um. I think this is a good
project, I like it, I think.
Townhouses and 202s in this
location is going to be very
appealing because of its
proximity to I-66. I predict
they will be sold before
they
re completed. Uh, it also
backs, it, it
s gives access to
the I-66 trail. A very
significant, and they
re just
additions and implementation
for the I-66 trail, and this
housing is right there. As far
as the retail, when I see, I
see what you see, which is
you
ve got 2 hotels, you
ve got,
uh, the botanist over here, and
the re the the retail is
probably going to be the
services those people want to
walk to. And that just makes
sense that that
s the kind of
commercial retail that
s gonna
be there is the kind that
serves that community. I like
the fact that it
s so few units
because the smaller units on
these small parcels give, um, a
better opportunity to create a
closer community. I mean, you
look at some places in Northern
Virginia that have townhouses,
communities that are just
hundreds and hundreds of
townhouses, and I think with
the number, we have other small
townhouse developments. It just
gives a greater sense of
community. I I think, but the
proximity to I-66 and I-66
trail are gonna make them
highly, highly desirable, I
believe. And so I really liked
the project. I know you
ve gone
above and beyond on the green
space in the Linear Park and
you
re paying attention not
only to what the small area
plan calls for, you
re paying
attention to what you
ve
historically heard the feedback
from this council on other
projects, dpi adaptive fitness
is in this complex. They
re on
the first floor. Um, I don
t
know what other business are
there, we have vacancy in the
city for like accountants and
medical space and things like
that. But dpi adaptive fitness
is a very unique Space that has
been configured in a, in a
specific way. And so I think I
haven
t spoken with Devon or
anyone else over there, but the
city obviously has plenty of
time to work with them to find
another location in the city,
but, you know, so it
s
important that we know who our
businesses are. I believe that
they
ll want to stay here in
the city, but we
re the first
step of 100, people are now on
notice that we need, and I
think our economic development
team will in fact find Spaces
for the businesses that want to
stay here, and I hope they all
want to stay here, but I think
the fitness definitely will
want to stay here. So I have
confidence. I really have
confidence in this project and
look forward to seeing you come
back. Um, based on the feedback
you
ve gotten. So thank you
very much. Thank you I
appreciate the feedback. MISS
Shenterbury before I announce
the next item, and it was a
little early, but I
m just
doing a time check, a 9:45. Ok,
so our last work session item
is a discussion of a request by
combined courthouse llcc/o
combined Columbia Glade llc.
20049 for the redevelopment of
10,300 Willard Way in Pris
57220004d and 3922 Blenheim
Boulevard in Perez 57220003a.
I
m gonna recognize Claire
Schweiger, our city planner for
the staff presentation. Ok,
moving right along to
Courthouse Plaza. This is a
work session to discuss a
redevelopment proposal at
10,300 Willard Way and 3922
Blenheim Boulevard. We are
currently in the post
submission phase of the
development review process. So
the applicant has made 2
submissions of the plan and
staff have given the applicant
comments on their application,
a work session was held with
the Board of architectural
Review on JUNE 3rd, and with
the planning commission on JUNE
22nd. On the right here is an
aerial of the site, the site is
bounded by Blenheim Boulevard
on the east and University
Drive on the West to the north
is Democracy Lane and Plaza
Drive, and to the south is the
library. The site is located in
the activity center place type
and is subject to the old town
Fair Fairfax small area plan.
The site is currently zoned cr
Commercial retail and cg
commercial general and the
transition overlay district and
the applicant proposes a zoning
change to pdm plan development
mixed use. The applicant
proposes a phased development
with phase 1 including 315
residential units, a 72 ft
height maximum, which does
require a special exception,
the applicant has submitted a
special exception request to
exceed the 48 ft height maximum
and the transition overlay
district and the small area
plan recommends a six-story
height maximum on this site.
Phase 1 also includes 12,500
square feet of first floor
retail, roughly 30,000 square
feet of open space, a plaza to
the east of the existing retail
new landscaping and 2 new
streets. It also includes new
and widened sidewalks, the
applicant is also requesting a
special exception for sidewalks
to allow some sidewalks to be
narrower than 10 ft. The plan
also shows 741 parking spaces
and service and structured
parking. The applicant is also
requesting a special exception
to reduce the minimum parking
ratio from 1.5 to 1.25 parking
spaces per residential unit.
The plans also include facade
updates to the courthouse Plaza
Shopping Center and public are
along the proposed Street 1
facade. Phase 2 would require a
future amendment to the master
development plan, so if this
application is approved, phase
2 would need to come back to
this body at a future time for
approval. In phase 2, the
applicant proposes 315
residential units, a new North
to South Street, 50,000 square
feet of first floor retail. Um,
in addition to one of the, the
pa buildings, 90,000 square
feet of open space and 980
parking spaces across surface
and Structure parking. Here are
some renderings of the proposed
building for phase 1. These are
more renderings. These are
renderings of the center that
would be re-faced, and then, um,
on the right image you can see
a proposed plaza to the east of
the existing retail. And then
next steps for this application
are planned resubmission and
staff review, public hearings
with the planning commission,
city council, and the Board of
architectural Review, and that
concludes my presentation, and
the applicant is here to
present next. Mhm. Yeah, do you
want to switch or do you wanna,
yeah. Sorry, one moment. There
you go. Good evening. My name
is Molly Navotny. I
m an urban
planner with Curatea Partners,
and I
m pleased to be here
before you tonight, uh, with
the combined properties team, I
have Ayesha Hill at the table
with me. Um, significantly to
this, this body, combined
properties owns 4 properties in
the city, Scout on the circle
in the upper, in, in the upper
portion of this image, picket
and turnpike shopping centers,
and then Courthouse, which is
what we
re talking with you
about tonight. This image, um,
you saw when I was here before.
It shows the area in magenta,
which will be removed. That is
the only portion of the
building that would be removed
with this first phase, and then
rebuilt with a mixed-use
building. Everything in green
is existing retail that would
be renovated with this project.
We have made significant,
significant revisions to this
application before this body
saw it since this body has seen
it in 2025. Additionally, we
ve
made significant revisions
since the images that Clara
presented in her presentation,
so you
re going to see
different architecture in my
presentation, you
re going to
see additional commitments that
we
ve made, because we have
been working with staff, the
planning commission and bar
over the last 6 weeks to be
able to address their comments.
So significantly with this
application, we
re now rezoning
the entire property. Um, to the
pdm district. We
ve also
proposed that second phase,
which was something staff had
requested before. We
ve removed
some, several of our special
exception requests, including
the request for parking, um, we
have upgraded our architecture,
so you
re going to see a lot of
red brick integrated into the
buildings, you
re going to see
the commitment that the Safeway
gets re-faced with this phase 1.
We
ve also reduced the height
of the building at the corner
of University and Democracy, um,
some additional things with
landscape. We
ve added a
Central Park in phase 2, we
ve
added a linear park along
Blenheim. We
ve really created
an established new open spaces
and also added interim open
space at phase 2 gets delayed.
And then for sight conditions,
we have removed the pinch point
at the sidewalk, so our pub
sidewalks facing public roads
are all 10 ft, and we have
widened some streets to, for
vehicular traffic. But to set
the stage, this application is
here before you because you
re
a small area plan in 2020 asked
for this application. It
identified this site to be
redeveloped to include
multi-family apartment
buildings up to 6 stories in
height and to be grocery
anchored. The area in this
image in this part of Old Town,
had 0% residential in 2020, and
that plan called for a 58% mix
of residential, and that
s
again from your small area plan.
And so what we
ve done with
phase 1 is we
ve, um, focused
on the left portion of the
project. We
ve got the parking
garage, the interior courtyard,
and a mixed-use building. That
building will have 12,500
square feet of new retail, and
all of this green space will be
all, uh, open space available
in phase 1 with new pocket
parks throughout. And then when
we come to phase 2, what we
ve
done is we
ve established the
street network. We
ve
established the street trees,
we
ve established the building
envelope. We hadn
t had these
details before you when we were
here in 2025, but we have now
committed to this as a phase 2
plan to start to show you how
the full site could redevelop
and this entire site would be
rezoned. Additionally, we
ve
shown an additional building on
the pad site, that building
could locate in different areas
along that path site. We could
put it along street 2 or along
Blenheim as we
ve shown.
Architecture, this is the image
that was in Clara
s
presentation and is what was
included in our second
submission to staff back in MAY.
Since that time, we
ve heard
from your, uh, bar and staff,
they would like more red brick.
So what you
re going to see is
a significantly revised
building, what this building
does is it removes the white
brick and it converts any black
brick to be an accent material
and it integrates red brick
throughout. These facades, um,
democracy, university, and
street 1. Are primarily brick,
the only element on these
buildings besides accents that
isn
t brick is that champagne
colored fiber cement. So we
ve
really done a significant
overhaul with the materials and
the color palette. This is a
corner of democracy and
university. You can see how
we
ve lowered that building
height to help with that
transition at that corner. And
then again, just looking up
democracy. This is the Safeway,
the top image is what it looks
like today. The bottom would
show a reef face Safeway, which
would occur prior to
residential occupancy, and then
the overall center being a
completely renovated and
integrated development.
Existing tenants, yes, we will
be relocating existing tenants
that are there. We have
commitments in our application
that commit to rent subsidies
for tenants in good standings
to help them relocate to find
other properties in the city,
we also have a commitment that
we
re going to reserve some
smaller space in our building
for startup customers and to
continue to work with your
economic development, we think
those are important commitments,
and we
re proud to have made
them. Terms of connectivity,
the site is incredibly porous,
this image shows in orange all
the vehicular routes through
the site, and then all of the
pedestrian routes through the
site really interlinking all
components of the project,
these are just gonna show some
images of these sidewalks
around the site. We
ve got at
least 7 ft of walking area on
Street 1, and then it enlarges
to at least 10 ft of walking
area everywhere else, um, if
not 12 ft or wider, you
ve got
lots of room for outdoor space,
lots of room. For tables, um.
And then we
ve got significant
open space. Today, the site
only has 4.3% open space. It
s
ridiculous. There
s there, it
s
a surface parking lot at the
end of phase 1, we will have
increased that open space to
12.3%, and then we
ve added
interim open space if by 2035
we haven
t moved forward with
the next phase that um bolsters
that open space to 13.4% before
bringing it to the 20% with the
full build out of phase 2, just
some images to show you and
give you that feel of how we
ve
articulated and really
activated the open. Space.
Retail park along Safeway,
proposed linear Park along
Blenheim. And then again, a
reminder of the significant
revisions that we
ve made to
this application since 2025,
and I
m happy to answer any
questions. Council member Amos.
Thank you. Uh, this was a great
presentation, um, just to go
into some of the likes, the,
the, the open space plus the
linear park, that
s pretty
impressive, so I appreciate
that. I
ll come back to the
tenant relocation plan shortly.
My understanding is also you
ve
been in communication with our
economic development team, and
I see that
s included in here,
that makes me very happy to see,
and I, I think you
ll probably
hear from my colleagues as well
with the color scheme is a
significant improvement, so, uh,
I really like to see that for
the tenant relocation plan.
Just for clarification, and
this is more just interest
rather than anything
substantial for the graduated
rent for smaller scale tenants.
So, in terms, where did that
idea come from and what
s your
ultimate goal with, with
accomplishing that? Good
evening. So the idea originally
came from, the current
situation at Courthouse Plaza.
Because we do that, we wanted
the opportunity to redevelop it.
We were left with, uh, below
market lease terms, um, so
ultimately for less than market
rent, you could lease our space
and instead of 10 years, you
might get 3 or 5 or 7 depending
on the timing. And so there are
some tenants that have this gap
between what
s technically
market rent and what they
re
paying today. And so
recognizing that difference, we
wanted to be able to, you know,
help people along the way and
our tenants along the way in
the event there isn
t another
below market space available
for them, um, that we can help
them get there. So over a
3-year period, you know, the
details still need to be worked
out how it would work with the
other landlord, and, um, that
sort of thing, but that we
would, we would, um, fill that
gap for them. Um, and then on
the other side of that, that
there could also be an
opportunity for new small
businesses coming in, or
businesses that are currently
there today that want to come
back. That might also need, you
know, similar assistance as
they get started and, you know,
are early in their business
that this could be a place they
could come and start and grow.
And would this be just for 3
years, or are you saying this
is kind of like a process you
want to implement moving
forward over the long term. So
far existing tenants, it would
be for 3 years, um, it
s not
something that we could
financially handle, um, you
know, into infinity, um, we
could give it a little bit more
thought on the new small
businesses, our original
thought that it would be a
similar 3-year period, um, and
they could choose to stay
though in the space, but that
their rent would gradually
increase over time and if they
chose to stay, they could.
Sorry, I asked my question
poorly and that
s why there
s
confusion. Uh, what I mean is,
for example, you have. A
business that moves in there
and they
re there for 10 years
and they had to relocate to the
new business coming in get a
similar program, or would they
just go, I
m assuming at the
rate that
s existing at that
time. So, after 10 years, it
would be that new market rate.
Ok, thank you. Other questions,
comments? On this Council
member Bates. Uh, thank you. So,
um, certainly, you know, I
think that there have been, uh
Some improvements here that are
much appreciated. Um As well as
perhaps some lingering minor
questions and, and issues, uh,
to be addressed and understand
that you all, you know, have
another submission coming up,
um. And but I mainly just want
to ask, do we have the, uh,
current, um, tree canopy
percentage as well on the site.
Under current conditions. We
are working on getting you the
current tree canopy on the site
today. It
s, um. The way tree
canopy is calculated, doesn
t
necessarily measure the
survivability or the quality of
that tree and so rather it
takes it into account the
canopy of the tree, but if you
go out to look at that tree,
the health of the tree, um, is
not always the at the standard
you would want, and so we
re,
we want to be able to paint an
accurate picture for you. And
so we will be providing That
calculation, but at any rate, I
think that, um, the significant
increase in open space, um. You
know, particularly where, uh,
there was simply pavement
before and, uh, in a lot of
cases. Represents a significant
opportunity to reduce
impervious surface on the site,
um, in addition to, I believe
that there are additional
stormwater management
improvements proposed as well.
So I think that
s, uh, really
important for environmental
sustainability going forward,
um, as well as, um, you know,
stormwater management. Thanks.
Council member Hall. Thank you,
uh. So I, I want to start with
saying this is, in my opinion,
very, very much improved. I
m
really happy to see the changes
to the brick. I feel like
you
re incorporating a lot more
of what is our historic old
town and so many areas
throughout the city. Sorry, my
voice is going away. I, I, I
m
having some trouble visualizing
some things and I
m hoping you
could maybe help me a little
bit. Um, I
m also curious, did
you side note, did you happen
to meet with the old Fairfax
muse, hoa. We did. A while ago
or recently? 2 weeks ago, 3
weeks ago? Ok, because the, but
did they see this updated? No,
so when this is a work in
progress and this is part of
what happens in this cycle,
right? So we had been to the
planning commission and the bar
before we met with the Fair old
Fairfax Muse. We told them that
those bodies had asked us to
revise the architecture. We had
shown them an interim option
that we had shared with the
planning commission, but said
we are still working on this.
So they have not seen These
latest ones, you guys are the
first to see them. Ok, I, I
appreciate that and, and
knowing that I think Some of
the concerns that the, the hoa,
I
m sure you heard them. Yeah,
I
m hopeful some of those have,
have, have been, I think,
moderately addressed in here,
um. And this is where I
m going
to need a little bit more of a
visual. So Looking at this
picture. Democracy Lane looking
east. So this, the flats are on
the left. Is that the flats on
the left there, I
m at, I
m
standing at university, ok,
looking up democracy lane here.
Ok. Ok. It
s not showing. Ok,
so right now we
re at 5 stories
on the front side as opposed to
the 6 that had been previously
Yes, so let
s Let me go back up.
So this image now, I
ve moved
down a street, so sorry for the
confusion. I
ve moved down a
street. This is look, um, to
the left is university and the
flats are in the background
behind that ghosted out tree.
Street, our new street 1 is to
the right here. And so this is
kind of our front entrance. I
m
looking, um, the old Fairfax
Muse is going to be up into the
left. Ok, so I
m on university
now on university now, and so
you have here 6 story, a
6-story building along
University, it drops to 5
stories at that corner. Of
democracy. On the left side, it
drops to 5, ok, is it? So I, I
appreciate that the land, I
m
sorry, not the landscaping, the,
the These your words. The way
that the, the darker brick, I
guess is there and in the
forefront and then the wider is
in the back. I feel like that
visually helps a lot with the
height feeling, um, I do still
feel like that one section
there where it says retail and
the apartments is still a
little tall. I would love to
see that knocked down by 1
story, if at all possible, but
I do understand that, you know,
you need to make a profit and
all of that. I still think it
s
a lot of units, but visually, I
think this is much more appeal.
Willing and in line with What
our residents had, have been
asking for there, um. This is
going to be a Clara question or
maybe a Dan question, but I
don
t think I realized that
University Drive is going to be
going down to 1 lane to
accommodate bike. Lanes. I
thought we were Putting bike
lanes on there, but we were
still keeping 2 lanes of
traffic. Sorry, I
m making it,
we
re making you get up a lot
tonight. Um And, and quite
honestly, I
m not sure I should
be answering this. I believe, I
believe it
s 4, it
s a 4-lane
section as you get toward North
Street, and then as you come
back, headed north, going by
this property down the hill and
so forth, it transitions to a 3
lane section where you have a
center turning lane and 2.
Travel lanes, but We
ll check
that. Our traffic engineers
here and they
re nodding their
head. That
s correct in
agreement. Ok, for the city
s
plans, not our plans. We
ve
just shown them, but they
re
the city plans. Yeah, I, I,
what I will say for the city as
large, whether it
s you guys or
the city, but we have these
nice 10-foot wide sidewalks,
which could also be called a
shared use path. To me, that
could be a great place for a
bike to go without taking out a
total lane on university,
recognizing not your situation,
but, um, I think we
re going to
get a lot of pushback when that
Starts to come out a little bit
more. I don
t know who I
m
looking at, but all of you. Um
So I, I, I think this is not
depressing looking anymore to,
to quote the woman that came
earlier, and I, I have to agree
with her. I mean, I think
before it was very, it
s just
too new. It
s too fancy. It was
too all of the things that I
don
t think were great. Um, I
still think it
s a lot of units,
and I know I
ve said that a
couple offf different times and
I
m not going to change my mind
on that. Um, but I, I really do
want to give you credit for
adding in as much of the open
space that you have adding in
the green space, um, I don
t
know what your plans are. For
like the parking, but if
there
s any way to do some
Impervious, no, pervious
parking spots in some of those
areas with, you know, the fancy
things as opposed to concrete
or asphalt or whatever. I think
that
s another opportunity to
take what is still a pretty
large parking lot out in the
open, um. I appreciate your,
I
m sorry, I
m trying to find
the pages here, but I
appreciate your efforts to do
the, um, kind of the pocket
park along Blenheim and some of
the other things. Um, I Is this?
Yeah, sorry, there
s a lot of
pages. Thank you. Um, But there
was another, there was another
spot where you were kind of
doing a little bit more of a
park feature. There we go.
Thank you. Um, so we have, this
is our phase 1 commitment that
when the multi-family opens,
and then the darker green on
the Blenheim side here would be
an interim park space, if for
some reason, we don
t move
forward with phase 2, so right
now, if you MAY, if you recall
Safeway controls the entire
parking field with its lease.
So we can
t affect those
parking spaces any more than
what we
ve already done, but
when that lease expires at the
end of 2034, we can control
that space and so we can commit
to turn that Into additional
open space at that time, if we
haven
t filed a phase 2 plan.
Ok. And Does any interior
Safeway work get done in any of
these proposals? So, uh, that
s
Safeway
s decision, it is our
hope that they will do work on
the inside of the building, but
they are completely in control
of that, um, and not combined,
unfortunately. Ok, I figured
that was going to be your
answer. Um, I do like the brick.
I, I like all the things that
you have proposed there. Um,
remind me again because it
s a
lot of pages here. How many
units total are we talking in
phase 1 and phase 2? It
s a
total of 315 units per building.
And so phase 1 would be 315,
and then if we come forward
with phase 2, it would be 315.
Um, it
s important to, yes,
over. A significant time period,
right, and we
re not, we
re not
asking for the approval of
phase 2 of those details now.
We we are merely committing to
the buildable envelope, the
street network, the street
trees, the open space
commitments, but we want the
market, we want the city
s
growth to be able to be
absorbed into to really give us
guidance on that phase 2. Ok,
um, and I, I think. Again, it
s
a lot of units, but I do think
it
s reasonable in, in the, the
layout and the things that have,
have come out of this newer, um,
design with it, do you know
roughly what your breakdown is
going to be for 1 versus 2
versus 3? Units, bedroom units.
We can get you the specific
breakdown for now, um, I don
t
have that in front of me, but
we will have the majority 1
bedroom unit bedroom. Yes. Ok.
Ok. And will there be any like
amenities on site? Can you
remind me for the residents
that live here? Yes, so, um,
there
s a structured parking
garage fills the, um, upper
part of the interior building
and then it
s an interior green
courtyard that would have a
pool. We
ve committed to a pool
indoor or outdoor pool outdoor
pool, um, but it
s an Uh,
courtyard that is internal to
the building, right? So it
s
really creates that priva
privacy for those future
residents. Ok, uh, and I was
happy there would, there will
also be a fitness center and
kind of co-working space in a
lobby and your traditional, you
know, pet spa bike room,
traditional, um, Class a
apartment amenities. I
m sorry,
was that pet spa? Yeah, so a
spot to wash your dog. All
right, that
s called my shower
right now, but I know. Ok, um.
Sorry, question just left my
head. Oh, I did want to thank
you also for reaching out to
every single tenant that
s in
there. I, I
ve actually heard
from a couple of tenants, um,
this week. I haven
t had a
chance to respond yet, but I
think that the outreach was
appreciated. I
m happy to see
the plan that you
ve put in
place and just to make sure I
understand what that is. It
s a
commitment of Low for up to 3
years with pre-negotiated
increases of 3% per year. So
after those, so this would
allow them to Temporarily
relocate. Come back into your
new space for 3 years with a 3%
increase. Is that correct? So
whether the relocation would be
up to the tenant, so we
ve
committed to, um, helping them
find a new space if they would
like, um, or if they do want to
come back into the space, then
we could help them in that
situation as well, but it is
challenging for tenants to move
twice, um, so there probably
wouldn
t be very many that do
that, but we are open to them
coming back if they would like
to do that. Ok. And is there
any Anyway, with the
construction and my, the answer
might be no, but is there any
way that these businesses could
stay in place during some
portion of the construction,
like when you
re working on the,
I
m going to use the word left
because i
m not good with east
and west, with the left portion
and those kind of things, or is
it once you start, you start
and everything to the left of
the Safeway is, is kind of
instantly gone. Oops, it
s more
than likely everyone will have
to vacate for safety reasons.
We usually have to cut off gas,
power, water, and make sure
things are safe. Ok. Ok, well,
it
s never perfect for
everybody, right? But I do
appreciate what you are doing,
and I, I think it
s clear that
you have gone above and beyond,
I know phase 2 was not
something that you initially
wanted to kind of commit to at
this point. I know there was a
lot of pushback on that from
city staff, from, you know,
members of council as well. So,
I do want to acknowledge that I,
I can tell a lot of extra work
has gone into this. So thank
you very much. Thank you.
Council member McQuillan. Thank
you. This is much, a much
better fit than previous
submissions. I really
appreciate, um, the work that
you all did on changing the
colors and the architecture
look to it. It looks much more
like it fits in this area of
our community. Um, I also like
the reduced height at the
corner of University and
Democracy, I think that, that
really does make a huge
difference. The 10-foot
sidewalks, thank you, really
appreciate that and the green
spaces, I like that as well. Um,
The only concern I have, oh, I,
i do like your explanation
about your approach and your
strategy for phase 2, and the
Safeway, if you could do that,
that would look great. Um, the
only concern I have is density
still. It
s still pretty, it
s
still a lot of units there for
me. Um, however, It looks like
there
s, I guess the only
question I have then is what,
what community benefit beyond
just housing, do you see this
offering? So we have a
commitment statement within
that statement we
ve, you know,
made commitments to, um,
financially fund the schools.
Financially fund Parks and Rec.
Trying to get to the right page.
We
ve made our tenant
relocation, sorry. I skipped
right by it. So the city school
fund, we
ve committed to $1600
a unit, which is more than
other applicants have committed
to and we studied this last
time, we
ve got, um, $367 a
unit for city recreational
amenities. We
ve committed to
up to $305,000 toward
undergrounding utilities, um,
we
ve added $10,000 for
commemorative signage on the
site and a variety of things
like that. Thank you so much,
and then, um, my last question
was that the small area plan in
this area, what is the top
amount of stories that you can
go for this spot. It calls for
6 stories. It
s 6, and that
s
what this says, right? And
that
s what we proposed. Thank
you, I appreciate that. Council
member Peterson, just a couple
of clarifying questions I MAY
need a little help from staff
on this. I got the presentation
this morning at 9 and really
didn
t have a chance to go
through this and Details, so,
uh, pardon me if I have not
been able to Uh, capture
everything in here and that I
m
not able to capture everything
with the questions right now.
Um, But just a couple of
clarifications here. You said
there
s 0 residential. Density,
or 0 residential. What were you
referring to again? So in the
small area plan when that was
adopted in 2020, it identified
that there was no residential.
I can pull up the page number.
No residential in this portion
of, um, the small area plan, so
it
s page 25 of the small area
plan, it has pie graphs on it
and it noted existing mix of
uses and proposed mix of uses
this portion, are you talking
about the old town Fairfax
property, Old Town Fairfax
Small. Are plan, and there
s no
residential in that area, that
is what the small area plan
document identified on page 25
with a pie chart. So when the
plan was completed in 2020.
There wasn
t any, but now on
page 8 of my staff report I
have the same table that you
saw in my last presentation, so
there, there has been plans
approved, um, since then. Yeah,
I think the planning commission
commented on 2000 bedrooms, uh,
in that area, so some such
figure, but I, I was just a
little surprised to hear that
it
s my neighborhood, so, you
know, I
m familiar with, uh, a
lot of residences there. Um,
the, maybe to go back just,
just to be a little clear. Um,
And again, I got the
presentation and I, I noticed
something in it that said, The
smaller plan. I think it was
calls for 1250 units and it
s
my understanding that this sort
of goes back to the earlier
discussion this evening that
that 1250 is, uh, potential
under market conditions, but
it
s not a goal, right, yep,
that
s just an estimate from
the small area plan. Ok, so
it
s not really calling for
that, it
s just saying that
s a
possibility under market
conditions. It also is not
requiring 6 stories. It is
permitting up to 16. Stories,
so there
s flexibility around
that. Um, ok, so then the other
thing, and not to be totally
nitpicky here, but the guiding
principles for redevelopment, I
think are really focused on The
kinds of, um, Design
considerations that you
ve
brought to the site and I, I
think you
ve been working
really hard on that. Uh, it
s
clear, but I
m just wondering,
I mean, we
re acting, uh, as a
body here to make a public
policy decision and are driven
by community interest and
public. Interest in this, and
I
m wondering, are there,
perhaps this is, uh, for staff,
but there ought to be another
set of principles here or a
principle anyway. Related to
the public interest, and how
would you express that in terms
of how this meets. As a matter
of principle, public interest
to put this particular Uh,
proposal in place, and I
m
particularly noting. There
s
been a lot of concern about
height and density. There
s
also been a lot of concern
about the shift here towards
residential, uh, versus
commercial, and the city
s
overall need for expanding
commercial in light of that,
what, what is the principle
here in terms of, of the public
interest for this. So this
shopping center has been, um.
Not the city
s crown jewel for
decades, and so we think the
public interest will be
represented by redoing the
shopping center and creating it
to be an active and vibrant
community with strong
pedestrian vehicular
connections through it, lots of
new open spaces and wider and
improved street presence along
to central drives to the city,
university, and Blenheim. So we,
we certainly hear a lot,
there
s been a lot of comment
on this, um. I, you know,
people love the grocery store,
etc. I think the thing that is
being raised that, uh, perhaps
raises inconsistency with
public interest is the
heightened density here and,
and the athletics have come a
long way, but still, this is a
lot in this particular spot,
there is a lot of development
here already, a lot of
residential development. So I,
I just want to acknowledge that
I think we
ve all heard that
there is a lot of concern about
that, and it
s really been
raising the question of whether
there
s some modification that
Could address the concerns that
have been raised about that. I,
I recognize there have been
some changes here. Y
all have
worked very hard on it, but the
first blush, it looks very
similar. And scale, uh, to the
proposal we
ve been seeing for
a while, so, and I
m hearing
that from others in the
community who are seeing this
and the general reaction is
essentially the same while
there have been some, um,
modifications involved in this
and improvements. It is
essentially the same proposal
as was originally presented and
that, you know, is a concern to
a lot of people. Uh, I look
forward to spending more time
with us and getting a chance to,
uh, digest this a little bit
more, but I, I would hope that
there would be a way for us to
address some of those concerns.
I also think that the phase 2
thing It is very helpful to
have made additional
commitments around phase 2, but
they
re certainly not
guarantees, and I
m not sure
we
re yet at the stage where
we
ve seen a layout for what
this area would look like under
a fully developed approach here.
I know that was a
recommendation slash concern of
staff, um, I
m interested in
looking further to see what, to
what extent that
s actually
been addressed, but it would
seem to me it
s a valid, um
Request, um, to have a closer
understanding of what a full
buildout would this look like
with, uh, of this place would
look like, uh, as a
particularly, um, pays
attention to commercial and
restate retail development.
Thank you. Council member Hardy
Chandler. So there is a great
deal of evidence that you have
been listening and integrating
what you
ve been hearing into
this next iteration of your
proposal, um, I want to Um,
echo some of the positives that
people have been talking about
the green spaces and those
kinds of things and add to that
list that you also listened in
terms of, um, concerns about
connectivity and that the
roadway spaces as well as the
pedestrian spaces, um, I do
think that, and I don
t have a
question, my questions have
been answered. I do think that,
um, you are making an attempt
to balance what
s Needed in
terms of development against
what would happen if you did
nothing, right? And I want to
highlight what you were
starting to say about that
being the public policy of it
not being the crown jewel and,
um, really looking at how we
re
uplifting the whole activity
area. I get the concerns about,
um, about, uh, density, those
are definitely an ongoing
balancing act, and yet as has
been mentioned, I think by the
mayor several times, you know.
Just in terms of having people
near the spaces to support the
retail aspects, I think is an
important contribution, um,
something has to be done there,
um, and I think that every
attempt has been made by your
organization which has Invested
in the city. Which that is
another point I want to
highlight that you have made
other investments in the city,
um, this is, I try not to look
at things in isolation. This is
yet another investment that
you
re making in our city to,
um, kind of collectively, uh,
elevate our sys our city, so I
appreciate the work that you
ve
done. I appreciate listening,
that
s evident to me, um, doing
nothing is not an option, and I
think, uh, I supported this
project in its prior iteration.
Uh, so with the advancements
that you
ve made and showing
once again that you
re willing
to listen to the feedback, um,
I appreciate the changes that
you
ve made and I just want to
highlight that, and again, uh,
for me, no development on that
very central spot in our city
is is an option that I think
goes against, um, public policy
for our city, thank you. Uh,
other comments, Council member
Peterson, just to underscore, I
don
t think I
m hearing from
anybody, there
s a preference
for 0, redevelopment here. I
think everybody, like many
other spots in the city,
virtually everybody is
interested in that. The
question is how. And that
s
really where the feedback has
been, so, uh, again, I would
hope that we would be able to
focus a little bit more on the
fundamentals of what that, um,
question really, um, involves
from the community in terms of
what happens here. Thanks.
Council member Amos? Last
comment i
ll make, uh, and it
s
a quick one just because I, I
see some similarities to it and
a lot of it depended on phase 1
getting approved and then phase
2 ideally happening, but that
phase 2 location does give me
elements of Fairfax Quarter in
it, and I do appreciate that.
Other questions or comments? I
like the the project, um. I
ve
been looking at the Safeway now
for, you know, since 1981. And
it is right in the center of
our city, and when we talk
about getting feedback from the
public, that is the point of
having a public hearing, and I
do expect that we will hear
from residents who have a
vested interest, including the
people across the street who
are residents, but I hope we
have a robust feedback from our
businesses. I hope our
businesses step up to say what
it means to have 30,060 units
right next door or right behind
their buildings. The flats at
university was our first foray
into having housing in the
downtown, which is great, but
those students aren
t there 12
months out of the year. So our
summertime doesn
t look nearly
as active as our fall and our
spring, and so I hope our
businesses will come out to
talk about the, the economic
impact of having housing in
this location, we need to hear
from everyone, and I do think
that is why we have a public
hearing, and I do want to
acknowledge the fact that you
didn
t have to come back and
Give us another chance, but,
but you did and you
incorporated so much of what
you heard, including the people
from the the muse who said, I
don
t like the color. I, I
think you have, you have done
your best to negotiate what
works. Financially and from a
property ownership standpoint,
what works for combined
properties, again, I agree with
council member Hardy Chandler,
you
ve been deeply invested in
our city for 6 decades, and we
appreciate the fact that you
keep improving the properties
that you own here. It
s a long
term relationship, and I want
to acknowledge that we
appreciate all the work that
s
gone into this, and I do think
there is an opportunity through
public hearing for people to
come and give us more
information on this Project,
but I do like the project, I do,
I, I believe it is in the best
interest long term of the city
to redevelop this piece of
property so close to our
downtown. It is just It
s
something, something has to
happen there, so thank you so
much for the presentation and
we look forward to seeing you
again. MISS Shniberry? Ok, I
will now reconvene the regular
meeting and kick it over to our
city manager, MR. Alexander.
Thank you, Mayor and Council,
uh, as you know, uh, after this
meeting, he
ll take us into a
break. For a month and then we
will be back for a robust work
session on SEPTEMBER 1st
reminder that is scheduled to
start at 4 o
clock, you will
see a number of items on that
work session. Um, for a reason,
and we certainly wanted to try
to do as much Workshopping as
we can on those sessions, so
you
ll see pre-application
briefings, um. Listed there for,
uh, 3250 Blenheim. 10, 560 Main
Street. And 3570 Chain Bridge
Road. Uh, we will also bring
back citywide level of service,
uh, and dynamic capital impact
modeling for discussion. We
will, um, make a foray into our
legislative program, and then
we will have a discussion,
which you
ll see on consent
later regarding the
reappropriation of general
operating capital and
enterprise funds carrying over
to 2027 from 2026. So again,
that
ll be, uh, pretty Um,
robust work session on the 1st.
Looking ahead to the 8th. Uh,
on consent, you will see, uh,
construction contract for
University Drive bike lanes.
And the consideration of
resolution to cancel the vdot
project. Uh, listed there. And
then, um, as I mentioned,
you
ll see the introduction or
consideration of the resolution
for the reappropriation. That
would have been workshopped on
the meeting prior. Also items
not requiring a public hearing
will be the consideration of
adopting the code of ethics. On
the 8th. Looking ahead to
finishing out SEPTEMBER. Um,
public hearing and council
action on a redevelopment of
existing office. In 14
townhouses at Mantua 9495,
Silver King Court. And then if
needed, a public hearing. In
council action on the
resolution for reappropriation.
On that night, and that would
wrap up SEPTEMBER, OCTOBER
would be our second. Uh, work
session starting at 4 o
clock.
Happy dancer, any other
questions on items that we
ve
discussed or otherwise are
ahead of us. All right.
Questions on future? Uh,
COUNCILMAN Hall. Just 2
questions, I think, um. The
University Drive bike lanes.
That
s the same conversation we
just had a few minutes ago. Can
we get a refresher on that? Did
we see that as this counselor
or was that a previous council?
Am I just totally forgetting
that we
ve talked about it for
a while, I know, but did we do
a recent public hearing and all
those things. I mean, I
m sure
that was closed out a while ago
since we
re at the
consideration phase, but I
m
just really wondering and in
light of the 10-foot sidewalks
that they
re considering is
there maybe a better solution
to a shared-use path there.
Well, we
ll, what we
ll do is
come back with Information
generally about our plan. And
more information specifically
about this ahead of this
meeting, well ahead of this
meeting, so you have that
information, yeah, I mean, we
don
t really have a lot of time
because I know we have the
AUGUST recess. I
m certainly
open to receiving information
in AUGUST, um, but, ok, uh, and
I, I will also do my due
diligence and go back, um, and
try to check that out. Um My
second question and it
s just a
logistical one, is that we have
a meeting on OCTOBER 13th,
which I think is the final day
of the vml conference. Are we?
Is it, is there any actual
conference that day and then
we
re coming home or it
s only
half day, so they wrap up about
noon that day, so we should be
home in time for a meeting, ok,
perfect, thank you. Council
member Amos follow-up question
for SEPTEMBER 22nd, the
Highlands of Mentua Project. If
I
m remembering that cor that
correctly, I remember, oh gosh,
I don
t know if that was a
pre-application that we did or
was it a post submission, I
mean, I think that was last
year if I recall correctly, and
that
s the one where we had the
conversation about whether to
keep the tree landscaping there
or they wanted to put in a park,
if I recall. Yes, I believe you
are correct, um, that, uh,
application has now gone to the
planning commission, um. There
will be a communication to each
of the members of council and
the mayor for individual
meetings to give you an update
on that project from the
development team and then any
questions you MAY have. Thank
you, just because it feels like
it
s been a pretty significant
gap in time between when we
spoke with them. I, again, I
think it was last year, uh,
versus, uh, this coming up in
SEPTEMBER. So thank you. Yes,
sir. Other questions, Council
memberer Hall? So, are we gonna
talk about the buck slip at
another time or is this the
right time? We can, I had it on
the report out so I can kill
birds we can talk about it then,
that
s fine. Thank you. That
s
fine. Council member Peterson.
Can you, uh, clarify this the
purpose and scope of the
citywide level of service and
dynamic capital impact model. I
want to set expectations for
what we will be receiving, what
is the actual purpose and
Substantive application of that
we previously, I think,
presented in a work session to
counsel, but I
ll go to the
bullpen and ask Brooke to come
up again. And this would be an
update to that previous work
session that council held,
which was more of an
introduction to the project and,
um, a review of what the effort
would be undertaking and, and
what factors will be analyzed
as part of, part of the project.
This is to come back and share
results of that analysis, um.
It would not be a moment where
we would ask for counsel
approval, um, in terms of, um,
considering proffer, uh, policy
or anything of that nature, we
would anticipate that based
upon this discussion. The
council would give staff
feedback on those results and
whether there
s a desire to, to
move forward with considering
policies in terms of level of
impact to various, um, um, uh,
city infrastructure. And so
that would be a future
discussion, and so this will be
to share the results to give a
sense of what those impacts are,
how those numbers calculate. Um,
and whether there
s a desire to
continue to move forward to
look at policies that would be
part of the city
s development
review process. Let me
understand if I might, um, a
little bit more clearly, it is
this, um, providing Guidance
and benchmarks, uh, related to
proffers. Potentially. Ok. So
potentially that is this.
Designed to be a Regulatory
impact or public policy impact,
um, assessment tool. It is a
development impact assessment
tool, and so the team has
analyzed what, um, expenditures
are associated with, um,
development proposals, what
that means in terms of the city
infrastructure, um, and Whether
or not there are, um, you know,
what those financial impacts
are, and so a level of service
study would, would provide to
the city, um, on a, um, per, uh,
project basis what those
impacts would be to things like
Parks and Recreation facilities,
school facilities, um,
transportation infrastructure,
public safety, infrastructure,
and that analysis Good guide
the city toward. A proffer
policy for all of those items,
you know, what, what the
approach has been to this point
has been those have been
negotiated on a case by case
basis, um, and not to get too
deep into the proffer thing, I
think we
ve talked a little bit
about that before, but the
Commonwealth of Virginia in
2016 rewrote the rules in the
state for proffers, which
severely limited localities
ability to negotiate for
proffers since that time, we
ve
instituted some measures that
have given us a little bit more
flexibility to do that, and so
we
ve seen, um, the potential
for for proffers to be offered,
particularly in our activity
centers because the code of
Virginia carves out special
provisions for areas covered by
small area plans, and so that
gives us some more ability to
negotiate these things, what we
would like to do is be a little
bit more systematic in how we
do that, um, and so it
s Not an
unknown to the council, it
s
not an unknown to a property
owner or developer coming in as
to what those expectations are,
but that will be totally at the
discretion of the council. This
first discussion is to merely
share the results of that
analysis if the direction from
the council from that point
forward is yes, staff, we would
like you to, to look at
creating some policies that
again could come back to the
council and we consider whether
that
s something that the
council wants. To adopt. That
s
what we
ll do. Is this an
accounting tool? So that we
know when we
re looking at a
project, uh, from an accounting
standpoint. What the outlays Uh,
outlays and expenditures are
for a particular decision we
make, is that Correct
Accounting on who
s on whose
books I mean, services and
infrastructure from an
accounting standpoint, the
public accounting standpoint,
what are we spending as a
consequence of a decision on
the development. Is that the
question this is answering? Not,
not necessarily. That
s
something that. So the city
does a fiscal impact analysis
analysis for each one of the
significant projects that come
forward to the council, and
that
s part of your staff
report that you see at a, at a
public hearing that accounts
For anticipated revenues and
expenditures for any
development, um, and looking at
the city
s budget and what
those costs are to the city and
then in terms of the
development proposal, what
revenues that, that we
anticipate coming in. So that
s
a part of what we do today, um,
and that looks at city costs
kind of across, um, you know,
across the entirety of the
budget, the Level of service
would look at physical impacts,
we look at infrastructure
impacts, things that the city
can potentially get proffers
for so they can
t get proffers
for operational. Costs the
localities can get proffers for
physical infrastructure and
expansion of capacity of
physical infrastructure. That
s
associated with the development
that
s being proposed, and so
the level of services looks
more at the, at the
infrastructure side of the
equation, not, not so much the
overall fiscal impact, but that
is part of what the council
receives as well. Is this
somewhere where it already is
scoped and we can look at its
current status in terms of what
it
s covering is there
something that you know I could
read, for instance, or anybody
else could read about the, the
scope of this, we Uh, the, the
materials that, that we brought
forward previously. Uh, we
don
t have necessarily have the
materials that will be
presented in SEPTEMBER ready to,
to bring forward yet, but we
ll
share, we
ll share those as
soon as they
re available. As
well, well, that
d be real
helpful. I mean, I think the
general thing is on, uh,
FEBRUARY 14th, I think, uh, we
had a discussion about
development land use
applications and the city
manager listed out a whole
series of Um, impacts. That
could and typically are
included in assessments of the,
um, full suite of impacts
associated with the development
or land use application, safety,
crime risk, you name it, right
down the list here. And that
sounds like that, um, you know,
it
s a set of socioeconomic
impacts. Public, public impacts
here, that
s this would provide.
Only the fiscal dimensions of
that with respect to services
and infrastructure, but it
s
not, this is really not what
impact um. Are we able to
determine in terms of the
effect of these decisions on
elevated crime risk and the
response that we will have to,
you know, uh, engineer in terms
of that, things like that. Is
that a fair understanding? Ok,
so there
s a broader piece of
this that this really is not
looking at, um, I, I would like
to see if I might, and I
m sure
everybody would, what that is
because I think there is a
broader question mark about how
we assess, um, from a public.
Inter standpoint, um, the
impacts and the opportunities
associated with these decisions
we make and it would be great
for that to be as inclusive as
possible, so I think we send
you what we have up to this
point that also say at this
point also that will offer each
of you an opportunity to have a
conversation with the head of
the work session, which will
benefit the conversation at the
morgue session that, that would
be great, and it would be great
if there could be with respect
to the fiscal impact analysis
that we do now. Um, a little
bit of transparency in terms of
what
s actually in that. I
would love to see that. Thanks.
Any other questions or comments
on the future meeting topics.
Saying none, we will go to the,
the manager
s report out. Thank
you, Mayor and Council, um, as
was mentioned earlier, we did
send you This morning a, what
s
called in buckslip,
Informational item Buck because
it
s the size of a dollar that
we would like to maybe include
in the personal property tax
bills that will be mailed out
in SEPTEMBER, the idea is to
give us some more transparency
and information on how our
general fund dollars are spent
and investments are made both
in operating and capital, uh,
we provided you an example in
the the timeliness issue really
is one of I know the
treasurer
s office wanted to
know we had consensus from
council before we coordinated
with them, um, in order to, to
push that out, and so this is
an opportunity to get some
feedback from you on that item
so that we can quickly turn it
around, um, and, and again
coordinate, uh, the process of
getting that out to, um, our
residents, so happy to take any
feedback from you on what you
saw and what you might want to
see out of that understanding,
it
s, it
s just big, so.
Council member Hall and then
council member Hardy Chandler.
Thank you, I know I
ve been
asking for this for a while and
I think actually with the
interim, so I
m really, really
happy to see that this is
moving forward. Um, I really
just have 2 suggestions. 1 is
maybe just add a thank you for
paying your taxes. Um, and also
on the backside of it, there
s
an area on the bottom right
where It had a, the percentages
of certain things and there was
a, a bit of a Are available.
I
m wondering if maybe we could
add a qr code that would direct
people to the fiscal year 2027
budget and just say, you know,
here
s Here
s a link to this,
um. Hopefully that won
t add
too much. Extra effort, but
that was just my suggestion to,
you know, kind of, here
s the
basic information, and then if
you want more information, here
it is. Nice, easy e, ready to
go. Thank you. Council member
Hardy Chandler, I think I
responded that I absolutely
support this. I think, um, the
visual helps people understand
that it
s not going into a
black hole, it really is going
to services and how those
services are divided. So I
d
absolutely support that. Is
there any question of the cost
of adding that to the mailing
of the bills, just minuscule
that we got consensus from
counsel before you approach the
treasurer again on, on this
process. Well, I, I think it
ll
be very beneficial. To all of
the residents of the city. So
thank you very much. Council
member McQuillan. Yeah, I love
this idea ever since, uh,
COUNCILMAN Hall brought it
forth. I think this is great.
Thank you so much. Any other
feedback, Council member
Peterson? Well, I think this a
separate thing that it kind of
gets to the last conversation,
but it
d be great to kind of
boil this down to a
communications format is every
time we make a decision here,
it has, well, not every time,
but very often it has, uh, out
of pocket expense implications
on residents and I like to use
the term neighborhood math,
people need to understand if
you do this, what
s coming out
of my back pocket next year.
And, um, it would be great to
be Regular about lifting that
information out of the
decisions we make so that
people who are tuning in, uh,
can know and we need to invite
other people to tune into that,
so I, I don
t think this is
exactly the same thing, but I
think they
re related. I would
say also it
s not just a matter
when we make decisions of the
out of pocket expenses that,
you know, people are facing as
a consequence of it, but just a
reminder, we
re also helping
people save, reduce those out
of pocket expenses we we On
energy, you know, clean energy
things that are actually cost
savings things, um, and then
we
ve done things that
proactively are designed to
increase revenues, commercial,
economic, household, etc. It
just would be good from a
communication standpoint for a
resident to know when we make
decisions, what
s the plus and
the minus, you know, that
s
going on here, and I, and again,
that has to be in terms they
can understand and what they
typically understand very well.
It
s what
s coming out of my
back pocket this year. So I
know we don
t have that exactly,
and that MAY be, um, ground for
further creative thinking, but
I just wanted to suggest it.
Yep. Any other comments? I
think, I think that we have
consensus that the idea is good,
it is helpful for people to
visualize where their dollar
goes, so I think you
ve gotten
feedback and other than that, I,
I, I think we
re all nodding in
agreement that this is a go.
Thank you. Anything else, MR.
City Manager? That
s it, thank
you. That
s it for you. Ok,
then we will do the councils,
council member Amos. Thank you,
uh, so looking over to Melissa,
she wanted to quickly go over
the, the BACs and setting up
that for AUGUST, I believe.
Thank you, Council Member Amos.
So each of you have a printout
of, um, the 1st 2 pages are
vacancies that
s gonna be
advertised in the AUGUST city
scene, as you see on the second
page, it
s the h cab 17
positions that are coming up.
For reappointment or
appointments. Uh, on the third
page is the applicants I have
on deck that would be ready to
be interviewed, there are 20
people listed on here. And I
m
bringing this forward because a
council member had brought this
up last week about maybe doing
an AUGUST interview night, so I
wanted to get feedback if there
be a consensus or at least 4
council members that would be
available in AUGUST. And I
would say either the, we keep
it on a Tuesday, either the
11th, 18th, or the 25th.
Because next week
s national
night out. Ok, so feedback and
we
ll just start with Council
Member Amos. Uh, AUGUST is a
bit of a rough month for me, so
it
s unlikely I
ll be able to,
however, if I were to be able
to finesse it, it would need to
be towards the end of the month,
so the 18th or the 25th. If we
stick with Tuesday. Ok, council
member Hall, I would prefer not
the 25th as our kids go back to
school the day before. So I am
otherwise, um, the 11th or the
18th work fine for me. Ok,
Council member Hardy Chandler.
I believe I can do the 18th.
Council member Peterson, I
m
flexible. Ok, Council member
Bates, any of those work for me?
Mhm. Oh, sorry, Oh, sorry the
11th or the 18th, please. Ok,
it looks like the 18th is the
winner, ok, and this next
question, like I said, I have
20 people on deck, is there a
certain amount you wanna bring
that night? We do 4 an hour, so.
That
s a long time. I can.
Council member Peterson. So I
m
looking at the list and if I
ve
got it right, 123456789, 1011,
12, like 12 or 13 are housing
and healthing Communities
advisory Board, did I get that
right? So some of them have
long titles because they
represent a certain position on
there, so really on there,
there
s, let me get my glasses
on. Ok, yeah, my eyes are not,
my eyes are not working there
s
like 6 right now. Ok, yeah,
thank you. Gosh, that was hard
to figure out. Well, there
s, I
didn
t wanna, you know, just
put names on there. I at least
You know, show like what
position they represent, but I
wonder whether that
s sort of a
stack that we might set aside
and do that, that
s a bunch of
folks and that if we split it
so that somehow or another we
weren
t doing them all at once,
that would be an option for
that being set aside. So their
terms are not open till JANUARY,
yes. So on the last page, I
have a list of all of the
applicants would be
reappointments for the rest of
the year, they vary some terms
end in SEPTEMBER, OCTOBER,
NOVEMBER, or DECEMBER. Ok, ok.
I think my suggestion would be.
Pull out the health and housing,
I
m sorry, housing and Healthy
Communities Advisory Board and
do them separately and then we
could probably get everybody
else in one night. I agree with
that for everybody else agrees
with that. Yeah. All right,
that
s all I need, I
ll get
back on the date, or we can
just see, well, we
ll see, ok,
we can do the 18th since
everybody
s pretty much on the
18th. Ok. We could start at 7
or we could start at 6, your
preference? Ok. 6, ok. Yeah, I
was like. Don
t chime in unless
you
re definitely gonna come
right, right, right, right, I
forgot it
s still on me. Ok,
thank you. All good. So
pivoting back real quick, um,
another, I guess, calendar
clarification doesn
t need to
be during council comments. I
know Brian Lubcomman responded
to us about the pickets reserve
visit on Saturday. So if folks
wanna message on how we want to
go about that, we can handle
that separately. So I
ll just
mention that, um, last 2 items,
uh, National Night Out, just
want to celebrate our police
and thank the communities who
are hosting for them next week
and, uh, shout out to Courtside
Tie on your 20 years of of
activity and, uh, serving the
great citizens of Fairfax City,
so thank you. Council member
Hall. Uh, I want to thank
Ornery for many, many years of
service to our city very, very
sad to see them close. It seems
to be a tough spot there, um,
and I loved you when you were
upstairs, I loved you when you
were downstairs, and I just sad
to see you go. Um, and I don
t
really have much else prepared.
I wish everyone a quiet month
in AUGUST while we don
t have
council meetings. I
m sure
staff will appreciate the
somewhat Hiatus of dealing with
all of us on a weekly basis,
we
ll make sure to check in, I
promise, um, and as I said
earlier to my colleagues, I
just want to thank you all for
your flexibility for our remote
participation policy with the
things that were going on with
my dad, um. Things are
definitely looking up. He went
on as a first solo walks and
things are good. Um, and if I
owe you an email, it will be
coming this week, I promise. Um,
and, uh, I know we had
difficult conversations tonight
with regard to the adu
conversation, but I do want to
say that I think we had
respectful conversation, I
think we were all able to share
our thoughts and feelings in a
way that, you know, is, is what
we should be doing on council
here, whether we Disagree or
agree at the end of the evening
about it, um, you know, we
re
all able to still get together
and laugh and do the other
things, which makes me think, I
think we
re also due for a
night out. To our planner over
here on the right. I got you.
Council member Hardy Chandler,
I hope everyone enjoys a
restful break except for
breaking the brake for other
tasks. Looking forward to
National Night Out. I
ll look
forward to trivia night day if
we do get together, um, happy
summer. Councilor Peterson.
Well, likewise, so I think
everybody deserves a good break,
and I hope they take advantage
of it. So I, believe it or not,
was the last customer to leave
winery, uh, on its last night
on Sunday. Yeah, very, um Yeah,
sad, but I had, um, a long
conversation with the owner,
and as it turns out, it
s been
a little bit of a busy week
because um it just happenstance
had long conversations with
other restaurant owners in Old
Town, some Past recent and some
current, uh, and I think they
kind of sense that came out of
all those conversations is that
there is a conversation that
hasn
t exactly happened yet, um,
with that community about, um,
what their needs are and how
they might be met, and I think
in their view, um, ain
t so
easy. There are multiple
factors at play here, um, and I
just wanted to, um, suggests
that we find a way somehow or
another to have that
conversation that is perhaps
something our economic
development director could help
with. I
m not sure, but I think
my sense from talking, uh, with
all of them, and these are
people who are, um, pretty
capable business analysts as
well as being entrepreneurs,
they, they had, um, kind of an
advanced sense of the challenge
that they
re facing and they
re
looking for a way to kind of
Unpack that in some meaningful
way, so I
d, I
d like to
encourage us to find a way to
do that because it
s, you know,
it
s tough, uh, people put
their lives into these
businesses, um, it
s
interesting the the one thing
that small business people have
in common, according to
McKinsey, is that they work all
the time and they go to the gym
regularly, and this is a set of
people who
s an example of
folks who work all the time and
to see this, uh, cycle kind of
happened where people have to
check out because, uh, they Not
able to keep up is a hard thing,
so I just want to shout out for
them. I certainly, uh, feel,
feel their pain and want to do
everything we can here to be
helpful for them. Thanks
Council Member Bates. I just
want to wish everyone a happy
national night out, um, and
echo Council member Amos
s
comments, uh, thanking our, uh,
local police. Thank you.
Council Member McQuillan. I too
am looking forward to National
Night Out, and I also was able
to visit Ornery before they
closed their doors this weekend
and we
ll be sad to see them go,
um, wishing all of our staff a
great month off. Thank you. Ok,
and I want to remind everybody
that Frozen, the City of
Fairfax Theater Company
s
production is currently playing
and we
ll be going with the
grandchildren to see that on
Saturday the 1st, so I
encourage everybody to go see
Frozen. I know you know all the
words to the songs. We also
have Restaurant Week from
AUGUST 20th to 30th, so please,
please support our local
restaurants. Speaking of our
local restaurants, get out
there, try some new ones, take
friends and family. We did that
in this particular time period
because the George Mason
students are returning to the
campus on AUGUST the 26th, and
please always keep in mind that
Fairfax City is in fact George
Mason University
s hometown, so
we need to kind of represent
out there, welcome the students
and their parents back when we
see them around town. And with
that, I
m going to adjourn the
meeting at 10:57 P.M. On