[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[1:41] We would like to open tonight's panel council work session. Our first item for discussion is the fiscal year
[1:49] 2021 budget work session.
[1:57] It is the correct. It's your ask for additional time? Yes, ma'am. How much time do
[2:02] you anticipate to? I'm right about seven minutes, but if you give me ten, I'll try my best to return three
[2:08] of them to you. And then Amy would like ten minutes. Okay, this everybody. Okay, if we increase it by 20 minutes.
[2:16] Okay,
[2:20] good evening Madam Mayor members of Council tonight as the Mayor mentioned we're here for our first fiscal year 2028 budget work session.
[2:28] A number of topics on the agenda tonight include the preliminary results for fiscal year 2026 much the same conversation that we had a few weeks ago.
[2:37] Also just to recap of how we use the fiscal year 26 data center computer equipment tax revenue followed by a recap of the 27 adopted budget and a brief outlook for
[2:48] fiscal year 2028.
[2:50] Once we've gone through that, we'll open it up for a brief Q&A
[2:53] to the extent that you're interested in that
[2:55] and then Amy will present on the Utilities Fund Outlook.
[3:02] So again, diving into fiscal year 2026 preliminary
[3:05] unordinated results.
[3:06] Just reminder that the fiscal year 26 adopted budget
[3:09] did have several programed uses of reserves.
[3:12] This is common.
[3:14] And typically, we outperform and do not need
[3:16] to use those reserves.
[3:18] Similarly, this year, those preliminary
[3:20] results do indicate that we will be unlikely to use those reserves that we anticipated in the budget.
[3:27] That's a result of better revenue performance as we talked about a few weeks ago, as well as expenditure savings on the other side of the equation.
[3:36] This slide just summarizes the actions you've taken to date as it relates to the data center computer equipment tax revenue.
[3:42] So you've received $12.1 million net between fiscal 25 and 26.
[3:48] You've programmed that for a number of different things,
[3:50] including stormwater operations,
[3:52] the purchase of rock spring farm,
[3:54] pavement management, and for your boards and commissions.
[3:57] You've then put approximately $5.9 million
[4:00] into the data center computer equipment tax reserve.
[4:04] And that's really just to be used for future priorities as you deem fit.
[4:09] Turning into the fiscal $27 budget.
[4:12] Again, that budgeted use of reserves for fiscal $27.
[4:16] That was $8.6 million.
[4:18] That included $3.7 million of the debt service reserve.
[4:22] $1.3 million of unassigned fund dollars for one-time uses.
[4:26] About $3 million of data center computer equipment taxes from prior years.
[4:30] Again, that was for the pavement as well as storm water.
[4:33] And then about $0.6 million for the increment weather reserve.
[4:38] The FY27 budget also included a number of enhancements, including the police lieutenant and police co-responder, as well as an assistant town manager for labor relations.
[4:49] It also included updates to the subdivision and land development regulations, as well as the number of other studies and minor projects.
[4:57] And then, as again, I mentioned a few minutes ago, the additional money for the pavement management program.
[5:00] Look for fiscal year 2028. We do want to highlight that there is a weaker economic outlook for
[5:03] in terms of that.
[5:05] loud and county gross county product for 26 to 28 based on the forecast that loud and county's budget
[5:11] office presented to the Board of Supervisors back in July. Last year, at this time, that forecast
[5:17] was about 4% annual growth for 26 to 27. The current forecast for the next three years is for annual
[5:24] to be between 2.8 and 3.4 percent. In contrast, 2024, the growth was 4.1 percent, and then
[5:33] in 2025, it was just 2.5 percent. You can also see from the chart that increasing inflationary
[5:40] impacts that really started around March of 2026.
[5:47] On the employment side, we did see declining
[5:50] levels of employment during 2025. That's the most recent year of data available. It decreased
[5:56] is 0.9%, which left 20, 25 levels, which are shown in these blue bars here, which look
[6:02] kind of black up there, actually lower than the 20, 23 levels.
[6:06] So a fewer number of people employed during 20, 25 than in 24.
[6:11] On the other side, that orange line represents the unemployment rate, and you can see that
[6:16] increasing since post-COVID timeframes.
[6:21] As of July of 2020, that's a typo from the 2020-26, the unemployment rate for Latin was 3.6%.
[6:29] The state was just above us at 3.7% and the national unemployment rate was 4.1%.
[6:37] Turning to the housing market, the slide is intended to just be a snapshot in time.
[6:42] We did a similar snapshot last year comparing August to August.
[6:47] So this slide just compares August of 26 sales data to August of 25.
[6:51] You can see the number of active listings increased 18% going from 771 listings to just over 900.
[7:00] That's likely being driven by the fact that there are fewer units sold.
[7:04] So number of units sold decreased 17% going from 520 down to 432.
[7:11] Along with that declining number of homes sold, we're also seeing a slowing in the growth of the average sales price.
[7:18] So while it's still higher than it was in August of 2025,
[7:22] it's not at the same pace that we've seen it
[7:24] for the past several fiscal years.
[7:26] This year August August sales prices are only up 1%.
[7:31] In terms of the days on the market,
[7:33] that's been pretty stable, 24 days compared to 23 days last year.
[7:40] Taking that in terms of the towns revenue outlook for 20, 28,
[7:44] non property taxes account for 38%
[7:47] of the current year's general fund budget.
[7:49] better than anticipated results for 26 due lend-positive science towards FY28 budget development.
[7:56] However, inflation and fuel prices really could start to suppress consumer spending which would impact those revenues going forward.
[8:04] On property taxes, which comprise just under a third of the general fund budget,
[8:08] again as I mentioned on the previous slide, slower growth in your residential market,
[8:12] which means you're going to have less appreciation in the portfolio, which means less new revenue coming in.
[8:19] For fiscal 28th, that growth is going to likely be led by your commercial portfolio of the real estate market,
[8:26] which, um, thinking about that data centers in particular, comprised 43% of the January 2026 commercial real estate values.
[8:34] So that's really what's probably going to drive your growth going into the next budget year.
[8:39] In terms of departmental revenues, those are largely led by program demand, and they typically bring with them
[8:46] increased costs of delivering services.
[8:51] On the expenditure side, some contractual increases that we know about in our preparing
[8:55] for, include the trash and recycling contract.
[8:58] We've talked about that for the past several years.
[9:00] Stormwater maintenance costs, as well as technology costs, FY28 will represent the second
[9:07] year of your collective bargaining agreement with the police department, and we anticipate
[9:11] it to bring about another year of increases in health insurance premiums.
[9:16] Other operational increases which we all know about from our personal lives include rising
[9:21] electricity rates as well as higher than anticipated field prices. We also expect a number
[9:27] of departmental requests just based on the historical trend but at this point we don't know
[9:32] yet what those are going to be. Looking forward at the budget calendar for the rest of the season
[9:38] we anticipate being back here on October 26th to discuss the six year capital improvements program
[9:43] We'll also have a budget presentation from the Department of Public Works.
[9:48] Then on November 9th we'll come back with a discussion of personal property taxes
[9:51] and a budget presentation from the airport.
[9:54] And then November 23rd if Council has identified any other types of discussion,
[9:59] we can bring those back to you at that time and seek any direction you might have for the fiscal 28th budget.
[10:00] On December 8th, we'll be back with a presentation of the 26 audit and then a staff live discussion in January, followed by an outlook from the financial advisor and planning commission beginning their review of your CIP.
[10:12] And with that, I soon ready to answer any questions.
[10:15] Thank you very much. I appreciate the seven eight minutes.
[10:21] You saved us two minutes. I can tell you with what it feels like up here, you're saving money on electricity because it's freezing up here.
[10:35] Thank you, ma'am.
[10:38] Thank you, ma'am.
[10:38] Thank you, ma'am.
[10:38] Thank you, ma'am.
[10:38] Thank you, ma'am.
[10:39] I did have one question on the slide related to 43% of our, you might have to explain it better.
[10:47] Commercial, commercial real estate portfolio.
[10:50] So, I was under the impression that our, I guess I was under the impression our financial
[10:59] impact came from the computer equipment taxes and such, but then commercial real estate
[11:05] lies. I didn't feel like data centers can price that much of our commercial portfolio for real estate.
[11:10] Is that so? I would say that all are wise. The revenue is definitely on personal property.
[11:17] That's why you hear us talk about the computer equipment piece. They still bring in a substantial amount
[11:22] of real estate just nowhere in your computer equipment tax.
[11:26] Okay, so when we're comparing commercial real estate
[11:30] to cross the town completely,
[11:33] data centers are 43% of our commercial real estate portfolio.
[11:37] They are.
[11:38] And we only have like three of them.
[11:39] I can't miss, but like three of them really, right?
[11:42] Correct, really just one location with data centers.
[11:46] Very interesting, okay, thank you.
[11:50] Mr. Counties.
[11:51] Thank you, Madam Mayor.
[11:53] On the non-property text, revenue, where you all are sending us the quarterly updates for
[12:01] this current fiscal year, is there any trends we should be looking at in those, especially
[12:06] the non-property text?
[12:08] You know, that's a great question.
[12:10] It's really difficult to say just yet what those trends might look like.
[12:15] We're in September, so we've only received, for instance, one month of sales tax revenue,
[12:19] we just have the July.
[12:20] I will tell you sales tax has been performing very strongly, but that's been pushed again by the
[12:26] data center industry county wide. They pay sales tax on the purchase of their computer
[12:31] equipment. So we have seen really strong growth there, but it really is being led by that
[12:36] market. Meals tax, we've been transient occupancy tax. We've started to see, again, slow-wing
[12:43] growth rates, but they're still growing compared to what they were last year. So nothing
[12:47] that's flashing right at this point, maybe a little bit of yellow to kind of keep an eye on,
[12:52] but nothing major at this point.
[12:54] Thank you.
[12:55] And then obviously fuel is going to be a major issue for all of us.
[13:01] Is there any conversation happening, whether it's between us and Loudon or regionally governments
[13:08] of any kind of like bulk purchasing power or anything to try to lower the cost for the town?
[13:13] So that's also a great question.
[13:15] Most localities do engage cooperative agreements.
[13:20] These work is one such community.
[13:21] We don't buy fuel just at the pump randomly.
[13:27] Do you ride the cooperative contract
[13:28] that's issued through the loud and counting public schools?
[13:31] So we are taking advantage of those kind of bulk prices
[13:34] that you mentioned already.
[13:35] Thank you.
[13:37] That's just standard.
[13:39] Thanks, dumb question first, and notice our staff report, we pay a certain amount for administrative fees.
[13:48] Who are those being paid to?
[13:51] This staff report administrative.
[13:53] Yeah, there's a hundred thousand dollars one year and then a hundred and four thousand dollars the next year.
[13:58] I think it's probably referencing the collection fees for the data center money.
[14:03] Yes, yes.
[14:04] loud and counting, they withhold 1.15% based on the MOU from many years ago.
[14:11] Okay, all right, and then, finally, we've been meeting with our legislators because one of
[14:17] things we're looking to do is get more of these specific data out of the state and I'm wondering
[14:24] to what extent or how difficult it was to arrive at a lot of this data in
[14:30] in sifting through county information, as opposed us having
[14:35] Leesburg's specific information, if you would find that helpful.
[14:41] I would say most of the data I presented to you tonight other than the very specific
[14:45] town revenue piece was in fact loud and county data because the town level data doesn't
[14:50] exist, it would probably be helpful.
[14:53] I did look at the real estate portfolio before we came in here just as an example because
[14:58] that's reported at the county level.
[15:00] Not, at least on the residential side, which is what we would compare to. Are there some pieces that might have
[15:00] Our trends are pretty consistent with that county level
[15:03] information.
[15:04] So I'm not...
[15:06] per valuable yes, but I think as loud and shifts, so does Leesburg when it comes to the revenue. So I'm not sure we'll always
[15:14] appreciate more information, but I'm not sure how much detail how much value it would add.
[15:20] Okay, well we'll see what the legislature has come to with that. Thanks.
[15:24] Anyone else? All right, utilities is going to come up next. Thank you.
[15:35] At the end of the meeting, Madam Mayor, Members of Council,
[15:38] I'm Amy White, Director of Utilities here to give the Fiscal Year 2028 budget work session for the Utilities Department.
[15:46] So the Utilities Fund is approximately $81.5 million for Fiscal Year 27.
[15:53] We're in year 3 of the five year rate study that was adopted by town council.
[15:57] Operations were just short of $29 million, debt service, $6.3 million.
[16:02] Capra Projects is 46.2 million with 2.3 million of that being carp.
[16:10] A few highlights over the years related to the Utilities budget is from an operating
[16:14] standpoint.
[16:15] We've had some additional FTEs since 2025, as well as for 2027 doing some camera and sewer inspections
[16:24] of sanitary sewer, as well as evaluating our missutility markings as an external contract.
[16:31] I'm a three-hour perspective trying to try and have about $2.5 million at a minimum in order
[16:37] to replace our assets.
[16:39] And on the capital side we have the nutrient liquid processing project that's in design.
[16:44] Solids processing improvement, the bids are due tomorrow.
[16:48] We're doing sanitary sewer pump station upgrades and then miscellaneous water and sanitary
[16:52] sewer improvements throughout.
[16:55] As you can see here over the years, the millions of gallons of water produced.
[16:58] You can see in the middle there, COVID, we saw less water being produced, but continuing the same trend over the last three years.
[17:07] Number of accounts continue to grow.
[17:09] approximately 100 additional accounts each year since 2023.
[17:15] And our mouths of sewer with development.
[17:17] We continue to accept more mouths of sanitary sewer mains as well as water mains into our public system.
[17:25] I'm going to accomplishment standpoint during fiscal year 26 because we're service staff.
[17:31] We implemented the in-town building where all out-of-town accounts receive the price of
[17:35] in-town.
[17:36] They have been billed for four, four, four quarters and that will continue with the county making
[17:41] the payment on July 1.
[17:43] We also began and received our first reimbursement from Microsoft as you know we have an infrastructure
[17:48] agreement with them related to capital projects with them paying their share.
[17:52] We've started to see reimbursement from that.
[17:54] On the capital side, we've been working on some electrical work at the water pollution plant,
[18:00] as well as doing some upgrades at some meter vaults, and the recoding of the sickle
[18:05] and tank was completed, and we're in process of painting cartank one in case you've
[18:10] not noticed that site over there at product notice.
[18:15] And we also, the Environmental Protection Agency, known as the EPA, we did submit the required
[18:20] mandated risk and resiliency assessment
[18:22] and emergency response plan for the water plan.
[18:27] And to dissipate a challenge in opportunities,
[18:29] similar to what Tamara was just speaking about,
[18:31] related to our aging infrastructure and inflation,
[18:34] but we also have recruitment and retention
[18:35] for what we are 24-7 operations
[18:38] and also finding technical expertise.
[18:41] From the aging infrastructure standpoint,
[18:43] we are seeing the need for increased sewer cleanings
[18:46] with grease and restaurants.
[18:49] We also are seeing the trend of that the longevity of our equipment.
[18:53] They just don't make it like they used to, so things that used to be 30 years old of a
[18:56] life span.
[18:57] We're not seeing that in the newer replacements, and then obviously cyber and the technology
[19:02] modernization is something on our radar.
[19:05] Inflation-wise, it would also are seeing an increase with electricity costs at the plants, and
[19:10] then the emergency regulatory requirements at both the state and local level and federal
[19:15] level related to lead and PFAS.
[19:18] Just want to end here with the fact that fiscal year 2028, which we're developing now, will be year four of the current rate study.
[19:26] So our proposal is to start around March of 2027 to find our next rate consultants, select them, and have them doing the analysis.
[19:34] Late November of 2027 through April of 2028, and then coming into Council and getting recommendations and approval by fall, so that we're ready for July 1 of 2029, which seems far away, but it is coming.
[19:48] And with that we have any questions.
[19:51] Oh, she did it in your five minutes.
[19:55] No pressure.
[19:58] Do you anticipate there would be a time when we will need in the knot too?
[20:00] Distant future to tremendously update our water systems at the plant.
[20:09] When you say update and related to capacity, you're just basically leading up for structure.
[20:14] Basically both. I mean, it's aging. Obviously, we have new requirements that are state requirements.
[20:22] I'm sure that has an impact on the plant.
[20:24] But also, as things being built out and more people are requesting water from the town, what
[20:32] of the implications of both of those items.
[20:35] From a capacity standpoint, previously, I think it was that the last meeting we had
[20:39] the memo related to the plant capacity analysis and based on the trends and what we had
[20:44] related to proposed projects from the zoning side of what's anticipated.
[20:48] We do not anticipate or we're not proposing any expansion related to capacity.
[20:52] Now, we are looking at, at the wastewater side, from a technology standpoint.
[20:57] We are the solids project that the bids are due tomorrow is related to, we're getting
[21:02] more solids at the wastewater plant than liquid.
[21:04] That's everyone having lower flush volume of toilets and whatnot.
[21:08] So again, we're seeing more solids than liquid and the solution to pollution is dilution.
[21:13] So the solids project is addressing the more solids and less liquids.
[21:17] So we're taking care of addressing any requirements from the state, from that perspective,
[21:23] but not looking to do anything from capacity and related to this aging infrastructure.
[21:28] That's why again, we recommend the carpe or the 3R as we call it again, making sure we're replacing
[21:35] water and sewer lines. We're doing the re-lining of the sanitary sewer, so keeping up with assets at the same time.
[21:45] I'm certainly enjoyed watching the water tank and I kept wondering, do they actually have to ask?
[21:53] Do they actually have to walk all the way up there every day and walk the way down?
[21:57] Really?
[21:57] You can get them in elevator.
[22:00] Wow.
[22:01] Put that in the next CIP.
[22:04] And then the last person I have for you is,
[22:08] It just went out of my mind.
[22:13] I'll come back to it if I remember.
[22:16] Anyone else have any questions at this point, Mr. Kerkowski?
[22:19] Thank you for your presentation.
[22:22] I'm going to piggyback first off.
[22:24] The mayor's comments, because it kind of just jogged a couple of questions myself.
[22:28] So it's very interesting to issue with the solids.
[22:32] And so, of course, we're trying to use less water
[22:35] by having lower volume flushes and all that.
[22:39] So I understand the dynamic of now you have more solids.
[22:42] Is that problematic to our system?
[22:45] Or is it just a, maybe a fine tuning of how we handle things?
[22:48] Is it causing problems?
[22:50] It's not causing a problem, but that's why we have the project
[22:52] that's coming up so that it's giving us more capacity
[22:56] in order to treat the solids and eventually
[22:59] what it creates is our TLC product, which is our fertilizer with the heat dryer. So it's helping
[23:05] it to move along, getting the moisture and the water out so that the solids can be processed.
[23:09] So you're kind of artificially injecting water in there to kind of help break everything down a
[23:14] little bit better. Not necessarily injecting water, but the technology piece of the treatment.
[23:19] Okay. Sounds like you have a handle. Great. Excuse me.
[23:26] I'm going to ask you a little bit to hypothesize our future.
[23:30] I realize we're in year four and it's going to be a study that leads to the right changes,
[23:35] but it sounds like we're creeping up and I just see more increases coming, but understanding
[23:43] how it breaks down between our infrastructure needs, which if maybe just a little bit of background
[23:50] are we going to be looking at capital like CIP funds for some of these infrastructure change or are
[23:56] you going to be relying on rate changes to help subsidize those costs that might increase.
[24:02] Does that make sense?
[24:04] We wouldn't say subsidize, so utility fund is an enterprise fund, so we do have to support
[24:08] ourselves. So from the subsidy standpoint, obviously we have to if the rate study determines that
[24:15] over the next five years, this is the revenue that you need,
[24:20] then they'll look at that related to the rates.
[24:22] So that's part of what the study holistically does.
[24:25] Okay, but we probably project an increase most likely.
[24:29] Most likely, and even when they did the last rate study,
[24:33] they even said, here's the five year rate study,
[24:35] and then they looked at the few years after,
[24:37] and they'll even tell you just to keep up with inflation
[24:39] and whatnot.
[24:40] Okay, all right, excellent.
[24:41] Thank you.
[24:43] You know, seven questions?
[24:45] We'll appreciate the updates and we'll be seeing you again soon.
[24:51] I'm sure.
[24:52] Thank you.
[24:57] All right.
[24:57] That takes us to our event for the night, which is the zoning ordinance rewrite.
[25:17] All right, good evening and welcome to the main event.
[25:23] Madam Mayor, members of council, pleasure to see you tonight. We'll be talking about the zoning ordinance rewrite.
[25:30] And this is our continued work session discussion on the draft. And so recall that we've made it through quite a bit so far. We've talked about all the articles in depth. And as we went along, the council peg certain items that they wanted to circle back on and discuss a little bit further.
[25:49] and so we call that our deep dive list.
[25:52] And so that's been an attachment in your packet
[25:54] and every session.
[25:55] It's grown as we went.
[25:58] And now it's our time to circle back to that list.
[26:01] And potentially start to take some
[26:04] some pulses of the council to see which direction we might
[26:06] want to head on some of these key topics.
[26:09] So a matter of structured these slides a little bit
[26:12] differently tonight.
[26:13] I've got some discussion questions to tee up
[26:16] and potentially get some votes going
[26:18] if that pleases you to matter mayor as we go along.
[26:23] So let's jump right into it.
[26:25] So tonight, the dive list is primarily focused on Article 2, which is the zoning districts
[26:32] and dimensional standards as well as the new draft zoning map.
[26:38] And we had some comments from Councilmember Cummings, wanted to look again at the housing
[26:45] makes requirements in some of the districts to make sure that we weren't stifling creativity
[26:50] in the development workplace. Marketplace. Mr. Cummings also wanted to review minimum open space
[26:57] requirements, especially in our more quote-unquote urban areas. And then there was quite a few
[27:03] members of council that just wanted to take a closer look at downtown, items such as mass, scale,
[27:08] building height, fence height, and parking to make sure that we're protecting one of our most
[27:14] I have resources. Mayor Burke also wanted to look at the Safeway parcel because it's been
[27:21] designated mixed use on the map so we'll drill in there and then there are some other
[27:25] changes of that map that staff wanted to go through with this council because we kind of moved
[27:30] over the map pretty quickly and our first blush through all of this and so we wanted to circle
[27:35] back and make sure that staff has got the map correct. All right. So housing mixed requirements,
[27:41] There are housing mix requirements in your residential medium district and what those are is
[27:50] essentially RM allows single-family homes, doplexes, townhouses and apartments and it's
[27:57] supposed to be the town's medium density areas.
[28:01] So the housing type mix ensures that at least two housing types are included in any
[28:08] developments or redevelopments, and this is only for
[28:12] developments over 24 units, so it doesn't apply across the board.
[28:17] We did want to make sure that a minimum third or 33% were
[28:22] attributed to single-family detached, and I think that helps keep the
[28:26] character of the predominant type of housing that exists in some of
[28:30] those RM district neighborhoods.
[28:33] There's also a block-face rule.
[28:35] This is a tool to ensure there's consistency along one particular block and you don't have townhouses up against a single family up against multi-family.
[28:45] So that's one instance of a housing mix requirement.
[28:48] The others are percentages, and those are in the proposed mixed use, innovation center, and crescent district activity center districts.
[28:58] and it's pretty straightforward, it's a required mix of residential to non-residential or mixed use.
[29:06] And staff and the commission thought these mixed these use mix requirements were important to achieve the town plan,
[29:14] to essentially ensure that we're getting a balance between office, commercial and residential uses in some of these areas.
[29:22] And the council can always modify the use mix requirements you see on the screen here in the MU and IC districts be a legislative approval.
[29:31] So, as proposed in the mixed use district minimum gross floor area needs to be 30% residential.
[29:39] So it could go up to a max of 70% non-residential mixed use or a minimum gross floor area of 30% non-residential mixed use which could go up to a max gross floor area.
[29:52] We have 70% residential, so quite a bit of flexibility there.
[29:57] I see district minimum gross flow area zero.
[30:00] Non-residential uses. So, could see a project 100% non-residential in mixed use in the IC, or minimum
[30:00] The IC is really geared towards more employment uses.
[30:07] gross for areas 60% non-res, 40% residential. So, that keeps that employment focus in the
[30:14] uses in IC. And then, finally, in your Crescent District Activity Center District, you've
[30:20] got minimum gross for area residential, 30% which would then mean 65% non-res mixed use. And that
[30:27] 5% minimum civic. We thought that was important in those activity nodes in the crescent district.
[30:33] Or you could see minimum 25% non-resum mixed use and up to 70% residential in the CDAC.
[30:41] So with that, here's our first question and Madam Mayor, I'll leave a two whether you're ready to go to the question or you'd like to discuss.
[30:49] I'd like to see if anybody has any questions on this. Mr. Cummings.
[30:54] I thank you. James, I want to just to, so the idea of the rewriting of the zoning ordinance
[31:01] was to create, you know, streamline, but also tighten things up as we've moved forward in history.
[31:09] Or, you know, my concern is that we're doing this zoning ordinance rewriting now. It probably won't be
[31:14] we won't be back here again for probably 15 or 20 years. I would imagine minus some, some one-off zoning
[31:21] reason, or I'm sorry, zoning an ordinance amendments,
[31:28] my concern with some of the housing
[31:30] misrequirements are that there maybe looked at through today's lens of what's marketable,
[31:37] but in 10, 15, 20 years we don't know what the needs are going to be, and so I'm just concerned,
[31:43] today these look fine, but it's the future that I've concerned about with providing some flexibility
[31:50] for for changing times. So you mentioned there's can you just tell me what the
[31:56] process is for someone to amend maybe some of these housing mix requirements?
[32:01] Certainly. In the draft zoning on this rewrite we do have the ability for the
[32:07] council to amend the use mix ratios and we have it by I believe it's by minor
[32:16] special exception.
[32:22] Thank you,
[32:27] out on this, the mix. This 5% civic is what makes up the difference
[32:34] because you can get only 95% with the other two. Okay, correct.
[32:37] Just in the CDAC.
[32:40] Well, I have to say, going into this, I agree with staff's recommendation in the Plain
[32:49] commission as, you know, Mr. Cummings said we're looking at now, but I also think we're
[32:58] looking to our history and what the town looks like now, what do we want it to look
[33:04] like in the future, and having some flexibility, I think it's already in there.
[33:14] I think you
[33:19] they're not really changes but they're they're they're they're
[33:24] tweaks. So how do do you want us to take a head nod vote on these tonight
[33:31] with that be helpful if we did. All right. Oh Mr. Kerkowski. Sorry just a
[33:37] quick clarification in our staff packet. It says the Council can always
[33:41] modify the mixed use requirements for MU and IC districts via legislative
[33:46] approval, but does not mention Crescent District? Is that just Senate mission? Or because it has
[33:53] its own plan? Crescent District Activity Center, they're going to have to rezone into that
[33:57] anyways. Okay, so the council will have an opportunity to look at that, use mix and potentially
[34:02] modify at that time. That makes sense. Thank you. All right, are there four people that are,
[34:10] I guess we're doing two, the support staff keeping the housing mix requirements
[34:14] in the RM district and support keeping the use mix requirements of the MCIC CDAD districts.
[34:25] Do you have four people that support those?
[34:30] All right.
[34:31] So that goes forward.
[34:33] Great.
[34:33] Thank you very much.
[34:35] Okay.
[34:35] You want to quit now?
[34:38] Your hand.
[34:38] You back in a couple weeks.
[34:42] All right.
[34:43] The next topic.
[34:43] So, this is about minimum community amenities and open space and the thought here was in every zoning district.
[34:56] We have a required minimum community amenities and open space and it's expressed as a percentage of lot area.
[35:00] And you'll notice in the residential districts, it's 10% except for residential urban, where it pushes up to 15% in the non-residential districts, 20% in your commercial neighborhood, commercial suburban, 10% in the industrial research.
[35:18] And the mixed use district, that's 25%
[35:22] community amenities and open space, downtown,
[35:24] zero percent because it's already rich with amenities
[35:28] and we often find folks challenged with even coming up
[35:32] with some space on those small lots for community amenities
[35:36] and open space, so no minimum requirement there.
[35:39] 25% in innovation center and then 25% in the
[35:43] Congress and District Commercial Court, or
[35:45] Congress and District Residential Neighborhood,
[35:47] 10% in the CDAC, but there's also a requirement
[35:50] for every CDAC development to provide a half acre
[35:54] park or civic space in addition to the minimum community
[35:58] amenities.
[36:00] And why does staff think this is important?
[36:02] One, it quantifies what the town is looking for.
[36:06] Two, it provides and reinforces our support
[36:11] in our town plan for open spaces and redevelopment areas,
[36:15] preserving ecological landscapes,
[36:17] as community assets, reinforcing pedestrian-oriented
[36:20] and amenity-rich design.
[36:23] It also helps with integrating amenities
[36:26] and open space to protect
[36:27] livability, quality of life, et cetera.
[36:31] So, staff is comfortable with these minimum percentages.
[36:34] We've looked at the various districts.
[36:37] We've also included quite a few different items
[36:41] that can count as community amenities in open space, and those are listed in a separate section
[36:46] of zoning ordinance, but just to give you a flavor enhanced parking lot landscaping, stormwater
[36:52] management, green roofs, natural areas, greenways, community gardens, parks, playgrounds,
[36:57] plazas, recreation areas, and other facilities all can count towards this percentage.
[37:04] And these requirements do not apply to developments that include 10 or fewer drilling units
[37:09] or are located in the downtown district.
[37:12] So staff is recommending we keep it as is.
[37:17] Any questions on this one?
[37:21] Yeah.
[37:22] Just for public perception, and arriving at these numbers,
[37:26] these are based on other jurisdictions
[37:30] or good planning manuals, what have you,
[37:33] how do we arrive at these various numbers?
[37:35] Also, I guess you're taking into account economic modeling
[37:38] in terms of what will actually work
[37:40] for a particular development type.
[37:44] Yeah, we definitely did our research of other jurisdictions.
[37:48] We at the commission level, we even took these
[37:52] dimensional standards along with others
[37:54] and did some scenarios based on existing lots
[37:57] to make sure that we weren't creating too much
[38:02] of a constraint on potential development
[38:04] or redevelopment yield.
[38:05] And then I think the other piece is, in some of these districts, we did consolidate density.
[38:14] We talked about that earlier in our work session process.
[38:19] So that resulted in an increase in a little bit of density in some of the districts.
[38:23] We wanted to counterbalance that density with making sure that we had appropriate amenities
[38:27] and open space for folks that might live there in the future.
[38:30] And just to refresh everyone's memory, we also determined that the grass strip between the sidewalk and the street itself does not count.
[38:40] Correct, sir. Yeah, we are wholly focused on usable open space and not those leftover fingers in the parking lots.
[38:53] So can you explain to me the civics space, like would a swimming pool be considered a civics space?
[39:01] No, we've actually defined civics space in Crescent District Activity Center as like a larger
[39:07] plaza or a place for the public to gather a square perhaps, but not necessarily like a pool.
[39:18] And then would rooftop terraces be considered a amenity or open space?
[39:26] Mr. Watkins, what do you think about that one?
[39:28] Green roofs is part of it.
[39:33] From the green roof standpoint, yes, otherwise now.
[39:39] Can I ask, what's the reasoning behind a green roof?
[39:43] Which, in my understanding, you can't go on to a green roof.
[39:46] It's there for more environmental and an impact versus a rooftop terrace, which in a lot of
[39:54] built, you know, a lot of builders, town homes, that's part of the amenities that they're
[39:59] offering to their homeowners.
[40:00] It's more towards the open space side of the equation rather than the community amenities side, where you're having some green infrastructure that helps with various environmental purposes.
[40:03] Yeah, I would think that the green roofs.
[40:12] So, let me make sure I want to make sure I heard that correctly. So, the green, the roofs, if they're green space, that's for open space.
[40:24] So the idea of open space is, you know, you're preserving natural environment, so perhaps
[40:32] green roof you're adding more plants and trees into the mix, so we've included that.
[40:39] We could take a look at that section of the rewrite if you'd like, in the community amenities
[40:42] in open space.
[40:43] I guess I just question, a green roof as an open space in a rooftop terrace is not an open
[40:51] space.
[40:51] I don't see the, I don't see the logic behind that.
[40:57] Okay, yep, if we can go to the rewrite real quick,
[41:00] we can dive in a little bit further.
[41:05] Here we
[41:22] go.
[41:22] Okay, so these are the community venues
[41:24] in open space standards.
[41:30] And green roof is under the first category here.
[41:40] So it's considered sight improvements,
[41:42] so maybe I misspoke when I said open space,
[41:44] But it's a roof or structure that's partially
[41:47] you're completely covered with vegetated landscape.
[41:49] Vegetation on the green roof is planting
[41:51] and a growing substrate and an example shown in the photo there.
[41:59] So it's more of a green infrastructure than an open space
[42:02] of my apologies.
[42:09] I have a question on, let's see, I'm trying to find.
[42:14] in table, under table A-1-1, the general design requirements.
[42:21] So it would be C9, and as the mayor pointed out,
[42:25] there's no page number I can send you to, so I apologize.
[42:29] It talks about centralized amenity and open space.
[42:32] In the RM residential medium and RU residential
[42:34] urban zoning districts, the required amenity and open space
[42:38] shall be centralized and consolidated so that no lot is greater
[42:41] in 1,320 feet from such a manity and open space. I was just curious how we came to a hunt 1,320
[42:50] feet. I'm just curious where we are. So on the screen here we're on number 10 and this is in section
[42:59] 171, 1320 linear feet is one quarter mile.
[43:09] Is that based on what most people will walk to?
[43:13] Yes.
[43:22] Even I'll walk farther than that. Okay.
[43:28] So the bigger point that I wanted to bring
[43:31] up in the open space and community amenities. So if you could go back to the outline that
[43:37] you had that shows the percentages for each of the districts. Sure.
[43:44] I have concern in the
[43:45] President District, with 25% community amenities and open space.
[43:52] Thank you.
[43:53] I believe the crescent district should be treated as just like our downtown, where the amenities
[43:59] are there, and for the community already, and that the land is valuable there.
[44:05] And if we don't build in the crescent design district, that's where we're going to see the stretch
[44:12] and the bigger development and our historic district.
[44:16] That's where we're gonna see the bigger and more traffic
[44:19] causing creation outside of the bypass in Leesburg.
[44:24] And so I personally would like to see the crescent district
[44:30] go to zero like the downtown for community amenities
[44:35] in open space because each builder will provide
[44:40] their own amenities for the folks living there.
[44:42] they have to. If it's an affordable housing piece, Virginia housing requires certain amenities
[44:47] to be built, the market itself dictates what a builder will provide for as far as amenities
[44:54] go to sell the units or rent the units. And so I think our land is valuable in the
[45:00] Rest of the town. And if we are looking at giving up 25% in the crescent district, but only 10% in the
[45:01] stress and district because of what it does to protect the world.
[45:10] residential suburban, or the residential medium, or even urban, to me those numbers don't
[45:17] equate to being on par with one another. So I'd like to see if I could get three other council members
[45:24] to support me, and making adjustments to the Crescent District percentage.
[45:32] Well, we'll continue with the discussion and come back to that.
[45:34] Okay.
[45:37] That's it?
[45:38] Mr. Kirkowski.
[45:41] Thank you, Madam Mayor.
[45:44] I had a question and I do want to follow up to Council Member Cummings comment in a moment
[45:50] here.
[45:51] I had a question regarding the, I see.
[45:59] Yeah, so in the crescent district, I had the map pulled up and there was a breakdown for the, I'm sorry, the activity center.
[46:13] Right, that falls under the crescent district, right?
[46:16] Okay, so for the activity center, first of, do we have that annotated on the map anywhere for the activity center specific
[46:23] Yes, let me just get to that map real quick, because I was trying to delineate the areas, the commercial corridor and
[46:33] residential corridor and those things.
[46:37] Okay, so your crescent district.
[46:46] Okay,
[46:50] sorry, just using my pen here. All right, so
[46:53] here we are, wait a minute, zoom back out.
[47:07] So the Crescent District Activity Center is shown in this dark brown shade here.
[47:13] So if I can draw on them, you see these right in here.
[47:19] This is your Crescent District Activity Center zoning designation.
[47:24] Virginia Village is the only project that meets the criteria of CDAC, but these light brown
[47:34] areas, change my color to blue, is what we're calling CD,
[47:44] when we call it CDPAC, planned
[47:47] activity center. So essentially that's here in the tan, and then let me just pan over.
[47:55] Oops. Hang on.
[48:02] It's this one over here too.
[48:05] That light brown there. Let me erase that.
[48:10] And the reason we've done Crescent District planned activity center
[48:14] is to think of it as a holding pattern for future growth.
[48:20] The only parcels that can qualify to come into that Crescent District activity center
[48:26] are one's designated CDPAC, and that is because they are in those two nodes in the
[48:33] Crescent District Master Plan that the council adopted, and they have to have a minimum
[48:38] 15 acres to propose for Crescent District Activity Center, so that there are also insures
[48:46] that you're getting a significant redevelopment in those areas.
[48:50] So the one I have circled here, that is a pretty thriving shopping center, so
[48:56] And, you know, our best guess is you wouldn't really see anything for quite some time, but it's there as a tool in the future.
[49:05] That was great because you cut off my next question perfectly.
[49:09] Well done.
[49:10] And that was leading to the community and many open space requirement where you added half an acre,
[49:17] whereas everything else was a percentage.
[49:21] So essentially what you're saying is every activity center must be 15 acres correct and you're
[49:27] saying you will do 10% plus a half acre in a matter of what it is.
[49:32] So we're talking about two acres at minimum.
[49:34] Correct.
[49:35] At minimum, a signature civic space or park.
[49:39] And this comes straight from the policy statements and the press and district master plan those
[49:43] that a vision for these walkable pedestrian nodes
[49:47] around a gathering space.
[49:49] All right.
[49:50] And in specific to the AC, the activity centers,
[49:53] I certainly appreciate that.
[49:55] And I think that you will organically see that probably
[49:59] happen right because that's what the whole idea of an activity
[50:00] No one, everything's supposed to drive like that. So I do appreciate that.
[50:02] center is, is that it's, you know, communion.
[50:05] To this, I take a quick moment to speak to council member Cummings point.
[50:10] I do, I can see that kind of the difference with residential suburban, or any residential being 10%
[50:19] essentially, and then having restricting it to 25% for our open space for residential neighborhood
[50:24] for Crescent District, does seem a little bit conflicting,
[50:28] especially for that valuable property that we're looking at.
[50:33] I don't know that I would wanna necessarily bring it back
[50:36] to zero, but I kind of wanna piggyback and say
[50:42] that I do agree with Council Member Cummings,
[50:44] that that area is definitely more valuable in that corridor,
[50:49] well, just that area in general is certainly more valuable
[50:51] for infill. And so I would support a discussion on trying to see where we can land as far as a lower percentage there.
[51:05] And I do also understand that there are certainly when you're building a neighborhood like you need to make open spaces.
[51:11] So they're going to do that automatically, but perhaps we can put a sort of a safeguard to ensure that's not too restrictive, but some sort of safeguard that says,
[51:20] there's going to be you will have some open space, but I think 25% does seem pretty high for
[51:25] somewhere that's very downtown adjacent. So, but that's my.
[51:32] Okay, so to continue this
[51:34] discussion, I'm not sure I can agree with that assessment. If we look at that area that's designated
[51:40] as a planned activity center where that is currently the Plaza Street shopping center,
[51:48] But I don't see that as, while certainly in the area of the crescent design district, I would
[51:55] argue that if, if in when that develops, that the, wherever winds are living there, whatever
[52:00] reason it's wind are living there would certainly appreciate some sort of amenities on site as
[52:08] opposed to having to travel to the downtown area,
[52:15] I think an example of maybe that short
[52:18] When the Virginia Village project was being explored and eventually approved, there was a certain amount of tension in getting the development to include amenities for the residents.
[52:34] Initially, the expectation was, well, I'll just go to Italy and that didn't seem like a very good option.
[52:41] So eventually I believe certain amenities were worked out for the site, maybe not enough.
[52:47] But that would be a pretty intense piece of development at some point you're right in the future 20 years, whatever it wants to be.
[52:54] And so to zero out the requirement for amenities on site, I think would be short-sighted for the success of the project.
[53:07] And I couldn't support just hearing a lot of all together
[53:11] whether 25% is the number or not.
[53:15] I don't think it's necessarily an reasonable given
[53:17] the density that would certainly occur in that particular area.
[53:23] And the press and district is intended to be one of our
[53:29] more densely populated sections of the town.
[53:34] That's correct.
[53:34] So there'll be a lot of apartments and things of that nature in that particular area if it continues to grow.
[53:43] I am a huge advocate for open space.
[53:45] I think we saw it when COVID came and how people couldn't get out and how important to open space came, became to people and how valuable it is.
[53:56] So it concerns me that we would allow it to go down to zero.
[54:02] I think it's really important with the density involved with the location, with the type of housing that's going to go in there.
[54:10] I think that there has to be some expectation of open space, whether it's a gathering kind of place or it's a top lot kind of thing.
[54:20] I don't expect that it would be a pool and a deck and pool house and all of that, but I do think that there's still that need
[54:30] in that desire, and I, as much as I just hated disagree with Mr. Cummings, I don't think
[54:38] that all of the developers do include those amenities and open space.
[54:44] Some of them do, some of them are good about it, and some of them don't.
[54:48] And if you look, if we went back to that map, and I was looking at a couple of the communities
[54:52] there, they are so dense, and there is a very little open space associated with those
[54:59] particularly developments. And so I want to protect those people that are going to live there.
[55:00] I'd also protect the town in that there. If you look down at the middle town here, look how dense all these, and they should. I mean, that's fine. The density has been already approved. That's not my issue. It's that we need to make sure that we do have some open space requirements there. Maybe 25% is too much. Maybe maybe we should look at 20 or 15. But I think it's an important, and it's an important district, because it's going to
[55:29] be our most dense district, it's going to be apartments that don't have backyards, that don't
[55:36] have swing sets and that sort of thing. And so I do believe that it is important that
[55:42] we have those things that require me for open space in regard to the crescent district.
[55:53] So I would be very, I couldn't, I could not support going down to zero. But I would be willing
[55:58] to look at densities of a slightly lesser, not greatly lesser,
[56:03] but a slightly lesser number, and so that's where I am at this point,
[56:09] Mr. Kerkowski.
[56:10] Yes, thanks for letting me read a dress.
[56:11] I might have put some words in Council Member Cummings,
[56:13] mouth when I said zero percent.
[56:16] I don't even think he said zero percent, so I apologize if I did that.
[56:20] But yes, certainly no.
[56:22] I just think that when you're looking at a community,
[56:25] and I'm trying to think through some of the communities
[56:27] that exist in Leesburg, and I won't put you on spot by asking where they sit, but kind of
[56:33] thinking through more recent communities that have been built so like the villages of Leesburg,
[56:38] for instance, I think of the residential areas there. Do you have an idea of where those have fallen
[56:44] as far as open space, and I know you might need a second to pull that up a research, but I think
[56:49] of those kind of communities, and I look at them and I'm like, you know what I think that is a fair
[56:55] balance of open space, and you might come back and give me a number that I'm going to
[56:59] get caught off guard by, but I also think that one of the really, I'm sorry, could I interrupt
[57:07] you? Oh yes. Where do you see the open space at the village of Liesberg, the village of Liesberg?
[57:13] So they have a courtyard by their parking garage and then the town houses on the other side
[57:17] actually have considerably more, I don't know if that counts as part of the villages, but
[57:25] Yeah, they have a big court yard with some playground stuff.
[57:30] I think they're surrounded like a U-shaped by most of the residents.
[57:32] I think they're parking good, right?
[57:33] Yeah, yeah.
[57:35] But when I think of the crescent design district too,
[57:38] I imagine, and I could be off base here, but I imagine that a lot of people
[57:42] that are thinking I'm going to move here,
[57:44] one of the, maybe not amenities, but one of the benefits they get is that they're
[57:48] moving into an area that's downtown adjacent.
[57:51] So they have access to the walkability of going downtown.
[57:54] the bike trail and things like that so sometimes and again I know we haven't settled on the
[58:01] number but I feel like sometimes people are looking to maybe say like yeah I don't have quite
[58:06] as much open space but I have access to getting to open space or I have access to these other
[58:11] amenities so not to say this isn't easy one but I think that fitting the Tetris pieces together
[58:17] is definitely challenging but I think that maybe the downtown area and the crescent design district
[58:23] designed to kind of mirrors each other a little bit with the walkability and the easier access
[58:29] to those amenities. That's just my thought process.
[58:35] What says we're referring to existing projects? Can you or Mr. Wackens tell us in the brickyard
[58:45] project is currently being built? What percentage of open space is being provided there?
[58:52] because it's a pretty dense development that I'm not sure I see any.
[58:58] And that's a residential work space kind of a situation that necessarily mixed use, but still.
[59:08] I think Mr. Walkens was researching village at Leesburg.
[59:14] Did he estimate there, Mr. Walkens?
[59:17] So, land-based sea, which is the southern land bay that's south of Russell Branch, is the largest
[59:24] portion of open space amenity area.
[59:27] There's also that amenity features within the two upper land bay, land bay, A, B, which
[59:32] are north of Russell Branch, but there are more urban, so integrated open space.
[59:38] The open space slash recreation area is contained primarily south of Russell Bridge
[59:46] And Rick Yard looking it up right now
[59:55] While
[59:58] we get I mean I understand the direction there we go data. I understand
[1:00:00] We're not allowed to attend and visit other areas, but we're also where they live to be convenient. And quality of life is always mentioned by residents, if it's in why they live in these areas.
[1:00:02] We want people to walk right
[1:00:14] And that is true. Quality of life is everything, every comment that we get. Can we come back? Do you have it?
[1:00:22] So, on the breakout site, they have 25% so there's two acres of open space on site.
[1:00:32] Great.
[1:00:33] Okay, it must be to his back.
[1:00:35] They haven't developed yet.
[1:00:36] There's a top lot in the back and then the area between the townhouses you see now.
[1:00:41] Katoctum is also open space.
[1:00:45] There's a dog park.
[1:00:46] Okay, that's it.
[1:00:48] Okay, thank you.
[1:00:49] Mr. Cummings.
[1:00:50] Thank you.
[1:00:52] You didn't put words of my mouth from Mr. Karkowski. I did say zero.
[1:00:55] You don't say zero, don't worry.
[1:00:58] But I said zero just as a, what does that like a, you know, shock value? Thank you.
[1:01:04] I, I, I appreciate everyone's comments. I mean, to me, I just, when I look at the activity
[1:01:11] centers, those seem to be the bigger developments. And so if we're only requiring, I guess
[1:01:16] that my question is, the 10% of the activity center plus,
[1:01:21] it's only 10% because we're asking for the half an acre
[1:01:23] of civics, right?
[1:01:25] Yeah, civics, excuse me, not civics.
[1:01:28] So I mean, I would be comfortable looking at,
[1:01:32] you know, can you give us a description
[1:01:34] of the residential urban 15% with the 25 and the crescent?
[1:01:39] Again, I just keep going back to,
[1:01:41] if this council and previous councils
[1:01:44] have wanted the Crescent Design District to be where we put our people to live, where we put
[1:01:50] our mixed use, then we have to be able to protect our downtown, to be able to protect the
[1:01:56] other suburban areas, if you will, of the town of Leesburg. We have to not take up, we can't
[1:02:04] handicap and handcuff folks building homes and building development in the Crescent District
[1:02:10] to 25% if the residential urban is only 15 or 10% or 15,
[1:02:16] I can't read it, but can you give me an example
[1:02:20] of that residential urban compared to the commercial corridor,
[1:02:24] or the residential neighborhood in the Crescent District?
[1:02:26] Sure.
[1:02:28] So while I'm pulling that up, I think one of the reasons
[1:02:31] that staff, the planning commission, landed on 25% is again,
[1:02:36] just looking at that master plan and the policy statements
[1:02:39] in there. This was meant to be the town's form-based code area with an emphasis on street
[1:02:44] scape and pedestrian-oriented activity. So we took that to mean, okay, more of an emphasis on
[1:02:51] amenities and open space for the community. Certainly, the numbers aren't set in stone,
[1:02:56] so open to discussion, but I'll just show you real quick where the residential urban is on the map.
[1:03:01] So that is the dark orange color.
[1:03:06] So we're talking about, sorry, this is not cooperating.
[1:03:11] Thank you.
[1:03:12] Let's see pan around here.
[1:03:15] I need an art major to know which pan.
[1:03:18] So here's residential urban up here.
[1:03:23] That's a battlefield.
[1:03:24] That's those apartments there behind the 7-11 in the Loudon Habitat for Humanity yeah, yeah, and then let's see if I can
[1:03:39] My circle is going to travel with us as we find more residential urban
[1:03:46] Right here
[1:03:47] I believe that's residential urban as well
[1:03:52] Those are the apartments down in here
[1:03:55] Long gateway drives southeast here and here
[1:04:00] Also, up here at the Elixir Leesburg, or no, that's not for the Elixir Leesburg, what is that, Mike?
[1:04:10] Is that the new big tea properties development?
[1:04:13] There.
[1:04:15] Yep.
[1:04:15] Yep.
[1:04:16] And then all in here, that's what all be residential urban as well.
[1:04:19] So it seems to me that that residential urban is apartments, condos, kind of multifamily, which is a part of the crescent design.
[1:04:31] So, I mean, I agree zero is probably not enough, and so I would be happy to throw out
[1:04:40] 15, you know, mimicking the residential urban and say 15 percent because again, I want
[1:04:46] to just reiterate, these are what we're talking about is public amenities, public open space,
[1:04:53] that anyone, whether you live in that neighborhood or live in prospect hills, you can go
[1:04:58] The developers will, maybe not to what we all would want them to, still provide amenities.
[1:05:00] Within the building, and within their developments, because the market tells them they have to, and if it's affordable housing, Virginia housing tells them they have to, and so I just want to make sure, I'd like to see if I could get a few people to join me and say 15% and as a bad negotiator, I'd go up to 20, but you know, just I want to see some sort of effort to show that we're reserved, some of that, some of that important property.
[1:05:30] there in the Crescent District?
[1:05:33] Yes, sir.
[1:05:34] Well, one final point.
[1:05:35] And when we talk about these activity centers, or planned activity centers, we are talking
[1:05:41] about areas that are being reserved for some of the densest development.
[1:05:45] That means these applications and developers are going up, so they're going to be putting
[1:05:51] more units in less space, but obviously accommodating more individuals.
[1:05:58] And so they will be granted extraordinary use of the land just by virtue of the fact that they're being granted
[1:06:05] the densest kind of development we can offer as of now within the town.
[1:06:11] And so the expectation of having to provide,
[1:06:16] whether it's 25% or 22.5% for open space in that kind of development,
[1:06:24] I don't see as unreasonable.
[1:06:29] Do you have a motion, or not a motion?
[1:06:32] Can't do a motion.
[1:06:33] Don't go there.
[1:06:36] Did we want to look at, do we have four people
[1:06:39] that would be interested that would be willing to lower
[1:06:42] from 25 to 20?
[1:06:46] Last one.
[1:06:47] One clarifying question.
[1:06:49] So what I think we're discussing activity centers a
[1:06:53] little bit, but also I think we're more so
[1:06:55] address trying to address the commercial corridor
[1:06:57] in the residential neighborhood.
[1:06:58] So when we're talking the crescent design district, if we're talking residential neighborhood, there's
[1:07:05] As of this moment, there's not a lot of opportunity for residential neighborhood correct, and I think there's one plot in
[1:07:11] particular
[1:07:12] That stands out. That's the site of the formal mobile home park correct. That's probably one of the ones. That's not 15 acres as it
[1:07:20] It's not okay. I didn't think so. So that would fall
[1:07:23] under
[1:07:24] most likely residential neighborhood correct because it's not on the corridor I
[1:07:29] don't the and it's not labeled on the corridor it's residential core H on the
[1:07:33] district map. So a Western district residential neighborhood it's this here
[1:07:44] all
[1:07:44] this and here. I haven't done your circle. That was a ghost. It's sorry to see
[1:07:55] the existing crescent place, and then on the other side of the trail, it's the undeveloped
[1:08:02] trailer park home, and then the salvage yard.
[1:08:07] So the formal mobile home park, and where?
[1:08:12] Deepo court.
[1:08:13] So the salvage yard, park or court, deepo court.
[1:08:18] Okay.
[1:08:19] And those are pretty much the only two areas, correct?
[1:08:21] You've also got this area here and then many colors.
[1:08:30] You've got the residential portion of Crescent Park, which is this here.
[1:08:44] And it's already subject to profit rezoning and their near-site planet approval.
[1:08:51] And none of these meet the 15 acre threshold, correct?
[1:08:56] I don't know.
[1:08:57] Now, these are outside the planned activities center.
[1:09:00] Okay.
[1:09:01] Okay. Sorry.
[1:09:01] I just want to clarify that real quick.
[1:09:03] There really isn't a whole lot of opportunity.
[1:09:05] Unless we have parcels get bought up and reintegrate,
[1:09:10] or, I don't know what the term is,
[1:09:13] packaged together, right?
[1:09:15] So, okay.
[1:09:16] Thank you.
[1:09:18] So again, I'll go back and say all the four people that would be interested in changing the number two to 20.
[1:09:27] I would.
[1:09:30] Okay.
[1:09:31] Okay.
[1:09:34] Okay.
[1:09:34] So that's 20% for CDC and CDRN.
[1:09:39] Got it.
[1:09:42] We'll need that 20.
[1:09:45] All right.
[1:09:46] Excellent.
[1:09:50] Downtown.
[1:09:52] All right.
[1:09:54] So downtown there was quite a few comments from the council and so we tried to kind of just break this out.
[1:10:00] Item by item. So the first one is building height. So as proposed, downtown, formerly B1, now we call it DT, is residential
[1:10:14] max, 35 feet tall, non-residential max, 45 feet tall, but then we also have the enhanced building
[1:10:22] height in certain areas. And that is this polygon shown on this map here. And basically what
[1:10:31] is going on there is that's a lower elevation relative to the rest of downtown. You can
[1:10:37] see that by the contour lines here. And so this is a carry forward. This is existing in your
[1:10:44] existing zoning ordinance. We're carrying it forward. And the thought process back in the day was
[1:10:50] Because it's lower at topography, so a little bit more building height is still going to maintain
[1:10:56] that visual complement to the rest of downtown.
[1:11:01] So those parcels within this polygon can go up to 65, but they have to meet certain criteria
[1:11:10] and in some instances they have to kind of step back and that wedding cake effect from the front
[1:11:16] of the property line.
[1:11:17] So with this also include if they have to, if they're in the flood plain and they have to build up the property line, they have to infill it that it still would be measured from its original average natural grade.
[1:11:34] Yes, ma'am. We put that into the code. Yep.
[1:11:38] And so here, you know, the thought from Council Member Willt was, do we really want this
[1:11:47] additional enhanced building height area to be a by-right, or would we rather have some
[1:11:53] Council review and put it to a minor special exception process?
[1:11:58] So staff is open to either approach, and with that, I'll just pause and see what Council
[1:12:05] things.
[1:12:07] Well, I'm always in favor of the ability of a project to come forward before Council, or
[1:12:12] the public.
[1:12:14] I don't like to see major changes that this could become and not go before the public
[1:12:21] can have public input and where they elected people.
[1:12:25] We have to take the responsibility.
[1:12:27] We are people elected us to make the decisions, so for me it's always let's do what's best
[1:12:34] for the residents and their choice of electing us, we need to make that decision, but that's just
[1:12:40] my point of view on that one. Anybody else? Mr. Steinberg?
[1:12:45] Well, hard to believe I concur. There are three important issues in this particular district.
[1:12:50] One is the building height allowable. One is measuring from the original grade as opposed to
[1:12:58] of grade, and the third is the number of units allowable by right.
[1:13:04] The planning commission, I think, wisely said, let's leave that at five, not bump
[1:13:09] up to ten, even I appreciate the staff is recommending ten, but I think we want, I would prefer
[1:13:15] to be more protective of the historic district than less, and we can always grant additional
[1:13:21] densities by whatever processes required in a given situation, and we wanted to be assured
[1:13:30] that we are not overtaxing what is already an overtaxed infrastructure within the downtown
[1:13:36] area in terms of traffic and people being able to navigate through.
[1:13:41] And park?
[1:13:42] Easily.
[1:13:43] And parking.
[1:13:44] Well, the new talk about that.
[1:13:46] I have no problems with the recommendations for plan and commission regarding the downtown district.
[1:13:56] I would not be in favor of increasing by rate at the 70 feet.
[1:14:01] Or, as I said, the number of units per.
[1:14:05] So, thanks.
[1:14:06] We'll get to those few topics here in just a moment.
[1:14:09] Mr. Well, you as one of the breathes forward, do you have something you want to say to about it?
[1:14:17] I think James presented it correctly. My interest was in the downtown as a, specifically the downtown.
[1:14:27] I'm looking at it. It's our historic downtown. It's a rare and asset. We're not building new historic buildings.
[1:14:37] We're building new buildings. How to maintain the historic character with the right oversight that is,
[1:14:45] It does not disturb that character.
[1:14:48] So my interest was, in this case, this isn't prohibiting these kind of constructions.
[1:14:56] It's providing a little extra oversight with the special exception process.
[1:15:01] All right, Mr. Cummings? I just had a quick question. Something that Council Member Steinberg brought up, and the mayor, I think, brought mentioned it, the measuring of buildings for height. I guess I'm just curious, what, so if I'm, so we're measuring based on the final grade of land, is that, is that what we're looking at doing?
[1:15:23] And no, currently in your existing zoning ordinance, the measurement is from finished grade.
[1:15:33] But the zoning ordinance rewrite is contemplating a new methodology from average natural
[1:15:38] grade so that the building height is not measured after the, the grade has been raised.
[1:15:46] And so what that looks like, it's back in article one under measurements and allowances.
[1:15:53] so we'll go there real quick.
[1:16:05] Okay,
[1:16:09] the way it would read now is
[1:16:12] building height shall be measured as follows from various roof forms as
[1:16:17] the vertical distance from the average level of highest and lowest
[1:16:21] existing grade of that portion of the site covered by the building.
[1:16:26] And this is
[1:16:27] and we're doing this just in the downtown district.
[1:16:32] I know. So this is across the
[1:16:34] entire town? Correct. So what if I'm building a flex space, flex industrial, and I'm
[1:16:42] and I if I grade the land, I can go down below,
[1:16:49] but I still want to get the same height for
[1:16:51] my, my flex building, which Russell Seymour, and you can add relevant tells we need more and more.
[1:16:57] Where, where, how, how do we square that circle? So it's it's the average level of highest and
[1:17:04] existing grade. So if you dig down deeper it wouldn't be where you're measuring from.
[1:17:10] So I still can only do, if I go down 20 feet and then I can, in my, I have a
[1:17:19] approval of 70, I can only build 50, I can only build 50. It would be from the existing grade.
[1:17:25] So if you started at zero and you got to prove to 70, you went down 20, when I could not
[1:17:32] to 50, you can still be 70 from the existing grade.
[1:17:36] Right, so I could be 90, okay.
[1:17:40] And other localities, is this how they measure for there?
[1:17:47] It varies.
[1:17:48] I think that my experience, well before,
[1:17:53] town of Lisburg, back in California, this was how we measured,
[1:17:57] because we had the same challenge with folks raising the grade
[1:18:01] and then putting the building on top.
[1:18:03] So the idea was to measure from average natural grade.
[1:18:07] But I think Mr. Walkins would tell you
[1:18:09] that other jurisdictions, they do it from finish grade,
[1:18:11] it's a little bit easier to administer,
[1:18:13] a little bit easier for the designer.
[1:18:16] All right.
[1:18:19] Mr. Kerkowski,
[1:18:22] don't do
[1:18:25] it.
[1:18:27] Going perfect.
[1:18:29] Yeah, you're on it.
[1:18:31] So speaking to the residential max 35 foot in downtown,
[1:18:36] Well,
[1:18:39] this can be considered, I know it's not arbitrary, but like when we're looking at 35 feet.
[1:18:46] Does that allow a three-story building residential?
[1:18:51] Yeah.
[1:18:52] Okay.
[1:18:53] And then a non-residential 45 feet.
[1:18:58] So what's the idea between the two?
[1:19:00] Right.
[1:19:00] What's the difference here?
[1:19:02] For saying that it's important that we have a cap.
[1:19:05] Why are we saying that a residential should not extend to 45?
[1:19:08] and feel free to explain it very plainly.
[1:19:13] These were the existing numbers that we carried forward.
[1:19:17] Right, so existing from the previous zoning ordinance.
[1:19:20] So, we would not be likely to see, well, we would not see town homes or something similar
[1:19:26] to the station master, for instance, those are four story town homes.
[1:19:32] We would only see a three story town home, for instance, if somebody was to build in downtown.
[1:19:37] Well, those station masters actually in that enhanced building on below, which is why they
[1:19:42] got to do this.
[1:19:43] Because I make it in there.
[1:19:45] Oh, I could use my colors again.
[1:19:48] You got me.
[1:19:49] There's less colors.
[1:19:49] So it's actually, it should be easier to recognize, but okay, I guess it was more just a kind
[1:19:55] of a point of reference to understand, making sure that we're not capping it.
[1:20:00] 5 feet correct. Correct. Okay. Then I mean, I don't really have an issue with that. Thank you very much.
[1:20:00] They can, a residential can still be a three-story townhouse at 30.
[1:20:07] Mr. Welter, you. Okay. I do want to follow up on that discussion you were just having about natural grade and existing grade.
[1:20:17] What point does something that is graded become the existing grade for future measurements?
[1:20:28] So someone has a plot of land, and they do some site work contouring on it.
[1:20:33] And it raises the grade five feet.
[1:20:37] Five years later is that what is the grade
[1:20:40] at which we're saying is the natural grade?
[1:20:44] Under the proposed scenario,
[1:20:46] we'd go back to the cycling
[1:20:47] for which the grading was approved,
[1:20:50] and it would have the as-built survey
[1:20:51] from which we would take the topography
[1:20:53] and compute the existing natural grade.
[1:20:58] Okay, and if this is a different project or a different application,
[1:21:02] you say go through the original applications.
[1:21:04] So if this is a different app, maybe the first one was abandoned.
[1:21:09] What's the grade that is now going to be used for the new application?
[1:21:15] I think it's still the same scenario.
[1:21:17] We would go back to the original grading plan,
[1:21:20] the change the topography on the site,
[1:21:22] and use the Asple information on that.
[1:21:24] So any artificial manipulation to the site
[1:21:29] does not then become the basis from which the height measurements.
[1:21:33] We go back to the original natural grade as surveyed, and that might be multiple applications
[1:21:42] ago.
[1:21:43] Is that correct?
[1:21:45] Yeah.
[1:21:45] We use the record to the best of our ability.
[1:21:49] And then I wanted to inquire on a consumer and a crockowski's question.
[1:21:53] The difference between residential and the non-residential max heights.
[1:22:01] So, if we're looking at just the architectural neighborhood facade,
[1:22:11] so regardless of the use,
[1:22:16] why is there a 10-foot difference in what would change the streetscape and the facade?
[1:22:23] Why not if we're looking at architectural design and consistency and facade?
[1:22:28] Why not have a consistency?
[1:22:31] Well, I can only speculate since I wasn't around when these were determined, but I would assume
[1:22:38] that residential buildings historically were smaller in scale than non-residential buildings.
[1:22:45] So, the work, but this rewrite is proposing to maintain that inconsistency.
[1:22:51] So there must be a logic there, why are we proposing to maintain the inconsistency?
[1:22:56] There is no compelling reason to change the existing character, it seems to be working.
[1:23:02] There haven't been too many difficulties and the other thing I just wanted to add real
[1:23:05] quick was, these would be theoretical building volumes.
[1:23:09] There are still subjects that each one guidelines where the BAR would do their compatibility
[1:23:15] test with the proposed structure and how it meets the context of adjacent properties.
[1:23:20] Okay, so we're essentially going to depend on the BAR to be the governing body for these issues.
[1:23:31] For architectural compatibility with the traditional neighborhood pattern.
[1:23:36] Okay, and this also incorporates another distinction.
[1:23:40] The residential allows a three story building, the commercial by right allows a four story building, is that correct?
[1:23:54] We tend not to use story just because the way the program, the building can be programmed.
[1:24:02] So the thought there was maintaining just a volume of height that dimensional element and not story.
[1:24:09] Okay, a bit in practice, like Council Member Krakowski asked earlier.
[1:24:13] 35 feet residential will provide a three-story building.
[1:24:18] So 45 foot, non-rencident will provide a four-story building, correct?
[1:24:23] However, the B.A.R. can reduce that height if they feel it's incompatible with the surrounding historic neighborhood.
[1:24:32] They can't increase it.
[1:24:37] Okay.
[1:24:37] That's it for now.
[1:24:38] Thank you.
[1:24:39] Yeah.
[1:24:40] I'd just like to go into that is in that I think we have to be very careful with our historic district.
[1:24:46] It's a very precious treasure that we have.
[1:24:49] Many of those houses are old houses that are smaller.
[1:24:52] They are designed in that era and I'd hate to see us start putting townhouses next to, you know.
[1:25:00] House has been there for 150 years. It's two stories, and we put four story townhouses next to it. You've
[1:25:06] got to think about the character and the viability of keeping that neighborhood strong. And we
[1:25:12] don't want to lose what we've got in our residential aspect downtown. I wouldn't think.
[1:25:20] So, I'm seeing, yes, sir.
[1:25:22] No, I wanted to follow up on the point you just made, because in practice, that has already been done.
[1:25:31] So on South King Street, the King Street Station project was mentioned, and that was in the additional height zone.
[1:25:39] But we did put four story buildings right next to a Queen Anne 2 story, and that next to a colonial 2 story.
[1:25:46] And that was approved by the B.A.R.
[1:25:49] So why would that not happen again in the future
[1:25:53] before operating under these parameters?
[1:25:57] I think the King Street station is in this enhanced building height area.
[1:26:02] It is.
[1:26:03] But the B.A.R. determined that was architecturally appropriate.
[1:26:07] Next to the Queen AM and the Colonial.
[1:26:11] It wasn't a zoning ordinance limitations to the B.A.R.
[1:26:15] as the governing body gave it to go ahead.
[1:26:17] So, we're not changing anything, so I would presume that situation could occur again.
[1:26:24] That could, it probably will.
[1:26:28] In reference to the King Street Station project, I think there were two mitigating factors
[1:26:32] that were considered when that project was approved. One was the building for which
[1:26:37] goose cup was located in. So you had that stuff back from the street. So the size scale
[1:26:42] massing of the Goose Cup building on South King Street, mitigated the theoretical max.
[1:26:50] And then the other community element gathering element that was provided was the Pavilion.
[1:26:55] Again, the buildings were set back further from King Street.
[1:26:58] So I think you're not wrong that there can be other projects that propose to utilize the
[1:27:03] maximum building heights in this King Street station project.
[1:27:08] I think those two elements were taken in strong consideration when evaluating building height.
[1:27:17] Okay, so I'm coming, I guess I'm coming to the conclusion that without, within envelope parameters provided by the zoning ordinance, the controlling body is the BAR.
[1:27:30] Is that, that's a correct statement.
[1:27:33] On my steering of legislative approval, Council wanted to give certain development rights to that application.
[1:27:41] Council could do that.
[1:27:47] I don't think I understood that might.
[1:27:51] So in theory, if you have a legislative application, Council can override the BAR's recommendation for the volume of the building.
[1:27:57] So during a legislative application, the application is forwarded to the BAR for its recommendations.
[1:28:04] that thought was specific to that practice was given specific thought for for this exact
[1:28:10] scenario is that they can give you all guidance on their interpretation of the guidelines,
[1:28:16] however legislatively you can approve a taller building.
[1:28:21] That was very controversial.
[1:28:22] It was a split decision.
[1:28:29] But we, that answered your question.
[1:28:34] Yeah, I'm not sure how to proceed at this point, so I'll wrap up.
[1:28:37] Thank you.
[1:28:39] So we have before us the proposal to support keeping the downtown district enhanced building height boundaries to the lower elevation than the rest of the downtown.
[1:28:50] And the staff is open to discussing in my special exception to allow the building height to increase beyond 45 feet in this area.
[1:28:56] So, the first thing you're asking for is the consideration of the lower.
[1:29:04] We would just be asking if the council would like to make any enhanced building height in the polygon you see on the screen require a minor special exception.
[1:29:15] So, to go above 45 feet, the council would like to see that.
[1:29:19] Okay, are there four people that would like to see that if it were to go above the 45 feet that we would have to go to a
[1:29:28] minor special exception, is that what you said correct, okay, are there four people that would support that okay, all right, that was forward to and then
[1:29:43] The next one is the
[1:29:47] Uh, committing a maximum of 10 multi-family dwellings by rights in the downtown district.
[1:29:53] Yeah, let me talk about that a little bit, but if you want me to check in real quick,
[1:29:57] Madam Mayor, we've exceeded our hour. Do you want to continue?
[1:30:00] We want to continue, or are you done at this point? I want to.
[1:30:00] Okay.
[1:30:01] Where people that want to continue?
[1:30:03] All right.
[1:30:04] God, you guys are good.
[1:30:06] Red lights flashing at me, so I just wanted to make sure.
[1:30:11] No, let's keep track of it.
[1:30:13] Would you set it for another ten minutes?
[1:30:20] I'm just going to put a piece of paper over it there.
[1:30:25] All right.
[1:30:27] Downtown multi-family.
[1:30:28] So, existing zoning ordinance and proposed zoning ordinance rewrite by your planning commission is up to 5 multi-family units by right.
[1:30:42] The existing ordinance basically says six or more is a minor special exception.
[1:30:51] There's a slight change here.
[1:30:52] We put some parameters on the minor special exception.
[1:30:55] We said six to 40 multifamily units,
[1:30:58] minor special exception, 41 plus is a special exception.
[1:31:02] So let's go get the commissions take on it.
[1:31:07] As part of the discussion with the commission staff
[1:31:10] had originally proposed up to 10 multifamily units by right.
[1:31:15] We thought this was a good incremental increase
[1:31:18] that spoke to your town plan goals for housing near established
[1:31:23] economic and civic centers. We also thought it aligned well with the fact that residential
[1:31:29] developments can buy up to 10 parking spaces as part of the current parking in lieu program.
[1:31:36] So we put it out there that commissioned a not agree and they included it up to five by
[1:31:42] right. But when we first started our discussion a few council members wanted to revisit this topic.
[1:31:48] So just looking forward as the council agree with keeping it as is or would you like to see it
[1:31:52] to 10 multi-family units by right in the DT district.
[1:32:03] Mr. Cummings, you look like here, there you go.
[1:32:05] Yeah, I mean, I think that I'm comfortable going with the
[1:32:12] staff's recommendation of 10 by right.
[1:32:18] And then the minor special exception, I mean, to me, 40,
[1:32:22] seems like a lot for a minor, just a minor special exception.
[1:32:25] And I think go 10 by-right and then anything above 10, go through the whole process, we were
[1:32:38] not talking about throughout the town, we're talking about in our downtown historic districts.
[1:32:45] So I'm comfortable with if staff comfortable with 10 by-right and then anything above 10 could
[1:32:51] be a special exception.
[1:32:54] I don't know if anybody else has stopped.
[1:32:57] Does a minor special exception clarify for me?
[1:32:59] I can't remember.
[1:33:00] Does that go before the public?
[1:33:01] Does that have the public hearing?
[1:33:02] Yes.
[1:33:03] It just goes by the planning commission straight to Council.
[1:33:08] I like your over 10 going to minor special exception.
[1:33:19] It is big number.
[1:33:25] Oh, I'm sorry, Miss Nise.
[1:33:27] Thank you.
[1:33:28] This is one of the ones that picked my interest as well,
[1:33:32] because staff recommendation was to go to ten,
[1:33:35] which you just explained to the background.
[1:33:37] But out of curiosity,
[1:33:38] what was the planning commission discussion?
[1:33:40] Give me the highlight,
[1:33:41] because I know it was probably a long one.
[1:33:45] The majority of commissioners,
[1:33:47] The same sentiment we've heard from some of the council members that it's downtown, it's the important historic resource, and they just didn't want to see additional by right residential development without that case by case review.
[1:34:04] Is there that much left in the downtown district that we would
[1:34:13] that this is going to come up with?
[1:34:16] I think so, I think there's redevelopment projects that we've already heard the buzz on
[1:34:25] that are hovering right around that five units by right, and then maybe an adjacent parcel
[1:34:31] five units by right.
[1:34:35] I'm struggling a little bit with this one, but I do agree with Councilmember Cummings that
[1:34:40] I don't think necessarily my nurse special exception should even be part of this process.
[1:34:46] like either by right up to whatever and then special exception so that it goes through the
[1:34:53] entire planning commission process and the BAR and the council because if it is our
[1:34:57] downtown district and it's that important then then it should have a lot of eyes on it.
[1:35:00] That sure, you don't want it to be, if it's over 10, you don't want it to be a minor specific, 71 it to be a special.
[1:35:03] So you're seeing.
[1:35:08] Yeah, just what it counts of ever coming to the saying, just if it, you know.
[1:35:11] So what you said? Okay, sorry. I understand that.
[1:35:14] Okay. It's quite a big jump, right? And, you know, minor special exception goes to us and it goes through staff process and the public and everything.
[1:35:23] But it's always nice to have extra subject matter expert, is something like that.
[1:35:27] That's true.
[1:35:30] Anyone else?
[1:35:31] Mr. Kirkowski?
[1:35:33] I was on an agree with all that.
[1:35:37] No, I do agree.
[1:35:38] I think the number 40 is jumps out, and it sounds like we're kind of on the same page, perhaps
[1:35:44] up to 10 by right.
[1:35:45] And then after that, let the planning commission review it and before it comes to us.
[1:35:52] I struggle with the 10.
[1:35:54] I think 10 is a lot to have by right.
[1:35:57] You said we have parking in lieu for each ten spots, which is ridiculous that's another conversation that we'll have.
[1:36:07] We're having, we're having parking issues in the town, as always.
[1:36:13] And to add ten units by right without any, any input from the, from the council,
[1:36:27] I don't think I can support that.
[1:36:30] I think it's really need to say if I have five.
[1:36:32] It's reasonable amount, but when you, and there's so many places
[1:36:38] that we could go to 10, and we're just allowing it.
[1:36:42] If I write, I don't think that's what we should be doing.
[1:36:45] We need to look at how it's going to impact the downtown.
[1:36:49] What is the implications for it?
[1:36:52] Will it fit there?
[1:36:53] Does it make sense to go there?
[1:36:55] And so make it by right would eliminate any of that oversight.
[1:37:00] So I would stay with the five, but I would most certainly agree
[1:37:06] with everyone that over 10, most certainly should go by special exception.
[1:37:13] Mr. Wealth.
[1:37:16] You just shortcut what I was going to say.
[1:37:18] So I'm going to support what you're suggesting.
[1:37:20] Okay.
[1:37:22] All right.
[1:37:24] Any Mr. Steinberg?
[1:37:26] Well, I just want to reiterate.
[1:37:27] I'm not advocating that we should plan less and other parts of town, but if we're going
[1:37:32] to plan more, then it should definitely be in the historic district.
[1:37:36] I'm perfectly happy with the five by right, and then anything else would be accomplished
[1:37:40] by special exception.
[1:37:42] If the plan commissioned the future council or this council would be a good idea.
[1:37:50] Okay.
[1:37:50] let me break it down. Okay, the first first one is, are there four people that would be in favor of keeping the requirement to five by rights?
[1:38:00] And that was a heavy side, is that?
[1:38:09] Sure.
[1:38:17] are we discussing that anything over five is going to be going to full special exception?
[1:38:23] I think that is important.
[1:38:25] No, over, good question.
[1:38:31] Five, up to five is by rights.
[1:38:34] Five to ten would be what is minor special exception.
[1:38:41] So up to five is by right.
[1:38:43] Right now six to 40 is minor special exception.
[1:38:46] I'm hearing maybe six to ten becomes minor special exception.
[1:38:50] And then 11 or more is special exception.
[1:38:58] Then yes, I would support five that's fine.
[1:39:03] So there's four people who do that one, two, two, four.
[1:39:06] Okay, five.
[1:39:09] Okay.
[1:39:09] Um, okay.
[1:39:10] You got that one.
[1:39:11] Okay.
[1:39:11] And is there anything else by that in that one?
[1:39:14] No, that was it.
[1:39:17] Okay.
[1:39:18] Do we really have to be parking?
[1:39:23] Okay.
[1:39:23] Well, I can breeze through this one.
[1:39:27] Down sound parking alternative.
[1:39:28] So the majority of what you see on the screen is carried forward from the existing zoning ordinance.
[1:39:36] Do have a current payment in lieu of parking program.
[1:39:40] I put in there generally not available for residential projects.
[1:39:43] They can by the first 10 parking spaces.
[1:39:48] Existing non-residential buildings.
[1:39:51] This is the only change.
[1:39:54] It used to be that they had to be within 500 feet of a municipal parking facility to have no additional parking when there was a non-residential reuse of an...
[1:40:00] Existing non-residential building. The rewrite contemplates our D.T. wide, so district wide, no additional parking
[1:40:09] for non-residential reuse. And the reason staff got here and the commission got here is recall
[1:40:15] the council had this very discussion a few years back about should we go to a thousand, should
[1:40:21] we go to 750, and at that time staff said, well, if we're going to go to a thousand, you might
[1:40:26] will just go district-wide. But there was no action from the council at that meeting, so we brought
[1:40:33] it back and included it in the draft.
[1:40:35] Your fault.
[1:40:37] Stas.
[1:40:39] Non-residential building additions. Actually, that is a change as well, right, Mr. Watkins.
[1:40:44] We're asking for parking for a hundred percent of the addition area, and now, no, okay,
[1:40:50] never mind. It is still parking for 50 percent of the addition area for non-residential
[1:40:54] building additions. Offside parking agreement is a tool in the H1 overlay district,
[1:41:00] Valle Parking for non-residential is another tool in the RH, which is residential
[1:41:04] historic and downtown. And then you're existing zero carry forward here for multi-family.
[1:41:11] There is a slight discount for parking in the downtown versus other districts.
[1:41:20] So the question
[1:41:21] would be do you agree with these parking alternatives or are there alternatives you want to
[1:41:25] to a way with or amend in some shape way or fashion?
[1:41:32] Can we raise the parking in Lou to a godly amount?
[1:41:37] We could take that direction and come back
[1:41:39] with a separate item.
[1:41:41] I have a question about that, actually.
[1:41:44] So you can buy up to 10 right now,
[1:41:47] but what if you only build 10,
[1:41:49] then you're not required any barking?
[1:41:53] That's right.
[1:41:54] Yeah.
[1:41:55] Wow.
[1:41:57] Okay. Thank you. Mr. Wilt.
[1:42:01] That was my question.
[1:42:06] So, so, um, and that's the way it is now.
[1:42:13] Mr. Wilt.
[1:42:14] You can buy 10 spaces.
[1:42:15] Yes. If you have a 10 unit project, you can buy 10 parking spaces.
[1:42:20] You're required to buy up to 10 if you can't provide any onsite.
[1:42:25] President, you know, it doesn't provide any parking, and so, and it's most certainly not paying for any garage with what we're charging.
[1:42:38] So, how does that alleviate the problem?
[1:42:43] Well, I sent out an email a few weeks back.
[1:42:46] I believe the parking in Lou, the parking fund is upwards around $700,000.
[1:42:52] So it has been accruing over time.
[1:42:55] How long has it taken us to get to $700,000?
[1:42:59] I don't know.
[1:43:00] I can tell you, $25, 30 years.
[1:43:04] There are some funds there, but you're right.
[1:43:07] It will not build you a parking garage.
[1:43:11] So I don't understand why that's even a consideration anymore.
[1:43:15] Parking has become such a huge problem.
[1:43:18] and we have so many neighborhoods now that have permit parking because parking is such a big problem.
[1:43:24] And then we're going to let people have 10 residential units and not make them a part of them.
[1:43:30] That doesn't make any sense to me.
[1:43:35] Anyone else?
[1:43:36] Yes, Mr. Kerkowski.
[1:43:38] Can you explain generally not available a little bit better?
[1:43:43] Sure.
[1:43:44] It's just taken by the first 10. That's it.
[1:43:47] That's all it's referencing.
[1:43:47] Okay, so again, you built a well now that we just figured five and ten mean different things.
[1:43:56] Well, no, that's so that's H1 only.
[1:43:59] Okay, so a little different.
[1:44:00] All right.
[1:44:01] Okay, so we've established you can build a 10 unit project and just not provide parking,
[1:44:07] which probably is a little unlikely, but maybe not entirely out of the picture.
[1:44:11] But you buy parking in Liu for a cheap amount, because what I think we're determining is pretty
[1:44:21] discounted amount.
[1:44:24] But these people are parking somewhere, and so they're clogging street parking that isn't
[1:44:29] permanent.
[1:44:30] That kind of how it's going to work out if we don't address it.
[1:44:35] So the parking in Lou Fee is around $8,000, 8502, a few years back in one of our discussions
[1:44:46] around downtown parking the staff brought forward an item and recommended doubling it
[1:44:50] at a very, very least in the council did not go for it.
[1:44:54] We also brought forth statistics that in a structured parking garage, you're going to be paying
[1:45:00] Of discussing, increasing that fee, but it doesn't reside in the zoning ordinance. So that's a separate resolution, separate item that we could come back to the council.
[1:45:00] around 28,000 a space.
[1:45:02] So I think staff is supportive.
[1:45:11] That in town code? It's a resolution.
[1:45:16] It should be a resolution.
[1:45:17] Okay, I mean, I would certainly like, I mean, it sounds like we're going to have to read address it.
[1:45:22] I don't know. I don't want to make a motion to say we should double it or anything, but I think there's an appetite to bring that back.
[1:45:30] to see if 15, 20, I don't know what it is, but I agree we do need at least explore it
[1:45:37] since it's been explored once and no actually was taken. I think we should definitely look at that.
[1:45:42] That would be interested in discussing payment and loop parking at a future meeting.
[1:45:48] Okay.
[1:45:50] We can bring that back. Thank you.
[1:45:52] To the second part of your question, it's hard to speculate where people are going to park.
[1:45:56] I mean the downtown is a metropolitan environment and they might park in the garages, they might park on street parking, they might not have a car.
[1:46:08] And I think the idea again is downtown flexibility, alternatives to encourage redevelopment and investment.
[1:46:18] And we've talked about the high cost of free parking and some of that space might be better utilized for a different purpose.
[1:46:27] I'm sorry, I promise I was listening, but I did not listen after the payments and living.
[1:46:38] Did you say that these all just mirror what we have currently?
[1:46:42] The exception of number two on the screen.
[1:46:44] Okay.
[1:46:46] That one, there is a code provision that allows no additional parking for non-residential reuse.
[1:46:55] but the existing non-residential building that's being occupied has to be within 500 feet of
[1:47:02] a municipal parking facility and we are proposing scrubbing that 500 foot rule and just going
[1:47:09] district wide.
[1:47:13] Mr. Will? Yeah. So we just discussed further discussions on the parking
[1:47:21] low, but I wanted to inquire further on the discussion point about the up to 10 parking spaces
[1:47:31] can be purchased and then the smaller developments, if we say the 5 or 10, is there maybe
[1:47:40] some logic where we can say rather than you can just buy up to 10, you could buy a percentage
[1:47:45] of your requirement up to a maximum of 10.
[1:47:50] So that one of these proposed 5 or 10 residential projects
[1:47:55] couldn't simply just buy themselves out of all parking entirely.
[1:48:03] Would there be some sense to that from your professional point of view?
[1:48:06] I think there are going to be instances where you have a
[1:48:09] adaptive reuse of existing structures that have no parking on them whatsoever.
[1:48:13] So, I think in part this provision recognize that existing condition and recognizes that buildings in the historic district can have multiple lives over their history.
[1:48:27] So then could we do a
[1:48:29] What I suggest is by right and in that case that would go through a special exception.
[1:48:43] So by right five units, they could buy up to five parking spaces and then you're saying anything more than
[1:48:51] And now I'm suggesting something by right you can buy 10% of your parking requirement, up
[1:48:57] to a maximum of 10 spots, for example.
[1:49:02] If you want to deviate from that to be a special exception, on a case by case.
[1:49:07] I think if you're above the by rights scenario, the ordinance is constructed such that you
[1:49:15] can modify most of the use of performance standards and if it hasn't, then maybe that's
[1:49:20] tweak that we need to make specifically for the downtown. Is that anything more than five you
[1:49:26] would examine everything suit the nuts,
[1:49:32] parking, building height, density, okay. I see it's
[1:49:35] somewhat we just did in terms of.
[1:49:42] So if someone wanted to build a six residential development,
[1:49:49] that would be a special exception and as part of that, we would look at parking. So they couldn't
[1:49:56] and automatically, simply buy out the parking requirements.
[1:50:00] The council could say, no, we want the parking onsite. Okay. Okay. So then the only gap here might be the up to five and that would be at risk.
[1:50:01] Is that the case?
[1:50:01] It would be part of their special exception proposal, perhaps?
[1:50:11] That would align with the action or the recommendation you just made. Okay.
[1:50:16] Understood. Thank you.
[1:50:19] Okay. Then you're asking, does the council agree with the downtown parking alternatives? Are there four people that agree with the, what's been suggested here?
[1:50:28] Are there four people?
[1:50:33] This part.
[1:50:33] Do we agree with all of that as alternatives?
[1:50:41] Yes, because if we say we agree to all that,
[1:50:45] aren't we agreeing to 10 pay and lose spots?
[1:50:48] Yes.
[1:50:48] So we would want to pull a number one off, that's right.
[1:50:52] Just making sure.
[1:50:54] So two, three, four, five.
[1:50:58] Do we have four people that are willing
[1:51:00] to accept two, three, four, five?
[1:51:03] That's the question.
[1:51:04] Yes, sir.
[1:51:04] Sorry, why do we why do planners do this? Like what's a half a space?
[1:51:11] Like I don't I we don't have to get into it, but I'm just I'm sure try to be funny, but also
[1:51:16] Even the whole idea of this is the streamlined and make things easier for people to understand
[1:51:21] the hexa half a space
[1:51:24] These are that's in multi-family developments. So
[1:51:29] Basically,
[1:51:32] the concept is, as you get more dense in the multifamily apartment, you don't need
[1:51:38] necessarily a parking spot for every single bedroom, or else you've heard from developers
[1:51:45] and others that parking drives design, right?
[1:51:49] So the idea is, as you get more dense, you don't need to park every single bedroom.
[1:51:53] So you start to get a little bit of relief that the denser you go.
[1:51:58] Well, hopefully there's there's public transportation, which we don't have much of.
[1:52:05] I mean, that's where like that's my main concern on all of this is again, this is a document
[1:52:11] for the future and we, you know, does Section 16-3, which is the parking section, you don't
[1:52:19] have to go to it.
[1:52:20] Does that provide opportunities to a just parking?
[1:52:25] And maybe not the downtown, but across the town?
[1:52:30] Yes, there are some parking reduction scenarios.
[1:52:35] We don't know what cars will look like in 15 years.
[1:52:41] With AI, we all could be gone anyway, it doesn't matter.
[1:52:45] Yeah, right, but so that's my, I mean, I hear what everyone's saying and I understand if you look at all of these, if you look at every one of these issues through the problems that they, one of us and all of us have experienced today or yesterday or last weekend or a month ago, then parking is an issue, but my concern is just that we're, we can't, we shouldn't be making decisions on a zoning ordinance for today.
[1:53:12] And we need to be thinking about the future and adaptive reuse and not just of buildings,
[1:53:19] but of parking, et cetera.
[1:53:21] And I just feel like we're pigeonholing all of these decisions into today versus the future.
[1:53:29] So, just as a quick response, it might feel like that as we talk about the downtown district,
[1:53:36] because there's a lot of care and thinking that has gone into these standards.
[1:53:41] And it's working, so we're carrying those forward, but you might feel a little bit differently as we expand and look at the entire parking section, where we have overhauled those parking ratios based on the ITE parking generation manual, which is, you know, your international transportation engineers, where we are trying to right size the parking requirements based on, you know, future projections and future uses.
[1:54:11] Okay.
[1:54:14] So where are we?
[1:54:16] Did we get the council agree with the three, two, three, four, five?
[1:54:21] We did that already, right?
[1:54:22] I didn't see the majority.
[1:54:25] Okay.
[1:54:25] All right. Great.
[1:54:27] So now we have to go back to number one,
[1:54:29] which we want to change to five.
[1:54:35] No, that's I'm looking at the wrong one.
[1:54:37] That's right. Yeah, so it would be for residential projects up to five spaces.
[1:54:46] can be purchased is what I believe I heard.
[1:54:52] All right, my people, yeah, that's another, okay.
[1:54:59] So yeah, it isn't that we're just doing it to match what we just talked about on the previous slide.
[1:55:11] We're just trying to clean up the difference from the 5 to 10, which we kind of did, please. Okay, thank you.
[1:55:22] All
[1:55:28] right. Madam Mayor, I just wanted to check in with you again on the timing my clock is flashing.
[1:55:32] It is flashing,
[1:55:36] we do have a fair amount still, do we want to, we have a number of days
[1:55:43] that we can continue on, we don't have to do everything tonight, do we want to stop it here,
[1:55:49] do we want to keep going?
[1:55:55] How do I hate you people? No, what do you do?
[1:55:59] Okay.
[1:56:00] Yeah.
[1:56:02] All right.
[1:56:04] Move on.
[1:56:05] Okay.
[1:56:08] All right.
[1:56:08] The next topic is fence height.
[1:56:11] Yeah.
[1:56:12] I've given up on him.
[1:56:13] We may as well just do away with the time.
[1:56:17] Okay.
[1:56:17] So this one was put out for discussion by Mayor Burke to re-examine our fence height regulations
[1:56:27] in the residential historic district.
[1:56:30] So the zoning on its rewrite carries forward,
[1:56:34] what we have now, and that is,
[1:56:37] fences are a max 42 inches within the front
[1:56:42] or street side setbacks.
[1:56:43] So that would be, you know,
[1:56:45] you're kind of public facing property lines.
[1:56:49] And then outside of those front or street side setbacks,
[1:56:52] they can go up to seven feet.
[1:56:54] There is a provision that if the residential parcel
[1:56:58] is a budding, a non-residential or mixed-use district the fence can be increased to eight feet.
[1:57:05] And the Board of Architectural Review does have the ability to massage setbacks which could indirectly affect that placement of the fence and the height relative to the street.
[1:57:18] And I wouldn't want to see a fence cropped it to eight feet.
[1:57:23] My issue is the side yard when you're on a corner, and you got little kids or dog,
[1:57:34] and you got a lot of people walking by your place, and you're on the side.
[1:57:41] Right now it has to be six feet.
[1:57:43] If it's a street side, it's got to be 42 inches if you're in the street side set back.
[1:57:50] It's a 42 inches of how many feet?
[1:57:53] Well, it's about three and a half feet.
[1:57:57] Three and a half feet.
[1:57:59] And the idea is, you know, it keeps the neighborhoods open.
[1:58:02] It keeps the visibility triangle open for vehicles and folks when they're coming up on corner lots.
[1:58:12] But this can go before the B-A-R, and it can be adjudicated there, so determined that the height
[1:58:21] is an important component for safety or whatever reason.
[1:58:28] I don't take that one.
[1:58:31] I think it's too full.
[1:58:32] One is the aesthetic, and then what is, you know, screening your backyard, I guess, so which
[1:58:41] one, do you value more?
[1:58:45] All right, I'm not going to move on to this one.
[1:58:50] I'm not going to push that one.
[1:58:59] Sorry.
[1:59:00] Now we're on to the zoning map.
[1:59:01] So the zoning map, we talked about it back on July 13,
[1:59:06] 2026, and wanted to refocus in on changes.
[1:59:13] So in that memo from July 13,
[1:59:16] 2020-26. We highlighted that we consolidated some zoning districts, went from 24 to 15. We eliminated
[1:59:22] planned development districts. We added new zoning districts, commercial neighborhood, innovation
[1:59:27] center, and open space, and parks. But then we also had some high-level changes. So I'm going
[1:59:34] to go ahead and switch over to the map. Maybe the town clerk could help me with that. Thank you.
[1:59:46] Okay. Great. That's okay. Perfect. So recall that we were talking about the
[1:59:53] Crescent District. So one change we just wanted to make sure the council was fully aware of
[1:59:59] is the Crescent District. It got a little bit smaller, essentially.
[2:00:00] Let's go out here and encompass beyond plaza to the east on, let's go with blue.
[2:00:25] So, roughly,
[2:00:34] the
[2:00:35] more so the Crescent District Master plan was reduced and the Council approved that and so you
[2:00:40] see a corresponding change on the proposed zoning map. So the Crescent District now does not
[2:00:47] extend past Plaza. It's more or less here.
[2:00:57] Something like that. Okay. The other change. So this
[2:01:03] This change also affected over here just past King Street and that is on the first topic for discussion which is the Safeways site.
[2:01:14] So, the Safeways site used to be in the Crescent Design District, but we took it out.
[2:01:23] And so the boundary of the Crescent Design District stops here.
[2:01:27] But because we took, say, if we out of the crescent design district, we had to come up with a base zoning district designation,
[2:01:35] we went with mixed use to stay compatible with the crescent district across the street.
[2:01:40] And so that's where all pause real quick.
[2:01:42] And I have another map in the slide here that's a little bit of a zoomed in version.
[2:01:48] So let's go back to the PowerPoint real quick.
[2:01:50] That's not zoomed in.
[2:01:51] Yes, sorry, here you go.
[2:01:54] So, the question was, is mixed use the appropriate designation for this, say, voice, say?
[2:02:02] Okay, and I'll start this one because, to be transparent, I live, we're behind, say,
[2:02:09] I understand.
[2:02:10] So, we are, my neighborhood is very interested in this particular project.
[2:02:15] By taking it out of the crescent district and putting it in,
[2:02:23] Did what what implication did it have for the height of the buildings?
[2:02:27] Sure.
[2:02:29] So, if it had stayed in Crescent District Activity Center, which is what you see.
[2:02:36] Well, this is really planned activity center here, but this is their Virginia village.
[2:02:41] I believe the height in Crescent District Activity Center is up to, I believe it's 70, but
[2:02:49] let me go.
[2:02:52] Is it 65?
[2:02:54] Okay.
[2:02:54] Let me just go there real quick.
[2:02:56] We grab the draft, go back to that.
[2:03:02] And by the way, Safeway Center is not interested in moving at this point.
[2:03:05] We're doing it.
[2:03:07] I'm sorry.
[2:03:08] I'm sorry.
[2:03:08] I'm sorry.
[2:03:08] of having a heart, there we go. Thank you. All right.
[2:03:13] Yeah, let's go to the activity center
[2:03:16] just so we can make sure we're saying the right thing. So we'll go to zoning districts. We'll
[2:03:24] go to special purpose. I'm sorry, non-residential. Chris and district and activity center. So
[2:03:35] If it stayed in the crescent district, we're looking at
[2:03:43] max building height of 70 feet.
[2:03:46] So the mixed use district, which is what staff is recommending, we're looking at building
[2:03:56] height of 60 feet, but it's 45 feet if you're adjacent to a residential neighborhood.
[2:04:02] They're right on top of a residential neighborhood.
[2:04:04] Right, so it would be 45 feet in that instance.
[2:04:08] All right.
[2:04:15] Does anyone else have any questions about this?
[2:04:20] What are there any other implications
[2:04:23] differences from the crescent district to multi-use?
[2:04:28] Yeah, so again, the crescent district activity center district
[2:04:30] is really where you want to see the densest
[2:04:33] and most walkable and there's,
[2:04:37] it's going to be more intense than the mixed-use district
[2:04:40] in terms of the types of things that might be concerning for an existing residential network.
[2:04:49] I have to chuckle when you say walkable because I walk down town a lot but very few of my neighbors
[2:04:55] doing me before. So anyway, okay, thank you. I appreciate you answering those questions.
[2:05:01] Yeah. Okay, so we'll leave.
[2:05:01] And we'll go back to the map. All right, so some other changes.
[2:05:15] Okay, so we also now all the school sites on the map are designated as government center.
[2:05:22] They used to be in residential zoning districts, so there you can see county high school is blue and and
[2:05:34] park sites as open space in parks, they used to be in residential
[2:05:37] destinations or otherwise so that will help protect the parks long-term and
[2:05:42] then there's certain zoning designations that have been changed based on
[2:05:47] town plan guidance and so I just wanted to highlight those. The first is the old
[2:05:53] Walmart site and joining parcels down the bypass so it's these right here because
[2:06:03] in your town plan. Those areas designated as mixed use retrofit when it comes to land use
[2:06:10] initiative policy. The zoning proposed in the map is innovation center. That is the best fit for,
[2:06:20] I'm sorry, mixed use, mixed use district is the best fit for that mixed use retrofit. So that's one
[2:06:26] change. The other changes we wanted to highlight for council is the
[2:06:35] mentions area. It's also been referred to as the Leesburg Gateway. It's also been
[2:06:43] referred to as forced DA Stift Tongue area, but essentially we're talking about
[2:06:48] all these parcels in here.
[2:06:51] Again, the Town Plan Landius Initiative map
[2:06:54] designates this area as Innovations Center from a policy standpoint. So we use that as our guiding
[2:07:03] Direction and mapped these parcels in here to Innovations Center.
[2:07:12] Okay.
[2:07:13] Village at Leedsburg. That's another one.
[2:07:18] Those are now
[2:07:20] maps to
[2:07:22] mixed use. However, I wanted to just pause there.
[2:07:27] and note that the base zoning district does not supersede any rezoning or existing
[2:07:34] proffers. So for about 75% of the town you've got proffers that designate the zoning for
[2:07:41] those parcels that have proffers on them. So if in the future village at least we're wanted
[2:07:47] to take advantage of the new mixed use district it would be rezoning.
[2:07:55] And then the other one I
[2:08:01] At one, for a long time, was designated B1, which is downtown,
[2:08:06] but it's not located downtown.
[2:08:09] And so we went ahead and made that over here, commercial neighborhood.
[2:08:15] But again, it's got Prophors.
[2:08:16] It's got a rezoning, which governs the land.
[2:08:28] The last part of the zoning map revision exercise
[2:08:33] was, you know, per our council endorsed project plan.
[2:08:36] We were tasked with modernizing the zoning code.
[2:08:39] So we wanted to find places where the zoning map did not align with parcel boundaries.
[2:08:45] And for the most part, it was just minor irregularities.
[2:08:48] And we fixed those, but there was one that we just wanted to put in front of the council
[2:08:53] because there has been some debate amongst residents and neighbors of this one as to what to do about it.
[2:09:02] And we are not advocating changing it.
[2:09:05] We just wanted to reaffirm that we have got the map correct with the council.
[2:09:11] So this is downtown and it is a parcel that is on 19 North King Street.
[2:09:21] And I just wanted to note publicly that there was an error in the staff report.
[2:09:25] We referred to this parcel as the parcel occupied by light flip, but that is incorrect.
[2:09:31] And so my apologies wanted to clear up the record that it is actually owned by Fiona
[2:09:36] Investments and not the folks that owned nothing to do nothing to do with it. So I was our fault. Okay, so let me just get there
[2:09:47] My in the right place where am I
[2:09:51] Let me zoom out. I can't see where I am
[2:09:57] Okay, hang on pan West got it
[2:10:00] There it is, got it. Come on, baby.
[2:10:02] Okay.
[2:10:09] Okay.
[2:10:13] All right, here we go. Oh, you know what? I have a zoom in on this anyways.
[2:10:16] Well, it's probably my self, but anyways, here's the zoom out version, but let's go back to the power point,
[2:10:23] and I'll show you what we're exactly what we're talking about here. So,
[2:10:27] you can see this rectangle here is residential historic, the rest of the parcel is downtown.
[2:10:38] It's a split zoning situation, doesn't follow parcel lines.
[2:10:43] Again, staff is not advocating a change.
[2:10:46] Just wanted to hear from the council on the record that that is your intent.
[2:10:51] When we looked at the previous historical record on this,
[2:10:54] it was inconclusive, which is why we wanted to just reaffirm.
[2:11:00] Well,
[2:11:03] that particular property has had that that's been there for many, many, many years.
[2:11:10] And it is part of what makes, it is a protection for that particular neighborhood.
[2:11:19] And I don't think we should be changing that to a company, a development that's already
[2:11:24] been approved that didn't need that spot.
[2:11:28] So I would be in favor of changing that at all.
[2:11:32] Okay.
[2:11:32] 70.
[2:11:34] Comments on that?
[2:11:35] Yes, sir?
[2:11:35] I just am curious what, so what we're looking at now is the current zoning it is the current with the new district names.
[2:11:46] Okay, but essentially it's the same configuration as it's been as the mayor said for many years.
[2:11:50] Right. And so this is so, and I apologize for not following.
[2:11:58] You're with the new names, does it change any of the buy right availability or does it change
[2:12:08] any of the development opportunity there or prohibit any of the opportunity that's already
[2:12:14] been approved?
[2:12:16] So the residential historic RHD is largely unchanged in the new zoning ordinance.
[2:12:22] It's just labeled our H now.
[2:12:24] Okay. So that would mean that the redevelopment potential of this
[2:12:32] rectangle is is kind of limited to what you see on Cornwall Street in the yellow as well.
[2:12:40] You're I guess I'm just want to make sure I'm clear. Like we're just reaffirming that we keep it like we see it
[2:12:49] not to try to bring the little box within the red into all red, or into all yellow, whatever.
[2:12:58] Correct.
[2:12:59] Allers are easier to understand than this.
[2:13:02] Okay.
[2:13:03] Thank you.
[2:13:06] Okay.
[2:13:07] So those were the map changes.
[2:13:12] Madam Mayor, if I can just get something on the record.
[2:13:15] So when we go to a minister of the map,
[2:13:17] Again, what the direction the council gave to us was to align it with parcel lines, and this instance, would you agree that the intent of your action to maintain the district is to extend the existing parcel lines so that they intersect?
[2:13:34] What do you mean? I don't understand.
[2:13:36] If you were to take the north-sam parcel line.
[2:13:39] No, I think we're saying leave along. Leave it the way it is.
[2:13:44] They're affirming the zoning boundary does not need to line up with the parcel boundary.
[2:13:53] So it's your intent that this zoning district line continues in that direction to that point.
[2:13:59] And that this parcel line DVA, these are not survey drawings.
[2:14:07] So I'm in the issue here is that if you go back in time,
[2:14:12] I'm trust me I've gone all the way back to the 72 ordinance and the parcel lines that we're used back in the day
[2:14:18] We're never surveyed drawing so there's no meets and bounds description for any of the parcels
[2:14:24] So to help clean the record it would be nice to know exactly what your intent is
[2:14:30] mimic exactly what's depicted here
[2:14:34] I'm good with that or if you wanted to describe how these lines should intersect I would be good with that as well
[2:14:40] I
[2:14:42] don't, I don't have an issue with leavein' the way it is, I don't know about anybody else to guess.
[2:14:47] I just have a clarifying question. So are we saying that we believe that the boundaries may not be 100% accurate,
[2:14:56] and that it needs to be re-served?
[2:14:59] Now, we're just looking for direction to clear up the record.
[2:15:00] And I agree with the overall intent. I'm just trying to understand what you were saying, like, about you're saying that you went way back to try and line everything up. So the boundaries are an issue or not.
[2:15:02] Okay. So I think we're seeing the record.
[2:15:04] I think what you...
[2:15:12] Absent, this process for council is doing a comprehensive remapping.
[2:15:17] Issues that involved discrepancies in the parcel boundaries is a function of, first, a zoning administrator's determination, which then gets answered by the BZA.
[2:15:28] they affirm or change or clear the record at the BZA, right?
[2:15:34] Because I'm sure you want to be able to use your discretionary authority.
[2:15:38] That's why this is before you.
[2:15:40] Is that you don't want the BZA to preemptively act?
[2:15:45] Not that you couldn't do something else.
[2:15:47] It would just prolong the process to effectively continue
[2:15:51] what you've got shown on the map.
[2:15:53] Okay, thank you for clarifying it.
[2:15:54] And yeah, I wasn't trying to make a headache out of it.
[2:15:57] I just, what you had said, I just was just thinking
[2:15:59] there was a boundary issue.
[2:16:01] And I do, I also respect that you're trying,
[2:16:05] you were doing your due diligence by trying to align parcels
[2:16:07] with zoning across the town.
[2:16:09] So totally understand.
[2:16:10] And I know this did cause a little bit of a hub of,
[2:16:13] if you will.
[2:16:14] But I think this is, I agree.
[2:16:15] This is a unique situation for us to go against the grain a little bit.
[2:16:22] All right.
[2:16:23] OK.
[2:16:23] Thank you.
[2:16:25] So that is everything in tonight's agenda packet.
[2:16:30] Now I'm out of May or there was a few items submitted after the agenda packet was published.
[2:16:35] We can hold those till another.
[2:16:37] We're holding those.
[2:16:41] Did you get all the votes you needed, though?
[2:16:44] I mean.
[2:16:45] Yes.
[2:16:45] I could just run through it real quickly, but it's like that.
[2:16:49] So what we got, if we go back to our original sheet here.
[2:16:53] So we got guidance on the housing mix requirements to leave those as is minimum open space.
[2:17:01] We got guidance to reduce CDAC or this crescent district down to 20% down town.
[2:17:07] We got guidance to make the enhanced building high area, a minor special exception to leave
[2:17:14] the fence side alone, reduce the parking and live for residential to up to five spaces that
[2:17:20] can be bought. We also got guidance to leave it up to five units by right, six or more, six to
[2:17:26] ten, minor special exception, 11 plus special exception. We confirm the mixed use district
[2:17:32] designation for safeway, and then we went through the highlighted changes on the map,
[2:17:38] and it sounds like the council's in agreement with the map as drafted.
[2:17:46] I'm sorry, I just have a question on process, so we went through everything that was in the staff report, which I know we submitted.
[2:17:57] If we have additional item, I thought we were just going to look at section two or division two or whatever it were calling.
[2:18:04] And so I had some other items that weren't in this. Do I now send that to James and try to get that on our next deep dive?
[2:18:11] are one of them. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Good work, everybody. That concludes our
[2:18:24] work session for tonight. The next deep dive list we're going to dig into uses a little bit
[2:18:29] more in accompanying use standards, levels of permissibility, et cetera. And then as we get more items,
[2:18:35] will keep scheduling on the back end.
[2:18:40] I do have a proclamation request.
[2:18:44] Our sheet, Gucci, President, and CEO of Lead America, United National and Diversity Coalition
[2:18:49] of America, proclaiming Hindu heritage month in Duwali, 2026, it's like he would like
[2:18:56] it presented on October 27th and he would be the recipient.
[2:19:00] So I have four people that would be willing to support that proclamation.
[2:19:06] everybody, okay? Does anybody have any teacher media items or
[2:19:09] disclosures they want to tonight? Yes, sir. Dr. Me? Yeah. I just want to be sure that
[2:19:15] we are definitely going to have the parking in the Lou conversation. Well he has said that,
[2:19:21] but when we're done with this. Yeah, okay, okay. No problem.
[2:19:27] I'm not coming to work session. Separate from the deep dive discussions? Yeah. It can be part of the deep dive.
[2:19:34] he said, it's not Sony, so it has to be separate work session.
[2:19:39] One July to do that.
[2:19:40] How soon?
[2:19:43] You want to get past the deep dive?
[2:19:44] That's good.
[2:19:46] Yeah, but I don't know.
[2:19:46] You want to get past this?
[2:19:48] Pick this up and then do you need it?
[2:19:49] Yeah, well, we do in the fight.
[2:19:49] Like a February march time frame.
[2:19:52] Okay.
[2:19:53] Okay.
[2:19:53] The middle.
[2:19:55] So.
[2:19:56] Um, anybody else have anything?
[2:19:59] Do I have a motion to adjourn?
[2:20:00] All right.
[2:20:01] Okay.
[2:20:02] Second?
[2:20:02] All in favour?
[2:20:05] Well, that was very nice job. Yeah.