I'm I'm Alright, let's call the Wednesday, March 5th, 2025 meeting of the Planning Commission to order. Mr. Trainer, can you call the role please? Yep, Madam Chair. Mr. Polinsky, here. Mr. Duncan. Here. Mr. Crasner. I'm here. Mr. Comon. I'm here. Mr. Stevens here. Miss Fritzlinder here and Mr. Krivinsky here. Thank you. We have a quorum. Great. Thank you. Our next item on the agenda is the adoption of the agenda. Any discussion of the agenda? If not, can I have a motion to approve? I'm sure I'm able to adopt a meeting agenda. Second. Fall in favor. Hi. Hi. Okay. That takes us to item four speaker series. We have no speaker series tonight. Item five receipt of petitions. Mr. Trainer, can you provide a summary of our written correspondence? Sure, Madam Chair. We had five petitions written to the Planning Commission for their meeting tonight. Robin Raimi and Matt Cunningham both wrote in in support of the accessory dwelling proposal John Ward and Michael Doctor wrote to the Planning Commission regarding a citywide comprehensive stormwater and sewer study and Kelly Port and Brian Sparry wrote into Planning Commission regarding corner lots under the accessory dwelling proposal. Great, thank you. And do we have any in-person petitions tonight? We do, Madam Chair, all for the accessory dwelling public hearings tonight. Okay, so I think we have the option of receiving those comments now or during the item. Is that correct? Yeah, I think because I will I think everyone here is speaking for accessory to wellings, but we do have two public hearings. So it might just procedurally be easier to do itemized. Public hearing. Okay. All right. So I think we can move on to our action items. First action item is 6A, Access Redualling, Zoning, Text, Amendment, Public Hearing. Mr. Fuller, are you introducing the item? Accessory. Yes, sure. Mr. Trainer. Is the preference to have the staff report presentation before the speakers, Madam Chair? We can, I don't know. What? That makes sense. I think, isn't that how we normally do it? Yeah, we're related to speakers to have the latest information. Yeah. Okay, sure. I know we've done both ways in the past, so I can go ahead and give the staff report presentation. And then we'll hear the in-person comment. OK, that sounds good. OK, so tonight the planning commission is requested to hold its public hearing and make a recommendation to City Council on proposed zoning ordinance amendments related to accessory dwellings. City Council granted first reading to the proposed amendments during its November 25th, 2024 meeting in a schedule to have its final consideration at its April 14th meeting. My presentation tonight is going to cover some background as a reminder for why the city's considering updates to its accessory dwelling regulations. I'll go over some of the updates to the proposal that have been made since first reading highlighting those that have been made since the planning commissions. Previous work session and then I'll go over some of on a high level some of the new information that's included in the report which I'll cover more depth further into the presentation and I'll wrap up by just reviewing the The schedule that this is taken and the remaining dates So by way background Review of the city accessory dwelling regulations is recommended in the city's budget for the city's budget for the city budget for the city's budget for the city's budget for the city budget for the city's budget for the city's budget for the city budget for the city's budget for the city's budget for the city for the city's budget for the city for the city's budget for the city for the city's budget for the city for the city's budget for the city for the city's property owners for housing dependent family members or also offering some potential additional income to property owners to perhaps subsidize their own housing costs. And then again, first reading to the proposal was granted by City Council during its November 25th, 2024 meeting. The proposal considers potential impacts such as impacts to fiscal nature as well as to the city's facilities, such aswater and sewer, considers equity and privacy concerns and environmental impacts. The proposal kind of balances mitigating these negative impacts with the feedback received to date, which includes all the public meetings that have occurred throughout 2024 and 2025 to date, well as considering local conditions and best practices that have been observed nationwide and locally in neighboring jurisdictions. So next I'm going to cover again what some of the new information is both to the proposal and the staff report beginning with updates to the proposal. So this is the fifth planning commission meeting that has happened since first reading was given in November. So there's been a lot of feedback given since then this chart covers all of the updates to the proposal that have occurred since first reading. My presentation now is just going to cover what's new since the planning commission's previous work session. Beginning with the updated height and setback recommendations for detached accessory dwellings. There was a discussion at the last planning commission meeting about introducing a sliding scale between the five and ten foot setback option instead of a binary five or ten foot that's been included into the draft code. There's also a note about how accessory structures, accessory structures, are measured in historic properties. Section 487886 includes a provision that states that accessory or incinerary structures on historic properties. Their height are measured to the roof peak. That there's been amendment in the draft code to bring that into conformity with how accessory structures are measured across the city, which is to the mid-roof line for the planning commission's consideration. Regarding windows and detached accessory dwellings, particularly those facing neighboring lots. There's the existing, required existing, it's been in the proposal for several iterations now that any window above the first story of a detached accessory dwelling has to be set back at least 10 feet from the neighboring lot lines. There was discussion, the last planning commission meeting about introduction of clear story windows, which are those that are above seeing eye level or aren't transparent. These are utilized to introduce sunlight or more natural light into the accessory dwelling and also help break up the facade of the wall of an accessory dwelling. So it can have benefits to the neighboring property, whereas creating a more interesting facade facing them while preserving some of that privacy. And so that has been introduced into the code where clear story windows would be allowed on the accessory dwelling closer to the neighboring property lines than 10 feet. If you have non-clear story windows, again, those would be required to be set back at least 10 feet. So moving on to updates to the staff report or some more analysis and data that was requested beginning with rear yard coverage maximum. So I'll talk about this a little bit more, but the planning commission discussed at its previous meeting and existing requirement for accessory structures that says that there's a limit where accessory structures can occupy more than 30% of the required rear yard. And as the code is written tonight, accessory dwellings would be incorporated in that. There's more analysis again as requested about how this would impact accessory dwellings, which I'll walk the commission through later and the and the that the HCC does cover the entire city. So it captures all of the properties that are, you know, within the city's limits, but its regulations only apply to structures that were built as residences before or during 1910 and other structures and sites of historic cultural or architect architectural significance that have been designated as such Lastly, this isn't new information, but I just wanted to flag that there was discussion at the last planning commission meeting about the Board of Zoning Appeals assessment criteria of special use permits and how that would be applied to accessory dwellings and as well as the planning commission's role in such consideration. just want to flag that the recommendation has been left in the draft code that would streamline accessory dwelling applications to the Board of Zoning Appe appeals. And so the planning commission right now the planning commission is required to make a recommendation to the BZA's consideration. Next, I'm going to just walk through the proposal just to get kind of everyone reoriented. This is the framework table and I'm just going to kind of walk through one last time Under what's being proposed tonight? So Under gross floor area or size of the accessory dwelling the proposals to allow an accessory dwelling to be either 50% of the primary dwelling square footage or 1,000 square feet, whichever is less. And regarding lock coverage to comply with existing standards for single-family homes that includes a 25% building coverage maximum, 30, excuse me, 25% building coverage maximum, 35% impervious surface coverage maximum, and a 20% tree can be coverage minimum minimum the last of which it gets enforced at the grading plan stage Also included the 30% maximum coverage of the required rear yard area for accessory buildings which again the way the code is written right now would include detached accessory dwellings regarding location We, we're talking about the single family districts in the city that's R1A and R1B would be permitted to construct or have accessory dwellings by right as accessory uses and in the RM districts accessory dwellings would remain the conditional use that it is today requiring a special use permit granted by the Board of Zoning Appeals. There are no obfric parking requirements proposed. Short-term rental would not be permitted in accessory dwellings under the proposal and in owner occupant requirement is also not included in the proposal. The City Attorney will be joining the meeting tonight I believe she had something she had to she couldn't she had something at seven but will be joining this meeting for any legal specific questions for the city attorney. A occupancy maximum of three inhabitants has been included in the proposal. And regarding approval. There's the proposal includes a maximum of one accessory dwelling permitted per lot and any accessory dwelling would be subject to those same building safety and permit checks and that a single family home are subject to. For detached accessory dwelling specifically regarding height, we've included the sliding scale here, but still an accessory dwelling under the proposals permitted to be one story or 15 feet, whichever is less when that set back five feet or one and a half stories or 20 feet Whichever's less when set back 10 feet with that sliding scale introduced between the five and 10 foot setbacks where for every Additional foot your setback from that five foot setback The accessory dwelling would be granted an additional foot in height. So you're keeping the two binary options that were presented previously but just introducing a little bit more flexibility in between. So that information is the same as the setbacks and also included here are the clear story windows which I covered earlier. And lastly for existing accessory buildings, accessory dwellings and non-conforming accessory structures that are built before January 1, 2024 shall require especially use permit granted by the board zoning appeals. So any existing accessory building today would be eligible for conversion if it was built before January 1st, 2024 and if it does not comply with those requirements for a new accessory dwelling then it would be required to get a special use permit from the BCA. Because moving into the staff analysis section, I'll go down to some of the new analysis that was requested, which primarily covers the required rear yard setback setback area that's under the lot coverage and orientation part of the lot. So we included these kind of site plan models previously that shows you know the buildable area of the accessory dwelling in the total backyard area, not to be confused with the rear yard. yard. So we're talking about the required rear yard area, which is defined by the set back specific area for the single family home that shaded in red here. And again, the current code is written that accessory buildings cannot occupy more than 30% of this required rear yard area. I believe the zoning intent for that is it, you know, is to kind of mitigate against the overcrowding of buildings in the back of the yard. So what this requirement really does is push additional accessory buildings more to the center of the lot or closer to the home. And so again, what this requirement does is kind of ensure some more open space towards the back of the lot. But we've, you know, again, included some more analysis about some other considerations for this 30%. Again, being if you have, for instance, an existing accessory building in the required rear yard area that takes away from the space that might go to an accessory dwelling. And so the orientation of the accessory dwelling in the lot may be decided for a property owner if they're not able to remove the existing structure in there. It also could prevent in this example an accessory dwelling of 675 square feet, you know, which is complying with the building and in pervious surface coverage of the lot, but wouldn't be able to be built in this orientation because you're occupying too much of the rear yard area, where this kind of orientation might be desirable by keeping more of the central backyard space available for use. A property owner may be forced to build it vertically like this, which kind of just moves over the usable open space into the side. But obviously these examples have a lot of assumptions where you don't exactly know what the conditions are. And so the 30% does represent a kind of limitation to the property owner where there's less flexibility to kind of incorporate some of the existing conditions on the lot including vegetation, neighbor privacy or other accessory structures on the lot. The flip side is that it would ensure again some more open space in the kind of furthest reaches of the lot. So, you know, the Planning Commission requested some options to, in, in considering this. So, what we've done is this table shows, you know, what a standard lot, for a standard lot in the R1A and R1B district, what that required rear yard area is, and what that coverage maximum would be for, intervals. And I believe that's it for the new information in the staff report. I'll just... Oh, right. write and so in the public engagement section we did pull the online questionnaire responses. Those were pulled on February 24th and those summaries have been compiled as an attachment to this report. Obviously the bulk of the information are open-ended responses and so that would just be kind of too much to include in this report. It's several pages of folks' responses to each specific component of the proposal. And so those have been included, again, as an attachment. Updated numbers will be pulled and summarized for City Council ahead of their work session. And so that will be, again, included for City Council's review and consideration. And then lastly I'll just close with the timing section. Again, this is tonight is the planning commission's public hearing and recommendation to city council. We got here over years worth of work beginning in January of last year when the planning commission held its scope of work session. And then throughout the summer held many work sessions along with your peer boards and commissions and city council. We held six open house meetings at various stages of the proposal development throughout 2024 including most recently in January of this year. So again tonight March 5th is a planning which is public hearing. The remaining dates on the schedule are city council's final work session which is for March 10th. And then city council's final consideration date of April 14th. So thank you Madam Chair. I'll turn it back to you for any questions. Great. Thank you very much, Mr. Turner. Thank you for all your hard work on this over the past year. So this is a public hearing so I think we can go ahead and open the public hearing and invite any speakers who wish to speak on the item up to the podium. Okay. First speaker slip I have is Gene Grasco. As a reminder each speaker will have three minutes. And please state your name and address. Hi. I'm Gene Grasco and I live on a track. Can you check that your is your mic on? Yes. Yes. Okay. I agree with Mr. Krasner's recent comments that 5 feet, 5 feet is too close for an 80 to be built away from a neighbor's lot line. Homeowner's bought homes expecting neighbors to be 10 to 15 feet away. That's the privacy that should be maintained. Some might say that Sheds can already already built that close, so what's the big deal? But we're talking about a much larger Second dwelling that's up to 1000 square feet in area. Much like this example, our planning staff has always showed the AD being built in an out of the way corner of the backyard. But the current proposal allows an AD such as this to be almost next to the primary house, greatly impacting privacy. And this example AD could be built parallel to the lot line with all these windows, five feet away facing the neighbor. would say all the neighbor could build a fence or shrubs really. So you're taking away privacy and then asking the neighbor to spend money to retain what should have never been taken away in the first place. The solution is to go with a 10 foot setback, not five. This would retain existing privacy and still achieve all of the goals that you have in front of you for ADs. I asked that this commission discuss and agree on a 10-foot minimum. That's the fair solution to our citizens. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The next speaker is Kelly Port. Make sure that mic was on. It didn't sound like it was on to me. My ears are...I don't know. I think they worked. But it sounded very low. Did you anyone else notice that? Or was that just me? Yeah, I noticed it. That's why I asked. I wonder if the speakers in here are on? Yeah, I'm not hearing anything. It should sound like that. I'm going to tap on it, nut in here on. Yeah, I'm not here in anything. It should sound like a tap on it, not in here. The green lights on. Yeah. Is there any volume control over? Testing 1, 2, 3. And we're here. As long as the public can hear. It may just be the volume in this room. Testing 1, 2, 3, same up. Yep. They're both the same. So go ahead. Yep. I think they're both the same. So go ahead. Yeah. Welcome. Is that green line on Kelly on the OK? Thanks. OK, I'll try to talk as loudly as possible. OK. Good evening. My name is Kelly Port. I live at 305 Walnut Street. My husband and I will both be speaking this evening and we've also emailed our comments to Mr. Trainer earlier today. Our primary concern with the current AD or accessory dwelling plans is the lack of specific consideration for ADs on corner lots. All of the model schematics shown to date in presentations, questionnaires, and et cetera have been for interior lots where the AD is situated in the backyard. The picture is quite different for an AD on a corner lot where there is no backyard, only two front yards and two side yards. In particular, setbacks for corner lots should follow the same 10 foot side yard setback requirement as primary dwellings regardless of AD height and should not be allowed to be less than the actual front setback of either of the adjacent primary dwellings for the following reasons. Number one, AD should be constructed no less than 10 feet from the property line on the two side yards to prevent situations where the AD is only 15 feet from a neighboring primary dwelling. That would be the five foot setback for the AD plus the 10 foot setback for the primary dwelling. Current regulations for two adjacent primary dwellings require 10 foot side yard setbacks for each resulting in 20 feet of separation. However a five foot setback for the AD would result in two occupied dwellings being closer together than has been envisioned for R1A and R1B lots by city planners. Number two, current plans limit an AD's front setback to be no more than the setback of the primary dwelling. On a corner lot this could mean that the AD is cited closer to the street than a neighboring primary dwelling. This puts the accessory dwelling on equal footing with primary dwellings, which seems contrary to the spirit of an AD. The AD should at a minimum be no closer to the street than either the owner's primary dwelling or the next door neighbor's primary dwelling, whichever is further from the street. 3. While it has been pointed out that garages and sheds have only a three-foot minimum setback, they are not occupied dwellings. Two occupied dwellings close to each other have far greater issues with privacy. Brand sparing. Brian Sperry. Good evening. My name is Brian Sperry and I too live at 305 Walnut Street. I will be continuing with my wife's in my concerns about ADs on corner lots. An AD sitting only 15 feet from a neighboring house has a potential to impact groundwater flow on the neighboring land. Issues like this are typically addressed by the grading and site plan that must be submitted for any construction that disturbs more than 2,500 square feet of land. However, it seems plausible for a 1000-gross square foot AD on a corner lot with easy street accessibility for construction to not meet that disturbance threshold and therefore never require a review of water runoff. We would suggest requiring a gradient and site plan for an AD on a corner lot. Number five, a five foot setback is not sufficient space for screening foliage. Our visits to nearby garden nurseries have indicated that they are not screening plantings, either bushes or trees, that can grow one and a half stories tall while being no wider than five feet and have enough branches to successfully screen the two dwellings. A 5-foot setback, therefore, will put the burden of screening on the neighboring lot that receives no financial benefit from the AD next door. Finally, tall privacy fences are a screening option. However, if the AD is closer to the street than the neighboring primary home and it's not uncommon for neighboring older homes to be set further back from the street, the fence height becomes limited to four feet along the portion border in the neighboring front yard and a four-foot tall fence will not provide any privacy screening and even the seven-foot fence allowed along the side yard will not provide full screening between the homes. Given the unique relationship between corner lots and their neighboring interior lots we would ask that you please establish setbacks for corner lots to be as we have described and consider requiring grading or site plans for corner lots. And in closing, we appreciate your consideration of our concerns and also for your time serving on the Falls Church City Planning Commission. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker's Mary Chavez. Followed by Janet. Welcome. Madam Chair and commissioners. I'm Mary Chavez, 215 Lawton Street. I would like to focus on where engaged residents stand on the outstanding issues to be resolved this evening. The staff online survey has recently been made available with more than 200 responses. Clearly, the public has strong concerns about the proposed zoning changes, sending in hundreds of specific comments. Of the issues posed by staff, 60 to 75% of respondents would maintain current lot coverage requirements, prohibit short-term rentals, and require a BZA special use permit to convert non-compliant accessory structures. However, there is a clear 50-50 split on the permitted size of detached ADs and elimination of the current parking requirement for accessory dwellings. And there is strong opposition, 40% in favor, 60% opposed to heights up to 25 feet, the proposed five and 10 foot setbacks, and the exclusion of owner occupancy requirements. Heights have been adjusted, but the public doesn't support staff on the five foot setback and owner occupancy by a wide margin. Suggestions to graduate heights within the five to ten foot setback compound the issue and move height toward the property line. A five foot setback can accommodate canopy trees and may cause trees on both sides of the fence to be eliminated if their roots would be compromised by an A.D.'s construction. That happened to me at my expense. Five feet is just too close. I urge you to focus on the 10 to 15 foot setbacks currently permitted for the main dwelling. Owner occupancy is currently required here for internal ADs. The city hasn't been sued over that provision and no other Virginia jurisdiction has been either for including it with regard to detached units. Excluding owner occupancy, opens the door to broader change to neighborhoods than residents are ready to accept. It is a key issue that shouldn't be just swept under the rug as legal ambiguity. Once it's eliminated, it would be very hard to claw back. Finally, you have a new issue before you, whether to expand an AD share of the required rear yard. The rationale would be to eliminate difficulties for owners with a shed in that area or if the main house sits further back on the property. The simple answer, take down the shed or have an internal AD or an add-on AD. We don't have to change everything to accommodate building more attached detached units. I thank you. Thank you. Exist Janet. Welcome. Hi. I'm Janet Goers. I live at 121 South Least Street. I think the people have spoken before me have expressed many of my concerns but I guess I'll reiterate them just to pile it up. First people have spoken before me, expressed many of my concerns, but I guess I'll reiterate them just to pile it up. First, the only inhabited dwelling that I would have within five feet of my property line would be a dog house, and then it would have to have a very agreeable dog. It's just too close. It's things should be left as they are. And that would be with 10 foot set back or more. Secondly, it's a stated goal of the Planning Commission to increase housing in in this city. It's also a stated goal to increase green space and tree canopy. And there's quite a conflict there. And I think a five foot setback is going to very badly impinge upon any goal to try and increase tree canopy or green space. I mean, this is five feet. I measured. I measured my arms. I think I'm maybe an inch over five feet. I mean, you can't plant a tree in there. And it would kill the tree next door. As Mary Chavez has just said, these buildings aren't just buildings five feet from the fence. They're also requiring grading. When you build a building, you scrape stuff. I think you all know that the roots of a tree, you know, it's not a root ball like you get when you go to the nursery. They are dispersed. There's as much tree below the ground as there is above the ground. I'm an X tree commissioner, so I get going on this. There's as much tree above the ground as there is below, and it is not going down to China. It's occupying this space, the two to three-foot space, below the surface of your lawn or mulch or whatever. And it competes with the lawn. That's why tree commissioners always want mulch-around trees instead of lawn. So if you have that grading, I mean grading is, I think, what Phil Marys tree. And I have, and my neighbor has, in his backyard, a great big black walnut that, you know, creates a hard-hat area every fall and is a place that the hawks like to sit and it's a lovely tree. If I were to build an ADU five feet from that tree, it would be dead. Any large tree would be dead if you build that close and grade all along that fence. So the other thing I was thinking about, I was talking to friends about who had had things built around them and had things built okay you need trees to soak up water the builders come in they make a little channel they make grade and make drainage it doesn't do the job you need you need to have enough vegetation thank you Thank you. Any other speakers? All the slips I have. Is there anybody else here who would like to speak on this item? Not, I think we can close the public hearing and move on to putting commission discussion. I think Sally, do I? Oh, and is Mr. Lat with us? She is, looks like she is. Oh, terrific. Mr. Lat, would you like to make any comments at this time? Oh, thank you for the opportunity. Hey, I wanted to let the Planning Commission know that the City Council voted on Monday, and I'm sorry I joined you late this evening. I had a surprise meeting at my daughter school But my what I wanted to convey if Jack has an already conveyed it is that the planning commission voted on Monday to Allow the documents that contained legal advice and those communications to be open to the public So I able, and you all are able to speak more freely on the issue of owner occupancy. I am going to be with you this evening virtually to answer any questions. So I'll stand by and wait until those any questions are raised. Thank you. Okay, thank you very much. Who would like to begin? Maybe I can ask you a question, Mr. Chander, on the corner lot question. I know that was something that we discussed early on. I know that Arlington has a 10-foot setback. Can you speak on that? You know, what research staff has done on that item? And can you also remind us it's two front yards, two side yards for cornering us? That's correct. That's right. So on a corner, a lot, the accessory dwelling would be subject to the two front yard setbacks. There's a provision in the code that says accessory dwellings can't be located in the front yard of the principal dwelling and so that, depending on what zone it is, it's different for each zone but that the accessory dwelling would be subject to the front yard setback on both. So that would prevent it from being closer to the street that would not be closer to the to the street that the prince would always be at least as far from the street than the principal dwelling that it is accessory to. Okay, thank you. And then do you know, did you speak to your colleagues in Arlington about why they have the 10 foot setback for corner lots? Not specifically. Okay, thank you. I have a follow-up question on that. Sure. When you say front yard, are we talking about the minimum required front setback or the actual yard because a house can be situated well behind the minimum front setback. So are you saying the ordinance has currently written what allows someone to build an ADU in front of the house so long as it was meeting the minimum front setback? Do we intend to do a lot of that to answer first? So what would it do? Yeah, the intention is to not be closer to the street than the house. So it'd be. Well, how's the word in the ordinance? Because if it's not worded correctly, because there's a yard, I forget how it's defined in our code, there's a yard, which is anything in front of your front wall of your house, to your front, yeah, lot line, that's all your front yard. But then there's a yard which is anything in front of your front wall of your house to your front, yeah, lot line. That's all your front yard. But then there's the minimum front setback which is a smaller number unless your house was built right at the minimum. And if we're just saying an ADU can't be in the minimum's front setback, okay, but then it's still in the front yards. We gotta see how we define that because if we're just saying that's to meet the minimum front setback of the zone, then it could be located in front of the main dwelling. I don't think we intend we're intending to do that. It's not I'm not intending to do that. Yeah. Let's see. Well, he's looking for that. Am I correct that you're that the thought behind what you're saying is that you wouldn't want to see an AD closer to, let's say, the front street than the primary. Right. Exactly. I mean, in R1A, forget what is the front setback in R1A? It's 30. What's the minimum front setback? It's 30 in R1A and 25 in R1 So let's say the house was set back 45. The current house today is set back 40. I don't think I want to see the AD's at back at 30. If the main dwelling is set back at 40, that's kind of I think runs counter to the idea of it being clearly subordinate as an accessory use. Some of that has to do with words located on the lot. In my view. My opinion. Sorry. I thought it was right in the standards section. We did have that. Yeah, I remember it. It's listed in the table, not permitted in front yards. I did a word search on the corner and it's not in the regulation. I don't think it's it. Yeah. I think he's looking for a broader regulation that would for all lots that would not permit any D to be built in the front yard. Yeah. But if a corner lot has two front yards, this only refers to the side and rear. So it doesn't address the corner lot. I think is how I read this. If it's two front yards and it can't be built in it, then it would be at the level of the hubs. It would be built at the back. I don't know, I guess it depends on how you're envisioning. Oh, it's oriented. Yeah. And it's a special use permit. So you have two front yards and the house is here and it can't be built in either of those front yards. So you have a back that this would be applies to. Which are actually side yards. Right. Like this is written towards back inside yards. That's how I read that. Back, setbacks, rear setbacks, and side setbacks. Nothing about a front. So if you are corner, you have two fronts. So you're it can't be situated there. Right. That's how I that's how I interpret this. That's but that's what we want. Right. Is that a concern? I don't understand. Right. I think it I think this is limiting it so that you cannot put it in the front. Because Because you have two fronts on a corner line. Right. So we're agree. Yeah. Okay. But our ordinance is, you know, we got to be careful because the ordinance talks about a front building setback line, the definition of front yard in the ordinance. It's yard comma front means a yard extending from the side lot line to side dot line between the front lot line and the front building set back line. So not the building itself, just the building set back line. The house could be constructed well behind the building, the minimum building set back line. And so that would see if we were referencing off that definition saying you just can't build it in the front yard we're not saying you can't build it in front of the main dwelling which I think is not, at least like I'm not intending to allow that. And that would be especially a problem on a corner a lot. I mean that's where you'd probably see it. You know on an interior lot it'd be unlikely that you'd be able to do that. And most of our lots they're small, they're too small, there's not a window wouldn't be in a room between the building if they're you know you know you'd have to ask to step back well most of our lots, they're small, they're too small, there's not a window in the room between the building, if you know, you know, the house was set back well behind, there probably would be in a room. But on a corner lot, you absolutely could, have a situation where that could occur. So I have a corner lot. And I mean, the way we refer to it is, is as the house as it's oriented towards the street the front of the house, there is a side yard. And then behind that house, our house, which is not the street that the address is on, we refer to that as the rear yard. And so I think the concern would be the rear of the house, you would have, you would, you would at least need to have that as far back as the house itself on either dimensions. Is that what we're saying? We want the AD set back at least as far as the current house, at least as far as the current house on the side if it's on the side or if it's in the rear. Well, the ordinance, it's tricky because I know if you live in a corner lot you may not think of it that way but zoning ordinance would say that you don't have a rear yard. You have two fronts and two sides but I get people have what they consider to be their functional rear yard but anything that's adjacent to a street is a front and then the other two are sides. So I don't see that in this draft, Mr. Trainer. So yeah, it's in the framework. So was intended, but I think we had it in here. I'm not sure exactly where it went, but it's something we can include back under the standards section as being permitted in the front yard setback. Again. Is it the front yard setback or the distance, whichever is less, the front yard setback or the actual line of the front yard of the front, there's technical term, I don't know. We just say it shall be no closer to the street than the primary dwelling. Then the main dwelling, yeah. We could also say that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and I know the ordinance. I'll be located in the front yard, nor closer to the street than the primary dwelling. That would be my recommendation. And there's already, I mean, there's a precedent for that in the sense that the ordinance already, you know, with the whole front, you're an averaging thing. You know, already it very talks about, yeah, refers to the location of the house as opposed to just the minimum regulation. I mean, that concept, I'm saying that concept already exists in the code, despite what our definition of, you know, front yard is, it's too bad, Miss Rousy's not here, but that's something I think has an important concept that when we're talking about accessory, you know, and most people, how most people would think of something that's accessory would be something that is, most typically behind, but certainly not, you know, in front of the main dwelling, except perhaps on a very large property where you'd have, you know, maybe a small building that could be, you know, could be in front and still might be considered accessory because it'd be so clearly subordinate and smaller but we don't have those kind of lots in future. So, anyway, so I think that's only really good. Okay, so that proposal makes works from your perspective? Well, I have to talk about the exact wording, but yeah, in general. Yeah, I mean, that could work. See what people think. Any other comments on that? If not, I mean, I think staff did identify a few pending items for us to discuss. So maybe we can just, I can just walk us through the list if nobody has any immediate comments off the bat. Do we want to discuss the rear yard, 30% coverage requirement? Mr. Stevens, if you have thoughts on that. Yeah. We kind of introduced this at our last meeting, so had a chance to think about it. And I think as I look at it, try to grasp what it means. It really seems to me to be more about aesthetics and the lining up of structures in this defined space called rear yard. It doesn't add any to open space because we already have the 25% building and 35% impervious restrictions. So, you know, that's where we keep our open spaces from those two parameters. So it seems like this is really more to do with aesthetics, which maybe it has some value. I don't know, since it's in somebody's backyard, it strikes me as having less impact. But it would, I think, through some of the discussions that have come between the last meeting and this meeting, restrict restrict some of the flexibility of the owner as far as placement of an accessory dwelling. So I'd be inclined to suggest that we drop the application of the 30% rear yard requirement to an accessory dwelling. Great, thank you. Any other thoughts? Mr. Duncan? Yeah, I would support what Mr. Stevens just said. I think we're all to some degree informed by our personal experience, certainly professional expertise. But in this particular case, I can recall two things. One, when we first moved into our house in 1985, we had the notion that we wanted an oxo, we didn't know that it was going to be called that, but the notion that we wanted an auxiliary building, but the placement, of course, under the rules that we have now would have required it to be so close to the principal house that that would have basically ruined the backyard experience for everybody. And so we dropped the idea. I mean, I actually want to encourage these structures, dwellings, to be pushed into the backyard corners because in my personal experience, that's the dead sound. You know, that's where people put their sheds, people put their paws of limbs and junk and so forth. And therefore, you know, adding any kind of notion or incentive that we would want the accessory dwelling to be in the center of the backyard or more towards the the of the backyard. And my mind just wastes all the space behind it. And would I think discourage people from applying for building the accessory dwellings that we want to encourage, I think, by passing this ordinance. So again, I would agree with what Mr. Steven said. I don't think it's necessary and it doesn't really achieve any gain on open space or an impervious cover. So that's my view on this one. Any other thoughts, Mr. Craser? I would not support doing that. I think that's another provision that, is sort of weighing too heavily on someone who might build an ADU at the expense you know of what might be adjacent the far rear corner of your yard might be a very different area on the adjacent neighbors yard the way they view that area on the other side of the lot line. And the impact could be significant, which uptails with the concern about setback, but we'll talk about that later. So I would not support doing that. I think it also adds to concerns about additional, I know we have the lot coverage total limit, but that implies that a lot, always all parts of the lot, drain the same way, isn't always true. Sometimes the front of your lot drains to the street and the back of your yard drains to the rear. And having more coverage of that rear yard area might cause additional negative impacts as far as a decreased storm water going in a specific direction while perhaps still at an overall macro level, maxing macro the whole lot, being under the limit. So I think again that's something that I would be reticent to casually cast the side a part of the ordinance that's been in place for a long time without having more information of background on that particular section of the code. I don't want to assume that it's for aesthetics. I'll do respect to my colleague, Mr. Stevens. I don't know why that's in there. I'd like to know if we're gonna just cast it aside for this purpose. So I would not support doing, but out a lot more information about where it came from and what it's intended to do. Thank you, and he thoughts down this way. Okay. I'm actually, I would not be okay with changing what the current requirement is. For many of the reasons that Commissioner Krazner has mentioned, I think that right now as it stands, as this policy is written, it is really strongly in favor of the property owner at the expense of not only the directly adjacent neighbors, the impact to them and their property values, their property like their property vegetation, but also to the community as a whole, which is something that we are here to implement the comprehensive plan, which talks about maintaining that community that we cherish so strongly that social contract or social accountability to your neighbors as As a property owner living on your property is totally different than Having two renters on that property. There's no longer a social accountability for that property care and use. And so I would, for this specifically, I would say I think it's in the code for a very good reason. I'm curious what that is there for. It's been here for a while. I don't see the need to change it. If you have the requirement to, that is the only place that you think it needs to be, there's a special use permit option available for you. I think the thing that we need to be thinking about is we are trying to create a policy that says, yes, you can do this by right within these parameters. If you are outside of those parameters, you're still welcome to evaluate it and have it go through the special use permit process. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Polinsky. I wanted to... I think there's opportunities here for us to be aggressive in giving property owners opportunities. But I think there's also areas to be conservative and be very understanding of where this is going to impact neighbors, specifically in this area and in the spacing and the setbacks area. This is going to create more density. There's no, like that is what this does. But I think there is a way to be conservative and still find out what works and adjust as needed. The initial staff report says we're talking maybe one or two a year type of situation, not 20 or 30 or 40. So I think this gives us an opportunity to, I would not support making these changes, not because I have strong feelings about exactly what the answer should be, but more I'd like to understand why these rules are in place now before we get rid of those roles. So I think there's an opportunity here to be aggressive on how we make available things for our residents, how we can give them optionality and increased density, increased housing opportunities without necessarily throwing out the baby with the bath water in some of these conversations. So I wouldn't agree with this particular change, but I do think some of our options in terms of capacity and honor, so you do give us some flexibility in this regard. Okay, thank you. Mr. Cavancy, any one of you want to wind? Generally agree with Mr. Stevens and Mr. Duncan and anything that gives the homeowner additional flexibility unless we can have a build a strong argument as to why we wouldn't do that. And it sounds like we're not we're not sure why that regulation is or that ordinance is in there in the first place. So I would I would agree with Mr. Stevens and Mr. Duncan. All right. Thank you. Can I ask you, Mr. Trainer, can you go to line 1620? This is the draft code that would make this change. I just wanted to ask about the current language. So as it's written today, minimum rear yard except residential development, there isn't really anything about like intent for this restriction anywhere in the code that you've seen. Right, so the way it's written today and again the blue bold is the proposed additions and the red cut through is what's proposed to be stricken. So the spirit of the section today is meant to capture all accessory buildings. What's being considered now is introducing a new standard, a new kind of accessory building that doesn't exist today. Accessory dwellings in backyards. So the way this code is written, again it captures accessory buildings today by capturing everything under the maximum height that an accessory building is allowed to be built to today, which is 12 feet in height. And so the way, so as the code appears before you, including accessory dwellings within this section, would stay true to the spirit of the way the code is enforced today, but again, you're introducing a new standard that the code doesn't necessarily consider that accessory dwellings. Okay, so the the rate dwellings went really on the radar because nothing over 12 feet could have been built in the rear yard before to that. And any accessory dwelling is going to be built above 12 feet in height. So you are sort of changing it to incorporate accessory dwellings because they are another sort of accessory use that was just not envisioned. Okay, that's helpful. Well I would agree with my colleagues, Mr. Stevens, Mr. Duncan and Mr. Krivensky that I do think that I would prefer to have the homeowner have more flexibility in the placement of these accessory dwellings for lots of reasons. I mean, I think this actually would probably have an impact on a lot of folks who have sheds and want to build an AD. And they would have to, I think everybody wants to put these in the rear corners of the yard. And I think this restriction would make that a lot harder. And I think it would give you a little bit less flexibility in terms of the placement. So I would agree with the three of them that I would prefer to exclude accessory dwellings from this provision. So if we were to change the code here, we would strike the blue, I mean, assuming we have the votes to do this, but we would strike the blue and say accept, accept detached accessory dwellings. Yeah, I think striking the blue language in the first part would achieve that. Okay. We also need to discuss special use permits. We had a discussion last time about whether these should come to the planning commission or go straight to the BCI. Any further thoughts on that? I did have a question from Jack from the beginning of the meeting you were talking, running through some of the changes and talking about the special use permits specifically about how a existing dwelling that didn't conform existing to what I think before 2024 that didn't conform would need to come through a special use permit is that a but that seemed like a change from a one time permit to the current special use permitting process which I believe is once every X number of years, they have to renew that. Is that a chain? Is that the expectation? So I think this informs. Not be renewed. Yeah, I mean, I think it's awarded once. It could be a one time, especially use permit. So that it didn't change. It still continues to be a one time. It's not one time now. That's why it's so I wonder if there are people to have to renew it. I'm on board with that. But can you go back real quick to that thing? Because I read it the other way. Oh, OK. That it was to renew it. I'm on board with that. But can you go back real quick to that thing? Because I read it the other way. Oh, OK. That it was going, that it was originally written as one time in the draft in the proposal, that it was going to do want the corresponding code section or do you want the and the staff report? I think in, I think what's in the code controls, so that would be the answer. But can you go back to the staff report just real quick just to make sure I'm understanding this correctly? Like in the last box of the, yeah, it's in one of these boxes. Oh, sorry, so it is up here. Yeah, this isn't the thing that I was looking at, but it was specific to the one time. I'll see if I can find it in the document. It can go on to the discussion, but I think if it's a one-time thing. Yeah, there's a discussion. Sorry, at line 127, there's a discussion of current conditions. Is this what you read? I wrote it down that I read it, but I didn't write down where I read it. So give me a second to find out. They should especially use permits for accessory dwellings, require zoning administrator approval for a new all every three years. So that's today. Right. But I thought we had talked about making it a one time. Yeah, that's the, it would be a one time especially use permit. Which I'm in agreement with. Let me go see if I can find the thing that I do the same. Okay, okay. one time and it's only for RM, right? Correct. Yeah. Well, in any, um, uh, Exit, any existence, the existing structure, any existing accessory building? Yes. The reason I was concerned about it is if we have a significant number of those, that would, the process, then form the process we were trying to figure out. So give me a second to see if I can find it. Can I ask a question? Sure. If that's the case, and it goes through the zoning. Easy, yeah. Beasy, yeah. The board of zoning appeals. I think later in this, in the policy, it removes us from that process. So even in that one time review, I think it's important for the planning commission to have a view of that special use permit of a conversion of an accessory building to an accessory dwelling. I don't want to give up that right. I think it's important for us to be able to maintain that right. But we would still be recommending to the BZA right under your... I don't know if it's written that way in... Sorry, I found it. It's 185. Line 185. I don't think it's any... As commissioner Stevens, as proposed, the Planning Commission would... So right now the planning commission does make a recommendation that's its role in the review process. The proposal would remove the planning commission in streamline the application straight to the Board of Zoning Appeals. Right. If you go to line 1029 and 1030. I thought we had consensus last time that we didn't like this. I think we were. But it's in there. I think that it's written. I think we were still left it in there I don't know why but they felt we just said we didn't like that. We wanted it deleted. Can you scroll to 10 29 10 29 yeah, I mean the BGA is free to you know do what they're gonna do but I think having our Review like we do on any other special permit is They can take it or leave it but I think it's worthwhile to provide that. Right. But we would still be making a recommendation to them and they would. Yeah. Well, not the way staff has it. Right. So we have to delete that. Right. Oh, sorry. I don't know that we were like, I was ambivalent the last time. I mean, I will say I thought more about this and I think that it makes sense to streamline the this review process as staff is recommending. the last time. I will say I thought more about this and I think that it makes sense to streamline this review process as staff is recommending. So that's where I am on this. Thinking about the role of the BZA and the role of the Planning Commission, I don't know that we both need to be doing the same. We do it on every other special permit. Here's what I'm for and then tell me how I'm going to vote on this. I would like us to have as streamlined as possible a, you know, by-ride construct on all these issues that we're debating. And enable applications that meet those standards to be moved through expeditiously by staff and by the BZA if necessary. However, if someone wants to submit an application that does not, check all the boxes that we have set out on the streamline process, they do have to get a special use permit. In that case, I would be all right with letting the planning commission express its opinion to the PGA on that. I mean, I basically want to encourage people to not exceed the limits that we have debated and discussed here. Once we agree on setbacks, height, you know, want to occupy all the issues, then I want to see applications that meet those standards. And if they don't meet any of those, any or any one of those standards, then they got to get an SUV. And essentially, I want to discourage people from building taller, bigger, meename it. So where does that position fall on the spectrum? I think there are two different possibilities somebody wants to build something new that's outside of the rules that we've set, but there's also the sort of conversion of existing structures into dwellings. And I guess that's the case where I'd prefer that to be streamlined, as you say. And if for that to be streamlined, it would need to go just directly to the BZI rather than through us and then to the BZI. So it's an extra step for the homeowner and applicant and extra cost, which is where I'm coming from in terms of removing plant emission. That was a very good clarification. So we have two situations. One is when we want to convert an existing structure to an AD and that would be where there's some discussion about whether that needs to come in front of the planning commission or not. And then the other special use permit would be if in fact a new structure would not abide by the existing ordinance. And that would require a special use structure permit. And that potentially, there's a suggestion that if there's a variance from the ordinance for a new structure that would have to come in front of the planning commission is that correct is that what we're saying? That sounds like more what I would want to talk about variances that's That's not conflate the terms. No, not very. Oh yeah. Especially use permit. It's consistent with the ordinance. Do you have a clarification, Mr. Turner? Yeah, one quick clarification. So under the proposal, the especially use permit would be required if you're converting an existing structure that does not conform to those regulations if you were building a new accessory structure. So if you had a shed that set back three feet from the property line that was built in 1995, you would need a special use permit to convert that into an accessory dwelling because it we would be leaving the structure the same. It would just be the same. And so that would be the same. And so that would be the same. And so that would require special use permit to be converted into an accessory dwelling. But we would be leaving the structure the same. It would just be putting in a stove or something like that. Right. The intent would be to keep the location in the footprint where it is, where in such a place that you couldn't build a new structure today as an accessory dwelling. And so that would require special use permit. And the other instance for a special use permit as proposed would be for any RM district property which is restricted to the internal form. So those are the only two especially use permit applications under the proposal. And as the code is written today, the Planning Commission would receive and review and make a recommendation to the BZA. That's how it's in the zoning ordinance today as the draft code in front of you today. There is an included amendment that would remove the planning commission and again streamline those applications to the BZA. Apologies if the planning commission was unified on one or the other. My interpretation was that it was not as I'm not even unified with myself sometimes. So just to clarify this one more time, there is no special use permit option for a new structure for a new structure that does not conform to the existing ordinances. Is that correct? That's correct. That would require variance. That would require variance. Gotcha. Which we don't review. We don't review variances. So they get some theories. No one could still do that. So one could ask, so to your point, there's not going to be. So one gets to that. Then they good thing that they have to meet the variance criteria which are difficult but I don't know why I mean I'd always spoke on this I don't know why we would call this out we don't see that many of them I don't think we're that difficult to one extra meeting I don't think it's a huge expense I think it's another check it's another check in balance in the process for the community I'm relatively minor one at that. If they're already committed to go into, you know, if we're going to leave in the requirement to go to the BGA, they're already in the public arena. Why not let this body who is responsible for adopting the, you know, part play to roll and adopt in the ordinance have some input on looking at an application for somebody who's looking again to convert a structure that doesn't meet the rules and provides an input on that. I don't see what the harm is in that. I don't think it's onerous for folks to come to us for one extra meeting. But that's my two cents on that. I don't think we should do that. I don't know why we'd call that out. In that sense, why don't we get rid of all especially use permits that we review. Because it's too onerous. I mean, we don't see that many, but why don't we get rid of all special use permits that we review? Because it's too onerous. I mean, we don't see that many, but why don't we get rid of all of PC reviews not required by state code? But why don't we call this out? And again, thank you for that point. And again, if an application for a new structure meets the requirements that we are hopefully going to pass, then the only, well not the only, but the primary review opportunity is the stormwater runoff disturbance of 2000 square feet, which touches off a stormwater flow assessment and so forth, if you are building and disturbing less than 2000 then you don't even have to go through that. But just in the real practical world it seems likely that somebody's going to go to the trouble to build something new. You know it's going to be enough size that they probably will have to go through the stormwater review process because there will be disturbance including the construction light out of the area and so forth of 2000 feet. Okay, well. Where is everybody on this? Can we do a little poll? Does the Planning Commission need to review especially use permits? I Yes, yes, so we have one two three people and no Do we have it to who's on a no? I? Don't have a strong opinion, but I would opt for more flexible, more flexibility and allowing the homeowner to go streamlining it this system process. I could go either way, but if pressed to avoid, I'd probably say we should probably maintain our ability to review. Okay. I think I'm in the end. I think I'm going to agree with Mr. Stevens and retain our ability to. review. Okay. I think I'm in the end. I think I'm going to agree with Mr. Steven some retain our ability to review and those circumstances which I would hope would be again as I've said you know, rarer than the norm and I hope the norm will be you know, submissions of applications that meet the standards that we have in mind. Okay, Mr. Polinsky, did you have another comment? No, okay, that's fine. Okay, I think we are... General Oral Consensus, I'm overruled. So we can... I think strike that addition. And if you have advice on how to work at this into the motion, we come to that, all of these details that were, these small changes that we're making at the end here, I'd appreciate that. I'm making some notes of some of them but I just don't want to miss anything. Either other things that staff particularly called out that you wanted us to discuss. We talked about the rear yard. We talked about special use permits. We talked about corner lots, which was not on your list, but it's a good item. See, it'll settle on the occupancy maximum number. I was quibbling over that with myself. It's listed as three in the report. Okay, so how many people do we have that would support occupancy of four? I would support out to see a four, but I'm not hard over on that one. Yeah, I'm, you know, I'm high could go with three. Yeah, four, I, the four felt the four seems fine, but also not to the point where I wouldn't, wouldn't approve of three. Three or four? I prefer four, but I can live with three. We can always refer four to council. I mean, they're going to be chewing this over as well. So, uh, well, it actually sounds from this straw poll. We just took that people actually prefer the majority prefer four. It perfect. Three to be on record. Yeah, I think I mean, the council will work its own mind, but you know, of course, but I feel like we ought to try to give as much guidance as we can push a majority to settle on. So I mean, I, I, three is the more conservative number, but I think realistically, we can all imagine easily situations where four would come up and you're not going to ask people to leave their units. That'd be my concern. I envision the four as a parent and a three children. Sounds like a lot for one parent or maybe two parents and two children. Two parents and one kid who then have a new kid. That's my main concern, but you know it's a small town. Hopefully we could walk our way through that. So I guess I would I'd go for three if the majority is for three with me. I'm hearing a majority of four for four. I don't know. I'd stick with a staff recommendation of three. I think that's reasonable. It's keeping something that's accessory as opposed to, you know, I mean, obviously, I mean, I don't know. I guess theory, our ordinance allows very large numbers of people to occupy dwelling, but remember that three or the four, you know, they don't have to be related. So, you know, you could have four renters all with a car sharing that space. You know the more you have you're you guys are assuming that it's a family with a baby which could be but it could also be for you know 20-somethings you know who are finding a cheap place to rent for a while and they all work and they need a car it can have impacts.. So it's not out of line, I think, to keep something subordinate by having a smaller number. And again, I mean, now this would be my theme of the whole thing. There's no need to jump in, head first, and everything they'd use. There's always a chance to reevaluate and we can relax things. If it turns out it's a huge impediment, is getting lots of feedback from people that, hey, I mean, I can't have five people living in here. And they're here in that day and night, but maybe better to err on the side of caution. And that's just my two cents, but I think the reason. All right, sounds like maybe we'll stick with three. Is that where everybody is? I don't know. Yeah, I think that's fine. I think it's fine to stick with three. I mean, I did hear five commissioners talking about four recommending four. I mean, I think the way I phrase it was, I don't feel very, I think four would be fine, but also don't feel strongly about it. So it's less of a proposing for, is like we should go forward and have a decision on that, it's more of a, it feel like I'm 50-50, and I think Mr. Crashman makes good points about being conservative and iterating our way into the right answer. All right. Whoo. Any other topics that we want to address? Anything else on anybody else's list? I think that was resolved last time. Separate addresses. Sort of up to the homeowner. They want to do it. They can do it, but they're not required. I'm not required too. Okay. I may have missed it, but on the corner lot, did we decide specifically on whether we wanted to adopt kind of what Arlington did with 10 feet minimums or if we kind of settled on the staff proposal at this point? I may have missed that. I don't think we discussed the stuff. Oh, we still have that. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, we hadn't gotten to sort of setbacks. So is there additional discussion on setbacks that we want to have at this point, either for quarter lots, or any general comments that people want to make? On the quarter lots? I thought we had decided that we would. Quarter lots is not in front yard, closer to the street than the primary. Yeah, I thought we had talked about it. Yeah. I thought that's what we agreed to. Yeah, that's what we agreed to. That part, yes. Yeah. Yeah. My instinct is to stick with the staff recommendation as far as setbacks. Your setbacks, I'm still of the mindset that this is written more towards the property owner who is wanting to add the AD and without regard to directly adjacent property owners. If we allow a smaller setback than what is currently in the zoning, the neighboring properties do not get notified until a shovel is in the ground and they see it happening. They don't have the ability to see what the project is. They don't have the ability to be heard about what their concerns are on their property and the infringement upon their property rights. So I'm of the mindset that we leave the setbacks as they are in the code, currently, I'm fine with the heights, but I think if you're gonna, if you have a requirement on your lot that is specific, then there's a special use permit process to accommodate that. It's not saying that you can't build an AD, it's saying be creative. And if you still have restrictions, there's a pathway to address those. And still be respectful of the neighboring interests because they are our neighboring properties that are also going to be impacted and their property value is going to be impacted unfairly without notification. Thank you. Thank you. Any other thoughts on that? You know, of course, an important point in our community and that's why I keep asking about this disturbance standard. So, I mean, my neighborhood, you know, house went down, big house went up in its place, disturbed, you know, everything. Runoff problems out the backyard and pinched on my next door neighbor flooded their basement.. The current machine that we had, and this was all done in spite of various notifications and reviews and such and such, the current standard, the current approach that we have now is not flawless. I, again, would be interested in trying to encourage the building of structures that do not create those sorts of runoff problems right from the get go. And therefore I would like to encourage, you know, existing homes not to be torn down and replaced by. In my experience, enormous structures which are, you know, more likely to cause problems than any relatively small accessory dwelling building that would go up, particularly if that AD goes up after having survived the review process of the stormwater runoff of the disturbance of area. So, I mean, again, I guess I'm trying to look at the typical situation that I hope that we'll find which is somebody submitting an application that meets the standards that we have and will have to go through disturbance, you know, consideration mitigation process, which does touch off the neighbors being notified. Am I right about how and that supposed to work? But the limit is 2500 square feet. The limits, you don't trigger grading plan review unless you decide. $2,500 square feet, but understanding is that basically any construction of any consequences going to consume twenty five hundred square feet because you count the lay down you count the constructs you count unless you have a two but you have a driveway that you can park all that stuff on but you know many people in town have single-shot driveways and they can't you know they got to put the lay down construction materials in the yard. Well, but, you know, if someone's going up, you know, we're talking about we're allowing pretty tall structures. We're allowing 20 feet. You can get a thousand. You can get, you know, you can have a narrow footprint. People are very builders and engineers are very good at if they can at all avoid the grading plan. They are really good at coming in at like 24.75, 24.90, because it's a big expense and it's an hassle. And I think our ordinance is fairly permissive. I think a lot of folks would be under that, because unless they're building something really large and really far back from their house and they're building like a paved pathway to get there, I mean, that's exactly the kind of scenario that I would imagine. That would be the most common though. I think there'd be many, many that would be under the 25 hundred square foot, especially if they were vertical, they were going up. Well, I guess neither of us can really know the answer to that. But yeah, my vision of the frequency, I mean, we're not gonna see these in greenway downs. The lots are just not big enough. I mean they're just flat out not big enough. And you know you might see it on a lot that's my size which is 11,000 square feet but it's still pretty tight. You know the most likely presence of these things is going to be on lots that have a little more elbow room and they will do exactly what you said. They'll have a pathway of some sort that would meet disturbance and catch off the notification that neighbors would receive and would be able to comment on. But again, I'm just going on my personal experience. I don't know. I can't speak to the height question. I mean, again, my personal experience from one of the reasons I'm for this is that my perception is that it's not so much the height of the... It's not so much the setback, the distance from my lot line to whatever structures on the other side of the fence. the's, you know, the height is the height that we have set in a language that we have here is to make you satisfactory and better than what's likely to happen if we don't pass this because what's gonna happen if we don't pass this is the house is gonna get torn down a replace by a enormous single family home with six bedrooms and eight paths and it's going to loom over everybody's yard in the vicinity. Yeah, kind of driven by kind of the policy issues on this issue which is kind of a funny way to go about it, because we're talking about a technical issue, but get kind of larger policy issues drive it. One is certainly just a housing crisis in general, and the need for more housing space. I think we all have to be very aware of just the huge problems that not only falls church, but places throughout the country have, with housing right now. Accessory dwellings, of course, is just one small little tool, but I think it's one that we wanna take advantage of. And if we allow accessory dwellings, but we put the regulations such that people just aren't gonna build them, then it's not really gonna help much. And And I think we saw this with Arlington when they came and spoke here through our speaker series about five years ago, I think. And at that point, they had almost no acceptance of their accessory dwellings. And so they went back and kind of fine-tuned their code and they have what we see today, and they are getting accessory dwellings. I think at the level and at the pace which, you know, more or less we would be happy with as well, which is not so much that it overwhelms communities but not like it was previously where they were getting no response. You know, and I would look at Fairfax County where they made the regulations and they got what? Five. You know, for counties, large as Fairfax, five detached units is not very much. So, you know, that's why I'm inclined to say, let's go with what more of an industry standard is and what we've seen work in Alexandria and Arlington with a five-foot setback in very limited conditions. We've kind of drawn back from that in several situations. We started out with, I think, a more permissive situation. We've come back both on the heights and I think on the setbacks. And by the way, I do appreciate the staff for adding the sliding scale. I think that's a good addition as well. But anyway, because of those policy concerns, I think that's what drives me to still want to stay with the staff proposal on those limited conditions where if I put set by quote-a-ply. Thank you Mr. Stevens. Any other comments? Mr. Krivinsky? I just want to echo what Mr. Stevens said. I couldn't have said it better. I think he, it's spot on. I think what we need to do is if we support ADs, we have to make the ordinance, we have to write the ordinance in such a way that they're viable for the homeowner. And if we're putting too many restrictions on the homeowner so that they can actually fit one on their property, that's a problem. So I would stick with the staff recommendation. I think as Mr. Stevens points out, we've already made a couple of concessions that I think were well thought through but the five foot setback is probably the preferable way to make 80s viable for most properties in full search. Thank you. Any other comments? And the ZEPPEC. I meaneeam and Lee disagree with the last two speakers With all due respect Five feet is very close and I don't think that's a policy decision about the housing crisis When we're talking about an additional five foot to like ten foot in R1B or 15 foot in R1A To provide room for buffering, for planting. I don't think that is in any way meaning that me or anyone else who's pushing for a greater setback is somehow against providing housing. I'm frankly I'm a little insult about the insinuation that if you don't support a shallower setback you're somehow against the affordable housing crisis in this region, because I don't think that's true at all. And I'm actually frankly tired of hearing that, not just on this commission, but kind of in the general sort of zeitgeist in the community and certain circles that somehow if you don't open up your ordinance and sort of pull out all the stops, you're against providing housing for people. That's nonsense. This city has provided hundreds of multi-family units. We just did the T-zones, which are providing dozens of, very much not affordable, but new townhouses. For our two square miles, I think we're punching way above our weight in the affordable housing crisis in the region. Way above our weight. So I'm tired of hearing that and I've no disrespect anybody personally, but I've heard that argument and I'm just frankly tired of it. I think zoning is a very, you know, we're trying to craft an ordinance and create a good result that doesn't negatively affect and Jason property owners and five feet is close. And we can debate a number based on design it really comes out that's a design issue for in my opinion but I don't think it's a policy issue if you're pushing for some reasonable safeguards to create a good design and a good end result that doesn't negatively impact Jason property owners so I don't like staff's proposal for the five feet. I've said that every time again, no disrespect to staff either. I understand they started at that. Try to be generous, but I'm not going to support that. I think we need if you're building something like that, you should meet the existing side yard set back that the main dwelling needs to me. I don't think that's a I don't think it's gonna create a difficulty in people doing it. And it seems like a small number, but that additional five foot in R1B allows for the planting and allows for just a little more separation on lots that are already fairly dense And that's that's how I feel about that Thank you Thank you any other comments Mr. Duncan could I just thank you for Recognizing me again? This will be the last time. I just wanted to say if we're closing it out here before we start wrestling with the language, two things. One, thank you to staff for conducting an extremely thorough process. I mean, it's important as we've seen You've seen the jurisdictions that we get the process right here and staff has really gone the extra mile on every instance to answer our questions, you know respond to our concerns You know even up here to the last minute, you know something gets brought up that we think we've covered and I think we will you know have covered it in the end And I just want to say for the record that I'm proud of what staff has done to consult with the community and bring its opinions and views into our attention and from us to the council also. And second, I want to thank my colleagues on the planning commission. This is exactly what the planning commission is supposed to be all about. The council has so many responsibilities. It's hard to really sink into anyone in particular. So, you know, the fact that we've rolled up our sleeves and had really very extremely detailed and substantive conversations also speaks well to the process and leadership, the chair and the vice chair. And I've certainly learned from my colleagues useful information and it's caused me to trim my sails a little bit on some things that I thought I preferred at first. So I do want to thank every individual on the planning commission. My vote is driven by the language that's at the top of the resolution allowing for more diverse housing types and strengthening housing opportunities for residents at different life stages for first time home buyers to down sizes. It is as one of the citizens brought up and important that we take all community quality of life issues in consideration and we do pay great attention to green space. I spent four and a half million dollars of your heart and taxpayer dollars to set aside the fellow's property for an arboreal landscape, rather than let it develop into single-family homes. I'm trying to do something with my vote that's consistent with what I perceive has been going on here for quite some time in some small ways. Some many years ago, the Snyder family, wanted to develop their property, their backyard property into a house for one of the kids. That was very controversial at the time. I voted for that because I thought it was a good reasonable use. The Hiscott family wanted to build a structure for elderly parents and I supported that. You know, it involved the city seating paper street and there was some opposition to that but I thought it was for the greater good. Mr. Crazner suggested T-Zones was a vote for me for not for attainable housing. Anything that's in the vicinity of a million dollars is kind of defined as attainable now. And the T-Zones vote was that multi-use buildings that he referred to, certainly. I think I supported every single one of them. So what I feel like I'm doing is consistent with, you know, the record that I've tried to establish and have seen others articulate more clearly than I can that we do have although we're small and it seems some citizens have said why are we even bothering to do this if you're going to get a couple of years? Well in Falls Church, a place like a place like the railroad cottage is may seem small, but that's a big deal. It's got nationwide attention and rewards and recognition is sort of, you know, the kind of attainable housing I voted for that too. That was very controversial. So I'm going to vote for what we've, I think, hopefully compromised on and agreed on with all those things in mind and commend the discussions that we had to the council which will have another month or so to chew over this and take their crack at it. So thank you for indulging me on little personal remarks there. Thank you, Mr. Duncan. Any other comments? From the commissioners? I have one. Oh, please. I also wanna just thanks, staff, the online, all the outreach that you guys have been trying to do. It's been really difficult because the meetings that we've had and the listening sessions that we've had have not been well attended in public. So it was really important that that online survey went out so that we could read some feedback because I think that was the first time that we were seeing people actually saying this is how I feel about it even they're not physically sitting here. And I think it's important that we recognize that our community's pretty split on this item. So thank you. Yeah, I just remind us that it's an opt-in survey and so you can't really take those comments and assume that that's like a scientific poll of the community. I know staff, I also want to compliment staff on all the hard work on this and all of the research that you've done. Every question that we've asked, you've come back next time with an answer. So thank you for all of that hard work and I'd align myself with Mr. Stevens comments and Mr. Duncan's comments. I think if you believe there's a housing crisis, including right here in Falls Church, then you want to kind of do whatever you can to help increase supply. So that is why I'm going to support this initiative. And I hope my fellow commissioners will as well. I'm John. Another one. I just met us from some other comment. I wanted to make, I apologize for going twice, but just on the owner occupancy issue, I know our city attorneys here, and I promised or I would just something I said in the previous hearing or work session just on the record. I just wanted to make it clear that I made some comments about chatting with other attorneys. I didn't get any formal outside legal advice. I merely had informal conversations with colleagues and acquaintances I know in the northern Virginia area that happened to be land use and zoning attorneys and planners. And that was it. It was more informal conversation. I didn't get any actual legal advice from anyone outside the city. And so I appreciate the work that Mr. Lads done on providing us a well thought out legal memo that explains her position on the under-occupancy. I'd still disagree. At the end of the day, I still think we can do it because I think that the law is, I mean, I mean, Steph, use the word ambiguous. I mean, I would say that one of the speakers mentioned there hasn't been any jurisdiction in Virginia that's been sued over that jurisdiction, even our, apparently our favorite neighbor Arlington has it. So does Alexandria. So does Fairfax. And so does many, many others. I won't list all the jurisdictions that have the oner occupancy requirement, but they all have it. Have them been sued about it. And I think that's it's a calculated risk I guess if there's some uncertainty about whether or not you're enabled under state code to do something. But as I said last time, we would certainly be in very good company and I don't see the need to strike out on our own on that point. I think there's good reasons behind it. People don't maybe not agree with me. There's some people on the commission don't agree with me on the need for it. But clearly, many, many jurisdictions, the majority of the decision makers and many other jurisdictions did agree with me because they have that restriction to kind of, again, make sure that there's an owner occupied. One of the other not both of the units. And so I'll throw that out there. Council can chew on it. I don't think there's support in the commission to include that, but I just want to make it clear because you know that I didn't get any formal outside advice, but just my opinion after having informal conversations was that we are taking a maybe a small risk, but one that would, you know, that might be worth taking given the potential downsides of having no one occupancy requirement and being an island that doesn't have that rule amongst all our neighbors. That's it. Thank you for that clarification, Mr. Crasner, and I'd also like to thank Mr. Lat for all of her good advice on that topic. Okay, if there are no further comments, do we have a motion to, does somebody want to make the motion? I have a list, I think of three things that we've agreed that we might want to add to that motion, that I could provide to the motion maker if that would be helpful. Do we do we do your additions first? What's the best? We make the motion first and then I can make a friendly amendment with the three. That would that would be the best yes. Thank you. Are we voting at this point on the motion at the beginning of this? That's correct. Can I make one? Well, you can if somebody would like to make the motion, then you can make a suggestion for a change after the motion is on the table. Right. I still move. If I have to read the whole thing, do you want to do that now? Or do you want to do it after you have incorporated your? No, no, no, I would go at the end. OK. All right, Mr. Trainer, keep up with me on the screen so that I can get this right. We're as a city council in its calendar year, 2024, 25 priorities work plan established certain goals for the City of Falls Church, including allowing for more diverse housing types and strengthen housing opportunities for residents at different life stages from first time home buyers to downsizers. And we're as chapter 10 of the City of Falls Church comprehensive plan, housing a complete community recommends strategies for addressing housing to our location and growth, including accessory dwellings. And whereas accessory dwellings are an underrepresented share of the city's housing stock with potentially contribute to housing diversification goals included in the comprehensive plan and city council's priorities plan. And whereas on November 25th, 2024, the City Council referred ordinance T.O. 24-17 to mending zoning ordinance regulations related to accessory dwellings to the Planning Commission for Common. And whereas the City Charter Section 17.13 mandates that zoning text amendments be referred to the planning commission by the City Council for review and recommendation and whereas the planning commission competing with the storm outdoors as the planning commission held required meetings with proper notice during its meetings of December 4th 2024 January 15th 2025 January 22nd 2025 February 19th 2025 2024 January 15th, 2025 January 22nd, 2025 February 19th, 2025 and March 5th, 2025. Now therefore I move that the Planning Commission recommends City Council adopt TO 24-A-17, amending zoning regulations related to accessory dwellings in the city of Falls Church. Thank you Mr Mr. Duncan. Is there a second? Sir, second on the motion. I will second it. Thank you. Any discussion? This is the point where we could suggest changes. I have I think three things that I've recorded that we might want to add to the end of the motion. I think Mr. Krivinsky might have a suggestion. And Mr. Duncan you would be accepting those suggestions. The only suggestion that I would make is on that first whereas I would probably end that sentence at strengthening housing opportunity for residents at different stages, life stages, period. I'm not sure that this AD proposal does anything for first-time home buyers and I think it's important that we don't misrepresent what this is. In fact, I could probably, I mean, it's certainly doing, it's certainly a benefit for renters, but I don't think it necessarily helps first time the home buyers In fact, I could argue that by increasing the value of these properties with this ordinance, it may actually be counterproductive the first time home buyers. So I would probably suggest we put a period there and just say that strengthening housing opportunities for residents at different life stages. Does the maker of the motion approve? I take your point and at the end of the day would approve of that change. I did see myself in that statement because when we first moved here in 1985, we were first home buyers buyers, and had the ability at that stage to build a accessory unit and rent it out, we could have used the income to have gotten by as struggling young married. But that's three levels of sophistication that your point is probably more important, which is we don't want to misrepresent this or over promise what goods it's going to deliver if we pass it. So the micro-the-motion accepts that change. And the seconder? Yeah, that's excellent. OK, thank you. So I think the three changes that we discussed by night, I think we would put this after and I'm open to advice here, but after the now therefore I move, I think you could add with the following amendments or with the following, what do we normally say? Let's start with the following. There's something like right with the following. With the following. I proposed a recommended revision. The following. Let's say with the following revisions. That's great. One staff shall include. Oh, sorry. Did you want that at the beginning or? No, after the now therefore I move. Yeah. Could you put it after that? Yeah, it feels like it would go at the end of the sentence. Yeah. In the city of Falls Church with the following revisions. No. There. One. Staffs shall include draft code language indicating new detached accessory dwelling shall not be located in the front yard nor closer to the street and the primary dwelling. I think that just got dropped at some point, Jack. indicating new detachment accessory dwellings shall not. Shall not be located in the front yard, nor closer to the street than the primary dwelling. To staff shall amend draft code language to remove the requirement that detached accessory dwellings comply with rear yard 30% coverage requirements. 3 and 3. Great. Staff shall amend. Draft code language to ensure special use permits are reviewed by the planning commission. I believe that's where the majority of the commissioners were on those three items. That's what I have. Okay. Does that look good to the maker of the motion? Well, to amend it, that was for Council. And the seconder? Yes, except. Sorry. I wasn't microphone. The maker of the motion accepts those. Thank you. Any further discussion on the motion? Can you clarify number two? Is that shall amend the draft code language to remove the requirement of the detached A&Ds comply with rear yard coverage requirements? 30% yeah we're missing the we want to maintain the existing. No that was not the agreement of the majority. Take that off you just the check. OK. Oh, yeah. Yeah, the existing is the sorry, but yeah, we're missing the 30%. 50%. Yeah. It should read comply with rear yard 30% coverage requirements. Rear yard 30% coverage requirements. So are we going to put an upper limit on that? Or we're just they could they don't have no requirements they could cover 100%. I don't think we've discussed an upper limit. So we're going from 30 to 100 just asking. Yes. Yes. You want to be 100% of the rear. But then ADU. I think that would be a very long skinny need you. Somebody wanted to do that. Well, we're talking about the rear setback here. Well, I mean, the owner may decide to have an accessory structure there anyway, right? That's their choice. There's the 25% building coverage, 35% impervious. I'm sorry. Other way, other way around. Yeah. Well, there's a lot covered in the breath. The overall for a lot. Correct. This is just for the rear. And it's worded very strange. I don't know what this I'd love to know more about the history of this provision of the code. I'm sure it goes back many decades. So I'd love to know where it, you know, what, you know, how long it's been there. But it's hard to know what the, it's the rear setback. I'm just saying, Mr. Trainers, this is just for the rear. So right now, today, pre-ADU, or in changes to ADU, the rear setback is limited to 30%. You can only cover 30% of it with any accessory structure. So with a shed. That's right. The required rear yard setback area has a maximum 30% coverage of by accessory buildings. That's a very building. That's separate from lot coverage. It's more about orientation and placement. We're having a lot back. Yeah, and it's separate from backyard, right? And backyard could be bigger. This is right. This is a construct within that. Now we're saying the entire area, the closest, which is the closest to the rear lot line, the closest 25 or 35. What is it in our, is it in our 1a? What is the rear? What's the rear set back in our 1a? 40. I think it's 40 because I think it's 30 in our 1b and 40 in our 1a. We're saying they can now cover 100% of it. In theory, I don't know if it'll happen. I don't know that that would be possible with the other requirements that they had for building and in previous coverage. Because we don't know. So, did you have a change you wanted to make to the motion? Well, I mean, I can't support that for sure. I mean, I'll say my piece. I mean, I'm actually kind of at a tough point because I've been talking about ADUs, something I'm familiar with. And I think they're a good thing, you know, in general. I mean, I think they are. And I think allowing some additional flexibility for folks compared to what our ordinance is today is good. Like I've always agreed with council that like the general intent of like trying to relook at our rules which are old and at date and maybe think of ways to make them work better and be a little more flexible as good. But I still think that we've kind of gone too far, in my view, on leaning too much in favor of those who might want to build one at the expense of those who might have to live next to one and those who don't want to build one. And zoning and planning, it's all about that balance. We're trying, that's the point I think of zoning really, is to put some reasonable regulations on what's home can do with their private property. There's been a lot of talk about on the commission about property rights and what people can do with their property. One of the reasons zoning exists is to put some reasonable checks on that and the interest of making sure what you do on your private property doesn't negatively impact your neighbor on their side of the line. And in that spirit, I think that we've gone too far with this set of revisions in favor of those who want to build these things. At the expense of people who may now have to endure a negative impact because we've allowed them to build two tall, two close, not enough screening. Covering the entire rear set back and other things. So sort of in that spirit, I think we've gone too far. I mean, the owner occupancy thing, I probably could have gotten past that. Although I do think there's merit to it. If that was my only thing, I thought we were missing. I probably could get past that. And we can kind of see how it goes as an experiment. But I do think that the setbacks are too close. And I think this change, which is something we didn't really talk about until today, like we kind of got I mean I guess it came up last time I think it's again it's like we're kind of like blowing up You know things in the ordinance without really doing what we're doing I mean you know someone who's worked with zoning ordinances for a long time. I will tell you that the road You know to a good code is paved you know or to hell rather with you know is paved with good of writing code. And that's why usually it's good to move slowly, make incremental changes, because you can always adjust. But once the genie's out of the bottle, once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it's really hard to then make up for the fact when something gets built that is kind of egregious that we didn't anticipate. I mean, I'll even use the T-Zones as an example of that where we tried, you know, it's hard writing good code. And we kind of, I think, also aired a little bit on the side of being a little too flexible and by right. And we got some layouts in those projects that are, you know, I think, think are not really great, but in any event. So I think certainly, I mean, I don't think I can support it for those reasons, but if the consensus is that you guys are going to do this, I think that you should put an upper limit on the 30% instead of just saying you can do whatever you want back there, that just assumes that that part of the ordinance was just totally out to lunch. And maybe there, like as I said before, there might be some merit from a stormwater perspective or just again having a lot of building and bulk right up against someone's property line because what's you know on the other side of the line could be very different on the other lot. It might not be with that that other person considers the way back. I don't care what happens back there. You know, bam so so that's my caveat. If you're going to do that, my recommendation would be that you put an upper limit on it, but I don't think I can support the whole thing, unfortunately, which kind of pains me, because I like ADUs as a concept, and I think they do have a place in the city for sure. I just think we've gone too far as an opening kind of like attempt at doing this. And I think that we may see some negative consequences as a result. I hope we don't, but I can't support it. But Mark and Dave should be to put a limit on that. Thank you, Mr. Krasner. Any further discussion? Oh, go ahead. I know I'm the second in the emotion and the acceptor, but I don't think it would stop me from voting entirely against this, but I do think that it is a risky choice to get rid of this particular piece of the code without really knowing exactly why the code is there. I defer to the wisdom of the group, Like if everybody else is in favor of it, I don't think we should stop it because of it. But I do think there is an opportunity here to not necessarily take this piece out and then find a future time to do it when we've studied it more, understand more, apply this particular piece and send. The first and the third, I'm fine with the setbacks. I've seen in person I'm fine with. But I think this particular number two item number two and this is aggressive without really knowing exactly why it's better. Thank you. I'm in agreement with commissioner Krasner on this one. And I think there's a good reason why it's in that code. If it's a good reason why it hasn't been changed in many, many years. And I think it's wise to leave some guardrails on this proposal. And if we're not seeing the development of 80s that we want to see, then we have opportunity to tweak certain things. I think by taking all the guardrails off, we are really weighing this to the interest of the owner who is wanting to build it at the expense of everybody around them. I am for accessory dwellings completely, but in this state, I conflicted because I have to vote against this. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments, Mr. Stevens? Yeahana, slightly different topic. I don't know, did we get enough into the whole discussion of corner lots and whether a 10-foot minimum would be something that is advised? I could live with that. I'm kind of curious to hear what others may think about that. I'm happy to stick with the staff. Recommendations for 5 foot for 15 and 10 foot for 20. That's my view. Take a scare of that. Well, I mean, nobody else says any comments. Mr. Dawkins. Number one would take care of any concern that I would have, certainly. No closures of the street and the primary dwelling addresses the concern that somehow the accessory would be closer to the street than the primary house. As I understand, that's the point of that. Yeah, that's correct. Mr. Krovinsky. Just to clarify, I thought that's what one said. We're... I think Mr. Stevens is also asking about the location of the AED and how close it is to the property line not the front setback but the oh I see yeah it should be more than five feet on a corner lot I'm I'm comfortable with staff's recommendation of five feet for 15 10 feet for 20 that's my view and I'm comfortable with those two the only other comment that I was going to make was on two, just in terms of coverage requirements, we kind of have set a default coverage requirement by limiting the dimensions to 1,000 square feet. So you really aren't going to be able to, I mean, I guess it depends on the yard, but most yards you're not going to be able to get to 100% of the yard, you know, with a thousand square foot lock or dwelling. Lots of my street or 40 feet wide, just throw that out there Any other discussion on the motion? I Like I'd like mr. Stevens comments earlier about like we'd I'd like for us to be learning from Arlington And maybe start out more about where they are today so we can actually get some of these built rather than take a more cautious approach and then iterate, because that also takes additional time, staff time, and in the meantime, people are building 80s that are maybe not really what they would prefer to build on their properties, and maybe for not a good reason. So, I'm comfortable with this and willing to support it. Is there any other discussion? Or are we ready to move to a vote? No other discussion? Mr. Schrainer, can you call the role please? Or a role please? Mr.insky? Tite. The responses I vote yes or no at this point. Okay. I vote yes. Mr. Duncan. Yes. Mr. Crazner. Nope. Mr. Stevens. Yes. Miss Friedlander. No. Mr. Kruvensky. Yes. Ms. Koma. Yes. Thank you. The eyes have it. Motion passes. Thank you. Thank you for all your work on this. Mr. Siemens. Just a quick comment. First of all, I want to thank all the commissioners for your excellent insightful comments and At the given though we we differ on this. I just want to make clear I know that you're all very much concerned about housing and so I Apologize if anything I said You know was interpreted as and trying to imply that you're not in favor of addressing housing or other key issues you know I think we just have legitimate issues where we might differ but but they're all well thought out and I feel privileged to be being your presence thanks I agree I think we're all trying to do what's for the community. And I just want to say thanks to everybody who came to offer comments tonight and everybody who's offered comments during the entire process. The more people are involved, the better off we are. Thanks for making comments. Great. Seconded. Thank you all. OK. So I think we can move on to our second action item which is another public hearing for the capital improvement plan Mr. Flore you introducing this item or which we just invite Miss Sopsy up? Well, how do we do this to miss Sopsy? You always have to come on these nights where we like make her wait for hours and we're all tired and I'm sick. I'm born out. I feel like this is like, yeah, it's not 11 at least. This is the least the fourth of a fifth time I recall like you haven't to sit around for hours when we have controversial item before this year. I get to get to go first. Next year can we say miss obs he gets to go first for the staff. So I can promise her that she can go first for the work section. Yeah. Okay. That's true. I just think for many years going back where you've been like waiting around till late hours. So thank you for that. So I will introduce so Caitlin, so she's here tonight as the CIP coordinator. This is your final public hearing tonight on the CIP and a young the deputy city managers also here in support and available for questions as well. So I'm going to turn it over to the CIP coordinator now. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening planning commission. My name is Caitlin Sobsy, CIP coordinator and I'm here tonight again for the fiscal year 2026 to 2031 Capital Improvements Program or CIP. I was here last meeting the work session on February 19th. Oh, I'm gonna do the overview of the first few slides. So can we pull up the slides too, sorry. I was here last at the work session on February 19th where we presented the proposed fiscal year 26 to 31 CIP. The CIP is a strategic that's perfect. A strategic six year strategic plan that drives investment in the city's public infrastructure and facilities serving as a road road map and reflection of the city's long term vision needs and priorities. I'm just going to go through a few of these slides. Since the last time I was here, no content changes have been made to the CIP document or to the slides. I just want to give an overview for the public following. Yeah, I'm just going to give a high-level overview of the CIP. This year's proposed six-year budget totals 148 million the full CIP document which includes funding details program summaries and the project The detailed project sheets is available at the link there which is false church VA.gov slashIP, and was presented to the Planning Commissioners in their CIP notebooks. As I mentioned, we haven't made any changes since then. On the next slide, I think there's also a high-level overview of the proposed project uses and also the funding sources for the 148 million. Last time I was here there were a lot of fair questions about the status of federal grant funding and I mentioned that of the proposed six year budget 46 million the total grants of 46 million 12.3 million of those those are federally funded which makes up 27% of our grants in the six-year plan. Since I was here last staff has done some more analysis of our existing prior year appropriations for federal grants that includes all existing or new projects that we haven't started yet. That totals 50 million. That's something that you might hear in the coming weeks as we talk about sort of our exposure for federal grants and the status of that, which is still sort of to be determined. 24 million of that 50 is for transportation projects. And yeah, the rest is a lot in facilities and the schools. Right now we still don't know the status of that. We haven't staff hasn't received any indication that there are any of those funds are on hold or frozen right now. And we're continuing to implement projects and submit reimbursements. So we'll continue to monitor that situation and give you any updates if necessary. On the next slide, we talked about last time we talked about fiscal year 25 accomplishments and completed projects or highlighted projects. For tonight's meeting I've provided Mr. Fuller with the CIP quarterly update that was presented last month. It's the February 2025 quarterly CIP update of all active and ongoing projects. That should be in your materials tonight for the director's report as an attachment. I'm happy to speak to that if needed. But I wanted to mention that on the next slide. Yeah, just to quickly highlight the staff priorities going into this here's development of the CIPR staff priorities were effective and realistic project delivery infrastructure reinvestment multimodal transportation and affordable housing. staff feels that those priorities and the input from the planning commission align with the proposed CIP that we developed which delivers key investments in walkability, bike infrastructure, infrastructure reinvestment and transportation facilities and utilities, and alignment with energy efficiency enough affordability goals. I think I'm going to skip ahead to the second to last slide maybe, just to talk a little bit about next steps. Again, the request tonight for the Planning Commission is to conduct a public hearing and move to recommend the proposed CIP for approval. The next steps after that will be on March 24th, the city manager and the school superintendent will present their proposed fiscal year 26 budgets to city council. CIP will be included in that. The CIP is always included in the budget ordinance that it's adopted. There will likely be a budget work session in April, I think April 7th, tentatively, for the CIP specifically. And then we have anticipated budget adoption on May 12th of 2025. I think that's it for me. So if you all have any questions, I'm ready. Great, thank you, Ms. Opsie. Any questions? Mr. Duncan? Thank you, Caitlin. Ms. Opsie, sorry. Last time we were here, I'd ask a question about the Cherry Hill Farmhouse and where that stands as we approach the 250th observance of all the fine properties that we have here in town, the most historic, secular property at least, and the oldest is Cherry Hill Farmhouse. So I'm curious if you know anything updated about the timetable forgetting whatever work needs to be done there done sooner rather than in the out out year. Right. I think I mentioned at the last meeting at the work session and it's also noted in the quarterly update we did not receive the grant for Cherry Hill Farmhouse for the HVAC and Roof Replacement that we had applied for. They did extend that funding. They added some more funds but they don't apply to Northern Virginia. So right now, facilities has told us that the foundation work is funded in fiscal year 25 and that's ongoing. So foundation is underway, I mean not under construction but in progress and funded. The roof and age back system at this point are in acceptable condition and still working. We plan to propose that as maybe a project that will be funded through a future budget amendment or a budget surplus or any other funding opportunity that comes up hopefully sooner than next year when we're here for the CIP again. Any other questions? Mr. Students? Okay. Oh, I'm sorry. Read Mr. Dodgers. When we get to the point of making a motion, I don't know. I would like to call that out as a priority as an item for special attention during the fiscal year that we're talking now, given the availability of funds for that purpose. Even more compelling if you've been down on the basement like I have to see the existing HVAC piece of equipment that's there. Really? It's like a tank. Yeah, well, okay, good. I think that's the other, well, one other thing could, Madam Chair, there was discussion at a recent council member, the council meeting about the utility poll on North Washington, which people continue to run into bringing the power grid down all across City Hall and Governor's Court and substantial impact. I just wondered if there's any near term remedies to that that are being considered short of waiting for the Great Streets or whatever the project is that's on North Washington that we're calling now. That could address that problem even if temporarily to avoid the frightening frequency of accidents there which have impact on the whole community. Nothing to report right now, not that I'm aware of. I know that there's been discussion of that this week and last about some temporary solutions that we could employ to prevent it from happening again, no other development at this time. Yeah. That's me. Yeah. Well, Ms. Flann, who lives in the neighborhood, was offering fairly compelling testimony to that. I don't know if that is. And you know, the explanation was that it would be a public safety hazard to install Jersey barriers or whatever, but it's a public safety hazard. And the last time compounding the problem was the backup generator in the city hall was down for regular maintenance. So, I mean, we really were caught. I see Andy getting up. Maybe he's got something to say. It's the pole in front of that. Just have one nose. It's the pole that's in front of that lying construction or something. That little next to the Columbia Church, right? It's like the pole that's right in front of that little, I guess was the dwelling years ago. But it's like a little, yeah, contractors office. Last week's actually a different pole. That has been struck that we had the adventures with last year. So I think the one thing I would add to what Ms. Sopsy was talking about is, you know, are folks are having some ongoing discussions with Dominion about alternate routes of kind of feeding power to this part of the city so that it isn't kind of a single point of failure. So it's Dominion, you know, and so it's kind of ongoing discussions, but that is one of the solutions that's being discussed. So the church was renovated, so people seem to be working on the great. Thank you. Any other questions? Well, again, another area of special focus, and lest we forget the light of Gresham too, which also remains interesting, remains a item of interest. Thank you. I did have another item if I'm next. Yes. I'm done. I just had one item I wanted to touch on with you and that's the rooftop solar for the the Royal House and thank you for putting into the proposal here that the initial cost will be required. So that's something that I'd ask for in the past and there it is. So thank you very much for that. The thing that I'm still kind of trying to grasp is why it's in there as unfunded. Is that a staff recommendation? I'm going to ask for a question. I'm going to ask for a question. I'm going to ask for a question. I'm going to ask for a question. I'm going to ask for a question. I'm going to ask for a question. grasp is why it's in there as unfunded. Is that a staff recommendation that it not be funded at this time or am I maybe just misreading that? And I'm puzzled because of the fact that the costs will be recovered. So I mean, really, it's not an outlay like other items in the CIP. So why this one would pop up as unfun? I guess I'm be good to hear your explanation. Or Mr. Young's. That's a tough one. I think the answer is, yeah, it is based on a staff recommendation, based on available funding and other priorities in the CIP. It's a tricky one to fund because while it's not it is going to be recovered in you know future years once the project is completed and it's not a huge amount. We just we don't have an an access of local funding sources this year to fund to fund this project in particular. Yeah. I think to build on that, right? We had a certain amount of capital reserves that were, you know, that were available to us to allocate to projects, right? And so we've kind of, staff's recommendation is kind of what's kind of been laid out in the report. I think this particular project provides an opportunity similar to what Miss Sopsy was talking about with the Cherry Hill roof and HVAC system that it's at a dollar level that we might be able to kind of address it through a budget amendment or end-of-year surplus funds. So that's even though it's unfunded, that's why it's still in the CIP because we're doing the planning and homework to be able to be in a position to be able to get it done. I guess my concern is that when it goes to council as a staff recommendation to be unfunded, I mean, that creates, I believe, another level of a barrier, if I can call it that. You know, for them to overcome that, they're going to say, well, if the staff doesn't think that this should be funded, I guess we shouldn't fund that. Not everybody will think that way, I realize that. But I think there might be a somewhat of a tendency to look at it that way, whereas if staff comes and says, hey, this is really, it makes good sense to do this because we're going to get the money back. So we're kind of functioning more like a green bank than we are making an outlay. So I realize not everybody will be as passionate about it as I am, but... No, I think it's a valid concern and a good point. I do think it could be perceived that way. I also, I feel like based on experience and history, unfunded projects actually get a lot of attention. I think people are looking for a wire. These unfunded, why don't we have a funding method identified? What are we doing to fund it? When will it be funded? I mean, we get a lot of those questions every year. So. Well, I think at a minimum, when you go before council, if you could give some explanation is to you know hey this is unfunded but don't take that to mean it's not important and do focus on the fact that the money will come back in and so it's you know it's a pretty safe bet. So anyway that's that's all I had I can't add to our motion depending on how others feel to encourage Council to find funding for this, but that's all I had. That sounds good to me. Any other comments? Or changes on the motion? I did want to mention going back to Mr. Duncan's comment about the generator last week when the power was out. That is one of the new facility projects that we added this year to the CIP. It's funded in fiscal year 27 or proposed for fiscal year 27, but it's the city hall emergency power reconfiguration and that project would implement a permanent backup generator. That would just be for city hall. Yes. Okay. Not the neighbors. It's a very issue. Yes. Okay. I did have another comment. I just saw it. We got the public comment from John Ward. I don't know if you had a chance to look at it. It addressed the CIP and he asked why isn't Oak Street Elementary identified as a candidate for solar PV by a PPA when end of roof life is reached. Is that something you possibly had a chance to look at? I didn't. So we did do a study of solar opportunities at all of the city facilities. All the city buildings. I imagine that the reason that one wasn't selected is because it didn't meet sort of the criteria of I'm not well versus in solar. The discussions we've had with the schools on solar is that the Mary Ellen Henderson School is the best candidate for solar. All three of the schools have roof-age challenges with installing new solar. So the burial in Henderson is in the CIP. You saw that roof replacement number in there. Yes. All three are candidates for PPAs with like dominion or other solutions. So it isn't so much the cost of the system. It's, you got to replace the roof before you put the system on it. Is that a situation where there still needs to be a study of the Oak Street Elementary rooftop? It was included in the study. It was included. Yeah. I believe that study was shared with the ESC and folks. We might be able to share more. We can follow up to provide that. Sharing with the ESC sounds like a good way to approach it That's been done. So like if yeah I think yeah, it's a cost benefit analysis type of thing Okay, that is all I have okay. All right. Thank you mr. Stevens Do we have the Some would somebody like to make the motion and then it sounds like we may have a couple additions I'm chair if I may unless I missed it. I'm not sure the I haven't opened the public hearing. Yes, this is a public hearing We'll go ahead and open the public hearing is there anybody here to speak on the site? I'm Thank you for the reminder Mr. Trainer seeing none. We'll close the public hearing Okay is was there anybody anybody willing to make the motion? Thank you, Mr. Crasner. Happy to do it. Something less controversial than the last one. And no, our feelings, by the way, Mr. Stevens, not that, nothing's personal. Okay, I'm, okay, and the item is. I'm not sure if you can see that. I'm not sure if you can see that. I'm not sure if you can see that. I'm not sure if you can see that. I'm not sure if you can see that. I'm not sure.08 of the city code that the fiscal year 2026 to 2031 capital improvements program CIP as presented on February 19th and March 5th 2025 as summarized on CIP notebook pages 2-1, 2-2, 2-3, 2-4, 2-5, 2-6, 2-7, and 2-7, based on the following justifications. 1. The CIP is consistent with the adopted comprehensive small area and master plans. 2. The CIP provides both investment in new and reinvestment in existing facilities and infrastructure. Three, the CIP aims to balance investment needs with funding resource opportunities while also considering limited staff resources. Four, the CIP complies with adopted financial policies. Five, the CIP maximizes use of grant funding, especially for transportation projects and strategically uses local funds. Furthermore, the Planning Commission recommends future CIPs include programming and funding for the preservation of existing and expansion of new affordable housing, consistent with the adopted comprehensive plan, chapters 1, vision, and chapter 10 housing, a complete community, two, planning for a future sanitary sewer capacity needs, including a study of current infrastructure and a master plan for future capital investments and maintenance, consistent with chapter 8, community facilities and public utilities public utilities. Three continued focus on matching DPW staff capacity for project management to the adopted CIP to ensure timely delivery of projects and maximum use of awarded grant funding for continued investments in multimodal infrastructure including the installation of protected bike lanes lanes and the expansion of efforts to remove obstacles and sidewalks and complete missing sidewalk links consistent with chapter 7 transportation mobility for all modes and the city's newly adopted bicycle master plan. and 5, an updated watershed management plan and climate resilience plan to guide stormwater and green infrastructure investment consistent with the Congress of plan Chapter five Thank you Second second. Thank you. All right discussion on the motion Mr. Stevens did you have a suggested amendment? I do have some language I can read it and then maybe we can see if there's nothing interesting or if I'm kind of sailing on my own here. It would be an addition as follows. Roof top solar for Aurora House and any other city buildings for which the costs of providing solar are recovered through utility savings should be funded to facilitate completion of these projects. Is the maker of the motion? I accept that. That's a friendly amendment. I accept. Okay. I accept. Thank you. Do you need him to repeat that? Yeah, if we can. We're ready again. Yeah, please. Roof top solar for Aurora House, comma, and any other city buildings for which the costs of providing solar are recovered through utility savings, comma, should be funded to facilitate completion of these projects. Okay, is that right? It's going to clarify something in there. It's one of the things that we were talking about earlier was that, for example, Oak Street requires a roof replacement to then be ready for solar. So this feels like there should be some specificity here that it's not just the cost of providing solar or cost of providing solar is inclusive of infrastructure improvements to make the roof ready to be. Yeah, although I don't think they would change the roof just to accommodate solar. I think it's the other way around. It's just when the roof needs replacement then you would consider including solar as part of it. I'm in agreement with that concept that's not what I'm reading in the amendment. The amendment says anytime if for example Oak Street can have X amount of kilowatt hour can provide X amount of kilowatt I'm well you're right I mean it presupposes there's a study that says that you know this building can facilitate it's you know the engineering From an engineering perspective it can it can take the weight of a solar system and a bunch of other You know kind of things it presupposes as was the case for Aurora House Do you want to just add a qualification? Yeah, just a qualification that the it for any city building. I mean, for somebody for the better words, where the study has been done and the something I don't want to make any other solar, ready city buildings. Sure. That would work. Is that okay with you? Yeah, that's fine. I was going can add even something more precise, but that does it. I think that covers me. What? It's just economy of work. I mean, I fully expect that D.P.W. or whoever will do. I'll get a study in that we would abide by the study. We are installing solar and buildings that have old roofs. Right, that's but it the way. Yeah, be clear. Mr. Duncan, did you have a okay? All right, any other suggestions for the motion? Okay, can we have a roll call? Please, Mr. Trainer. Mr. Polinsky? Yes. Mr. Duncan? Yes. Mr. Crazner? Yes. Mr. Stevens? Yes. Ms. Freedlinder? Yes. Mr. Kruvinsky? Yes. Ms. Koma. Yes. Thank you, the eyes. Have it. The motion passes. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Sopsy. Thank you all very much. All right. We are on to our final work session. Our final? Well, maybe not quite final. We're closing in. Let's do 7A work session item. Econize Clause at Site Plan. We are running a little behind. Do we want to make a motion at this point to extend the meeting, maybe to 11 and hope that we can finish by then? I'm Adam Jura. I move that we extend the meeting to 11 p.m. Thank you. Is there a second? No second. second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Sorry, y'all. Let them be. Relect in my eye. Okay. Welcome. Thank you for coming here. All right. Let me bring up everything. Mr. Floor, are you introducing the item? Yes, I will. This item is before you for a work session tonight on a site plan. This is your second work session. And the latest materials were submitted and reviewed by staff in February. And anyway, I'm going to turn this over to Jeff Hollerin, our senior planner. That's the case manager on this. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Welcome, Mr. Holland. Thanks, Gary. Good evening, Chair Koma. Members of the Planning Commission, I'm Jeff Hallering with the Planning Staff. Tonight the Planning Commission is requested to hold a second work session on a site plan application for the proposed Econize Clauseage Showroom and Office. Staff has completed a review of the second submission of the application materials and transmitted staff review comments to the applicant on February 25th, 2025. While the comments have been included in your materials, many of them are centered around the requested parking reduction, clarifications of minor site design features, and the provision of various pre and post-development stormwater calculations and details. Line 35 of the staff report includes a comment response table which outlines the applicant or staff's responses to major comments from the last work session on the site. That was on November 20, 2024. For a little bit of background on the project, the applicant is proposing to demolish the existing vacant office at the corner of West Broad Street and Spring Street and construct a new three-story four-story if you can clue the basement level. All commercial building totaling 11,740 square feet in size. Once constructed, the applicant would relocate from their current location in Park Avenue to the new building. The subject parcel is currently as a split zoning between B1 limited business, R1A, low density residential. The future land use map designates this property as business and transitional. With the current submission, the applicant has requested five waivers as part of their application. First is for the 10-foot buffer around parking lots, specifically on the northern boundary. Second is the requirement for 5% interior parking lot landscaping. Third, the rear yard setback when adjoining a residential parcel as it relates to the trash enclosure. Fourth, is a request for 30% reduction in provided parking from 26 spaces required to 18 provided. Fifth, the requirement that no vehicular entrance of a business be within 100 feet of a car district. Lines 103 to 214 of the staff report provide staff analysis of the project against the comprehensive plan, West Broad's small area plan and the street tape standards. After that, on line 216 we have provided staff analysis and support for each of the waiver requests, including the parking reduction should a transportation demand management plan be included in a future resubmission. Staff would also like to remind the planning commission that code allows for consideration of conditions on these waivers if needed. And also, as always, at the bottom of the report, a brief tentative schedule for the site plan is laid out for your reference. And there has not been any public comment on this project so far. That's it for me. We do have the owner, the property owner, no sweetie here, as well as a project architect, Zach Gasper joining us online to help answer any questions. Great. Thank you. Does the applicant have a presentation. Where would you like to speak? Thank you. Good evening. It's late. Is this on? Is the green light on? Yes. It's not. It's not. It's just a little while. My name is Mark Turner. I'm the owner of Greensboro or design architect on this project Zach's online The particulates but This is a boutique in field development when we think of high quality on the corner a lot there across from St. James It's gonna be the new design headquarters for Econized closets. You can go to the next slide. The site, as you know, is very narrow and skinny, but it's a corner lot. The 10 comments that you guys next slide, please. So we've tried to distill down the initial comments. We came to the agreement on the waivers which we addressed in the new submission. We provided a TDM narrative as relates to the parking. We looked into the solar panels for the solar charging stations for the cars and I think at this point it's cost prohibitive given that we've scaled back the size of the building. We increased the buffer to 24 feet on the R1 side of the zoning. When the trash and clothes are to get to 16 feet but we think that meets the spirit of the law which is 20-but-setbacks. We reduced the curb cuts to one. We're asking for a waiver to reduce the parking lot island to keep our parking numbers up. It's a very narrow knot. Our site is hard to configure the parking. Provide more detail on the trash enclosure where we've stated that it's going to look the same as the building. It's going to be a white brick to match the building. Security, the baseband carve out. the owners providing security and would like to keep it as designed. Flip the sidewalk landscape buffer to the sidewalk. As it protected, we addressed that item number 9, number 10. Maybe relocate the bike rack to the buffer area. Two bike racks have been provided. The big move we made is we got rid of a story so we're now down at the original projection with 16,000 square feet. We're down to 11,000 square feet which obviously reduced our carpet. So the next one is a site plan. So you can see this is the current site plan. With all these items addressed. You're the next two, three fly sides. There's some elevations. Keep going. So you could see the parking. We're 26 spots previously, we're 30. Yeah, 20 spots. We're previously we were at 11. We reduced the building size considerably. We've added the TDF narrative as requested. There was two other issues I believe that came up on the most recent comments. One is how the trash truck is going to get in there. And I think we were going to address that with the no parking sign when the time the track truck comes. So you can see the traffic city there of the trash truck coming in. We put no parking signs on three of those spots, you know, in the given time the trash truck comes. There was some discussion of medically used on the basement that is no longer a priority of the owner. We're looking at a co-working model for the bottom floor. So it's all gonna be commercial use. So I think we've addressed the comments. We're excited about this project. I'm a long-term fostered residence. Our firm's been here for 17 years. No, it's been here a long time. This is a high-quality boutique in fill development. I think we think that the city needs good high-quality boutique development. It's in fill and not assemblage on Broad Street. I think that fills this role. This is our second meeting here. We would hope that we could push this and get on the agenda here soon so Noel can get going with the rest of the project. Noel, do I have everything? Roughly right, if you want. Yeah, yeah. I'll just stick up the words. Good evening, guys. Good evening, welcome. Well, so yeah, we're kind of getting done to a time crunch on this. We're hoping to break right on it in July, the middle year because we've got a lot of things lined up so we'd really appreciate any help I think. I think we've addressed both to your concern from the last meeting which I believe was you know larger building. We were just size the building. I think we just the buffer at the back was a big concern. I know with Hugh Mr. Krasner we we took care of that belief parking was a big issue. We didn't have enough. We extended the parking. We don't need the other entrance in there. So I think we've addressed pretty much everything, but it's still a beautiful building. My intention is to use the ground floor for ekenase closets. And then we have a masning level of that, which is open with a conference room for the staff. We have a rooftop for the staff as well to go up there if they want to do some work. More importantly, the basement level I'm probably going to do a remote work concept down there because I've heard from a lot of people that that's in big demand right here in Falls Church and there's not a lot of that and there's frankly a lot of residences in the back behind Route 7 which would really like to just walk in and use that So we don't need a lot of parking for that. I do believe it'll be coming in on their bags and it'll be walking to the location. So I think that's fulfilling the need for the neighborhood as well. So and again, just to summarize from my last meeting, you know, we're trying to sell 703 and 705 Park Avenue, which is you know there's two Madison two Madison Hall developments going on around those that we'd like to do the same at that location. That's a conversation for another day. We frankly, not to jump off this project, but we have some serious water issues there that I'm hoping we can address later on. There's a lot of flooding on that site for us, but we'll go back that later. But we do think this is a great use for this site. And it will be beautiful. We've got a lot of great feedback. I've just posted it on LinkedIn last week. We've got 7,000 people coming on it. So it's definitely something I believe the area wants to see coming. So do you have any questions for me guys? Great. Yeah. Thank you. Any questions? This, Friedlander. Yes. I do. I do. Thank you. I agree. I let the materials and the proportions are really nicely done. I do like what you've done to address our comments, especially with the neighboring property. I do have a question on the roof. There's, and I think staff also mentioned it in their in their assessment that there's some discrepancies between the elevations and the and the perspectives and I was curious because the roof has an occupible space but on one drawing it looks like it takes up roof, and on another drawing, it looks like it just runs kind of east-west in the middle. Yeah, it's just in the middle. The older drawing took up a lot more space. Okay. But now we can only do approximately 800 square feet, and it's just in the center. So yeah, if you see right there at the bottom right, that's it looking from Spring Street, East West, the bottom right right total there. Okay. And so it's not a big area out there. Right. We're in a minute for the my staff and he can eyes maybe some of the remote work people if they want to go up against some fresh air, look at the views, look down to the seven. That just adds a different vibe to the whole building. I think so. I'm in agreement either way. I was just curious, you know, what the orientation of what of it was because on the civil drawings, you show planting on the roof, but there's no roof structure there. So it's curious how that changes things. Is there still going to be planting on the roof in the two different planter beds? Are they low grasses or? I'm not sure. We have an occupable zone, so it's got to be in our square feet. For egress, probably one means of egress. We're gonna put the air conditioner unit on the south side of the building there and try to keep the broad street you should proceed. So at this moment we didn't have plans for plantings up there. I'm looking at C22 and C07 shows that those are yeah. Yeah, we're working. Can you all can you all hear me? We can hear you. Yes. Sorry, thank you. Yeah, we're going to be you all can you all hear me we can hear you yes, sorry, thank you Yeah, we're gonna be using a roof dex system called tile tech, which is basically It's it's got these trays that you can put into it so part so you can enter play between porcelain pavers or plantings You know green plantings, but they're very low profile It's like seedles and things like that. It's not like an intensive green roof up there, but the front half that faces broad street will have some green roof. It is not accessible, though, because then we would be over our square footage allowed by one egress up to the roof, but it will create a nice landscape to look out over when you're up on the penthouse. That'd be great. No, I was just curious because the detail shows the buyer retention at the ground level and so it was really confused what you were planning, but I'm familiar with that roof system, with that green roof system. I think that'll also help with heat island too. So I was curious just how that affects your calcs for storm water. Yeah, unfortunately the tile tech cannot be used towards the storm water management or bio retention calculations, because it has pretty thin stuff. But it will look nice. And if you like, say, we'll help with the Edylon effect. Okay thank you. Any other questions? Mr. Duncan. Sorry if I may thank you. Sorry if I may give you yourself so the contents of the building are going to be showroom and some limited inventory for display and so forth and then a level of space down below which has some use for staff and potentially some office occupants. Yeah, so I mean you could see the whole thing is kind of office just really as It's just really as a category Retail sort of a loose term with us. We have clients come in and look at samples and stuff And we do we go to their house and everything's done online quite frankly But so the lower level will be the remote work Mr. Duncan and then the second level will be sort of having displays on there and then third So sort of a retail site to it. And then the Masney level will be for my staff or conference room and for, there's not a lot of them there. I mean, we've got four sales people. They're on their own most of the day. They might be in the office for an hour or two. Typically we take, that's by appointment. So if the someone coming in, it's a couple or you know it's not like we've got 10 people in there at the one time. Now that may change because we're on Route 7. We may get a wee bit more walk on traffic and then... someone coming in, it's a couple or you know it's not like we've got 10 people in there at the one time. Now that may change because we're on Route 7. We may get a wee bit more walk on traffic and then the roof is just frankly just decorative. Small it's just for the staff to go up and relax and they want to work up on the roof deck or people and the the wee work type of starvation basement want want to go to the Rift Deck as well. That's what that's for. We also just like to look at it. To be able to walk there and look down and look at false church from Dunrood 7. and basement want to go to the roof deck as well. That's what that's for. We also just like to look at it. To be able to walk there and look down and look at false church from Donorwood, Salmon, that'd be kind of cool. Okay, thanks. And the language in the TDM that is displayed suggests that there might be some foot traffic that you know, is using the building there. You're talking about the remote workspace primarily. I mean your experience in your current facility is what? I mean, presumably most of the people who do business with you, like you said, you either go out to them or they probably drive to you. I mean, do you have much walk-up business right now where you are? No, no, no, no. I mean, we're on park avenue. Right. It's not like Route 7. And so I'm not sure what it's going to be like to be honest. I would assume it's a bit better, but we don't actually have very one or two people a week might walk in. OK. So it just to be cautious. I mean, yeah, let's assume that. And let's assume that the workspace downstairs, the remote workspace downstairs, is patronized by, you know, half the people walk there and half the people drive, even if up to half the people who are using the wee workspace downstairs drive, you still believe that 20 parking spots is gonna be sufficient. 18. Sorry, 18. It's actually 20. There's 18 on site and there's two in the street. So it's 20 total. Just to embellish the work on, or not, we work, but the co-working concept, the footprint in the market says that the bigger offices, so it'll be single offices and maybe a conference room, so that the space is only big. It's not gonna be like cubbies where you can have a lot of volume. So it's gonna be less offices but bigger So that the ratio of square foot to cars is gonna be much different than your typical You know just getting a desk at a co-working. Does that make sense? That would be an interesting experiment. Yes, we're not actually doing, I'm not sure I told you to mark this, but we're not doing co-working, we're doing single offices. Yeah. So it's not an area where you can go on and it's going to be a bunch of people together to frankly demand, is to have your own office in privacy. I hate to see it, but I just, a friend of mine owns office evolution and for our facts and the day with them today. And the open air concept is giving way to the more, you know, individual office concept. So it's individual offices and the conference room. I hate to say that's where the that's where the money is in this business. And that's where we're all still the same. You can have the car. And back to your 18 versus 20 parking spaces too on the street. So do we? What's our position on counting street spaces as part of the development? I mean, technically speaking anybody can park in those two places on the street, right? Yeah, I guess so. I mean, you know, you're we're not going to direct signings that says parking only for this office building. Are we? I mean, that's not really usually what we would do at this stage at least. The answer question, street parking would not be technically counted as part of this project. Thank you. Okay, just to be clear, which believes we're going to ask question. The most surprising thing is that we've heard no comment from any of the neighbors on Spring Street. The last time we took a swipe at developing this corner, we heard quite a lot from some of the neighbors on Spring Street. And let's just say that they're all happy with the idea and that's great. But as Mr. Polinsky will testify, you know, anytime there is development in close proximity to a presidential neighborhood, the opportunity for cooperation and communication is limitless. And I just, you know, would like to vote for this, being assured that at every stage of your construction process, you're in touch with your neighbors and not running a complaint-based system, but running an outreach-based communication system where folks on Spring Street will be happy to have a shiny new neighbor that has communicated with them during the course of the construction of the project. Well, if you follow Euconized Clause, that his record on reviews is the best in the area. It is very good on the outreach and it would never successful business if he wasn't good at that. So everybody on spring street gets a discount on their cabinets right? I'll tell that to the mayor who lives on spring street. Okay, thank you. Mr. Polonskete, do you have a comment? Two quick questions. I wasn't on commission when this was originally presented. So apologies if these are follow questions to ones that have already been asked. But the rooftop area, was there ever any consideration of making that an event space? Like the large, I know you're saying it's small on purpose because you like it and it's a place for people to be. But like it seems local, like a local event space would be a significant boon to that area, especially with Founders Road there and a bunch of people and lots of people who want to throw events as opposed to some of the existing places. Was there ever any consideration of making that a larger area that could be an event space for people to rent? We did study that. There's a couple headwinds that we faced. One is the structural requirements to make the whole thing inhabitable. Two is you need two means of egress with the building the skinny just really hurts the layout on the inside. So the use and the insurance on a rooftop unit is different categories. So just and that's not his ultimate use. There's open up the public as a private use. So I think I agree with you. It's gonna be a dynamite space to have a cocktail and look out on Broad Street, because right now it's pretty deplorable and that neck of the woods is you guys know. So I love rooftop spaces, but it just wasn't the right application for this. It also meant a lot more parking. Yes, sorry, Mr. Pulaski, actually on a wedding venue. This is well-cultured barn, so I know a lot about that space. And it's just it's parking the issue. There's a lot of people in there if we do that. Okay. And now I'm going to make the neighbors happy. Fair. And the follow-up question is about parking. So being as close as you are to Founders Row and the WOD and all these other places, it's likely that, especially being a nine to five business, you're going to have a lot of people who are going to be parking there overnight, or not overnight, but during off hours. Like they'll be using that to go to the movies. They'll want to pay Founders Row parking. I've seen some of the businesses up especially next to Northland social, next to those areas that say We'll tow you at three in the morning. We don't care. Is there any expectation that you're gonna Approach it that way or would you approach parking as it's reserved for co-working space or the workspace and the staff during the day, but after five o'clock we don't care That's a tough question because it's kind of a liability issue too. I mean if you allow people to go on there that's not part of your business, you need to have that flag like it's on your own. Unfortunately I want a bunch of businesses so I have that insurance liability flag up. So I'm not sure how to answer that question. Will people use it at night if we're not there probably. Will we be toying them? No, because that's not the interest of having good neighbors. So that's probably where we'd leave it. I mean, if it was an empty lot at the middle of the night, and it helped out neighboring businesses for somebody to use it, I can't see that being an issue. We might have to put some signage up to say, hey's on your liability of some sense fair. You should be in here. But that's kind of that's probably the way I would take it as a business owner. Frankly. All right. Thanks. Better be a little friendly, right? You know, that would be my opinion, but just curious if there was any plans there. Thanks. Any comments on? Oh, sorry, Mr. President. Yeah. No, I mean, actually, honestly, I think you guys are to be commended for. You really listen to the comments. I mean, I wish every applicant, after one work session came back with such significant responsive changes based on the feedback. So I was really pleased when I opened up the site plan, the new version of it, because as you said, you addressed, I mean, I did talk about the screening, but not only did you address that, there was also concerns about scale and there were those rather significant parking reduction requests. And I mean, I think you pretty much hit everything. I mean, I always liked the concept of what you were trying to do. You just need to kind of write size it. And I think you've done that. So you and your team should be commended for coming back with something that was responsive but still meets your needs and actually as, as you said, is a very attractive building as you've shown it in the elevations. So overall, I think it's great. And I'm definitely, there's not much that would keep me from supporting this at this point. I think the only question or recommendation was, because the screening area is kind of small. And I see that you've proposed if some Hollies and some couple of oaks in there. I just wonder if that just given how people will now be pulling in and kind of facing that house there if some type of barrier in addition might be warranted like a low wall, a low fence, something that just like headlight just like headlight level to keep some headlight glare, you know, around the edge of the property where it's about that neighbor. I'm not thinking of a tall fence because you're kind of in a front yard there, kind of stand out, but like three to four foot knee wall type of thing or even just a wood board on board, you know, fence that might help to further, you know, provide a little bit of a separation between you. And because, you know, that, as I mentioned the first time, once you clear that all out and get all the invasive junk that's there, you know, it's gonna be pretty open. I mean, obviously you should do some outreach to the owner of that property. And maybe they have sort of a preference, But I would think that maybe there would be some merit or some utility in having like some type of barrier in addition to the plantings to further separate the parking lot from their front yard. Because it is going to be a smaller area, I think even though the most you can in that tight area, and it's a big improvement from last time, but just the idea of having it. One day if you thought about that and if you haven't, would you consider maybe having some type of barrier? Yeah, if you can go to the site plan, I think a third of your problem, and probably the most important thing that'll be solved by the trash thing. Yeah, some of it, right. There's the trash enclosure, which is like in the middle, but it doesn't kind of cover the whole thing, but yeah. want to extend a short, you Neewall, he decided, I don't think that's a deal kill for us, but sorry, my, he was not the only thing about doing another Neewall on those, you know, they're almost like box, who is right, they'll probably come up to it, this height, Mr. Grassner, so they're kind of nice to them, they're sometimes, because someone pulled under that corner. I personally would prefer to have a bush there on a mystery wall. Because they're just going to scrape and head that mystery wall properly. Yeah. So that looked a little bit like I think both the mystery wall and a good landscape offer will achieve the same things from a buffer standpoint. But if you put a mystery wall on those two side parking lots there, I think that's just something someone's something someone's gonna hit. Yeah, I was thinking more along your actual property line, like adjacent to your residential neighbor, just along that. Just like a light blocker type of that. Yeah, it's along that. Yeah, so not to replace the shrubs, like as much green as you can plant in that little area, I think is good. I was just, I was thinking, you know, along your property line, I guess that's your, like, sub-property line, Eastern property line, you know, with your residential neighbor, that's just what I was thinking. But, you know, again, maybe if you plant a dense enough, it's not, you know, that important, but, I don't know, just a thought, because they'll now be, especially when the plants are new, they'll be kind of small and it'll be pretty open in that area, you know, and yeah, like I said, it's just a big dramatic change for that. Anytime you have, you know, residential or non-residential that's now immediately adjacent to single family, you know, residential, that transition's always tough. pretty abrupt change from commercial parking lot to single family house front yard. And so at a minimum, you should do some outreach if you haven't already to that property owner and if you haven't already done that, get some sense of let them know what you're doing. And maybe if you've done that already, but to see if they have any kind of opinion on that matter one way or the other. To be honest, I think they'll be happy to see anything because right now we got bamboo in there and it's a no-pink disaster. Right, no, I think they probably will like to see something positive. I mean, the building that's there now, yeah, everything the whole thing, yeah, I don't think. But just again, as far as the transition from your parking lot to their front yard, the buffer is what it is. I mean, it's good for what the space you have, but it's still relatively shallow because it's a small site. So, anyway, I just an idea. I don't think it's a deal breaker, but just something to consider. Sometimes a barrier in conjunction with the plantings work well together to kind of provide you know, provide a better transition from like, you know, these two very disparate uses. That's all. But overall good. Overall, like they said, like I wish every second work session looked like, you know, reflected such significant changes that respond to what I heard most of my matches myself with the other commissioners mentioning the first time. I didn't see there was a lot of like stormwater comments. I most of them seem technical. It seems like, you know, as long as assuming you can address like all of that by the public hearing in your next submission, you know, most of them I say you were acknowledged acknowledge acknowledge it sounds like you can meet all that. Assuming you can do that because they're you know everything does flow down out that you're siding to the neighborhood. So, you know, otherwise, yeah, no, I think it's great. I think you- We spoke to the neighborhood. So, otherwise, I think it's great. We spoke to the engineer about those calculations. Yeah. Like 0.5 square feet. A minor. Yeah, a lot of them were technical comments. They were small things. Yeah, it should be fixable. We're going to review it in a good job because I got down to the nickel. So, please say that we would be an issue. Okay, that one great. I guess it overall. Good. Exciting project. Sorry, okay. I asked one more question. Mr. Trenek, could you scroll up to the sort of the covered letter of the presentation or the cover screen with the design of the building? Is that the actual plan for the design of the building? Then I just want to commend you guys. I think that's fantastic. And I think especially with the lighting and what that area is at night from Los Milas all the way down to five guys, like that would be a good place thing for people to copy as they are used as inspiration to go forward. And I just think it's great. Thank you so much. Mark, Greensboro is a very, very talented at doing stuff like this, but we're also going to have the lights at the front of the gas lanterns as well, just to give it to that old world feeling. It's a mystery white structure. Those are black metal canopies that are coming out as well. So I think when it's all done, it's going to be a white white mystery building as well. It is the entrance to the actual workspace on the side on the spring street side or on the broad street side. There's going to be actually if you look at the front of the building here on the left that's the left thing on the door. That door goes into the hall to go up the stairs. The door in the middle at the front goes in as the main ecanise entrance, and then there's a door at the back at the basement level for the room work concept. So that's just multiple egresses. So there's three ways in. Okay, thanks. We appreciate your comments because we're drinking our own cooling, but I think this will be something we can all be proud of our firm city falls church no you know quality development on broad street is something I think the city and we can all be proud of so thank you great thank you any other comments down this way mr. Schubens no I'm eager to see this get started and I think I'm Okay, with five waivers that they that they require. Great. Mr. K? No, I'm eager to see this get started and I think I'm okay with five waivers that they require. Great. Mr. Krobenski? I supported it. It's a beautiful building and I'm okay with the five waivers. Okay. Same for me. I kind of wish we still had the third level, but I understand there are other reasons why maybe that's not possible. I hope you get a chance to read the article that I shared, a study that I shared about single-stair buildings and how maybe we don't need dual egress buildings and like a two or three story building. Yeah. So this is the example of the kind of potential, like economic benefits that the city has to forgo to meet those kinds of requirements. I wish this was three stories to Mr. Polinsky's. I do think there would be a great demand. And I was pretty confident we could work out the parking issues if there were any. So, but I've been hearing from you that the structural requirements for three stories and the egress requirements is sort of makes that not a no-go at this point. It's not just parking that is holding you back, right, from having three stories. That's an expense this year as well,, I mean frankly. Yeah, that was a sense that I got last time. We know the first design and then the budget numbers and it's really expensive to build right now. Super expensive. Oh yeah, it's like 40% more than it used to be, right? It's got a number in mind and it was you know 50% of numbers so we have to tweak it back. It's beautiful. It looks similar though. Yeah, no criticism whatsoever of the building. I think it's gorgeous. I just, you know, I'm a big fan of commercial development in the city and we need more in fill like this and so I would have supported an even bigger project if we could have had it. So, but thank you for doing this. Any other comments, questions? No? Okay. Well, thank you for coming out. We are looking forward to your... Yeah Mr. Holler, do you have a sense of when you all might be back? I know we have some outstanding small technical issues storm water. I think I noted that too. So staff is pretty confident that the next submission will be probably the submission that comes to you for public hearing, assuming that we can work out the storm water comments. It looks like they have already worked on a TDM, which I'm seeing that for the first time tonight. Yeah, I hadn't seen that either. So there is a TDM plan or... There is, I guess, that they have one now. But it was not included in their last submission. So I would assume it will be in the next one. Great. And so yeah, I would imagine that the next, what we do need to do, you know, a full review, you know, that takes two weeks upon their submission. Mm-hmm. And so we will get it back to as soon as we can. But I would like to think that the next medal will be the one. So maybe early April. Yeah. Great. Yeah, that's what we have to get it in by Tuesday. Next week for the early April one. And we might be able to do it, but it's probably more like they'd be in April 14th. OK. I guess. Yeah. Yeah, I think the schedule we have up here, I like to try to give applicants about three weeks after their work session. I don't know if they'll need to wait as long. We just got the recent comments last week, but we're pretty far ahead of it. We might really get done Tuesday, but my guess is that's a cut off for the April, the first April meeting, then we'll probably slide the April 14th, which I think still works for this. Okay, well we're looking forward to seeing you all in April. I want to extend it. Thanks, Jeff, for working with us and notch. Thanks to you all for putting on the midnight oil here. So we're almost there. Thank you for coming out tonight. Just make one more comment. Yeah, please. that just this project to say, just to get back for one second on Park Avenue, it would be, I'm not sure how to go about this, but we've had three different developers trying to park Avenue office to put time houses on that development. And there's a massive water problem with water going right on to our site. Our site's been flooded on sex occasions now and it seems there's a bit of an issue with a lot of water and full-shirt city draining on our site whenever there's storms so I'm not sure what to do to fix it. I would like to sell the site and have it be developed because I do believe there's a housing issue and I think it would look beautiful and what we have there so I'm not sure how to go about that, but I just wanted to make you guys aware of it. Just if there's anything you can do to help, but we'd be very much appreciated. So yeah, I know the water table there is very high. Yeah, and there are other neighboring buildings that have some some issues we heard from the Broadway. Yeah, I think in public comments tonight. Just just to say, you know, nothing to do with this one, but no, of course. point of doing this one was to sell Park Avenue and take that money and invest it back in false chair city but we got to wait a little bit on that. Good luck. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you for coming out. So I think that brings us to our information items. Any planning commissioners reports? Nope. Okay. It's too late. No reports, put it in an email to Jack. Director's report. Mr. Fuller. Yes, thank you. As Caitlin had mentioned, the CIP quarterly report update for February is provided to you and gives you a status update on the 38 active CIP projects and they're different status. So then also on our upcoming agenda, we had, let's see, get to that page. Yeah, look ahead. So there it is. So at this point, you know, I wanted to look at the agenda of the upcoming items and then we will also talk about the planning commission advance, which we've tentatively talked about for March 19th and we also previously talked about a March 26th date. So we still have the Quinn site plan that we work through that this week and that will be ready for March 19th as far as we can tell at this point. So few pending things that are coming in. So we're looking to have that for March 19th and then the affordable living policy is on April 2nd and then the broadened Washington easement, vacation and possibly the site plan you saw this evening would be on that night or the 14th and so those are the upcoming names we have just to mention Maple and Annandale the special exception We were scheduling that tentatively for council. And at this point, we're requesting that they have some kind of land agreement on the parcel that's involved in their application from the city to actually EDA owned. And so the city turn is advised that we should have some LLI and maybe an appraisal just to at least have that advanced now that they're in with a third submission and getting ready to possibly move forward in front of Council. So and then once it goes to Council and work session it would probably come back to you with some point after that and for an update. So at this point, it's on hold until we get some general agreement on the land, and then we'll come forward. So I'm just as an update for that. So back to the advance, we have an agenda we previously talked about. We provided that in your Monday, I mean, you know on your Wednesday update for the planning commission package and so I wanted to go through that and discuss that this evening with you and Finalize that as well as the date Can that's great. Yeah, do you want to discuss the date Mr. Duncan? Right. Yeah, I mean, I thought last time we talked about not meeting on the 19th and meeting on the 26th instead. Can we do the business that will schedule for the 19th and advance on the 26th? Yeah, I have right now the advance. you know, I have it as an hour and 45 minutes scheduled from nine o'clock start. I think we could finish the other item within an hour and a half Usually the Quinn project site plan. Okay, does the Quinn does Quinn need to come? I guess what mr. Duncan's proposing is that we cancel the 19th the March 19th meeting and we instead on the 26th so that Mr. Crosner can join us. I think he is out of town on the 19th. Okay. It would only be, that would only be a week delay. I'm sure we could actually use a little more time just to get that in five or four. I'm, it turns out I may also be out of town or at least, you know, just barely getting back into town on the 19th. I see. I'm sure I'm not for that. Everybody else is in town on the 26th, correct? Sure. We can cancel the 19th and schedule for the 26th and we'll, we'll do both. Yeah. Okay. So we'll have Quinn. Quinn. We'll be all the Quinn site plan can be moved. The Quinn site plan? Yeah, I mean, it's only a week. So, and we were still working through some things, so that'll give us a little more time to clean that up. And it's only a week to lie, but all notify them, you know, right away, so they don't, you know, schedule their people, you know, for the 19th at this point. Okay. That'd be great. And yeah, I don't know mr. Craven's give your asking But so Quinn would come to us also in the 26th So we have Quinn we have sort of a hybrid meeting We have a room right on meeting here with Quinn first that would be the only item on the agenda Which would be a public hearing? I think you're anticipating mr. Fuller. Yes, that's correct And then we would be an advertised public journal. And then we would move to do it our advance. So we would sort of do, just in the interest of not having staff come out, you know, three nights in a month. You're good. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Do we want to talk about the agenda? Sure. I've outlined the agenda that we've previously talked about. So we would get a copy and a basic, you know, we could discuss the retail study and kind of the thoughts for next steps. Then the ULO tap final report, you know, that's still pending for another month or so, but there's some materials based on the presentation that are canned that we can provide to you based on the final report out at the ULI tap event. I also noticed the city uploaded the video of the presentation that some of us attended. Okay. So that could be a good thing to share. It's about an hour. Okay. But you hear from the project team on their vision for the Gordon Road Triangle. So what is your thought on the media for the ULI tab? I think if you can share those presentation slides that the project team shared with us. And that video recording, hopefully we can all find an hour. I mean, we provide that and obviously we would we would do the sides for the actual advance. Okay. Okay. This is this is a lot. Well, you know, we can go through it. I don't know. I'm just wondering like do we need to prioritize or order things because I know everybody has a wish list for things to talk about at the advance, but I don't know that a ten or fifteen minute discussion about some of these items. We need like much more time. So I guess I'm I don't know. What's everybody? What's everybody thinking? I thought at one point we had intended to spend the whole session with the advance as opposed to, yeah, right now we've just cut about an hour and a half off the advance. I would suggest the advance is a pretty important step in our planning process that we should probably devote as much time as possible to it. And I know that's causing some problems with dates. Is the Quinn site plan, does that have to be on the same day of the advance? It could be on the 19th, but moving it off to the next month, of April would be not fair to the applicant. Well, we move it one more week to we don't have another Well, we would potentially keep it on March 19th. Yeah. And then I guess what you would be proposing Mr. Krovenski would be to add a third meeting in the month. Well, I understand that's a hardship for everybody, but just what you said. Yeah. This is a full agenda. Well, I guess I'm just gonna rip rip through it and check a lot of boxes But we're really not gonna get into a lot of discussion Yeah, I guess I'm just wondering If you know, I think Mr. Duncan you were interested in the retail study. I think a few of us were interested in the tab Mr. Stevens you're interested in the cottage housing I think a few of us were interested in the comprehensive. Mr. Stevens you're interested in the cottage housing. I think a few of us are interested in the comprehensive plant. I just see I'm wondering like do we need to remove a few items from this list and just talk about one or two things. The other idea is again you know we we people don't like to probably have more meetings but if we set aside like a special meeting just for the advance. I'm not trying to items, you know, on the same night. I mean, all depends on like, we want to make the most use of like what an advance is supposed to be, you know, like having a night where we're just like more, maybe more relaxed, quote unquote, we're not like focusing out of their items and we have the full kind of evening to do it. There's some, you know, We've done it. Didn't know it's not we used to do it. Yeah, and talk with yeah, we said in there. Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, talk with done that. It's not what you know. Yeah, yeah, in talkwood. Yeah, we sat in there And we got sandwiches and we have dogwood. I feel like that's I mean It's probably more effective way to have in advance. Otherwise, you know, it's not that we would do be no utility or no benefit of doing this But Yeah, be a quick discussion. We'd move on. It would feel maybe kind of perfunctory Probably wouldn't get a lot of like you know. I guess I'm just wondering even with you know let's say three hours is this is this too much ground to cover? 1, 2, 3, 4. It's probably doing about three hours if like whoever's moderating keeps us on keeps like us yeah keeps us on task. I can be a difficult task. Not all problems will be solved in three hours so I yeah Well, it's my pay grade to do this, but the agenda on April 2nd is the affordable living policy really going to be ready by then. I thought the last thing I heard was that they were looking for extra time, at least for the Virginia Village component, haven't. Well, they had me representing that they'll be ready with something. They had gone on hold for several weeks and stopped the weekly meetings with staff. And then Brendan's going on leave now and other staff were taking over the project, but the consultants finished their work as minor standing. And so they've they published a schedule that they're moving forward. And this was the date that was given. So this is a recent schedule from them and it's you know it's updated schedule from what they started with. So that is and it's you know subject to change but at this point the schedule we could go has us for that date. So. I mean, originally we'd started off doing a special meeting on the 26. We could still do that. I thought that Quinn was going to move off until the next meeting, but they're ready and they're a side plan and we try and. I don't want to pull them up. So yeah, so I'm saying, you know, I mean, if we wanted to devote the 26 as we had originally planned to the advance, we'll just do that. And then we could have a short meeting on the 19th. Okay, you know, we just have the one item. So yeah, if that's okay with staff, that's and the rest of the commission. Yeah, it's okay. It's a hardship on folks. I mean, I'd like to hear if there is a hardship on folks but I'm open to it. I'm from a scheduling perspective that's a better use. folks I mean I'd like to hear if there is a hardship on folks but I'm open to it. I'm always yeah. I'm a scheduling perspective that's a better use of time. Okay. So you're going to meet on the 19th and the 20th. We'll do the 19th for Quinn and the 26th for the advance and it will just be the advance and if we could be in Dogwood that would be great and if you I know know we've done boxed dinners in the past I think it's nice. That's right. I can do that. I think my only request before my wife tells me that I can't come to these anymore because I'm skipping bedtime every Wednesday during the week. If we can, if Quinn is the only thing on the agenda for the 19th, we can think that the only thing for the agenda on the 19th so I can get home and do bad time stuff. That would be very helpful. Yeah. It is the only thing on the 19th. And like I said, I was trying to free up the 19th for us for the whole advance, but it didn't quite work out and be in a site plan. They're ready and so we want to process them. So we'll keep the one item, yes, to answer your question. Thanks. So, you should be home by nine, you can tell her. Yeah. I'm sure my tenure rule will stay up just to make sure I do bad time. Well, he's waiting to help you, for you to help me with homework. So, yeah. And the homework till fifth grade. You got a quorum on the 19th, right? 19th or 19th right? Yeah, I'm not here. Yeah, we have five is there we have five for the 19th everybody else is here on the Real. Yeah, I'll be here. Yeah, we have five. Is there a five for the 19th? Everybody else is here on the next page? Everybody else? Yeah, I'll be here. Just in the interest of kind of, I don't know, streamlining the advance discussion a little bit. I'm wondering if maybe we can just save the ULI tap. Just share the slides. Share that video. If everybody could kind of watch that, know what's coming and then like, We're just we're just getting started I think on this and so maybe as we have more discussions and things clarify about the direction that the city is going to go in maybe then we could have like a meteor discussion. So the written report doesn't come out till after this. Yes, and maybe when that comes. Yeah, and so yeah, maybe with that's available that would make more sense to we get at it. But I think the retail study, Mr. Duncan, you want to go on the same vein. The retail study is well-trogged ground and it has been presented for the ADA. And it's a personal interest of mine, but it's not time sensitive. I don't think we're doing the best we can to fill the retail spaces that we've built. So if you're looking for things to pair down, I think you can certainly pair that down till later. OK. We're in the best with Canada, build the retail spaces that we've built. So if you're looking for things to pair down, I think he can certainly pair that down the later. Okay. So that would potentially leave us with the Comprehensive Plan status. And I know that we looked at that with Mr. Stotter in maybe last fall. Yeah, I think the last update, well, the last kind of scheduling update we did was May, almost, you know, it's approaching a year again. And so we have material on, you know, the upcoming plans that we had, you know, in cycle to look at next. And then we're continuing to work on the public facilities plan. We had meetings with the city management this week. And so, you know, we've gotten further guidance and the staff is engaged in that. And so we see that carrying through, you know, until about June. And then at that point, we'll probably have something in the summer early fall that will take to the public. And then anyway, so we've queued up several others. And so, you know, we'd be able to talk about those and there's a prioritization on those. This, the public utilities is the only one that's on the council's initiatives list. And so it's identified as the current one to work on. And after that, there's no further identified. So we can make a recommendation. This would be a good time to make a recommendation on the two or three that we have kind of in queue. So. Okay. Mr. Kovinsky, did you have a comment on that? Yeah, so if we are dropping a few, that's a good opportunity. I think this is a pretty important agenda item from my perspective. And I would recommend changing it from comprehensive plan status needed updates and scheduled to maybe a more in depth discussion about our priorities, our phasing, our focus areas for the comprehensive plan and really dig into it and maybe get a staff discussion as a starting point about what you're planning to, you know, the phasing of the next chapters and and what initiatives you plan and tackling and then maybe we have a good discussion of that to give staff maybe some guidance. And the reason I say that is because in chapter two of the Comprehensive Plan, It did say review and revise city policies such as land use and economic development chapter, the zoning ordinance and other comprehensive chapters to reflect the city's current and future demographics in plan for adequate housing availability. I really think we need to have, I mean, that's a wide range of things we're asking the staff to do in terms of reviewing and revising these chapters. So I would recommend, you know, we start with a staff presentation, but then we get into some really the meeting discussion about what is the scope of and what are some of the initiatives we want to throw out when we talk about reviewing and revising city policies. And let me just say when I was on housing, I had an email exchange with Paul Stoddard. I know he's not here, but his perspective was the next comp, and this is from an email that he sent me. The next comprehensive plan updates and zoning updates would get started after the current efforts wrap up. I'm expecting to engage with the Planning commission this fall and again during their annual advance in January to help sort out priorities for the calendar year 2025. And then he says for what it's worth now that I have a stable staffing for future planning. I'm hoping to get the comprehensive plan chapters and small area plans on a regular update cycle. So I do think we owe it to the staff to help them scope what revisions and to city policies they should be addressing uh... in their comprehensive plan update and that could be a pretty wavy discussion uh... i would be happy to set that up i'm not going to be able to do it for the twenty six i mean i'll have a you know a list of the the upcoming chapters is chapters as planned and we can have a status update. My key staffer, Emily, will be on a cruise next week. And so she's my key for leading the conference of planning staff. So I would need a little more lead time to pull together, you know, a more robust kind of status than we were planning for the advance to have the level discussion that we should have on it. I think it's a, I mean, we don't have to finish the discussion, but I do think it's a good opportunity. I mean, we're not going to another advance for a year. So I think it's a good opportunity to start that discussion. And if we can't finish it because, you know, you're not, you know, I do completely understand that. So, I'm happy to have it on the agenda and we'll prepare some material for you to be able to, but in terms of getting into the details of the policy and so forth, I think that's a discussion we can have on an ongoing basis. All right. I see we're seven minutes past our expiration date. Can somebody make like a quick motion? Five minutes? Are we almost done? Against that? Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, oops. I think my screen just went out. So maybe we're getting kicked out of the building. We're in the green zone. Okay. So I think just to wrap up, I think we're moving items two and three will keep comprehensive plan and cottage the cottage and we're able to turn up that sort of additional, I think. We're going to check with the key to safety. We have a hot trail and leave for that. I think that would be great to see that. And then on the retail study, I can provide that as an informational document like you are. Maybe both. Yeah, the retail and that's not. Yeah, I'm happy to report items soon. Yeah, great. And look at some of these is not working the issues in terms of the detail necessarily, but just slot it in terms of things that we'd like to see worked on. Yeah. Yeah. I can, Mr. Fuller, I can send you every vise to agenda item for that comprehensive plan or I have it here if you want to add it now or I can just send it to you by email. Yeah. That'll be fine. I mean, I'll fall under our comprehensive plan status and And yeah, this is just an agenda. I mean, we can take the discussion. And we'll discuss as long as you like at your advance. It's your advance. I'm just, and Emily, I'll be back from her, this is her first cruise to, by the way. So she'll be back. And so she can attend the 26. And so I'll have key staff there to help with the discussion. And then we can plan a follow-up for it I mean it doesn't have to stop at the advance that that can be the beginning of the discussion and we'll schedule follow up So I'm not I don't have to wait another year for the next advance. So I'm happy to you know Do a work session with you with you just on that item. Sounds great. Yeah. Great. All right. Well, thank you very much. Looking forward to thank you for scheduling. And I guess we will see some of you on the 19th, some of you not. Thanks for all the work you did for the Jim Snyder going the white party yesterday. He was, oh, a lot of Gary Fuller even wrote an original work for Event that was really I do look at the correspondence item I shared study from Pio about Single stairway building. Thank you for that article. I think that's really interesting. Yeah Yeah Okay, I have that's all I think we are adjourned. Thank you. Thank you.