Good evening everyone and welcome to the April 1st, 2025 public hearing of the Alexandria Planning Commission. I'm Vice Chair Stephen Cainig and I'm actually I've been asked by Chair McMahon to chair tonight's public hearing as she is attending the American Planning Association Conference in Denver, Colorado and will participate remotely And Mr. Blaserd, do we have Chair McMahon actually online? Excellent, thank you. Okay, a few notes on the process before we begin. If you wish to speak on a docket item and have not already signed up to do so, please fill out a speaker form online by following the sign up to Speak hyperlink, present on the cover page of this evening's public hearing docket, or in person by filling out a hard copy speaker form which can be found on either of the materials tables located outside the chambers or at the back of chambers, and provided to Ms. Williams who has her hand raised. Please note comments from the public are limited to three minutes per speaker with the exception of applicants and their representation. To make your public comment through the Zoom application, please click on the raise hand button located on the Zoom task bar. To make your statement, once you hear your name called, in order to let staff know that it is you who needs to be unmuted. To make your public comment, if you are dialing into tonight's meeting via phone, please press star nine to execute the raise hand function. Once you hear your name called to make your statement, followed by star six to toggle the unmute function. To make your public comment in person, please come up to either podium podium located on either side at the front of chambers when you hear your name called to make your statement. Before, and this is for everyone no matter how you're participating, before starting your public comment, please identify yourself by first and last name. The city encourages and welcomes public comment from all residents on planning commission matters. In keeping with that principle and with the principle of inclusiveness, this is a reminder of the shared expectation that the content and tenor of public comments always be civil and respectful. Thank you in advance for honoring these principles. Reminder to all including commissioners, staff, and speakers and chambers, to please speak clearly into the microphone to ensure all are able to hear in a clear manner. Okay, Madam Clerk, are there any changes to tonight's docket? There are no changes to the docket, however I believe item number four has been requested to be pulled from the docket. Thank you. So as we turn our attention to the consent calendar, the consent calendar includes items which will be considered without a public hearing unless a planning commissioner or a member of the public wishes to have that public hearing. The night items 2, 3, and 4 on the public stocket are tentatively on the consent calendar. As Ms. Williams just said, I understand, Commissioner Brown, you'd like to pull item 4, okay? Are there any other items that any other commissioners would like to pull from the consent document. Okay, are there any members of the public here tonight that would like to pull either item two, which is a consideration of the FY 2026 planning commission schedule, or item three, which is especially used permit for 4,000, one-mount Vernon Avenue. Anyone who'd like to pull either of those off of consent. Okay, so at that point I think we could entertain a motion to approve the consent calendar including docket items two and three. So moved. Thank you, Mr. Mannor, a second. A second. Okay, so we have a motion by Commissioner Manor and a second by Commissioner Remiria as to approve the consent calendar inclusive of docket items two and three. Any discussion? All those in favor? Hi. Hi. As opposed? Okay, so it appears that we've approved the consent calendar on a 0-7-0. So Madam Clerk, would you call item 4A and B for us, please? Item number 4, rezoning 2025-00001, development special use permit, number 2-0-2-4-1-0-1-0, 1-0-1-0, 1-26 long view drive and 29-21 knob your court, West Ridge town. Public hearing and consideration of request for a an amendment to the official zoning map to change the zoning designation for a portion of the site from R-8 residential zone to the R-A multi-unit zone and be a development special use permit with a site plan and modifications to construct one single unit dwelling and three multi-unit dwelling buildings and special use permit requests for additional density pursuant to section 700 out of zoning ordinance and a parking reduction to allow compact parking spaces, zone or dash eight residential applicant, Oak Creek Homes, LLC represented by Duncan Blair, attorney. Thank you. Do we have a staff presentation? Good evening, remote chair and present. I'm Leon Vines with the Planning and Zoning, and I'm here to present development special use permit application and rezoning for Westridge towns at 126 long view drive and 2921 Navio Court. Here are the items we'll be looking at this evening. The request is for consideration of a rezoning and development special use permit for 19 townhouse style units and three multi unit buildings and one single unit dwelling. The action requested of the commission is a recommendation of approval. Keep, sorry, key points include. The reason there is a portion of the site majority is recommended for a rez rezoning from r8 to r a There's provision of an affordable on site three bedroom unit for at 70 to 100 percent AMI and Modifications and sups are requested The site location spans the distance between knob hill court Longview Drive, which is north of Duke Street between Bishop Aright and High School and East Taylor Run Parkway. The site is within the Taylor Run Duke Street small area plan. As stated previously, the project includes 19 townhouse style units with rear-facing garages in three multi-unit buildings and one single unit dwelling. Vehicular access for the townhouse units is from Nophill Court and the single unit dwelling fronts on and is accessed from long-distance drive. There's no vehicular connection between the two sites. As I said, the townhouses are four stories, 35 feet in height, and the single unit dwelling is two stories and 24 feet. They comprise a total of 36,000 net square feet of development. 12,000 square feet of private open space is provided for the townhouse style units, which is just over the required 30% of the site area. Set back modifications are requested for the multi-unit portion of the development, and SUPs are requested for the townhouse style units for compact parking space sizes in garages and also for bonus density as provided for in section 700 and 700 of the zoning ordinance. Some highlights of the project include the plan achieves improvements to stormwater quality and provides quantity reductions through on-site bio-intention and other BMPs and will exceed required phosphorus reductions by 14%. When constructed the development is anticipated to generate up to three students which will attend Douglas MacArthur Elementary George Washington Middle and Alexandria High Schools. Regarding traffic, the proposal did not trigger a traffic study and peak morning trips with average 11 while the evening trips would average 12. Added benefits include the one on-site three-bedroom, four-sale affordable unit, monetary contributions to the City Housing Trust Fund at $143,000 and Public Art Fund of $12,000. Also the buildings are designed consistent with the 2019 Green Building Policy. For community outreach, the project was discussed with the community on four occasions. The applicant attended two meetings of the Longview Hills Citizens Association in June and October of 24. In the Alexander Housing Affordability Committee endorsed the project at September 11 meeting. Federation of civic associations heard information about the project and and standard written invocation was sent to the abiding property owners. Three letters of opposition, and four letters of support were received from the community, and those have been provided to members of the Planning Commission. My colleague Nathan Randall will discuss those a bit further. Well, actually, I'd like to mention for the record Nathan Randall Principal Planner, wanted to mention two items of additional information that have been forwarded to the Planning Commission in the last day or two. One of these is a memo that we received from Commissioner Brown outlining certain questions or concerns about the project for which staff provided a response as well. We may talk more about these matters, you know, the matters raised in those documents tonight. The second is that we forwarded to the Planning Commission an up-to-date DSUP application plan set, along with a brief accompanying memo. This was inadvertent, an older version was sent originally. The difference between the up-to-date version and the one that was originally sent, the difference is negligible. It's limited in technical and nature. So with that, we'll wrap up by mentioning that we recommend approval of the proposal, subject to the conditions contained in the staff report, more available to answer any questions you may have. Thank you, Mr. Vines and Mr. Randolph for the presentation. And also as a result of the fact that this is, this item is technically on the public hearing both by virtue of Commissioner Brown's observations and by the fact that we have a member of the public who has signed up to speak. I believe that we should move ahead to our public speakers before we moved to our consideration of the item. So on my list currently, we have two speakers lined up. One is Ronald Garner and the second is Duncan Blair attorney for the applicant. Thank you. We're not starting the year. I have questions. And thank you for the opportunity. I'm sorry. Excuse me for just one moment. Yeah. Absolutely. I want to ask staff some questions before the hearing. Okay. Forgive me, Mr. Gardner. And let me back up for a moment. If Commissioner Brown, if you'd like to exchange questions with staff before we entertain the public, please. Yes. For free to do so. Gentlemen, the first question I want to confirm the accuracy of what I saw in the report. The portion of the property proposed for RRA zone will change the density of that portion of the property of the number of the number of the number of the number of the number of the number of the number of the number of the number of the number of the number of the number of the number of the number of the number of the number of the number of the immediate neighborhood up there. But it's my understanding that the R.A. Zone property will be, will have common lot boundaries with four single-family homes in the R.A. Zone and a fifth once the R.A. Zone portion of the property is developed. Is that right? Yes, that's correct. Next question. How did it come about that this proposal is all in one rather than in two separate matters in view of the fact that you were asking for no rezoning on part of the property and the rezoning on the other part. Sure, I can speak to that. So there is a part of the zoning ordinance 11404A that talks about the contemporaneous development. So I believe you're just speaking to both the two, what you might think of as two different sides of the project, the single unit and the townhouse style units. And they're all together as one because that section is onymorance that I just cited. Says that if there's contemporaneous development, happening at the same time on the same site, plan together that it should go together as one project and that they shouldn't be split up in piecemeal development. There's a further section that uses that language as well. But if there was no development proposed for the RA zone portion, the project could go forward as a development of what we would call a lot 800 as a single family, 12 and correct? Yes, it could go forward separately if that was the only part of the, if that was the only thing proposed. I think I had one more question for you, but I can't remember it right now. I'll get back to you. Thank you. Thank you for Commissioner Brownen. Excuse me for short circling your opportunity to ask questions. So let's begin the public testimony and return to Mr. Gardner if he's still a bit. Thank you. And thank you for the opportunity to speak here tonight. I know. I'm going to go through the corner if he's still a bit more. Thank you. And thank you for the opportunity to speak here tonight. I know I've got three minutes, right? My name is Ron Garner. I own what I believe is the property with the great, the greatest shared property line with the proposed development. in Nabil and Longview. And I just want to start off by saying tonight, I am not up here to stand in opposition to this development in principle. I understand that there is a housing need in Alexandria, and I understand that there is particularly an affordable housing need in Alexandria, and that one of the best ways to address those needs is with housing density. Right? And so I am absolutely not in opposition in principle to this development. I have a couple of concerns with the development as proposed. My first concern is with the parking situation. Now, what the proposal suggests that of the two parking spaces available in each of the parking garages for these homes, one will be a compact parking spot. Now, I've looked at the designs. It is questionable to me whether in fact you could even park most compact cars in that additional spot. But assuming that you could, then what we're asked to believe is that 100% of the people who purchased these homes, most of whom will have two cars, because you're in this area, you're talking about working families, who generally have two people working. 100% of those people are going to have a car that falls into a category that less than 25% of the people in the United States have. That strains credulity for me. And it makes me believe that what we're going to wind up with is parking on the streets, surrounding the area. And what ultimately that means is, because there's not really any parking on Nob Hill until you get up into the higher neighborhood portion of it, you're talking about more parking on long view. And that's concerning for a couple of reasons. Number one, there's already a parking issue on long view with street parking, right? You've got two lower income developments there where people are struggling to find parking on a daily basis. I watch people getting tickets daily because they can't find parking and they have to park somewhere, right? And so what makes me, what this makes me believe is that the people who can at least afford to be affected by the additional strain on parking are going to be affected by this. And that to me represents a pretty serious inequity. And then the second problem that I have with that is that am I approaching my end? Thank you, Mr. Garry. Okay, if you know, please, if you could wrap up. Yeah, my second problem with that is that it's a safety issue. There are children who play in this area and we already experience an issue with the parking along the roads. When children are playing in that area, right? You can't see them if they run into a street after a ball and this is only going to make it worse. And then my last issue is really just a personal one and that is that with the reduced setback, these buildings are going to overshadow my property. There is an entire building, one of those entire buildings just goes along the entire side of my house. And there are gonna be times of the year where it completely blocks out sun, reducing my ability to enjoy my property as a homeowner. And again, personal issue, less important than the other one I think. Could I ask you a question, miss? Yes, sir. Last issue that you raised, would you share with us which address actually is? Yeah, it's 200 long view. So you are the very long and deep lot that's directly mentioned. I am, yes, sir. And where that building is proposed is exactly where my house and backyard is. Thank you very much. Thank you. Mr. Blair. Madam Chair, Mr. Residing Chair, Duncan Blair with wire gill. I'm encouraged by Senator Booker to speak for over 24 hours and 34 minutes. In order to set and break strong Thurman's record, but I promise you I will not do so. We appreciate that. Here tonight I think the staff is done a very good job in their presentation and in their staff report setting out this project as a transition between the garden apartments as it moves up and uphill to the single family and the townhouses directly across the street. I think we work closely with office housing to provide a housing package, which meets the city's needs for increased housing. I think the project is well designed and will add to the aesthetics of the street. With regards to parking, I was very surprised to learn that my American-made German name car fits in a compact space. And my client, who's with me, met Gray, just finished a project on Stevens and Avenue that this board approved. With two compact car spaces, the houses have all to entry level housing to workers. And having the size same car size garage was not an impediment to their sales or to their use of the property. So the word compact had a greater meaning when it came into the, to the Alexa, kind of zoning 20 some years ago. But a compact space fits both cars as experienced by Mr. Gray with regards to be glad to answer other parking questions. Long view is interesting because there's no parking and long view at all. And the area is within a designated parking district. And in talking with the association in the community, they have not opted yet to apply for resident only parking. And I believe it's been six or seven years since then's been zone in a residential zone. I know there were letters back and forth with the staff with regards to what Mr. Brown has called rezoning for housing. I think this project is a benefit to the community. It is a rezoning. It does provide entry-level housing and does so in an area that transitions again from the garden apartments to the townhouses to the single family at the top of Nophill. Be glad to answer any questions that are posed to me. Thank you, Mr. Blair. Williams or Mr. Bluzzer, do we have any additional speakers at this point or anyone online? Okay. I think it's appropriate if we entertain motion to close the public hearing. I have some questions from Mr. Blair. We talked earlier today about the pendency of litigation on the zoning for housing project that after much effort was passed by the City Council. My question for you about that sort of harps back to what's going on in the on the national scene today with all kinds of government initiatives going to courts and some saying, some courts saying stop, others courts saying go. Is there any, in the court proceedings that are pending in Virginia over the zoning for housing? Is there any kind of a court order that says stop with regard to the implementation of the zoning changes? That's an excellent question. And the answer is no. But the pending litigation has an extremely chilling effect on the ability for someone to undertake what we'll call a zoning for all for unit multi-family dwelling. It is impossible to get loans. And as you know, and unfortunately my client is very well from Arlington, that in that case the court overturned whatever they called it. And all their permissory team void abanito, buildings were under construction, under roof, were almost ready to move forward. And all those projects have been called in this conundrum. There's litigation, it's causing bankruptcies, it's causing foreclosures. So at this case, it is my advice to anyone who thinks about doing a zoning for all for a unit project not to do so because of the inherent risk involved, especially in today's lending environment. Additionally, as we discuss this morning, one of the outcomes of zoning for all, and I know you voted against it, is that parking is not required for those units. So, as we heard, parking is a major issue. If we did 12 or 16 single family, multi family units without parking, it would have a major impact on the project, on the community. You asked me this morning, well, couldn't you put parking in? But because of the constraints of the size of the units you wouldn't have garages and I would be extremely surprised if the commission would approve four surface parking places in front of a unit on the streets. So for those reasons as we discussed I don't believe it's feasible in today's environment to do one of those single family multi-family housing. And ironically, my client reminded me, we started this project before zoning for all of us approved. But at one point, we did look at it as as an opportunity and it's not feasible, it's risky and at this point, sorry the city attorney is not here, the trial is set for a week at the end of July but Judge Schnell has retired, retired and to my analysis, the Supreme Supreme Court has not appointed a new substitute judge so that day could be in jeopardy and I know there's discovery, controversial discovery going on at this time also. So that's a strong, Thurman, Cory Booker, response, but. I want to Mr. Blair if you agree with me about the following under section 15-2-2-2-3-07 of the common wells vested rights laws if the project were approved and relying in good faith upon on that government approval, you incurred obligations and expenses in diligent pursuit of a project without the rezoning. You would have the vested right to complete that project regardless of any subsequent change in the zoning law. I'm not a jurist. You're right. Substantial reliance on a substantial government approval, substantial expenditures in reliance on that issue. Is that issue in Arlington? Well, not in your case, because you haven't gone forward under traditional or a zoning. Correct. But the issue of whether or not there is a substantial government approval, if the government approval was overturned, if that complies with the provisions of the vested right provision. Yes, but when you are relying on a government, an existing law that is enforced in the fact and has not been stopped or suspended by a court, is that not good faith reliance on the government approval? In the case of Valencia, you were there hasn't been a reversal. I would think that's true, but again, that doesn't address the chilling effect based on the inability to finance. I understand about the chilling effect. Thank you very much. Yes sir. Any other commissioner questions for Mr. Blair? I just wanted to let Mr. Blair know that my watch just said that Senator Booker just won over 24 hours, which is the longest speech in history. Hey BT ever young strong thumb and you're giving up already. I'm yielding I'm yielding I Don't have the stamina mr. Booker. I wish I did Okay, so Any other questions for mr. Blair Why don't we move on to a motion to close the public hearing Mr, I'm going to not support this project. I want to cite a couple of reasons why. Excuse me, Commissioner Brown. Could we go ahead and close the public? Is there a reason why we've closed the public hearing? I move to close the public hearing. Thank you. Second. Motion is second by Mr. Manor. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. Please continue. First of all, I am not persuaded by the staffs analysis that this project would be consistent with the small area plan for this area that plan Designates as its land use designation for this area residential low and When you read the plan you see that what they mean by residential low is Basically density up to it including our eight zoning, which is 5, 12 units per acre. This project proposed in an area where that land use recommendation is still in effect a density almost five times that amount. not consistent with the master plan and any arguments that have been presented just why. That many dwelling units per acre is residential low or unpersuasive to me. So that alone would be reason enough for me to say no. But I have a deeper problem with this project. And Mr. Blair mentioned the fact that I characterized it as rezoning for housing. That is correct. And I want to explain why. We went through a lot of trouble and considerable effort to create a zoning for housing process that liberalized the ability in zones which had always been completely limited to single family homes, to attach single family homes for dwellings in those zones basically everything from R2.5 up to R20, to be developed with units that had two, three, or four units living units in the building, duplexes, triplexes, and quadriplexes. That law is in effect and can be utilized today. That law applies to the property that is the subject of this application. I have all along not been a fan of re-zoning of existing zone properties unless there's a good reason to do so. In this case, what we would be doing is effectively circumventing the hard one process that we have and has gained citizen acceptance for liberalizing our single-family zones with additional kinds of developments and building types that do not include the kind of townhomes that you see in this project. I don't believe that we should rezone isolated parcels of property, single properties to facilitate their development because someone might be chilled about, chilled about the prospect of being able to use the existing zoning that is in place. And the developers have mechanisms to deal with the risk, the financial risks associated with something like this. In this particular case, this project could go forward as a resub divided property with up to five, considering that the lot size in the R8 zone is 8,000. This property could be re-subdivided into anywhere from four to five lots, which would have the R8 designation and could be developed with buildings with duplexes, triplexes and quadriplexes, all consistent with current law. And if someone went forward with such a project, they would be protected by the vested right documents. Doctrine in state law as Mr. Blair has acknowledged. If we start short circling the established process, we are going down a road that amounts to a different avenue for redevelopment of properties that has not been carefully vetted and analyzed by staff. Many people in my neighborhood out in Northridge thought that I was going against them by supporting zoning for housing. They said, how could you do this? And I convinced them that the staff had carefully analyzed that this was not going to be a major disruption to our valued single family residential areas because this is a change that was both both going to be modest in those zones and gradual over time. It was even an analysis to suggest that over a period of about 10 years, there would be, I don't know, something like 40, 40 or 50 applications. If we start doing rezoning for housing and say, well, we don't want to use the standard process that we painstakingly develop, we want to just go in and rezone the property and put townhouses in. To me that just opens up the Pandora's box to further implementation of one developer following another saying, well, he was approved to do it. Why can't we do it on this other property? I don't want to see our single family zones littered with townhouses that are still in the zone because we changed a small parcel to a different zone. Zoning is supposed to be essentially permanent. And when we changed zoning for how, when we changed the situation and zoning for housing, we didn't change the zones. We simply allowed additional carefully prescribed development to go into those zones. So I'm not prepared to go down this road, even if the developer feels like, well, I'm not prepared to take the financial risk on my own, and even though we have laws in effect that protect the developer if he goes forward in good faith. For both of those reasons, I have to oppose this project and therefore move for denial. Thank you, Commissioner Brown. I'd like to entertain other comments, but I'd also like to pause for a moment and take note of the fact that I don't have the ability to see whether Chair McMahon has her hand up and now it looks like she does. Can we move to you, Chair McMahon? Yes, can you hear me okay? Yes, thank you. Great, yeah, I'm just testing that hand raising function. Um, yeah, so I have some comments on the project and I want to start where Commissioner Brown left off because I want to, I guess maybe come to a different conclusion by looking at the same information. Yeah, sorry. So when I reviewed the small area plan associated with the the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of So when I reviewed the small area plan associated with this neighborhood, what I read was that there's a quote, a quote from the plan for a second, the area north of Duke street contains RBRT and RC categories which allow multi-family dwellings and higher densities. and this site is not any of those specifically, but those are land use buckets, not the zoning buckets. And for folks who are listening and attending to this hearing, this can be, in my opinion, particularly confusing in the older plans of which this is one, because the maps look the same, the way the terminology is written, they all sound the same, but every plan has both a land use intention and those categories tend to be a little bit broader. And then they have a zoning map and sometimes an area isn't fully zoned for all the things the plan entails or the plan intends, I guess is the way I would put it. And in some cases, zones are suggested through that plan process to update an area to better match the plan. So in this case, the zone for this is as Commissioner Brown mentioned, But right next to this site, due west of this site, also on Nauville Court, is a set of, I don't know if they're technically called town homes, a tax semi-detached, but dwellings much like the ones proposed in this project that are in a little area of land that's zoned RT. And again, in the plan, RT is called, it or pardon me, the land use bucket is RT. I'm saying that right. This is zone is RT. So and again, I'm getting confused. The zone is RT, but the land use category and the plan that encompasses both the RAZone and the RT zone is the residential low. And so, in my reading of the plan, just south of this, by the way, where the garden apartments are, it goes up to a land use bucket that's residential medium, and that is differentiated in this small area plan. So I see the single family homes, this vacant site, with partially vacant with the trees, and I guess the two two parcels we're talking about along with an existing house and the units just to the west which are attached homes as all being residential low because they're all designated that in the plan but some of them are townhouse style development with garages and little driveways leading up to those garages. So my interpretation of what staff are doing in this case with the applicant is they're suggesting that in today's version of the code because I don't believe we use RT anymore, they're functionally using RA to allow this site to build with town homes, much like the site just next to it, but with townhouses. They're not using RA to develop it at a higher density level. They're using RA to develop it essentially at the same intensity and same style of building as already exists in the neighborhood right beside it. So in some on that topic, in my interpretation of the intent of the plan, in this particular little area of this plan, I agree with the rationale that the staff report lays out, which states that the Taylor Run, Duke Street, Small Area Plan, also contains two specific recommendations for this site, that its land use designation should be residential low, and I agree with that, and that the building height should not exceed 35 feet. And I agree with staff's finding that the proposal is consistent with that, because is providing townhouse style development and they are not exceeding 35 feet in height. And secondarily, I want to respond to Commissioner Brown's concern about the fact that this project isn't using zoning for housing tools that we've given it. And staff did in their memo response to Commissioner Brown's concerns note that there have been several instances, all I believe which predate zoning for housing, I will acknowledge in which we have executed re-zonings for relatively small projects that have some combination of townhouse or higher density development. By basically saying there's a public good behind it, a special kind of housing type, a level of affordability, a special user case that would make this both fit and be appropriate and be worth it in the context. And we would use a rezoning. We have used rezonings in those cases. I also wanna empathize that I agree with Commissioner Brown's desire to have us implement against our zoning for housing tools. Like I think we should be doing that to the full extent possible. And I want those projects to happen. But I would note that in my understanding, which was touched upon in the prior conversation, and my understanding of the stipulations and the new permissions in that process, that these several potential subdivided parcels developed under zoning for housing would not have to provide any parking. And that could mean that this site again hypothetically in a different project proposal that may not even have to come before us. Because it could be done by right, could have four unit buildings, could have up to maybe four additional four unit buildings for 16 units total and no parking provided on site. And that was done intentionally to help facilitate in various diverse neighborhood contexts, where in many cases there's a lot more street connectivity and parking available. The understanding that the design would allow for more housing, more affordable housing sizes, and it wouldn't burden that development with providing a bunch of parking spaces on the the site. Now in this location. I don't think that's the preferred solution at all. I think that the townhouse style development. Done as is proposed in this in this proposal. It provides for two parking spaces per unit on site. So, well, I also hear the community concern that maybe not every car is going to fit into those compact spaces. These are ownership units. And the idea when you buy a house is to try to buy a house that serves your purposes. And hopefully to consider whether or not your car fits in those spaces when you buy it. But I think it's a much better solution to have two compact spaces per unit in this design than to potentially have 16 units, which are lived in by households that all potentially have one or more cars and not have any required parking on the site. So in that respect, again, well, I sympathize with and tend to agree that I want to see more opportunities taken with the tools that we've come up with so far. I do not think I would not feel comfortable denying this application because it doesn't use that tool. It uses a different tool and it uses a different tool which we've tried and we've used and is appropriate in consideration of the particular neighborhood context here. So those cover, I would say the two key, my positions, my opinion on the two key issues that Commissioner Brown has raised thus far in the evening. I also wanna highlight some other aspects of the project. It's really close to Duke Street. And Duke Street is gonna change. Duke Street is already a major corridor with commercial services and activities on it and transit service on it, but Duke Street is going to be heavily invested in by the city. And those huge investments will improve transit service, will improve pedestrian and bicycle connectivity along between many neighborhoods which are very disconnected today and allowing people to get not only through this art of town, but two different segments of this part of town with much better ease. And I think it's always important for us to consider when we're looking at an individual project, its relationship to the whole and its relationship to its location in the city. It's location with respect to the future because once these homes are built, they will be here for a long time. And they will be here to... It's location with respect to the future because once these homes are built, they will be here for a long time and they will be here to see the future of Duke Street. And the households that live in these townhouses will be able to raise families on a Duke Street that is safer and more accessible and easier to get around on than it is today. So all of that also points to me that this is a good place to put additional units. It's a good. accessible and easier to get around on than it is today. So all of that also points to me that this is a good place to put additional units. It's a good place to put smaller than typical town homes, making them even the market rate ones potentially more affordable than some of the development we might see elsewhere. Putting a committed affordable townhouse unit in this location, and all of those things are good to have close to what will be an evolving excellent transit corridor. I also want to highlight that this design does minimize curb cuts, which is very specifically consistent with the direction of the small area plan. Again, in hypothetical other designs that might have been done with respect to splitting this side up into even more parcels with multi-unit up to four unit dwellings. that could have put not just potentially a different curb cut alignment, but also potentially more paving if it's not done properly. And this is consistent by providing so many homes that are not each individually being served by a curb cut this this is creating an efficiency that the small area plans specifically requests. Just reviewing the rest of my notes to see if I'm forgetting anything in my comments. There's some other things that are worth considering. I already spoke to the parking modification. There are also modifications here requested for setbacks. So I wanted to highlight that in general, I am in support of the modifications for setbacks in this case, the fact that this design provides, again, a single curb cut and an interior drive aisle for the town homes, it creates a preferred site design from both aesthetics for the community and safety for everybody getting around. But in part because of that design, it's what causes some of these smaller setbacks that that required the buildings to be built a little bit closer to the edges of the site. And so I think that as a design tradeoff, we've looked at in other locations and it is a preferred design tradeoff. the design includes that bio retention facility on the front of the site, which provides a combination of the best aesthetic place for a little piece of open space, where everybody can enjoy it, and not just the people who live on the site. And it also creates that set back from the roadway, which I think will make the buildings along most of the frontage. There's a small section of one of the sticks of buildings that is closer to the street than it should be by a few feet. But that's only a small segment of the entire frontage. And most of the frontage has this nice open feel because of that buyer retention facility. And I look at the other setback modifications to they are relatively small and they have the benefit of being up against a drive aisle for the garden apartments. So again, in that instance, it's not backing up right up against a building at all, but against a piece of asphalt. And I think it gives, there's opportunity there to make more of what can be seen across that asphalt. So overall, in my review, the setbacks, I think they are appropriate to the design and they reasonable modifications for getting again the the appropriate housing design type for this neighborhood as well as the the number of units that allows for an affordable unit to be provided. I did want to offer a couple request to staff if this is approved and moves forward, approved by Council and so forth. Two areas where some of the details could be worked out better with the applicant. One is the planting plan with respect to the fact that we know the majority of the site has a lot of trees and vegetation on it, and it will be a big change to have buildings and the vegetation that will be planted will have to grow up. But being really judicious about how the planting plant provides for privacy and screening between the town homes and the neighbors, I think is just a really sensible thing to put a lot of thought and care into. And I also wanted to mention the lighting. There are a few neighborhood lamp posts, essentially, that are provided and sensibly in the design of this project. But the fixture that's shown in the plan set is a really bad idea. And I just wanted to call attention to it because it's the fixture that my HOA used to have in our right outside our town homes and the clear refractive acrylic lens panels that basically diffuse the light all over, diffuse it straight into people's windows. So it'll go straight into the windows of the town homes and it'll go straight into the windows of neighbors too. So I think that that light choice should be the specific way the lamp, the fixture is designed and selected should be reassessed by the applicant and staff to ensure that it's facing down and it is only lighting up the minimum necessary area on the ground for safety and security. That is the extent of my comments. I would, I'm happy to support this project. Thank you, Chair McMahon. Thoughts from other commissioners. Is he no red light? Is no one else has any comments? respond briefly to the chair's comments because if the project is approved, I think it will be understood to be one of special circumstances for rezoning. I do not agree with her interpretation of the small area plan because the small area plan doesn't recommend any change in the zoning of this property to one of these other multi-family type zones. So I don't look at the density in those other zones as informative with regard to what residential low means for this property. With regard to her other comments, she characterizes the rezoning as a zoning tool that's available to us in addition to other, in addition to other tools that we have. I just have a predisposition as a homeowner and a single family zone to look at rezoning of a single property, a single parcel, a single zone property to a multi-family type use as a zoning tool. I don't think it's one that it's not a road that we should be going down just because there is some uncertainty about the future of the viability of the tools that we do have under zoning for housing. And with respect to the precedents that the staff cited and that the chair repeated. I don't think any of them are comparable situations at all. For one thing, all of them were considered and developed before zoning for housing was accomplished. In the Uplands Park area, for example, while some single family homes are going to be converted, that was part of, that's all being done as part of a CDD, which is effectively overrides the existing zoning, and the other two parcels in my mind are much more complicated and much more broad looking across interests than in redoing this narrow parcel. So I continue to believe that this project should be approved and renew my motion for disapproval. Thank you Commissioner Brown. If I may, I think I would be willing to make a couple of observations and then entertain the making of a motion if we could. So my first point would be to express appreciation to commissioner Brown for raising these issues. I think the preparation of the memo raising these questions as a part of the process by which we prepare for these hearings which then in turn generates a very thorough and considered response from the staff is a hugely hopeful part of the entire process and And in a case like this, it's the result of one commissioners action to go deeply into a particular aspect of a particular project and then we all benefit from the additional exploration that comes from that. Having said that, I think at this point, I am leaning towards supporting this project. I concur with a lot of the observations that Chair McMahon made about the general compatibility of the proposal as being townhouses and less than 35 feet in height and providing two parking spaces on site per unit. I think those fundamental characteristics of the proposal that are consistent with the zoning application and in this particular case case I think generate what's potentially a very fine solution for this individual site is something that I can support. Two quick other observations. One is Commissioner Brown raised the alternative that we consider this going forward within the constraints of the actual, the new zoning for housing tool, and positive the idea that at 30,000 plus square feet, this larger piece of the parcel could be subdivided in normal terms within the context of the single unit dwelling zone and generate another four or five lots, and under the provisions of zoning for housing, then each of those lots could be developed either with the single unit dwelling or up to a four unit dwelling. In which case, if that was the preferred option and the applicant pursued it, we would be still looking at a concept that would have potentially 16 plus units on the larger parcel where we're now looking at 19 units. So I think, to me, that raises the question of then the path that's being suggested as an alternative generates effectively the same density in terms of units. So I think to the extent that density is a concern that doesn't offer any particular advantage as an alternative to this particular approach. And I do think the observation that approach would actually come with no requirement for onsite parking would absolutely generate a parking difficulty in the neighborhood that could be understood to be severe. And in this case, we have indeed heard observations from the neighbors about the concern for parking in this case. But I think that it's already the neighborhood has an enclave of single unit dwellings, but in the contiguous character of the neighborhood, there are a lot of additional uses already there, including townhouses and including multifamily buildings. So I think the complexity of the neighborhood is already there and the reality of introducing this particular type and back to the parking issue, being able to actually park it on the site is a path forward that I can support. So that's my thinking on the project at the moment and if there are indeed no other observations from other planning commissioners, I think we're ready to entertain motions, and to my knowledge, the only commissioner who has suggested a motion so far is Commissioner Brown. I can see that my motion has not changed a second. So, I think we can move on to another motion. Before we do, I just want to comment briefly on the issue of parking. Has it been raised by both the chair and the guest? I both the chair and the vice chair regarding the reason why we don't go forward under the zoning for housing process. I just want to note that when I voted for zoning for housing, I did not concur in the recommendation for the recommended reduction in off-street parking. I didn't think that the zoning for housing process was going to work that well with no off-street parking. And so here tonight I see my idea of going forward with this project under these zoning tools that we have is being resisted because it will provide no off-street parking. To me it's kind of an ironic twist, but I will say this, when we do a side plan for multiple units, such as would be the case here, if this project were redeveloped under R8, we would have a side plan. It wouldn't be an individual permit thing with one or two. And a side plan doesn't get approved unless it meets certain criteria of association with the public interest in necessity and that sort of thing. And I think that we in the council would be perfectly justified in looking at the constraints on street parking in this particular area and saying we can't approve this unless the applicant is willing to provide some off street parking. Not that it's required as there's no constitutional right because there's no parking requirement who insist on providing no parking. If the council decides this particular site needs on street parking, it can make that a condition of approval of a site plan. So that's my answer to the objection that doing this in the traditional and a proof fashion would compromise the parking situation in that case. But I just want to be clear about that, even as obviously going down to defeat here. Thank you. Commissioner Brown, thank you. I also would just take note. I don't think you've actually formally made a motion and requested a second. Do you? I thought I did, but I'm gonna leave this to someone else. Okay. I do have one final comment. I think as a new planning commissioner, it's somewhat complicated to arrive at a hearing where you have a completed site plan with a lot of calculations and a lot of comparisons of FAR and other things. And then to hypothetically say that you could do five, basically, rezone the same thing based on the existing zoning. So you could have four lots with four units on it. That hypothetical for me is somewhat challenging because each one of these lots would have setbacks. There would be all sorts of constraints on each one of those separate lots. And so for me, the easiest thing to do is to evaluate what's in front of us rather than a hypothetical. So that's why I haven't engaged entirely in the discussion because I think the position before me is decide what is here rather than to say what else might be. So I'm gonna vote on what's in front of us considering staff information provided to us. Right, thank you, Commissioner. And I think that... Let me just respectfully disagree with your orientation. My orientation is the zoning that we have is sacrosanct. And we shouldn't be changing it, except for a particularly good reason. So when someone comes along and says they want to rezone something and it's just one parcel out of the whole neighborhood, I want a reason and I want that reason includes explaining to me why the existing zoning is not going to work. That's why it should be a part of the staff report, part of the record. Show me on the diagram why this particular opportunity does not work. I don't accept the staff recommendation as something that we vote up or down on. If it doesn't include in a rezoning case, why we want to rezone? Resoning is permanent and a development proposal is transitory. So that's why my orientation is differs from yours, which may be coming from a different point of view in your profession, than in my profession, which is where I've spent a good part of my lifetime representing residents who are concerned about new development Stephen I can't hear you on the mic Is anybody better? I'm sorry. I didn't realize that wasn't on. Couple observations about the exchange. One, I would repeat the fact that the challenge and the query and the alternative hypothetical as a means of exploring this particular proposal was of inestimable value. But I would also completely concur with Commissioner Lenin's perspective, which is in the end we're not evaluating that alternative. I think what we're using it for is a way to illuminate what's in front of us. And if it had illuminate, for those whom it illuminates enough laws to decide to not support this proposal, then it's successful to the extent that it doesn't rise to that level and other people choose to support it. It still fulfilled the function, but it has not risen to the level that planning commissioners are required to decipher it well enough to decide whether they would have voted for that or not would be my understanding of the way the process works. Okay, so I think we're back at the point where we're looking for someone on the commission to propose a motion of how to proceed in this project. Mission Ramirez. Yes. All right. I will. Should we do this in two parts? Yes, we should. So I'm sorry. I could have given. I could have set that up a little bit better. No. We have a rezoning. No worries. And we have a DSUP. All right. I think the mechanism in each case, two votes, and each one, is if you are leaning toward approving the project, recommendation that the commission approve the rezoning and then the same recommendation for the DSU peers as a sub-proved. Okay. to approving the project would be a recommendation that the commission approve the rezoning and then the same recommendation for the DSUPS approved. Okay. I will make a recommendation for approval of resounding application number 2025001 for Westridge Towns 125 Longview Drive and 29-21 Nop Hill Court. Thank you and a second. A second. 1, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, motion. I think the motion is well considered, thoughtfully presented, and appropriately circumscribed. And I think the discussion has been very helpful. I am hoping that the approval of this recommendation will not open Pandora's box in our residential zones to think of rezoning of individual parcels as a zoning tool for our residential zones. Because of that concern, I am still going to not support the motion. But as usually, as is usually the case, I find those in support of something that I disagree with to be thoughtful and well considered. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Brown. Other thoughts on the motion from other commissioners? Okay, I do have one last observation if I could, which is really a check in with staff. Chair McMahon had raised two details of the design. Her suggestion was they could be potentially followed up on. And my question to you is the question of refining the planting plan and giving a serious look at the appropriateness of the lighting fixture This proposed are those things that you all can do in the process of moving the project forward and do they require us to acknowledge them in the motion in some fashion So I can speak to the first part at least You know, I think that is something that can be worked out through Final Site Plan, particularly if the applicant is amenable to doing so. I assume, I don't want to assume that they are, but I just wanted to mention that part. One thought that I had is that perhaps that could be a representation before the Planning Commission, we recorded in our notes, but I defer to others if there's a more legal way of doing it. being a lawyer. It's hard to Being a lawyer. I make a representation on the F of my client that we will look at the lighting, there are certain requirements on a lighting plan that need to be met, loomins and so forth. But we will look at the fixtures as to landscaping. It is typical that as the plan advances that the landscaping is looked at under the guidelines. And it's a benefit to everybody to make sure the site is well landscaped with indigenous flowers and non-vases. Thank you. And I would also concur with especially the lighting point that Commissioner McMahon, I'm sorry, Chair McMahon had raised, which is it may very well be a function of whatever level of certification this project is pursuing. It may very well be built into our city standards already. But that issue of making sure that the light is delivered just to the surfaces that need to be illuminated, which are the walking surfaces on the driving surfaces, and is not omnidirectional into the universe. It's a detail, but it's an important point. I appreciate her observing it, and I would expect that you all can make that go. And I appreciate the representation. So if I'm understanding that correctly, we are free to move forward with our motion as it's prepared. If I can just add one comment on that as well and acknowledging the selection of the fixtures here isn't perhaps necessarily under our land use purview. However, it is a consideration of enjoyment of properties. So if the team can definitely look into that and keep that in mind as the project moves forward. Thank you. Okay, great. So the motion that's in front of us is a recommendation to approve the rezoning. If there are no other comments, all those in favor. Hi. Hi. Hi. All those opposed? No. Okay. So the motion to recommend approval of the rezoning passes by a count of six to one and follow up motion for the DSUP. No. We'll make a motion for approval of DSUP 2024-10010 for Westridge towns, 126view Drive, and 29-21, Nob Hill Court. Is that second? Excellent. We have a motion by Commissioner Ramirez and a second by Commissioner Lenin. Any final discussion on that aspect? All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? No. And that motion passes by a count of six to one. Okay. Well then I believe that we are completed with a docket item four. Thank you. Madam Clerk, would you call the next item please? Just as a reminder for everyone on the days to please use your mic. Thank you. Item number five. Advisory recommendations to the city manager under section 6-14 of the city charter regarding the fiscal year 2026 capital improvement program. Staff, City of Alexandria, Office of Management and Budget, OMB, and the Department of Planning and so. Thank you, and do we have a staff presentation? Yes, we do. Good evening, Vice Chair and Chair and Commissioners. My name's Julia Taylor. I'm with the Office of Management and Budget. Before we get started, Katherine, Caraway and I, we do have a presentation, but we have traditionally offered to the Blending Commission. If you feel adequately briefed on this subject, we could forego the presentation. And if you have any questions, we could jump into those. I personally would benefit from your overview. So please proceed. Okay, wonderful. Thank you. So this slide just reminds us what this agenda item does. The purpose of this agenda item tonight. So per the city charter, we want to give the planning commission the opportunity to evaluate and express if the projects included in this year's city, city managers propose capital improvement program. the projects included are in concurrence with the city's plans. Thank you, Catherine. So this slide is just an overview of what the CIP development process looked like this year. I'll highlight that the city and school staff for the same development guidance in the fall. And through the winter, we, the main point to highlight there is that throughout the development process, staff from our most capital intensive departments, including planning and zoning and transportation and environmental services, they're very heavily engaged throughout the development process, including through the CIP steering committee, in which those capital intensive departments are a part of and consulted. And this is a high level overview of what is in this year's capital improvement program proposed. In the 10 year CIP, it's a $2.08 billion plan over a 10 year period. The fiscal year 2026 funding level that's included in the proposed plan is $205.9 million. We specified that the general fund amount and the general fund supported debt that is being requested through this program should not exceed the amount approved in last year's CIP due to fiscal constraints. So we have made some really large and wonderful investments and commitments in recent years and the city is still paying down that debt. And in order to remain within our capital financial management policies, we set those parameters for this year's development. So there are a lot of further highlights to read about in our CIP overview, which is in the CIP document. So I just wanted to highlight that here for the public and for you all today, that's a really good resource. And this slide shows our 10-year plan broken out into our different subject areas that we use in the CIP, our sections. So you'll see transportation is a large piece of that pie. Transportation really, you could combine that transportation piece along with our Womada capital contribution and that's the full picture for transportation. I will highlight this is all funding sources so it includes a lot of grant dollars there are particularly in transportation. You'll see ACPS which is schools and are public buildings. So these are our sections that we break out the CIP into and kind of categorize our different projects. So also on the left here I highlight that in appendix B of the document, we show all of our projects in the proposed CIP and which reporting area they fall within. So if you're interested at looking at them through that lens, you could use that resource. just a bonus highlight on each project page in the lower left-hand corner. We ask department staff to identify any plans that that project may align with or have come out of. So that's another resource for seeing how projects tie back to various city plans, internal, external plans. So yeah. I believe I'll now turn it over to Catherine Caraway to further highlight some of the projects included in the program. Good evening for the record, Catherine Caraway, the Department of Planning and Zoning. So overall, the programming of capital projects into the city's CIP is one tool that we have in implementing the infrastructure and community amenities projects identified in our master plan, the small area plan and the city wide chapters. This development studies project is the parent project for funding requests for studies related to upcoming small area plan processes. And in the development of this year's CIP, we found that we have ample prior year balances to support upcoming needs so funding was reduced to more accurately reflect what's being executed. This year the Duke Street Court or planning process will be funded through prior year funding as well as grant funding that we secured. I'll highlight some of the projects that are detailed in the memo that you all received. And as Julia noted, you'll note that a lot of these infrastructure projects are being funded through grants that we secured in recent years. So the landmark mall development site, Transit Center Access Improvements, the CIP continues to provide funding to facilitate all of those, including $19 million to support the relocation of Pires Station 208, which will be co-located with affordable housing. The new Transit Center and access improvements are funded by $18 million in smart scale grants that we've secured. The moving a little further south, the South Van Dorn Street bridge improvements includes $5 million in state grants to begin design of the pedestrian and bicycle accommodations along that bridge across the rail corridor. And in the recent Alex West small area plan that was recently adopted, there's a recommendation for a new rec center and that part of the city and the CIP includes $200,000 to begin planning for that. The city has obtained for the Western Transit Way and Duke Street Transit Court, or those have been in process for several years, the Western Transit Way between the Vendor and the federal federal federal federal federal federal federal federal federal federal federal federal federal federal federal federal federal federal federal federal federal federal federal federal area plan. So the city obtained grant funding of $57 million and FY 24 for design right of way in construction. And it's anticipated that we'll begin operation in FY 28. The Duke Street corridor between the former landmark mall site and King Street Metro Rail Station, total amount of grant funding obtained was 87 million. This year's CIP includes continued funding of 19 million and construction is anticipated to begin in a couple of years. The moving to the south part of Old Town, the South Patrick pedestrian safety streetscape improvements project, which was identified in the, completely spacing on the name of the, South Patrick, how's the affordability strategy? Thank you, girl. That was funded through $4 million in Smart Scale Grants construction. Construction is anticipated to begin in FY26. The Mount Vernon Avenue North Complete Streets Project, you know, there were in the Arlandria, at Turalog West Valley Area Plan, there were recommendations to include safety, mobility, and access improvements at intersections along Mount Vernon Avenue. And this CIP includes $3 million in V.grants in order to implement that. And finally, the CIP continues to support the design and construction of the waterfront plan flood mitigation infrastructure. The design process began in late 2023 and construction is anticipated to begin in late 26. This project will incorporate the scope funding and construction for lower King Street improvements as well to implement the permanent design for this pedestrian area. And with that, we're happy to answer any further questions. Thank you. Questions for staff on the presentation? Mr. Manor. Thank you. Can you break down the transportation piece of the puzzle for me? Because there's a Womada capital and what's the big piece? Is that dash and Womada like operating? It's not Womada operating. So Womada operating payments is budgeted in our operating budget. In the capital side, we have quarterly payments that are scheduled for payment to them. So that's that piece of the puzzle. We kind of break out the one-moda piece because it's large and identify it separately. The rest includes, yes, some dash projects as well, all capital. So purchases of buses and trolley is in maintenance there or repairs. I'm sorry, that's a big piece at the lower part of that. Yes, yes. So, dash and city transportation projects, including non-motorized transportation, you know, pavements, sidewalks, things like that are all included within that transportation section. So you can see the full list of projects included in that section in the CIP under transportation. And then we have subsections that kind of break further breaks out the categories of those projects to group them. Great, thank you very much. Appreciate that. Commissioner Dubay. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. It's very good. Just a quick question about the funding. You talked a lot about grant funding, potential grant funding, and trying to get grants. A lot of it from a lot of different places. But more specific to the Duke Street plan, there's previously allocated funding in there to move ahead with some of that. And then you talked about grant funding. Is that funding that we have in comers or is that we were promised and we haven't gotten it yet? Could you talk a little bit more about that? So we do have funding from prior CIP funding and the grant, we have secured a grant. It's the FTA grant that will be reimbursed basically. Nancy, maybe you have further information. That's correct. So at this point we have, I'm sorry, FTA is that a real transit administration. That are transit administration. And we have gotten assurance that the grant is coming through and that we can begin charging against it. So we plan to move fingers crossed. Yes. It's for $550,000. Thank you. Other questions for staff? Chair McMahon, I seem to have dropped off the zoom and I don't know whether you might have your hand up or not at this point. I don't have my hand up, but I'm happy to kick off it. If you like, do we have any public speakers on this item? Is this a public speaker item? My understanding is we don have any public speakers. And I think at this point, we can open up as widely as we like to either questions for staff and or observations that commission would like to make. While we have this in front of us. Please proceed. All right. I'll go through some of my observations. So again, thank you to staff for the presentation. We're basically sort of a summary of our duty here. We were asked each time a CIP is, I don't know, approved by Council that we send them our advice on the consistency of that CIP with respect to our master plan and the priority and timing of the projects and the CIP in comparison to other elements of the master plan. And then, and so overall, I think the CIP is very consistent with our master plan. And I want to highlight for listeners that our master plan and air quotes is made up of a lot of pieces. There are citywide master plan elements like of for instance is the Alexandria mobility plan. And there are also it's made up of all our small area plans as well. So when we talk about consistency, we're really talking about how we use this DIP to implement the vision of the community. And happily, this is, I think, a really good process because basically every time we adopt a new small area plan, the, sorry, the screen keeps changing, what it's showing me, so it's a little distracting. Every time we adopt a new small area plan, staff work very diligently to comb through it for all of the, for lack of a better term, big ticket items, pull them out and make sure they get into either, in the case of the transportation planning process, the sort of the unconstrained list of projects, things we don't have money for lined up. That's just with regards to transportation items, but they're making sure that we are getting them into this sort of funding process. And so for instance, in staff highlighted this, this CIP continues to fund our critical affordable housing projects. I even forget about how that it's such a big expense for the city to make affordable housing happen. Because those those committed affordable units, particularly in the big the buildings that are that are largely if not 100% affordable in our development partnership. Those require city, city back up with finances. And so that's a really important piece of this. And staff touched on the development project studies pipeline and how we didn't have to have as much money in this request as we had in the past because we haven't been using it as quickly as maybe was first anticipated. However, I did want to just call out that I made a comment to similar to this effect in the Transportation Commission context with regards to sidewalk build out funding and implementation. The main comment is if we're not using the money as quickly as we thought, let's examine why and make sure that if the issue is we don't have the staffing, we don't have the operational capacity to execute against a plan that has a vision of accomplishing certain things in a certain timeline, then we want to talk about whether that's the thing that should be done. But by and large, it sounds like we aren't really sacrificing things here. We are right sizing a bucket to the projects that are at hand. I also wanted to highlight that the CIP, maybe to Commissioner Manner's question, line of questioning, On one of the slides that staff gave in the summary presentation, it really highlights this interconnection between implementing our small area plans and implementing the transportation infrastructure for them because ultimately, transportation is one of the biggest buckets because we're talking about bridges and we're talking about the bus rapid transit corridor development and a lot of the pieces of this are very expensive and they take a long time and it's important for us to make sure that those pieces are fully folded in because they have design phases and then they have the construction phases and to get us all the way through to completion takes many CIPs and and we have to make sure that we're doing the best we can to follow through with those pieces of the small area plan vision because without many of these key pieces, you know, the transit center in Alex West. We won't get the development outcome that we want. We'll have people who move in expecting a transit center there and no transit center. So it's that kind of alignment and coordination that has to happen. And yeah, I wanted to give a shout out to the 200K staff noted as earmarked in the planning phase for the rec center that is planned in Alex West. So again, the Alex West small area plan was approved just recently. And yet we've already got an item in it where there were a lot of planning commissioner questions actually about that item with this sort of question mark around how real is that going to be? And by earmarking planning effort, dollars in the capital planning effort for that rec center, we're saying in a not indefinite period of time, we're going to be working on this, and we're going to make it happen. So I really was happy to see that. So I think I'll leave it there. I'm really, I'm satisfied. And this is an interesting process to undertake each year to think about how our work connects with capital planning. Thank you, chair. McMahon, other comments? Okay, I have a couple of quick observations. The first is to appreciate that sort of global overview that the chair just provided about how the process works and how we are intended to play our modest but official part in moving it along and also to just take the process of making the process to be able to take the process of making the process of making the process of making the process of making the process of making the process of making the process of making the process of making the process of in where and how that project comes forward. But as the Chair mentioned, making that investment early on to get engaged with how to make those decisions and how to design projects is an important part of this process. So the only other points that I would like to make actually is to thank you Ms. Taylor for that presentation and also to take note that the CIP document and the material that's available for those who have the fortitude to venture into it is really tremendously well-organized and a huge amount of extremely important data that is available to every citizen in the city to examine. For those of us who don't get very far, before we get confused and have to turn around and come back out, that doesn't take away from the fact that obviously it's a very huge and complex process and the data you all consistently manage and share to achieve that I think is very helpful. Down to the detail that you mentioned that when you get to individual project pages, it references this small area plan, Which is hugely helpful for an exercise Like ours And also thank you miss caraway for the presentation the kind of walked us through The dozen big pieces that are at hand That this CIP is directly connected to and the memo that we got from staff that sort of follows up with that So I appreciate all of that. I'm comfortable that this is an excellent process being pursued in a very intense and productive way. And only have one kind of substantive observation, which is really more of a question about a larger trend. And that has to do with the waterfront plan. So I think the piece of the waterfront plan that you explained to us tonight is the storm. Presentation. We kind of want to throw. It doesn't make sense. That's OK. It's directed to. Sorry, I was confusing to hear myself talking next to you. The question of the waterfront plan, so the piece that we're looking at is 98% civil engineering infrastructure. We're going to get into the streets down there at the foot of King Street for several blocks in every direction and get down there and rework the capacity of collecting our stormwater and managing our perennial difficulty down there. And we're also about to see some time with the next few months a project that involves modifications to the waterfront plan and 98% of those modifications to the waterfront plan are a very large above ground pumping station to address those same issues. And as I think back over the last decade and a half looking at what the waterfront plan was intended to do, it was a very intensely and long-wrought vision by the city of how to evolve our kind of fading industrial waterfront into a vibrant mixed-use pedestrian-oriented, lively heart of the city. And I think when that plan came forward, it had a variety of things that involved increasing public access and redeveloping sites for different uses. And a part of that was a to be an integrated infrastructure improvement process. And that's a very long way of setting up my question and my worry, which is we now seem to be at a point where that significant but modestly scaled component of the plan of how to get our infrastructure to continue to work under the pressure of a changing environment and an inexorably rising sea level. We now seem to be spending and rather gargantuan amount of our resources on the civil infrastructure parts of it and these plans coming forward don't seem to have much in the way of the other elements of the plan. So all I'm really doing here is I think expressing a concern about that and an observation that if we're already at the point that the infrastructure and the civil engineering parts of the solution are so big and are into the hundreds of millions of dollars, not the tens of millions of dollars. What those paths look like over the next five or ten years, what those paths inside the CIP look like, and what the results in our efforts to implement the waterfront plan look like. So that is the epitome of somebody having an observation and not the slightest idea about what to do in response to it. That would be my observation for tonight. This is Carl Moritz, a playing director, and I'm just going to say, certainly it's appropriate to make the comments that you made and the consistency with the master plan of that project is of course something that is going to be coming to you but it's never really too soon for the individual members of the Planning Commission or the Planning Commission at all to telegraph early on issues or concerns that you're looking for. And I do know that all of the components of your comments have been very much taken to heart by staff and to the extent that we bring you something that you find meets those requirements. We will be glad. And if not, we certainly will appreciate your commentary and your are finding whatever it may be. I'm sorry, that was long. No, thank you Mr. Moore for that. I appreciate it. So any other last observations from commissioners? Commissioner Ramirez. Just one small observation. First of all, thank you just half for working on this CIP planning. I know it is very intricate. It is very much an ecosystem and a balance trying to stay ahead of things to come where a future that we can't necessarily predict. And I know that it is a very, a lot of details go into the formation of a CIP plan as we look forward. One of the things I actually wanted to call out that I found very interesting within the memo was the outline of a tie-in to a project that we had approved not that long ago and is now standing very tall, the Virginia Tech Building, a Sympathac Yard and the infrastructure investigation or the continual kind of like continually learning, continually growing, partnership in a way with them to study the traffic along route one. I think that is a wonderful implementation of a new resource that we have in the area. And also one note I wanted to also add is that, you know, as we project forward and look at the expenditures, and especially with regard to transportation and the chunk that is designated for transportation usage, you know, we often don't appreciate expenditures until there's a failure. And there's nothing quite like, you know, looking at, for example, the stormwater systems through the city that are hundreds of years old, and the way that they've been failing relative to contemporary climate issues, the way that roads then fail, because, you know, we hadn't spent continual money on them over the centuries, over the decades. And being able to see that we're going to try to look forward and improve our existing infrastructure and be able to create a future Alexandria where all the residents can appreciate the things that they take for granted. I think it's something that we can all appreciate so I can forward to seeing this implementation. Thank you. Other comments? Okay well then it seems to me we would be in a position to entertain a motion to the effect that the planning commission finds the proposed capital improvement program to be consistent with the master plan if someone's in a position to do that. So moved by Commissioner Brown second. I'll second. Second by Commissioner DuBay. Any last observations before we vote. Okay. All those in favor? Hi. Hi. Hi. Opposed? The motion carries 7-0. Okay. Madam Clerk are you in a position to call item 6 for us? Item number 6, rezoning 2024-00004, Development Special Use Permit 2024-10017, Encroachment 2024-0008. 802 and 808 North Washington Street, the Whitley Phase II, public hearing and consideration for request for a amendment to the official zoning map to change the zoning designation with a site from CD-X, Marshall downtown zone, Old Town North, two CRMU-X commercial residential mix use, Old Town North zone, B, a development special use permit with a site plan and modifications to construct a multi-unit dwelling, including special use permits to increase the floor area ratio to 2.5 in the CRMUX zone. For the utilization of section seven, dash 700 of the zoning ordinance for bonus density for the provision of affordable housing and a parking reduction and see an encroachment into the public right away for a portion of the front facade of the existing building at 802 North Washington Street and balconies along North Washington Street. soon CDX commercial downtown downtown, Oetown, North, applicant, 808, Washington, LLC, bike, Kenneth, W. Wire, and Megan C. Rappor, attorneys. Thank you, and staff can proceed with their presentation if they wouldn't. Thank you very much. Good evening, Vice Chair Canig and Chair McMahon and members of the Planning Commission. For the record, my name is Stephanie Sample with the Department of Planning and Zoning. The applicant 808 Washington, LLC, proposes to redevelop a partially constructed hotel project at 802 to 808 North Washington Street into a multi-unit dwelling. This is the site of the former town motel. This agenda shows the slides that are to follow. The applicant has purchased the 98-room hotel entitlement late last year from the prior owner and proposes a major amendment to the previous approval to allow for the site's conversion to a multi-unit dwelling project with 49 units, including an affordable for sale unit. Because a multi-unit dwelling cannot be constructed at the same density as the hotel, the applicant requests several approvals. These approvals are required to allow for the new use, even though the site layout, building height, scale, and massing, and as well as the FAR remain generally consistent with the hotel project. The project site is in a mixed-used area of Old Town with street frontage on North Washington and Madison streets. The project is located in the Old Town North small area planned boundaries but is immediately adjacent to the Baddock Metro neighborhood planned boundaries where the Whitley Phase 1, which is also being developed by the applicant, is located. The site is also in the Olden Historic Alexandria District and therefore subject to review and approval by the Board of Architectural Review. The historic house was originally closer to the center of the site but was moved to the south part as part of the hotel project. As you can see from this area there are several portions of the hotel project which were constructed prior to the pause including the underground parking garage, the first floor, floor, and certain above-grade pylons. The two wintly projects will share a private alley, which has a public access easement, with 10 feet construction on each side, in order to gain access to their underground garages. While the height scale and massing doesn't change much, there are several minor changes made by the applicant in order to pivot from a hotel to a condominium and staff sees these as improvements to the earlier plan. They include updated architecture and more building articulation. The prior building had a more box-like appearance, removal of a curb cut on Washington Street from an improved street scape with more street trees and a longer planting strip, unit entrances at street level for pedestrian level activation. The applicant was also able to relocate the garage entrance from the middle of the alley to the north to allow for more underground parking than the hotel was able to provide. Unlike the hotel, which had no open space requirement, the residential use requires a 25% of the site area in open space, which the applicant is able to achieve through the combination of ground level above grave private and shared rooftop space. As noted previously, this new residential project requires a rezoning to allow for a multi-unit dwelling with the same density as the hotel. The request also includes special use permits for a 2.5 FAR bonus density for the provision of affordable housing and a two space parking reduction, as well as a 7% crown coverage modification. Finally, the upper balconies and a small portion of the front facade of the historic townhouse require an encroachment. As with all of our projects, we like to highlight certain areas like schools, transportation, and stormwater. The project will generate approximately three students who would be distracted for the Naomi Brooks Elementary School, George Washington Middle School, and the Alexandria City High School. With respect to transportation, the removal of the Washington Street curb cut will significantly improve both the veh and pedestrian safety on this highly traffic street. There will also be a significant reduction in voss arrests from existing conditions. There are several project benefits including more housing units including a for sale affordable unit, updated architecture, and improved street scape as well as the completion of this stalled construction project. Finally, the project is in compliance with the city policies listed here. Since the applicant acquired the property, the project has been the subject of three public meetings. B.A.R. concept review hearing and applicant hosted community meeting and a meeting with the Alexandria Housing Affordability Advisory Committee. With that, staff recommends approval, and I'm happy to answer any questions. Any questions from commissioners for the staff? Hearing none, let's proceed with public testimony. My current list shows that we have three speakers signed up for this item. The first is Melissa Kennen. The second is Ryan Whitaker. And the third is Ken wire, representative of the applicant. Ms. Kennen. Hi, I'm Melissa Kenan. I'm here speaking as a resident and a resident of Old Town North and a neighbor across the street from North Washington Street. I serve on PiDAC as well as a vice president of notice, which an ortho town independent citizens association, but I'm here to speak as a neighbor. I have two issues I'm concerned with. I've for number one, I've as an architect I have over 40 years of designing hundreds of multi-family units of housing. I've been a planner for two large-scale trans-Doranid development projects. And I participated in the Old Town North Small Area Plan update in 2016-17 as a citizen. Two things I'd like to suggest. One is the applicant is donating 20 or committing $23,000 of funding for the arts and for Oldtown North. Oldtown North is designated as an arts and cultural district and we feel it's important that it, and we meaning me and my co-citizens I've been discussing this with, feel it's important that the development arts funding should be used in a way to one celebrate this exciting new arts district for the city highlight the district's location by creating a critical mass of art installations within the arts district and Which is on the other side of North Washington Street But on the other hand it could also be used to on North Washington Street to improve the travel experience of residents driving south into the city on an area that is an old and historic neighborhood that definitely needs a lot of improvement. My second issue is compliance with design guidelines. The appearance of North Washington Street really has not kept up with the issues of creating a historic, memorializing the historic district that it's in. And the stakes have been made over the years for whatever reason. And the city has this opportunity to change some of the wrong design decisions of the buildings of the past, so that the driving experience of visitors have can express more of the original character of the city. This is also an instance where the urban design guidelines for old time north should be applied to the north Washington street. This development, this applicant is asking for a lot for this site. And I'd like to focus once, first of all, on the design. And could we pull up a sketch of that? This is a very, very, very preliminary sketch that is being used for approval for a project that has a lot of bearing on the street and the approach to the city. The old and historic district design guidelines say that you have to appreciate the memorial character of the George Washington Memorial Parkway is protected and maintained. And new buildings should be oriented to the street, foster a sense of place, arrival, and community. The issue with design I have here is that this is a building that's trying to be contemporary next to an existing historic building. But the old and historic district says, you can't do that. Excuse me, Ms. Smith. Could you go ahead and come to a conclusion? Three little lines here to read as quick as possible. Okay. Contemporary design doesn't utilize any of the historic elements of orientation or detail, the building overwhelms the existing historic residents and scale and height, and will greatly benefit by setting back that top story so it doesn't dominate the site. Design elements aren't appropriately historic in character, though they're required to be in the old, in this district, such as creating these vertical piers that seems to be used on every single project in Old Town, North, that is more reminiscent of an industrial type design, or replicating industrial design. And the link between the historic residents and the new building awkwardly shows there's a misalignment of the floor levels and really should be more neutral in design and scale. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Whitaker. Hello, commissioners. Thanks for having me. I'm Ryan Whitaker. from'm the president of the old town North Alliance community group composed of property owners, residents, homeowner, association, businesses, essentially everybody that has an interest in old town north. I'm here to talk about we were not part of the community engagement, so Ken and Megan next time come to talk to us about stuff because we'd love to consider projects like this. like this. So I'm not here to talk about we were not part of the community engagement so Ken and Megan next time come talk to us about stuff because we'd love to consider projects like this. So I'm not here to talk about the merits of the project. I don't really know much about it in terms of things that you might consider and so I'll leave that to you. But I do want to talk about something very specific which is the developer's contribution in lieu of providing public art on the site. understand that there's some money that will be contributed in lieu of the public art. And given the needs for funding for the various uses in the, you know, the nascent arts and cultural district in Old Town North, I'd like to see that, you know, dedicated to something specific. There's plenty of needs for public art in the district. And the city can find ways to dedicate that within Old Town North, which I think if you've been following it, there's been some challenges that have been experienced toward the implementation of the arts and cultural districts. So I'm here really on behalf of the Alliance to express desire to have that funding dedicated within Old Town North. Certainly the project market itself is being in Old Town North. It's adjacent. I know to the product road, Metro area. But again, I would hope that given that they're touting, this is something that's connected to Old Town North that the funding for that arts and cultural district that is coming from this project be dedicated to that specifically. So thank you. Thank you. Do we at this point have any other previously unsigned folks who'd like to comment other than, okay, I see Mr. was shaking his head so. At that point let's proceed to hear from Mr. Wire. Good evening members of the commission, Ken Wire with the law firm Wire Gill. My colleague Megan Mepolteni, represent Patrick Bloomfield and Jerry Recardi, they are the developers of the site. If we go back to slide four, if we could Stephanie, I first like to beg city staff. This is an audit project, one that my client didn't really want to do. They were under construction. Starting the WITLE phase one, looked out the window and saw a hotel starting and stopping. It's an understatement to say that for Patrick and his team, the risk on the site is pretty extraordinary. It would be a lot better if it was just a field of dirt with an old building on it. But it's a partially built garage that has structural problems that need to be rebuilt. And I give you that background because when we first engaged staff, we had to figure out as the BAR said, you're going to have the same height, the same mass, the same scale, and remove a curb cut. We said yes. And they all nodded and said, it sounds pretty good does. We did have a dialogue about how do you marry up and do building versus an old building. Every BAR case I have, do you mimic the old or do you have it to new? old or do you have it to new? The product you see today is a result of a over-the-years-to-year work with city staff in the B.A.R. case I have, do you mimic the old or do you have it to new? The product you see today is a result of over the last year of work with city staff in the B.A.R. to take a modern approach to that building to marry up against the townhouse that was relocated further back on the site to the corner. It was a very technically challenging approval. It's a very thin deal in the vernacular for developers. I bring that up because 149 development conditions and we'll have an issue with one. It may seem subtle, but first I want to address one of the comments that the community made about the public art. As you know, your public art policy requires a piece of public art onsite. And if not, then you pay a contribution in lieu. Our current plan, I believe, is to do it onsite. As the community mentioned, improve the visual neighborhood as you drive down north Washington Street. I drive by this building every day when I come to work in the city. So I think that is our approach that is consistent with every other policy you've adopted for sorry every other project you've adopted that complies with our policy. Do it on site and if not pay a dollar per square foot. As far as community outreach sorry I I missed Ryan and Ryan Well is a client on a different site. We had a big banner out front that's setting community meeting two and a half weeks in advance and we notified everybody around as well as public notice for the BAR and AAC. It's important to note and housing stock and speak to this figuring out how to get a four sale of four-wheeled it was not easy on building this small. affordable housing gets tougher as you scale down and these projects especially given some of the risk we have here with a partially built build project The one condition I want to raise is the one about about about gas usage I've been here with mr. Canning on many green billing policies through the years and we talked about this pretty extensively when a developer decides to come to his body and request to change staff conditions is because of serious. When staff has any condition we run a buyer brokerage team in our investors. The feedback we're getting in today's market is to preclude gas with more or less exclude you can pick a number but it's somewhere between 25 and 50% of buyers. I have electric in my house that works fine but not everybody agrees with that. The challenge in this case is to go to your investment committee and say we're going to make our project not viable or not open to probably half the market makes it tough. We do however agree with the community and staff that moving towards a carbon reduced future is a good thing. So what we would like to do between now and city council is to we will agree to have electric outlet for each stove and if a client comes in and wants and electric stove They can certainly have that it's already pre-wired At the same time we also want to provide the option for gas that we maximize our market for this unit For this project rather So I know it seems subtle to be at the end of a year-long process to talk about gas stoves But we wouldn't be doing it if we weren't getting feedback from our investors. It said, this makes this very thin project, even thinner when you make it a difficult choice for some owners. I don't wanna end with that. I wanna go back to where I started. We appreciate staff's time, the community time, BER and AAC to find a project that Patrick Franklin, he looked at it, he scratched his head and said, I don't know if I can make this work, but you rolled up his sleeves, worked with the community, worked with staff and figured out a way to make a project. We hope we'll complete this block and take this building that's been sitting half built for over two years into something we're all proud of. So I'm here to answer any questions and we look forward to your support tonight. Any commissioner questions for Mr. Wire? Mr. Manner? Mr. Wire, first of all, I'd say I'm very appreciative of the fact that the project is moving again because it's a gateway to the town and I drive past every day and I was concerned about it, especially given the financing options right now. When you say you're going to give people an option for electric, is that, are you putting in gas and then if they want to take that out and put it in electric, that's the possibility where they get an option when they buy. Thank you for clarifying. We will plumb both. You will have electric and gas in your unit for everybody. So five years in the future, if you want to switch, you're already pre-wired for electric, but it's their choice. four sale condos. So during buildup, we'll put both in and as people pick their appliances, if I had to guess half the bill. You're already pre-wired for electric, but it's their choice. These are four-sale condos, so during build-up, we'll put both in and as people pick their appliances, if I had to guess half the building we hope sells out during construction, the other half will probably be towards the end of it. So the idea is they're both pre-wired or plumbed for gas, for either gas or electric to have the user choose. So we would like to- just to be clear when they purchase they have an option to either one. Yes sir, that is our idea. Right, that's a pretty good compromise I think. I don't think staff agrees but that's our proposal. Okay thank you. Commissioner DeBay. Thanks I think I think this is for Ken but um follow up on Jody's comments about the gas. You're talking about just gas stoves, not gas, everything, how water, or everything each unit would be fully gas. That's a great question, Commissioner. So every unit, when you touch your thermostat, is a heat pump. It's pure electric. Electric, water heaters, electric, everything else. The only two things, those three things, the backup generator, it makes sense. The power is out. You need a backup generator. The dedicated outside air system on the roof, we've had conversations with staff. This building is so tight, the air has to be cycled out 24 hours. That is a heat pump most of the time. In cold winter, that would have a gas backup. So it would be the second component. And the third would be this gas option for ranges. Okay. And the other question not related to gas. So the alley the access between the buildings is 10 feet or 20 feet wide or 20. It is 22. So my recollection is it's 11 feet for both sides. Patrick and his team own both sides of the project. The Whitley's already dedicated or reserved their half. This would be building the other half 11, so be 22 feet to meet fire access. So my question related to that, the entrance to both garages, the garages for each building would be across from each other at the end of that alley. Yes sir, you can see it on this drawing where the P is for the Whitney Phase 2, there's a little dark entryway there, roughly they're both lined up across from each other. And is that at grade or is there like an elevation to come out of that? And my point is, and I can go to, there's a couple examples like the Whole Foods or maybe Harris-Steeter where you're coming up and then you really can't see the street or the exit until you're right at it. My concern is both of them coming at the same time and then you show a trash truck back and in. So, I understand. You talked about that a little bit. So the city staff can speak to the details but in every case we have a ramping requirement that it can exceed 12% on average so the middle part of the grade is probably a little steeper but as you come up to the top it usually flattens out. I don't know what the actual percentage is typically staff ones at you know 10% or less as you come up to that last car length so you're not sort of pointing up in the air at each other. We can certainly work with staff too if it doesn't. It's a problem. one's at 10% or less as you come up to that last car length. So you're not sort of pointing up in the air at each other. We can certainly work with staff too. If it doesn't, it's a problem. We need to put mirrors in and things like that. But our initial turning movement showed them not hitting each other. So that should be enough room for everybody to come out and make a turn. A trash talk will make it a little complicated. but we really didn't see any solution for that corner. Yeah, okay. I would just ask that to make the sightlines as good as possible. I'm happy to stick with that. A lot of technical work there. for that corner. Yeah, okay. I would just ask that to make the sidelines as good as possible. I'm happy to stack up that. I'm happy to continue to have that dialogue. Rob, we can note that in the final cyclist, we're actually doing the engine or drawings. We can take further look at that. Okay, thank you. Mr. Warr, I have a question or two for me. The first one is really just a detail, but it occurred to me when I was reading the staff report and looking at drawings. And that relates to this question of the North elevation of the building, which is the wall that faces folks arriving in town from the north heading south on Washington Street, which is right at the property line. And that elevation in contrast to the other three is a fundamentally blank, solid wall. I believe if I'm not mistaken that some aspect of the VAR response to the review here was a suggestion of whether there was an opportunity to relieve that large blankness in that visually prominent location, which will be visually prominent until whatever is built next to the north of it, which is not for us to know. Have you all explored that at all? Do you have any possible ideas about how to relieve that or respond to this? Yes, we have. And it actually mirrors the willy across the street. That was an identical conversation. It's tough for a building to have four very poor sides. And then, again, this building is very tight. So what we're in discussions with is can we change the brick pattern, can we do some recess? It's not going to be windows in public art, but it can be something more interesting than just a uniform opaque wall and that approach was approved by the B.A.R. for the Whitley's so we're likely to take the same approach here for that side. Okay. So the idea is to attempt to relieve that with some articulation in the architecture itself, but not to engage other. I would think of, I was re-pattering in colors, I think it's on the table, not windows, because there's fire acts, fire control behind that. It's a firewall, is what it needs to be. Right, thank you. And then as you mentioned, to kind of return to our ongoing conversation about the environmental performance aspects of the project. And you mentioned that there are three elements that are still carbon fuel fired pieces of this project, right? Correct. The first is the emergency generator. I believe that we have consistently carved out as we do in these conditions an exception for that and. And I think the logic, as I understand it, and I'm happy to be corrected by staff, is that the reason that we continue to acknowledge that is that there is no plausible technical alternative on the market now that is not carbon-fueled, that is on the market technology in affordable in any way. So I think on that particular issue, unless you disagree with that, the logic of acknowledging that as an exception is, continues to be an agreed carve out in our conditions. I did want to ask you about one that's not actually at issue here according to the staff report, but I'm still interested in having a bit of discussion about it. And that's the direct outdoor air system that you described. What is the logic for selecting that system? And is it your all's judgment that they're in contrast to the backup generator that there is no technically available market ready electric system in lieu of the carbon-powered system here? Not exactly. It's a little bit different. I see dust to move to the front chairs. I'll give my speech and he can check me. That's the plan. So when we did, this has been up several times in front of many of you. Let's be clear. That dedicated outside air system is needed because the building is so tight, there's no air coming into it. So you won't be able to open the doors if this thing is not constantly exchanging air. It's also tight, the building shell. So therefore, air needs to be recirculated 24-7 from the outside. recirculated 24-7 from the outside. The vast majority of that time, that is going through a heat pump system. The dedicated outside air is not... the building shell, so therefore, air needs to be recirculated 24-7 from the outside. The vast majority of that time, that is going through a heat pump system. The dedicated outside air is not always gas-fired, it is a heat pump system. During the summer, it's actually cooling, and there's no gas being used. During the spring and fall, it's a heat pump, and it switches back between cooling and heating. The gas kicks in when you get below a certain temperature. We submitted a study to the city staff that if carbon is your rich issue, it is actually carbon beneficial to use a gas backup for the DOAS at low temperature than its electricity. Because when you get below a certain heat pump level, imagine it's turning on a toaster upstairs. That's all you're doing. Big resistance heating, you're blown it across, and that's what's making up the delta. Because the air volume is changing out the entire building 24-7, it is inefficient right now to use electric to do that. We submitted a staff report to staff as part of another project, and if carbon is your issue, it is actually a lower carbon footprint than using a vast amount of more electricity to achieve that heat delta on low temperature days. And I hope that's concise. Thank you. It's very concise. And I appreciate the answer. And just a clarification on the proposal relative to the ranges following up on Commissioner Manner's question. Is it indeed the case then that none of these units will have a gas range installed prior to sale or is it that a proportion of them will be sort of early sales will get an option for it but later is it literally that every unit of the building has the potential for the owner to make the choice? So speaking generally to other projects, Patrick, if I'm wrong, when you're building a project, everything's on the table. You can come and you can sign your contract, you can pick out your counters, you can do certain things. And every project I've worked on, you never sell out 100%, Patrick would love it, but probably not. couple units, he will have to make a choice on what to put into the unit. So out of 45 units, I'm going to make up a number of the last 15 if they're not sold, but probably not. So the last couple units, he will have to make a choice on what to put into the unit. So out of 45 units, I'm gonna make up a number. If the last 15, if they're not sold, he will pick. But to be clear, every single unit, whether now or in the future, either facility could be accommodated, electric or gas for the range. Thank you. So it's a proportion to be determined, but not necessarily every single unit. Correct. Absolutely. And my last question is to return to another issue that we've addressed before. but not necessarily every single unit. Correct. Absolutely. And my last question is to return to another issue that we've addressed before, which is the question of solar ready. And the conditions in the project indicate that solar ready is the requirement. And that is what you're all agreeing to do. My question would still be aside from the requirements and the condition. I find the right way to freeze this. Is it purely, what's the rationale for not doing solar now, given the fact that it's available, affordable, tested, resilient technology? Is it a cost issue, or is it a question of simply not being required to do it and not finding it to be a high enough priority to do it? I think it's components of multiple things. We can go back to the floor plan for a second. The number one issue comes across on every project is really space utilization on the roof. The do-wise, I just talked about the 49 air handlers, some might have more than that for each unit. The roof is covered in plumbing vents and electrical facilities and these air conditioning units. As of right now, we cannot put solar panels on top of that. Patrick Kermit, if I'm wrong, but roughly only 10% of the roof is not being used. The rest of it has something on it. So as of right now until the building code changes, we are not able to put additional structures on top of the HVC units to put a solar panel. In dialogue with staff as part of the Green Building Committee, we agree to future proof and run conduit to the roof, not to stop fare, but also put transformer panels into the units. As a condo association, should they want to put them in, they can certainly do that, but some things need to change when building code, because there's not a lot of space. Smaller buildings scale great for utility in that if the roof was empty, it would power more of the building, but there's also less space for all the air handlers. So I hope that answers the question. It's mostly a spatialization issue than it is a philosophical one. Thank you, Mr. Warr. Any other questions for Mr. Warren? Mr. Mayorarr. Any other questions for Mr. Warr? Mr. Mayor Manor. Can, since we dealt with these gas backup. I don't think your mic's on, Mr. Mayor. I got it in the wrong place. Since we've discussed these gas backup things for heat pumps, I think we talked about it for Montgomery Center as well. We did. What do you know what the temperature is when they kick on? Given we live in a different climate. So it gets lower every year and it's a scale. It's not like you get to 32 and it's often it on. It becomes a greater what they look at is energy utilization. So when it make up scenario at 32, it's probably not on at all. at all at 30 it's 5% on and the gas goes from zero and it scales up as it gets colder. So I can't give you a super stark line other than you know above 50 degrees and not needed at all at 30 it's 5% on and the gas goes from zero and it scales up as it gets colder. So I can't give you a super stark line other than you know above 50 degrees and not needed at all and as you drift down below 30 at night certainly below 20 gas goes from zero to maybe 50% if it gets below 15 degrees it probably comes on to be the majority during that evening house. Okay and as going back to your thoughts about not having enough space on the roof or solar, couldn't that be built above the air handlers? So my understanding from right now, all the clients and StackRMFM wrong, the building code, you need to have three air handle to work, has to have a clearance around it to be able to A, maintain it and get a crane up there and change it. So it has to be at least, you know, taller than I am out of the way. And then we have to go to the B the BAR because that would be additional height and you'd be able to see it all the way around the building. So it's a little, I got it. It's a complex puzzle. Yeah. And on other projects, Mr. Kern, to make fun of our wrong bigger buildings, we actually designate a roof area when it's obvious. have space. We just say you on this corner here, you can put a reserve for solar panels. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Manor. Ms. Williams, any other last minute inquiries for making public testimony? No other speakers. Okay, so why don't we entertain a motion to close the public hearing? We'll make a motion to close the public hearing. Thank you, Commissioner. And second, Commissioner Manor. Okay, any discussion of that motion? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, we have closed the public hearing and moving on to Commissioner deliberation, if I may, I'd like to start just with a couple of quick clarifications that developed from the public testimony. And the first would be, could you address the issue of public art? Again, we've had several observations made about that. Could you just describe what is being proposed here and how that fits within the intent of our public art policy? Certainly. The applicant has the option to provide public art on site or provide the contribution. They are leaning toward looking to provide it on site. There is not much room to do that. So, you know, through the final site plan process over the next six, nine months, we'll be in discussions with them. And a decision will be made as to, you know, whether they'll be able to provide it or make the contribution. Thank you. So that's a helpful clarification. I wasn't clear that option remains open as we proceed past the hearing. And could you just give us a quick overview of does that process, is that generally just staff in the applicant or is there still an avenue by which the public can be aware of that process and or potentially inform it in some way. We work with the office of the arts and we, they in particular, consult with the applicant on selection of an artist and, you know, making sure that the value of the artist is consistent with what the contribution would be, where it's located, how it can be publicly accessible. I'm not aware of the public process, really. Catherine Milliar is planning and zoning. When the developers providing the public art with this contribution, they do get to select the artist and they have a, they sort of determine what is an appropriate piece, but they consult with staff and the office of the arts as Stephanie was saying. It is different from public art that, like you see in Waterfront Park and other public parks where there is a more robust community outreach process. There typically is not community outreach when the developer is working with the artist and selecting it. So if I follow the point in the process which could be an indeterminate amount of time between now and final site plan that determines whether it will be on site or whether it will be a contribution. If the applicant selects the contribution route that's a pure financial calculation that's already the criteria for that are already generated and there's no artist selection, no actual art, it just helps fund the larger effort. So then if it does proceed, do folks who have, as clearly we have citizens who have an interest in this, is their recourse to just periodically paying the office of the arts to find out what has happened? Or can they contact you all to understand the status of that selection? Or is there a point at which it actually gets publicly announced in some way what path is going to be taken or something else altogether that I have. Well, we are always available. We'll be working closely with the applicant. So we can let them know the decision as to, you know, what option they've selected. We won't, we won't make a public announcement. There is a condition that either the art is provided or a contribution, so we are available. Extend to provide that. We rob currants, we also work with the office of the arts. I'm thinking about some of the waterfront sites, where we were going through this process. Diane Rosario did, for selected things, have some more sort of engagement and sort of day let the work that the developer was doing. So we can certainly pass along that desire to maybe augment that process given its location. Thank you. And the second piece was just observations were made about the character of the design. And I thought if you could potentially give us a quick capsule overview of how this project actually proceeded through BAR, the gist of BAR's conceptual design recommendation in any way that you might want to characterize that process today. Sure. Cap and Milly-R's, planning and zoning, former B.A.R. member, or B.A.R. staff member. So I'm very familiar with this project because I worked on it when it went to the BAR the first time where it went through the typical development review process which is for concept review and then the approval of the DSUP and then it came back for the certificate of appropriateness. So it went through all of that with the prior approval and then this time it came back to the BAR for a concept review. LBAR Concept review is a review of height, scale, mass, and general architectural character. Well the height, scale, and mass were the same as what the BAR had reviewed previously, but what had changed was the general architectural character. Now any project on Washington Street is subject to a higher level of review. It is subject to what's called the Washington Street standards. And these are outlined in Chapter 10 of the zoning ordinance. And they talk about design approaches at the end of the day that helps support and promote the memorial character of the parkway. However, they are not prescriptive and say that it has to be this type of thing or this other thing, but they do suggest that they are, they do discuss being surrounded in architectural styles found along the parkway. However, along Washington Street, you have architectural styles from over 200 years. So when this applicant came they said they were keeping the height scale mass the same but they wanted to make changes to the design. The previous design had read very clearly as a couple of different buildings, it had strong cornices, it had historic elements that were also found on the parkway. This current design has taken a different direction but it still has many elements that you see in the architecture that defines buildings that you see. In Washington Street, for example, it's a load-bearing basin rebuilding with a clear base middle and top. It doesn't read as one large building. It's broken into different components. It respects the historic townhouse. That was one of the things that the B.A.R. throughout this process has focused on is respecting this townhouse so you can see there's a bridge between the new construction and the historic townhouse that gives it some breathing room. And then it will have high quality materials that will be used. And all of those will be decided as well as the materials and the design details when it comes back for a certificate of appropriateness. That will occur after approval of the DSUP. Thank you, Mr. Miller. That's very helpful. And I just take the opportunity to reinforce your last point that the process has reached conceptual design review as an element of the DSUP review process, but the actual refinement of all those design elements and eventual final decision by the B.A.R. about the certificate of appropriateness will be subject to a continuing public hearing process. That is correct. Thank you very much. Stephen. Yes. Commissioner. I'm in a quick question. You'd use the term general architectural characteristics. Yeah. Can you define that a little bit more specifically? Sure. General architectural character talks about sort of the patterns of the architecture rather than a specific style. So instead of staying this is an Italian-ate building it says you know it has a pronounced cornice it has a certain fenestration pattern, it's more talks about the way that it's organized, as well as some stylistic elements as well, but not prescribing that it needs to be a certain specific style. And if I may continue on to the issue of the operational performance characteristics of the building that we're discussed. And since we have the benefit of Mr. Smith's presence from the Office of Climate Action, I was hoping we could ask him to comment on some things. And I would perhaps suggest even though it is not technically at issue tonight, I would be very interested to hear your perspective on the direct outdoor air system discussion and just a little bit of context from what I do understand which may not be a whole lot. I said we did indeed look at that at Montgomery Center and if memory serves that was electric, although I might be wrong there. More recently, we have looked at it. I'm wrong on that one. Yeah, we, sorry, Dustin Smith Office of Climate Action, Green Building Manager. So we have on two projects, Montgomery Center, and I believe the Rutherford, the DOAS issue arose. And we at the time requested the applicant to do an analysis essentially comparing what they were requesting with an all-electric alternative. And both of those analyses have demonstrated that from a carbon perspective with the modeling and the many assumptions in those reports that the DOAS was the best option at the time. You know, whether or not we agree with the conclusions, that was the conditions that we negotiated with the applicants at those times. So in coming to this project and their request, we deemed it not a super effective way of managing or mitigating combustion for that piece of equipment or a project. It's certainly something that we're looking at with the Green building policy update that's coming But for this project We did not deem it feasible or really appropriate to ask the applicant to conduct an analysis where they will have to hire consultants and additional funds To get equipment which they had initially requested. So we didn't have confidence that we would get a different result. Okay, thank you. That's interesting. And I don't want to necessarily go into the weeds on this, although that seems to be where we keep going. But I do, it just raises a couple of questions for me. So we looked at this at Montgomery Center and it ended up being gas fired. And we looked at it at Rutherford and it ended up being gas fired. And in each of those cases, if I follow the applicant, actually performed a study that from the perspective of their team who performed this study, actually came back with this conclusion that if, as Mr. Wiley likes to say, if carbon is the issue, that this is actually a better solution. And I'd like to sort of put a pin in that for a moment, because that's the substantive question, right? And one, now a process question that's raised by your observation is, are we at the point in the evolution of our green building policy and the evolution of our implementation of it, which has been very, very long and very complex and have stopped and interrupt myself again to take a moment to say how much I appreciate the memo that you all did issue this afternoon addressing the question that's mostly focused on the gas ranges. But it gives us a very concise and at the same time thorough history of kind of the evolution of all of these incremental changes that have been, that have sort of accrued as we've gone along. And all of them have been a very complex balance between sort of market factors, the desirability of the applicant, the available technology to do a certain thing, the cost of that technology, and whether it's truly market, doable, or exorbitant. And I think everybody, applicants, staff, commission, it worked very hard to kind of find balances there that respect the private property development rights, and also advance our tools for achieving our carbon reduction goals. So with like three different digressions there, we return to my question, which is, are we at the point where on this particular issue that the only option we have at this point on the third project in a row with the same issue is to ask the client to spend money for a study to replicate two previous studies. And since that's not a reasonable thing, we don't have any other way to bring our own judgment to bear about the validity of this issue, which brings me back to the substantive question of, do you all at Office of climate Action buy the conclusion that a gas-fired DOAS system on buildings built now to last 10, 20, 40 years is truly a productive trade-off for the city to be achieving its carbon reduction goals? Because you mentioned, I'm sorry, one last thing. You mentioned if you accept their conclusions, which apparently we did at previous points, and I'm asking if you still do accept those conclusions. Yeah, at those times we, I remember with Ken, we wrote a very long, very specific condition. I don't think I'd ever seen a condition that long. Very prescriptively asking them to use specific data sets and specific information to conduct their analysis. With that being the, my contribution to that, I have to team that appropriate because at the time for those projects, that was the conclusion we reached. And that continues to be your sense of this issue is, let me put it slightly different spin on it, is there anything evolving in this realm? The cost of implementing a fully electric technology for this particular piece. Is any of that making any progress that leads us to have any expectation that we won't be approving gas-fired Doa systems in perpetuity at this point? All right, Mr. Wreston, Ryan. Hello, Mr. Frieden. Climate action officer. So that's a great question. And our thinking on this, I won't say our thinking has evolved because we have always been a favor of eliminating combustion like gases, combustion from units. That is what we push for. We'll be releasing recommendations for green building policy that take that into consideration. But I think the thing that is important to keep in mind is that the analysis that was done previously was based on our current fuel mix from Dominion Energy and the Virginia Clean Economy Act requires Dominion to be cleaning that up over the next 15-20 years. As that happens, the calculation on this will go away to say that gas is competitive with electric from a carbon standpoint. So it absolutely will not be the case that it is more carbon-friendly to go with gas if that analysis is accurate today. As Dominion continues to clean its grid and can rely more on renewable energy or carbon-free energies anyway, that analysis will fall back in the favor of electric systems. Thank you. So what I would garner from that, Mr. Fried, is that in that particular variable within the calculation that you do, you count the actual fuel mix of the power this generated, and don't factor in the fact that it is intended to improve over time. It's sort of real-time data on the power of it. Correct, and it would be our intention to not do an analysis on each project. But understanding that the grid will be cleaner and that electric is the preferred approach that we would continue conditions that would encourage electrification of buildings. Great, thank you. And one last question then on this particular issue. I noticed in the condition in this project as written, it requires that the applicant demonstrate that the building will be fully electric, including all mechanical systems, except backup generator and DOAS unit. And that's what we're seeing here tonight, right? That those are the two fundamental carve outs leaving aside the accessory item that we're going to talk about in a minute. But in this excellent memo, I noticed that you do present here what's identified as the 2024 standard condition. And it states that the applicant will demonstrate that the building will be fully electric, including all mechanical systems period. And does not include a carve out for either the generator or the DOAS unit. So my question is if that's a standard 2024 condition that doesn't include either of those exceptions, but we're still seeing it tonight as a condition that includes both of those exceptions. So is there something I'm not understanding about? Should the memo, if this is the current conditions, be showing us in your standard condition language that both of those are still carved out? Those two specific pieces of equipment, the emergency generator and the Do-As units were split specific requests from the applicant in our conditions discussions. I kind of explained why the Do-As unit was included and historically emergency generators we have not touched for many reasons. And the third being the cooktops which we'll talk about, but that was why that's why the the two uses are in that condition that you're seeing tonight. Right. I guess I would just finish that up by saying I find that I know it's not intentionally misleading, but I wasn't understanding things correctly. And I think it would have been helpful if that condition said when it's presented here as standard language for the condition in a memo where we're talking about conditions for these items that it would have said that the applicant will be required to demonstrate that the building will be fully electric, including all mechanical systems except particular items that may be decided on a project by project basis or something that would let us know because I read that as a complete and definitive description of all mechanical systems being all electric in the conditions now and that's clearly where we are not Where we not yet are but there's some of us hope that we will I don't know my lifetime might not be long enough to do it, but they will get there at Some point so I don't mean to be a harp on that. It's just I was really excited to see that No, I'm not as excited as there was Rob Kerns. I just wanted to say something about standard conditions. So I think while we have the carve outs now, as we just discussed in terms of the conditions, we every year or every 18 months, it's a cycle where we update and continually update the standard conditions. And so it will start to capture the technological changes and the market forces of these very topics as we go along every year, every 18 months. And we'll be continually working with the Office of Climate Action on that. Thank you. Yes, I appreciate that. And I think in the past we've, I've certainly celebrated the fact that the staff across the departments is extremely diligent about doing exactly that. I think that's been a big part of why we've been able to make the incremental progress that we have. I know I'm going on here and I'll try to wrap it up pretty quickly. I did want to return to the question of the photovoltaics because I think that the comments that Mr. Warramay tonight are what we hear quite often that that from their perspective, they don't even have to get to cost or lack of desire because they can find a way to not do this by virtue of the fact that there are apparently actual physical or regulatory constraints on doing it. So is there a way to address either the height to get into our height regulations and study whether there we need to have some additional relief or acknowledge photovoltaic arrays as well as elevator over runs as well as other accepted occurrences that can go above island and or do we have to get into the building code enough to say that it is not a project is not going to be denied if it tries to do a photovoltaic array over either open space for human beings or certain types of mechanical equipment. Again a really long way of saying are there other things we can do internally with the particulars of our regulatory process to remove hindrances for getting this kind of technology and install. Yeah, so we've had conversations on other various sites around the city. I'm not familiar with the specific height limits at this specific site, which was referenced by the applicant, but yes, those are definitely part of the considerations of the ongoing Green Building Policy Update, and we'll, you know, be providing guidance as part of that broader process to address that. So, in the draft for the GBP, when we see that, you're addressing these particular issues in a minute. We are doing our best. There will be a public comment period for everything we have missed. So everyone is welcome to review. Let us know. Thank you. And I guess the last item then would be to give you an opportunity to appliances in the units. Would you take this opportunity to explain the staff's position for making that approach? Sure. So we have hazardly somewhat, I believe last night and today put together this memo that has explained how we've handled this issue over the last few years. We've tried to maintain consistency for projects and grant flexibility when the market or technology does not exist for an end use that the applicant has requested, or at least some degree of analysis as to why we are allowing combustion on site, especially internally for indoor air quality purposes. Electric cooktops, induction and resistance cooktops are widely available. I realize there are market preferences. Some buyers might feel towards a natural gas cooktop. staff, again, I'm trying to maintain consistency across all developments, um, as they come and request these things. So it is my perspective. And I think generally staff, we all agree that this has not been approved previously, you know, especially recently. Um, and, you know, it's, it's not in line with our broader cities, climate goals. Thank you, Mr. Smith. And that is indeed the way the conditions are written as part of tonight's staff recommendation for the project, right? Okay. Well, I've probably abused my privilege to ask questions and I've opened it up now for other commissioners who have questions or to start a deliberation about the project itself and its merits. Okay, no questions, general thoughts on the merits of the project and whether or not it might be a good idea to approve it Commissioner DeBank Just a quick point Kind of wrapped around all this conversation about the gas and the electric the building is being built adjacent to it the Whitley one that has gas, right? Because it was approved two years ago, three years ago, before, obviously before my tenure. Are they selling those units now? Is that moving along? Is that so? Okay. Excuse me, Stephanie Sample. That particular building, Whitney One, has a gas fire, a gas fireplaces on the fourth and fifth floor. So gas ranges, yeah, okay, sorry, that was gas fireplaces. Thank you. Thank you. And Chair McMahon, I've lost track whether your hand be up. Do you have anything that you'd like to observe about this project? Sure. I want to start by just saying that I think it's kind of remarkable that the developer, Whitley One, was able to kind of look out the window, so to speak, see the mess and frankly take ownership, you know, take ownership of the corner of this idea that at some point someone's got to step up and try to do something and that kind of thing doesn't happen very often. So I just want to say that being able to take that site and bring forward a residential project that basically meets all of our expectations and does not veer in any crazy manner away from the prior approval with respect to the planning commission role. And it has great features that come along with it, the way that the curb cut was handled, the way that street trees and open space are handled. I just think it's a, it's a, it's a great take to on this that hopefully fingers crossed and knocking on wood with the way the economy is, it can go forward timely to completion alongside the building behind it and it can really build out this corner that's been needing attention for a long time. So overall, I don't have any concerns with the proposal. And as it comes to this, what seems to be the one question of interest to the applicant and setting aside some great issues, Commissioner Cainig, vice-chair Cainig that you mentioned and I put kind of a footnote to myself that maybe during Commissioner comments we can look back on reminding ourselves about what we want to look at the green building policy about in the future. But it seems like this cooktop piece is the sticking point. I'm not inclined to go against staff's recommendation because it is our standard right now. I can see the attractiveness of the sort of opt-in narrative that has been shared with us this idea that because these are purchased units, there's no cook stove sort of pre-installed that pre-determines what a buyer is going to get. However, a lock independent on how things are sold. And I just don't really want to be in the business on the day as of like wordsmithing a condition that says, and whatever you do, make sure you tell them to opt for the electric option first, and you only give them the gas option as the backup plan because like if in the process of selling a unit the salesperson is going to say whatever they can say to make the deal and and I just don't have a lot of confidence that if the put put in that position the salesperson is going oh, and by the way, don't install a gas cooktop because it off-gases toxic fumes that your family will then breathe in and studies have shown that that's not a good thing. You should really choose electric. I feel really strongly that we should be choosing electric both for the indoor air quality purpose and for our underlying The nature of what development in this community should be looking like going forward so I I'm in support of staff's recommendation But you know, I all understand I'm not gonna if the if the the will of the majority of the planning commission is to edit that recommendation to allow for what the, what the applicant has requested, I'm not going to not support the project because of that. So that's sort of the way that that would come down on that. Thank you very much, Chair McMahon. So observations that I'd at this point is this really is just from my perspective, it's a fabulous and superior project. And for fundamentally the reason that the chair had outlined, this is an incredibly difficult situation to step into and find a way to reanimate the project within all of the very realistic constraints that are out there from a financial and every other kind of, every other point of view. And I think we're very fortunate that we have an applicant who is busy having already gone through the entitlements process and is drawing to a conclusion on a project right next door for that applicant to have the ambition and the fortitude to look at this incredibly gnarly situation and view it as an opportunity. And I think that that's the underlying, one of the underlying beauties of this project. I also personally think that it's quite a brilliant solution in the sense that it really does come forward with virtually the same height scale and mass and that there is a design refinement to reflect that it's a slightly different kind of building. So from my personal perspective, and I say that because it's not really planning commission per view, my observation of the design refinements and the BAR concept review process has played out as it virtually always does in a way that generates a refined project that both meets the requirements of our very complex guidelines as managed and employed by the BAR. At the same time that it fulfills the applicant's desire to put the architecture in the public realm and in the marketplace that they want to. So I am very much in support of this project. On the other issue, I would note that I am also very supportive of the staff recommendation and as the conversation that's preceded is probably shown, I think this ongoing effort of the community to gradually evolve the level of performance in the new architecture that is built in our city has been and will continue to be an arduous and complex effort that is very important that we do. that we do. And I think we've made a certain amount of progress and we have a recommendation from the staff tonight that represents the absolutely normal and established criteria that we have in place. And I would support us going forward with an approval of this project based on the recommendation exactly as it's been prepared by staff. So other observations or are we at the point where someone is interested in making a motion on this item? I'm happy to make a motion for approval. Commissioner Ramirez. So I think, and we do have here a rezoning development especially is permit and an encroachment and my understanding is that we want to treat all three of those as separate votes and all three of them are recommendations of approval. I can't read them altogether. It's. Just a decade. I'm in six for him. Yes. Tina is online. Did she. Christina, did you hear her question? Any guidance as to whether or not we can move the for the approval of all three applications at the same time or if we should do it separately. I would recommend doing each one separately. Okay. All right. Then we will I will make a motion for approval of resounding application number 2024 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4. I think I got the bait can't wait. I can't wait. I can't wait. I can't wait. I can't wait. I can't wait. I can't wait. I can't wait. I have any comments? Well, just one very small note, nothing that I think we haven't already mentioned. I felt like this case was very interesting in the way that the applicant moved to pivot this site to activate it. With regard to the three applications that are before us and in this particular case with the rezoning, I don't have any objections to it. I think it's a good way to read some life back into this site. Thank you. Okay, so on the motion to recommend approval of the rezoning, all those in favor. Hi. Hi. Opposed? And that passes 7-0. OK. I'll make a motion for recommending approval of DSUP application number 2024-10017 for the Whitley-Phasedhip. And a second. The second is the second by commissioner. Additional discussion. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? And that passes 7-0. And. and that passes 7-0. I'll make a motion for recommendation of a powerful foreencroachment application number 2025-0-0-0-0-8. Whether we're late phase two. I'll second that. In a second by Mr. Manor. Additional discussion. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Aye. Motion passes 7-0. Okay. I believe we have completed docket item 6. Mr. Williams, would you hold the next item please? Docket item number 7. Development Special Use Permit 2024-10011. Encroachment 2024-0007. 1900 Northfeeler Gord Street, Adams Neighborhood. Public hearing and consideration of requests for a. Development Special Use Permit with a site plan and modifications to construct a multi-unit dwelling including a special use permit request for a parking reduction and be a request for an encroachment into the public right away for a portion of a wall. Zone CDD number 21 coordinated development district, number 21, applicant 1900 bill record property owner, LLC, represented by Ken War attorney. Thank you, and staff presentation. Yes, I am Maggie Cooper from the development division with them planning and zoning. So we'll be speaking on 1900 North Bow regard. So a quick summary of what we'll be covering this evening. The request before you is for a DSUPA to construct a residential building with 345 units. Excuse me. It is within CDD number 21 and they are requesting a setback modification and a parking reduction. Yeah. the . . . . . . . . . . . . . . context. The project is located within the Alex West Small Area Plan and also again in CDD-21. For a bit of site context, you can see here that 1900 North Boa Regard is directly south of the Seminary Heights Townhouse community and just to the west of the Blake and existing multi-unit building and then also near the seminary park townhouses and across Northboro, where you also have the Hilton to help with site context a little bit. The existing property, excuse me, the existing use of the property is a vacant four-story office building that has been vacant for more than a year and a service parking lot. So the project details are that it again is 345 units. They are going to be rental units. It is a maximum 85 feet tall. For the site design some things to point out is that there is a 67 foot setback. And that is a one to one setback. It's 67 feet tall at that portion of the building and then 67 feet from the property line that they share to the north with those townhouses. The project includes new bike padpaths both in the front of the building along North Bervergardgard and in the rear of the building, they will have a 12-foot bike path and a 10-foot pedestrian path. They are providing 18.6% open space, and it's important to note that while the Alex West plan requires a 25% open space, this specific property because the application for completeness came in before the Alex West plan was reviewed by City Council and adopted by City Council in December of 2024. They are being held to the 15% open space that was required underneath the Burr-Regard plan. This also is something that came before you and was approved by City Council last month when we updated the requirements and conditions for CDD number 21. There was a note stating that this specific property would be held to the 15%. That being said, it more than exceeds the required 15%. And also if the property was able to take into account for open space, the rear pathway that currently would serve as an emergency vehicle easement access. And the 30 foot rear portion of the property, excuse me, that's being used as a buffer. If both of those portions of the property were being considered as open space, it would be more than 35%. And then they also are providing a 16,000-foot square foot dedication for right of way that will be used for the west and transit way. Also worth mentioning the locations of the garage and loading, which you can see on the property on the site map. We also have a close up of how the drive court is being used. Is this something that staff worked closely with the applicants and had a lot of feedback from the BDAC members during the time that they went before them. And so they are adding a seven foot fence in the rear to buffer from the drive court. There will also be a secondary planting to buffer from the drive court and then in addition to the 30-foot buffer in the rear which will be densely landscaped. So the SUP, the special use permit that they are requesting for the parking reduction, is for 387 spaces as opposed to the 443 which are required and that is a 13% reduction. It is important to note that that number for the required spaces will decrease to 420 required spaces once the West and Transit is installed as they will then qualify for an additional 5% reduction in required spaces. At that time, the request would then go down to 33 spaces less than they're required, which is an 8% reduction. Parking did come up at the Burger Design Advisory Committee and you have likely saw that reflected in some of the letters that you've received. Staff is comfortable with the request for the parking reduction as it is consistent with many of the same parking reductions that we've seen throughout the city. And it is a reduction of, excuse me, it's a ratio of 1.12 to the units, which is consistent with what the applicant who also owns the property next door at the Blake has seen, it's consistent with the numbers that they're seeing in terms of parking next door where they have a 1.4 ratio of units to parking spaces. So in an effort to right size the parking staff really feels that 1.12 is a reasonable number. They're also asking for a setback modification portions of the front of the building will be five feet or more from the properties line as opposed to the minimum required 10 feet. And the reason that they're asking for this is that once they dedicate that portion in the front of the building to the, to for the transit way, a few places of the property will be a bit smaller than other areas. Again, staff is supportive of this. As you can see here in this cross section, once it's that billed out for the transit way, they will have a 13-foot path plus a 10-foot planting buffer in addition to that minimum five feet. So there is still substantial space between the building, the path, this planting strip, and then the drive lanes. They're also requesting an encroachment of 35 square feet for a portion of stairs to be in the right of way. You can see that at the top of the screen where it's highlighted in yellow and identified as B1. And that is for stairs to access the building off of the drive court. Staff is again supportive of that as it is a very small portion of the sidewalk that it encourages into. It will not impede any type of vehicular or pedestrian access and as you needed for the main entrance of the building. So the architecture of the building is that it is a six-story building, although there are in the middle of the project, there are four dormers that you can see, and those are kind of a loft-style apartment. That was added to add a little bit of height to differentiation between the three kind of sections of the buildings. The applicant approached the building as really three individual units. The first, which we've referred to as A, is the green metal basket weave portion that you see. The next, the middle area B with the dormers, again, trying to play a little bit with height there. And then see is at the end. And that has a bit more of an industrial feel. This went before the Barregard Design Advisory Committee four times in an official meeting. And once for a walking tour of the community. And again, you have an attached letter from the committee recommending approval of the building. There also is a minority report that was included by three of the members that voted to not recommend approval and that also is an attachment number two that was with the staff report. Excuse me. The applicant did make a number of changes throughout the process when they went before BEDAC. They removed all balconies from the rear of the building. They agreed to increase the amount of the denseness of the landscaping for that 30-foot buffer. They did not change the location of the garage entrance, which was at one point requested. However, did work closely, again, with staff and with BDAC to come up with creative solutions to decrease the impacts that that drive court area would have on the residents behind. The loading dock also is set 16 feet back from the front, from the face of the building, again, to encourage less impact on the community members that live nearby. And then also have mentioned the increased landscaping and the fence that's near the drive court. So the highlights and benefits of the project, we are expecting roughly 39 students distributed over all grade levels. That number is a bit higher than we might see for similar projects. However, the reason behind that is that the ratio for students expected to be in the schools is higher when you for the affordable units. And this project is providing 35 committed on-site affordable units which is more than the currently required 13 units that they wouldn't have to provide. They're meeting all of the stormwater requirements and would be reducing phosphorus by more than 35% then is currently at the site and 4% more than is required. Again we've talked about the adjacency to the Weston transit way and the new bike pad paths that they would be providing. They have extensive streetscape improvements and the 16,000 square foot dedication for the right of way and they comply with all other current city policies, the green building policy, public Art, bike share and transportation management plans. And this is to highlight the meetings in addition to BDAC that the community was able to attend. The applicant held three community meetings in March 2023 2023 and then to one in 2024, and then another in 2025. This also went before the federation, and AHAC did recommend approval, and you have that memo attached as well. And staff is recommending approval, and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you, Ms. Cooper. Any questions from commissioners for the staff? Okay, let's move to, I'm sorry, Commissioner Brown. I was a little bit confused. I was just a little bit confused. I was just a little bit confused. I was just a little bit confused. I was just a little bit confused. I was just a little bit confused. I was just a little bit confused. I was just a little bit confused. I was just a little bit confused. I was just a little bit confused. I was just a little bit confused. I was just a little bit confused. Commissioner Brown. This is Cooper just one question. I walked this side on Sunday and I found it very helpful that all the building corners had been staked out and indicated as corners. One in particular caught my attention and that was the northwest corner of the building. because right close to that stake, there's some kind of an outflow of open water right now. And I also see on the plans that further west is going to be a sidewalk there as well. So what's the story with regard to that open waterway thing? What's going to happen there? Sure. Referring to the pond that is in between 18 and 1900. It does. No, I'm just, if you look at the diagram on the west side, facing, it's the left-hand side of the building if you're standing on a board regard. OK? And up at the far end corner and coming all the way down the side, there's an open waterway. It's not a pond. It's just, I don't know what it is. And just tell me what it is and what the impact of this construction is going to be on it. That's all I'm asking. My contrast planning and zoning. So that was a decorative pond that was installed as part of the features when the office complex had been constructed and that will be removed with this project. So it's not any kind of, it's not any kind of ongoing stream activity. Correct, we're related with our Office of Environment to Quality and unlike the pond that is in the Winkler Preserve, which serves as stormwater treatment for some of the sites there, this pond is decorative. And the, most of these buildings had been, or these buildings had all been built well before the city had the current environmental standards we have. And so all of the water will be collected and treated on site, as was required by any of our other projects. Thank you. Other questions? OK, public testimony. On my list here we have Jen Gaines, Bud Jackson and Richard Jones to be followed by Mr. Wire for the applicant. The game should be on. Right. Mr. Blaser, is she indeed available? Hey Jen, you're unm you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. But Jackson. Good evening, commissioners. Bud Jackson, Vice Chair of BDAC, also in a butter to this property. I just wanted to make a few comments first to emphasize the BDAC result on this vote. It was a four to three vote in the history of BDAC. proposal that has come before us has ever exited without a unanimous approval and recommendation. So this is the first that we've reflected the robust community input that we had on this topic. For context with this proposal, I hope that you keep in the consideration that 19, excuse me, 2000 North Bore Guard is also a part of this. The community members who came before our committee didn't do so necessarily out of a concern for just a theoretical potential adverse impact on their quality of life, but it's based on their lived experience already based on what's happened at 2000 North Oregon. Regarding this proposal specifically, I was a member of the minority I should note. We had a few specific problems. One was that the application did not reflect the small area plan in terms of its planning principle regarding the reflecting the local area and the history of the area, specifically the top the topography. These buildings are going to clear cut hundreds of trees that are going to completely change the character of this portion of the north border guard. When BEDAC voted to recommend the Blake, we did so one of the thought that this was going to be an anchor to this portion of the North Borough Guard corridor. We did not do this as a license to replicate the most largest, most dense building, one block at a time going down North Borough Guard. And yet this is what's happening. And unfortunately, the impact from 2000 is now going to be replicated down to 1900. And that's why we had a lot of community concern about this. The other issue that we felt related to this is that this building does not encourage diversity uses of housing, which the bar of art small area plan also for, to encourage, you know, a range of housing types sizes for people of different economic backgrounds. The community would have helped, and I should say that the community, in this portion of the neighborhood, we have over 1,500 units, either online or coming online. The people in this community, in this area have collaborated with the developers. They are not people that are against housing and density and they've worked and they've actually supported it. So when they come out the way they did on this particular project, they can't be dismissed as people just saying, not in my backyard, I don't want all this housing. What they're saying is that this project is just too much. It's out of whack. It does not balance. What what is good for Alexandria with what is going to harm Alexandria and the residents who are currently living there. Another specific problem with this proposal that we talked about a great length of VDEC was the Mark Center drive and exit. The applicant was asked if they could change this plan to have the entrance be installed at another curb cut further down North more regard. The city said it was okay to have a curb. They would be fine with the curb cut there, but for reasons that Mr. Wire can explain, they chose not to take that recommendation from the community. Finally, I'll just add this, the modifications that were made by the applicant are welcome, but they should not be construed by planning or council later on to represent that the community is happy and supports this. What they saw was these modifications as a way to make a bad plan less worse. During the entire course of the hearings of BDAG, not one member of the community at any of the meetings, Now, one member of the community spoke out in support of this plan. So they're basically coming to us asking for help. And now the ball is in your hands and later in council. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Jackson. Your time has expired. But while I have you and acknowledging the fact that you and several of your colleagues went to the effort to share with us your concerns, you know, formal memo. I would ask you to take just another moment if you would, because I don't believe you touched on your concerns about parking. Could you take a moment and just tell us specifically what your concerns are about parking? Yes, thank you. And I saw that there was plenty of feedback on that and letters that you got. Basically, the parking situation is, and I can speak to this as a butter, we are already seeing people parking in the neighborhood because they don't wanna pay, for example, to park at Blake. We're also seeing spillover and people walking through the neighborhood because they're parking in the neighborhood. So there are concerns among people who live here about the parking situation is not being adequate. Great. Thank you. Thank you very much for speaking with us tonight. Thank you. Okay. Have we had any luck acquiring Miss Gaines? Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Please proceed. Great, okay. Thank you for your patience and thank you for the opportunity to voice my concerns tonight. I really appreciate it. While I am, it was good to see that the backpadeos or the back balconies are removed from the proposed building. If I heard that correctly, Maggie was cutting out a little bit. I am happy to hear that. And while I don't mind the bike and pedestrian path that is proposed, I do have a number of concerns, some of which but has already noted. First of all is the height of the building itself. Our townhouses are basically half that size and I'm in 25, 16, Mickey Lane. So I am right. My husband and I are literally right on that property line where the property is going to come up to. I feel like that it's just going to be a huge block to our view, to enjoying sun, to even just enjoying my paddy ago in my own property and encroaching on my just peaceful existence in my house. And I also do have environmental concerns regarding migratory birds that come through the neighborhood. And I feel that removing the trees that are already there and just causing this kind of disturbance will also disturb migratory animals that come through. And some other concerns that I have regarding the noise that we're going to have to deal with throughout construction. In addition to possible, just the vibrations of the construction and what it might do to our houses and possible foundation and also a big concern is the traffic. So as you all know, seminary is already a very highly traffic road and I feel like building another residential building like this when there's already the Blake and I believe there have already been some other buildings over the past couple of years that have come up. We'll just increase the traffic and make commuting back and forth or just running quick errands not so easy anymore. And one of the reasons my husband and I moved here is we really liked the neighborhood feel it really was quiet and Peaceful in I feel like the building, the size kind of just takes over that small space and takes away the neighborhood feel that my husband and I have really love about this area. So thank you again for the time for the opportunity to speak and to voice my concerns. I appreciate it. Thank you, Ms. Gaines. Mr. Jones. My name's Richard Jones. My kitchen window is about 20 feet from the property line separating seminary heights, condominium from Monday properties. That makes me one of 20 units, which are even closer to the property line. I think I could summarize the reasons why they vote from the board of advisory design commission was close rather than standard 100% approval. They have to do with size, noise, and morale. The apartment building that is proposed to replace the four-story office building is twice tall and will be 24-hour occupied as opposed to the office that left people with peace and quiet in the weekend. losing sight of the sky because of the height of the building. The near neighbors fear the noise of this densely populated, large building, partly based on what they've lived with now for the last two years in the Blake 2000, more regard. So finally, I'd say, on the neighborhood side of the boundary line, morale is not good. There have been individual unit owners who decided it was time to sell and go. There are people, it's a 50 year old community of. There are people who've just made their life simple by learning the bus to the Pentagon, making use of the shuttles and the metro. And they are overwhelmed by what they see now approaching. There, even on the board of the seminary kind of it, certainly Heights Condominium Association. There's one member saying we should be compensated for the decline in the property value. I think he's wrong. But that's why it wasn't unanimous FB deck. Thank you, Mr. Jones. Do we have other members of the public who have expressed an interest in commenting? Mr. Wire. So good evening again, members of the Planning Commission. Ken Wire with Wyer Gill, my colleague Megan Repulten, I represent Monday Properties. Frank Craighill, Jean Yavari, both with me. This has been a three year effort. Maggie Hood, mine going back to the slide that shows the neighborhood. I represented actually Duke Realty to go back for a little ways when they went through a barb� guard 15 years ago. This was planned as an office park. that's what Monday properties bought it for. They tried for several years and a little project on the road was approved for landmark and all of the medical office tenants are moving out and moving closer to landmark. Interestingly, in 1900, in I think it was the spring of 2021, the city gave notice they were vacating that building. They were the largest tenant and moving to the Dell pepper building. That was three years ago. At that time, Monday properties began an exercise to figure out what to do with this project. As the office market is further deteriorated, we began an entitlement process to convert it to a residential project. It took three years because during that effort, the Alexandria West Plan, if you will, stood up and started. started. And being a long-overgar corridor, the city took an 18-month planning process that planned this project that would used to be 110 foot tall office buildings on a much smaller footprint into a residential corridor. What we're missing here, because you approved it a few months, a few weeks, last month rather, was the CDD, I always get my time wrong on this project, it's been so long. Was a two-acre park at the corner of the project on the 16th and 1800 block. That was part of the CDD you approved last month. We are here tonight to seek approval for the 1900 building. I do want to thank all the speakers. They've been consistent all the way through. They've shown up and frankly, they are right. It is a big change to their neighborhood. I learned a long go to the community. You just tell them what you're doing and you can have a vibrant discussion about it. We've done some things in direct response to their feedback. The initial... to their neighborhood. I learned a long go to the community. You just tell them what you're doing and you can have a vibrant discussion about it. We've done some things in direct response to their feedback. The initial Alexandria West plan had Mark Center going in having a road behind the project up against their homes to say they didn't support that was an understatement. It was their feedback that pulled the road out of that project. If you can go to maybe the elevations, We also knew that that rear elevation was very tight. Monday properties knew right out of the gates, they would be judged against 2000 Beauregard. That building is 93 feet tall and 45 feet for the property line. Before we even met with staff, it's graphic on the top right, was Monday's response. We needed to do better on the feedback. I'm sorry on the setback. The feedback we got that the buffer was very thin. We agreed to condition 20, which is a landscaping condition that gives staff the pen during final site plan to plant the trees however they want to plant them in the 30-foot setback on the property line. We also went offsite in our redoing part of the buffer in front of the 2000 project as Mark centered dead ends to the townhouses. If you go out there today, those deciduous trees are pretty thin, you can see right through them. So in our entitlement, we include evergreen trees, try to enhance that buffer. There's a lot to talk about on this project. Removing of the balconies, the four different options for the Uber and Amazon drop offs, the recess sending of the multi-family, I'm sorry, of the loading dock. A lot of this has been direct response to the community feedback, but there was a master plan, there was a rezoning, and we are in compliance with those requirements. Where we're not, is because we're shoving the building all up against bovagart. You grogge from an application we're asking for, and the reduced setback is because we're up against a bovagart, not further back. Again, response to the community input. On Mark's center access, it wasn't some flipping response. We talked with staff a lot about it and had multiple iterations. The project falls 10 feet as you head from east to west. So to put the project, a loading dock on the opposite side of the building would be below grade for the main floor of the building. And that just didn't work for the project. But in response to the community, we had double layers of screening. We have a screening for the courtyard with a row of landscaping and a fence. And then we begin our 67 foot setback. For parking, the Blake is 95% least, which in our world is a fully least office building. There's always, excuse me, residential building. There's always turnover. But it's 85% parking utilization. That building's parked at 1.4 spaces per unit and it's used at just about one space per unit. We showed that data with staff on the proposal before you tonight we are parking at 1.12 spaces per unit which is a 12% buffer. The worst thing a developer can do is build things no one uses so we want to get people those parking. You don't want to over build and you don't want to under build. But there was a method to the madness and there was a direct example next door. And of course, we are on the BRT corridor. The city has expended significant efforts to make it a BRT rapid transit right in front of our building. As Ms. Cooper mentioned, our parking would be even less once that project goes forward and this project's dedicating 16,000 square feet. But early on Monday, Properties acknowledged this has been a tough project. The three years made it very clear to them. So as our team met and talked about the entire public benefits package, as Miss Cooper acknowledged, the only required affordable housing here is 13 units. I have not seen a developer say how about we nearly times three that and we get to 10% of the project. That is a strong all the cards on the table to use that unfortunate analogy depending upon your point of view today on the table to help this project get forward. It's a strong proposal. It's 35 affordable units. It'll be a mix of units throughout the building just like the market rate units. So what I want to leave you with I'm happy to talk about any specific project but we comply with the master plan we comply with this the zoning, and where we don't, it's in response to pushing the building up against Beauregard. And I'm happy to answer any questions. There's a lot to talk about here, but I'll end my testimony at that point. Thank you, Mr. Warram. Any commissioner questions from Mr. Warram? Any other last requests to testify from the public? No other speakers. Okay. In last comment, we have no disagreement on staff conditions, so we can hopefully make that a little... We are in full agreement with staff on all 152 conditions. Well, I'm glad to remember to sort of thank you. Thank you, then. I think we should go ahead and entertain. I move to close public hearing. That's what we're looking for a second. Second. Second from Commissioner Manor. All those in favor? Hi. Hi. Hi. Motion to close the public hearing passes 7-0. OK. If I could just take an opportunity to check in with staff about a couple of issues that came up in the testimony. The first is parking, which we've discussed a lot and you made a presentation about that. I guess my question that comes out of what we heard goes more specifically to the concerns about parking in the neighborhood. And references that the neighborhood is not convinced that the Blake has been a positive impact for them in some of these issues. So how can you all characterize the reality of parking in the neighborhood that's a function of the Blake or that you would anticipate from this. Is it a problem from your perspective? Have you found a way to actually quantify that and how did you factor that concern into the overall judgment about the parking part of the proposal? Sure. So I think one thing that's also important to recognize is that when we talk about the community or the neighborhood There's kind of two separate types of there's private and public streets in this area So all of the streets within the seminary heights and seminary park neighborhoods are all private and so They're not overseen by the city police don't go in and write tickets. But seminary heights and seminary park HOAs can have those cars towed. Because there's no legal parking for anyone outside of those communities that is allowed on their streets. That being said, there are a number of other streets that are north of the property. And there is a walking path just off of Stevens that is, connects to the 1800 Northboro Guard property just to the west. And so that has something that came up with the idea of, or the concern I should say, that people are going to be parking down Stevens and then several blocks up on the public streets that do have varied types of restricted parking for residents of Alexandria. And so that walking path while generally appreciated by the community did come up as a concern that people would park up Stevens and then walk over to 1900 North folks. And is there, do you all have evidence that there is any kind of a current issue in the neighborhood from folks who live at the Blake? I can't say that we have evidence that people are going from the neighborhood to the Blake. I know that community members have said that they have seen that. Thank you. Another issue that came up was in Oyes, and I have a similar sort of perspective on that. Are there, and the observation was made that, that was a problem relative to the, the plague. And as we've mentioned here in several cases, the plague is an existing building by the same applicant and owner and has been there for a while and has a reality test for a lot of the assumptions here. So I hadn't previously been focused much on the question of noise, but it came up tonight. Have there been noise complaints generated in the adjacent neighborhood? Do you have you all made any kind of a judgment about? Whether that is or isn't a problem for the neighbors of the bleak? So I think it's a similar answer to before in that we have not the city has not received a Lot of noise complaints However the community says that there is a noise problem at times Thank you But you can't All up question I'm sorry we didn't hear that completely but I will say that we have closed the public hearing portion. No, this is. I was in Melissa. I'm sorry. That was really garbled. Yeah, please go ahead, Chair. Sorry, I just wanted to ask a follow-up question, because my understanding of the proposal in the community input process was that 1900 North Borough Guard, the proposal before us tonight, did alter its design on the backside of the property to remove proposed balconies, I believe it was, because the noise complaints that they were aware of and again, in the conversations that have been happening with the community relate to noise from the balconies. So I guess the clarification I'd like from either the applicant or staff is that the source of the noise issue? Is there some other source of noise issue? And what is the sense that the design of 1900 is mitigating that based on feedback. Hi, I can try to say I can take the first part of that question. There was also concern about noise when the 2000 North Boergaard, the project that became the Blake came forward and the applicant team removed all of the balconies proposed on the back of the blank at the request of the community, those were all removed. There are some built-in balconies that are on the corners, but otherwise there are no balconies back there. Primarily people are saying that there is, some of it is noise that is coming from, there was an anecdotal story about someone who was having a party one evening and had their door open and that it was very loud. There was music coming from the open apartment door. There are also anecdotal stories we've heard from the community that there is noise in the parking lot, which is immediately adjacent where the 1900 Northville regard project will be constructed. So it's some noise on the weekends, it's some ambient resident noise. That is something that we've talked about with them. The city does have our numbers that can be called for noise complaints. The applicant also noted that if there was noise that is loud enough to be impacting the townhouses behind, it is also would be a problem for their residents and their building and they can speak a little bit more to that if they so choose. Does that answer your question, Chair McMahon? Yeah, that's good. Do you have any other questions for staff while you're? Mr. Brown. Ms. Cooper, I would direct your attention to the Open Space discussion on page 13 of the staff report. It says that the staff evaluated the open space requirement under the Beauregard SAP and the CDD conditions that were in place when the applicant first submitted their completion application. So it was evaluated at 15% instead of 25%. That's correct. My question is, was this a discretionary call on your part, or were you statutorily required to use the smaller number? Where does that come from? That comes from when we deem a project, when they're at their preliminary plan phase. That's when they invest into what the plan and there's any requirements are at that time. Can you provide me any statutory citation for that? Not off the top of my head, I can't, I can't. Is there, I don't need the number, I just need to know whether or not your actions are controlled by statute or some other practice. They're controlled by statute in terms of when a plan locks in the regulations that they're being considered under. This kind of interrelates in a sense with the fact that a project is being evaluated under standards that changed when the master plan changed in the process of evaluating the application. Does this in any way conflict with our policy with regard to evaluating not evaluating plans or in the midst of a master plan change? This is one of the arts of development review where we have ongoing market forces and applications occurring and our practice is to basically put on hold projects and have them wait for Smaria plans to be completed in order to update the vision for the neighborhood. In this case, as the applicant has stated, the Smaria plan was going on and then Council even extended that timeline a bit further last fall. And we had been in the process with this applicant for quite a long time. And so we were trying to make sure that we kept them progressing according to their rights while the Samaria plan was doing its thing at the same time. And so we had to make a series of decisions in order to keep those different interests in balance, I'll say, as we were going along. And so that's why you have a bit of an economy here of we're looking at the former regulations, the old Smaria plan and the design guidelines and the open space requirements, et cetera, because they had advanced to such a state that we had to keep the process going for the application. However, we were also trying to look forward to the Smarrie Plan, the Alex West Plan, and embody, I'll say, the spirit of those regulations. And so that's why Maggie was trying to do a good job showing. What did you get under the old plan, but what do you also, you know, how is it meeting today as expectations? So when a plan is evaluated for master plan consistency and the master plan itself changes in the middle of the plan evaluation process, what is it that the plan is supposed to be consistent with whenever they file their preliminary plan? That's the legal filing It's what that's the legal filing the preliminary plan all right and I understand that line. Thank you Other questions for staff. Okay, well, then let's move on to the merits of the case. Does anyone have observations about how we should proceed with this application and or is anyone interested in putting motion on the floor for discussion. I'm happy to just kick off the discussion with a couple of comments based upon my observations on the site on Sunday. The concerns expressed by residents, particularly in the town home, in the town homes, just north of the property. My experience with similar concerns expressed when we were evaluating the Blake project and in light of the changes in the master plan. I feel that the concerns of the citizens are legitimate, particularly with regard to loss of privacy, loss of natural light and open space, which is kind of why I was asking about the choice to go with the 15 instead of the 25. Comparing the setback on the Blake, what the setback on this building, the setback is larger. It's 67 feet to the property line. Although the building itself is 85 feet, so that's not even a one-to-one setback. I was less concerned about the even smaller setback on the Blake because when you look on the ground at the impact on the town homes there, those impacts are impacting the end of the units. The units are almost at right angles to the property line between the two properties. On the other hand here, at 1900 North Borough Guard, these either the backs or the fronts of these townhomes directly face and their windows directly face this building. And it's going to be a tall and massive building. So I am not that enthusiastic about this project, especially as I was able to enjoy a very gracious open space that surrounds the existing building at 1900 Beauregard that's going to be gone. I mean, I looked at those building corners and I was able to see that building. As I was able to enjoy a very gracious open space that surrounds the existing building at 1900 Boergard that's going to be gone. I mean, I looked at those building corners around this property and everywhere I looked, building was right up there near the end. I don't like the idea of internal, ground open space counting. To me, that's part of the building that shouldn't count as open space for since it's not publicly accessible. I'm not saying that as a matter of legal interpretation, but just in terms of the overall impression of what this building is going to do to an existing longstanding neighborhood area. I understand why the citizens are disappointed at this rather aggressive approach to the open space process and concerns about privacy. But frankly, I don't really see enough there in the way of noncompliance with either the master plan or the zoning ordinance to say no. So I kind of, I'm kind of a reluctant yes at the moment reluctant yes at the moment although I'm open to hearing others other comments. Thank you Commissioner Brown, other observations. Chair McMahon, do you have thoughts to share on the merits of the project itself? Sure. Thank you, Vice Chair Kennedy. I find the project highly consistent with the recently adopted small area plan. So I do want to just preface details. And I'll talk a little bit about some of the community concerns that were raised and my thoughts about it those individual concerns but on the whole. I think it's really important that that planning commission acknowledge that this hearing acknowledged at least my opinion that that this building proposal. is within the intent of the focus areas of development and the intended change for the small area plan. And I know that one of the comments that was shared as this, what did someone call it, the minority report, the Scenting Opinion on the Design Advisory Committee, being concerned that this wasn't fulfilling the sense of multiple types of housing options. However, it's not uncommon that a single project doesn't fulfill multiple housing options. And the fact that this project is putting apartments along the transit corridor and along the area and within within the areas of the small area plan that were intended for higher density development, it makes sense that that's what would go here. And there are other parts of the small area plan that have different expectations of their evolution over the course of the life of that plan. And I think that that robust community process went through a lot of the details around transitions and places to focus development, places not to focus development, protection of existing neighborhoods and so on and so forth. So I think in its location and in its overall nature, it's consistent. Now that doesn't diminish the concerns that community members have raised in terms of how it makes them feel, what their fears are. I not only acknowledge them, but I empathize. I live in a townhouse with a little bitty backyard that had a 10 story building go up really close to it, you know, over the past decade that I live there. And that was a big transition and adjustment for my neighbors. However, I can also say that I and my neighbors didn't give up on our homes and it didn't diminish the property values of our homes. And while it was it was something that we needed to get used to and frankly we still we are now neighbors with many more people who live in the neighborhood. And as neighborhoods change, we have to get to know one another and we have to develop new relationships and communication, lines of communication, and learn how to work together to continue to live harmoniously. And with as with any neighborhood change, I think that's going to be true here. And there are going to be changes that are sub-optimal for the existing homeowners in the townhomes that are right behind this property. And then there might be things that come out of the evolution of the Adams neighborhood piece here that become really amazing benefits that really wouldn't come to fruition if it weren't for the kind of intensity that's being provided for right on North Borough or, for instance, the dedicated, the dedicated, what isn't that 67-foot buffer is essentially dedicated green space and bike space in a connection that will eventually go over to a park and an expansion of open space, right beside this property. And all of that has to be provided that publicly accessible open space, that land dedication, that eventual park development that I think might even include a play field or something at some point. All of those become amenities that the community gets to use and benefit from. It's just hard to envision what it looks like when it doesn't exist yet. So you kind of only have what you have in front of you and then you have the the scary stuff of what what comes in the future that you don't really know. I, some of the other concerns that were expressed, there were complaints, let's see, concerns about privacy. I'm gonna group a few here, privacy, light and air, and noise. Noise comes to us a lot on the planning commission from everything from small little restaurant things without the receding kind of stuff to big projects like this. Obviously bringing a lot of new community members into your neighborhood is going to change the noise dynamic. If there's noise coming from the parking lot today because maybe people are are parking there to hang out with each other, not quite sure that that certainly would go away. If there's noise coming from open doors, open windows, music being played too loudly because someone's having a birthday party in their house and or in their apartment. And because of the apartment's high up, maybe it's conveying out. I think those are examples of things where those strong lines of communication between the home owners' associations and the building are critical. And in reality, in my history of living in a small town home community next to a large building, we've had many more noise challenges with our own townhome neighbors than we have with the big building. But that doesn't mean they don't happen. So it's again, it's going to be more of an operational thing that has to be adapted to and to have those good relationships that can hopefully result in better management of the situation. With regards to construction impacts, those two are very typical of abutting properties when a property is going to go under construction. They're temporary and they're disruptive. So I'm not going to even insured with that. But but they are necessary for the future and then the years down the road and the future the construction impacts are old news. But it does take getting through and there will be a period of time when the buildings under construction when the Haways are going to want to be really in close coordination with that, basically construction manager liaison at the meetings, sending them text messages, let the construction manager know if the construction workers are doing something that they're not supposed to be doing like parking on neighborhood streets. That's all stuff that is best managed with those open lines of communication and also put the zoning inspectors in your speed dial because you'll need them there too. But again, it's one of those necessary evils getting through a construction period to have a big change in your neighborhood. And I do feel like I need to speak to the parking concern. I have two minds about it. I recognize that there are probably people parking on neighborhood streets that maybe don't live right on those neighborhood streets and they may be coming from the lake today. They may be coming from somewhere else. We saw we we got many comments about that and they and they described different scenarios. I also want to emphasize I feel very strongly and the data backs me up. that building more parking will not solve that problem. So building more parking in this building will not solve that problem. The fact that the Blake has excess parking that it's not using doesn't solve that problem. There were community member comments that specifically said that the parking should be free in the buildings and that would solve the problem. It may it may not it's hard it's really hard to tell. But I can tell you that there's also no such thing as free parking. in communities that provide abundant free parking. They get neighbors. parking. In communities that provide abundant free parking, they get neighborhoods that are not as nice as Alexandria. There's no place in our development process where ensuring abundant free parking will ensure we get the best community. And in fact, it's the opposite. Parking has many costs associated with it, not least the cost to the development process that makes it harder for us to get people and homes and businesses in. If you have to pay to build parking, you're specifically not building something else. But the more parking you build and the more free, quote unquote, you make it, the more driving you incentivize. The decision to have three cars in your household instead of two cars in your household or two instead of one based on your needs. And all of those decisions lead to traffic on the streets and lead to more dangerous walking and biking experiences on the streets. So, thematically, Borough Guard is designed to be a trans-a-cordor. And in the small area plan, the vision for this corridor is to ensure that there is a combination of infrastructure and density to allow this to be a successful place where you can choose to not drive and you can choose to not have two cars and maybe you only have one car. And again, this will be a disconnect between maybe what people see on the ground today and what people will see in the future. But that future is coming and the city is investing in it. An earlier docket item we had tonight was our capital improvement plan, consistency finding, and it takes time, but it also means each piece has to contribute. We can't build an abundance of free parking around a transit corridor and expect it to be used. We have to do all of these things in concert with one another. And when we do that, regional data has shown that you can increase population and you can increase jobs and you can keep vehicle volumes on the streets at the same level or lower over time when you provide good public transit access and safer options to walk or bike to get around to your destinations. So those are all pieces that come into play when we ask ourselves if there's enough parking at this site. I think there's enough in this proposal but I also want to say I really like to see the city collaborating with the community members, particularly those that don't have direct control over the streets. If the H O A zone, the streets and they can tow to the heart's content, that's relatively easy to arrange perhaps, but the neighborhood streets that don't have that control, I think the city should really be working with them to talk about other management options. Alexandria does have a residential permit parking program. These streets may not be participating yet, or maybe not all of them. But we should be ensuring that they have the tools that go with the vision. So if the vision is encouraging households with fewer cars to live in these buildings, we should be doing the things that we need to do as a city to help the neighborhood streets discourage them from storing extra cars all over the place. So I think that those are two, they're separate things because again, supply is not going to solve it at the site level, but it does not diminish the fact that the city has tools and community members should be educated on them and engaged on them to see if we can implement more of those tools. Yeah, and in summary, I'm in support of the application. I think it is consistent with the vision of the community. I don't have strong feelings about the architecture. And I think anyone who knows my testimony on cases over the years knows that I pride to defer to both other commissioners of more architectural knowledge than I do, as well as in this case instances in the city where we do have design advisory bodies that make those decisions and that deliberate on those issues. So I'm thankful for that input. And while it appears that it was not one of those unanimous votes, we have those two right, Planning commission doesn't always have unanimous votes, but ultimately the process of deliberation is what helps the community know how people take in, what's at stake and what they ultimately choose to do with that information. So I think this project puts a lot of important pieces together. It makes as much benefit as possible on the site, including the fact that it has to dedicate space, that it can't count towards its open space allocation. And I think this is part of the network of, it's not just a building. This is, these are community members. We're building a network of community members who are going to be inspired to use the transit service on this street who are going to be inspired to use the open spaces that develop down the road here and that are going to become the neighbors of the existing residents here in the community. I think it's going to be good. And I think that the applicant has done a lot of creative design tweaking to minimize the impact, such as those on the Mark Center Drive access to really mitigate some of the issues that folks have seen and talked about over the course of this project's development. Thank you, Chair McMahon. So I have a couple of quick observations, hopefully quick. I'm not known for that, but I'll do my best. I do find this project completely consistent with the intentions and the goals of the community as expressed in the new Alex West Small Area Plan. I do find the overall design of the project to be thoughtful and creative. And that's not just the aesthetics of the project, but there are a lot of complex pieces to making the massing of a project like this work. The architecture itself operates and still respect all of the constraints imposed by the regulatory process. And in this case, what I think is a both a well-intentioned and serious and successful effort on the part of the applicant to modify the design to the greatest extent possible within the realm of what's otherwise allowable on the site to accommodate the concerns to the greatest extent possible within the realm of what's otherwise allowable on the site to accommodate the concerns of the neighbors about proximity and height and lines of sight. It is as everyone is recognized still a big building and it replaces a couple of smaller office buildings set in a park like setting. And that existing reality is simply not something that's envisioned to continue under the plan and not something that the applicant is required to replicate. So I think within the constraints of what's allowable under the regulations and encouraged under the plan. This is really a very thoughtful and creative solution. On the mobility and parking, I will just concur with the chairs elucidation of those issues, which as usual I find to be really incredibly perceptive about how all of the different pieces of mobility and parking work together and how important it is that we think about that as a continuum of interlocking decisions and how critical it is that we not focus on number of spaces per unit to the exclusion of all else and acknowledge that in this case that particular metric is based on actual data from a similar project that's up in operating next door and reinforces the idea that the proposed parking level here is well tuned to both market reality from the applicant's point of view of satisfying tenants. And our desire to integrate the automobile in a comprehensive network of ways to move around and not let it continue to dominate as it has for the last century or so. Two last points. One is to acknowledge the fact that this project has indeed gotten enmeshed in that transition of small area plans at the community level and return a little bit to the dialogue earlier between Mr. Kerns and Commissioner Brown about how the open space played out. And from my perspective, I think that was handled as almost as well as it possibly could be. I respect the applicants willingness to acknowledge that their timeline was being slowed down by virtue of the fact that they development of the development of the development of the development of the development of the development of the development of the development of the development of the development of the development of the development of the development of the development of the development of the best way to respect the rights of the applicant to an orderly and predictable entitlements process. At the same time, we did our very best to make sure that this project would contribute as much as it possibly could to the intentions of the new plan when it was put in place. So I personally think that the artfulness with which that was done was both had fidelity to the requirements of the process and respect for the applicant's needs. And I'm glad that that all worked out. And another indication of that from my point of view is the very extensive discussion that we had last month at the approval of the CDD for this project. And it's an indication of the fact that I think the applicant has actually made a contribution to the development and the implementation of the plan by having not necessarily voluntarily had their project in meshed as a kind of living example of how this plan would play out as well as how it would play out as a DSRP that they had put in a long time ago. So that exploration of how the open space would work, how the 25% versus the 15% would work, acknowledging the reality that this property is already making a contribution to the defined in the plan public open space, which is actually coming off of their property to contribute to the park that the parks that Commissioner McMahon mentioned will be coming down the road as well as having enough open space to help make a really effective buffer for a building of this scale against a smaller scale neighborhood. And the last point I would make is just to acknowledge the affordable housing element. And correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding of this scenario. the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the applicant is coming forward to commit to that previous level of affordable unit production, even though their actual requirement to do so has actually been reduced a bit. So with that, I would say that I'm very much in support of this application as the staff has recommended it, and would look for other observations from other commissioners or someone coming forward with a motion at this point. I'll make a motion to recommend approval of the application. And it's point that would. And that would I understand correctly that that motion would be a recommendation to approve The DSUP, but not the encroachment which I think we have to deal with separately Okay, and there was a second by Commissioner Further discussion of the motion All those in favor? I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I Manor to recommend approval over the encroachment as proposed by the staff report. Additional discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 7-0. And I believe we are complete with docket item 7. Thank you all. Okay, so on to other business. Oh, docket item 8, which is commissioners, reports, comments and questions. Does anyone have a report, a comment or a question? Okay, I have two real quick if I could. One is from the George Mason Elementary School Supervisors Advisory Team to just take note that the DSUP for that project is on our our docket from May. So next month we will be looking at that. And the material in its entirety is already posted on the preliminary docket. So if you're interested in getting a look at a really very fascinating project and a very complete and informative proposal, you can do that anytime. And the second is to take note that this is from the perspective of the green building policy advisory group. That there is a meeting convened of that group for this Friday. I see the climate action officer free to steal in the room, and he's free if he wants to to jump up here and give us a preview or any observations he might want to share. Oh, he's actually taken me up on it, that's grand. Yeah, we will be presenting to the advisory group on Friday, our proposed screen building policy, and then it'll open for public comment on next week. And that's a 30 minute public. I'm sorry, perhaps a 30 day. That would be great, but we'll do 30. I'm just trying to speed up the timeline. 30 day public comment period. Yeah, we'll do a 30 day comment period. And then the time frame between the closing of that comment period and when we would find it on our docket would be something like? The Green Building policy won't necessarily come to the Planning Commission for approval because it is city policy so it's not, it'll go to Council for approval. We can come during the public comment period if the Commission wishes to hear about it and make an endorsement or not, but it doesn't need it to come to the planning commission as part of the process. Okay. Well, actually, now I'm getting a little bit of deja vu from some of our previous advisory group meetings, but I'd be happy to have Chair McMahon weigh on on this. And this is just a report, so it's not a consideration in most of it's more, but I will just take note of the fact that when the green building policy was updated in 2019, it did indeed come onto our docket and the Planning Commission did indeed make a formal recommendation to City Council and my personal single commissioner perspective would be that that was a process that served us well and Also a single commissioner perspective would be that the planning commission has had an investment in the evolution of the green building policy for quite a while So I understand that the more the more direct channel of input and approval might be to the environmental policy commission and I respect that But I would just put out there that I as an individual commissioner would be interested in seeing that policy in some fashion that we would have an opportunity to weigh in on it before it went to council. And I realize that's not for you to say tonight, but I appreciate. If we are invited by the chairs of either of of those commissions We would most likely accept that offer. That's great. Thank you, Mr. Frida. I really appreciate the You made the mistake of being in the room, but I It's kind of you to give us an update so and also while we're on that I would ask a chair McMahon both whether she has a perspective on any of that. And also that I think earlier in the hearing, you mentioned that at reports and comments, it might be something we'd want to touch on the status of the Green Billing Policy. Yes, thank you. I feel similarly interested in our ability to weigh in on what we think about the Green Billing Policy. And I do remember sort of hearing about this, you know, does the Planning Commission need to see it before Council type of thing? other staff call it a formal requirement or not, it seems that staff is fully willing to be with us and to present the information and we can, I would argue, do what we want with it. So we can, we can pat them on the back and say everything sounds good or if everything doesn't sound good, we can make note of that in either way. We could still address a letter to council with our opinions. Wow, this internet's doing weird things with my screen. So I think we can work around that. Procedure, really speaking, I guess, is how I would look at it. I'm interested in other commissioners viewpoints on that. Also, sorry, staff are sharing like a double screen of me. And so it's going into like mirror mode, because it's showing like a screen of me, a screen of me, on a screen of me, just so you know, that's like what I can see on the side. The other piece I wanted to raise is that because we have worked in concert with the Environmental Policy Commission to discuss and to, in at least to maybe more cases, right letters jointly to council with regard to this issue. Another thing for us to talk about is timeline on this and whether we want to have a set aside time to sit with the Environmental Policy Commission or shopping what we hear during the public comment period so that when staff actually come to our hearing and present the item, we can have taken that sort of work session into account. I'm just not clear exactly on the timing and how much time we have to achieve those things. So interested in other commissioners, viewpoints on. If we want to prioritize that coordination, if we want to make sure we make the time and from the staff side when, so it sounds like if the meeting that's happening this Friday kicks off a 30 day period, we don't have a lot of time within the public comment period itself to convene with the Environmental Policy Commission and then also convene ourselves. So, interested in some feedback on those ideas. And then I'll mention the last thing after that, Steve, about the... Well, maybe I can mention it now. The thing I wanted to loop back on was just that, tonight was the first time I really put two and two together with this idea that the solar panels on roofs might need an exception to a high limit, especially if they're being installed retroactively on fire approved buildings. And I think that's a really interesting concept. And I don't know if the draft green building policy today really reflects a statement on that. But I think it would be really smart of us if doing. So that's what we're doing. So that's what we're doing. So that's what we're doing. So that's what we're doing. So that's what we're doing. So that's what we're doing. So that's what we're doing. against which we don't count the height is something that was of interest to me out of that conversation. Thank you, Chair McMahon. Any observations in response to her comment? I would give behind her on that, I guess you would call it change in building code to allow for height, for solar installation. I just think that would make a lot of sense. We would follow the city's eco goals. I think it's more of a zoning change than a code change. I think my very and completely informed take on it is that the height issue would be zoning but some of these other issues that have come up about simultaneous of TV arrays with human occupied space or particular types of mechanical equipment have been presented by applicants as unresolvable in building code review as well. So I think we have issues on the design. We haven't checked into it and it's never really been followed up. But if there are, it's never been either debunked or identified what the problem is. I think there are chase and jurisdictions that have handled this that we could talk to. Right, I was certainly, that's been sort of my point for a while. So, well, let's go if the consensus is, and if I remember the comments both from Mr. Frieden, Mr. Smith earlier tonight, this is an issue that's already on your radar as it was and will be, I mean the benefits of your thinking on that too, right? Yeah, I think we have an option to resolve any of the concerns about what happens if solar panels are invisible. Thank you. Okay, any other reports come answer questions of any sort from any one. Okay. Remaining item is the minutes from the March 4th, 2025 Planning Commission meeting. As everyone had a chance to review them and does anyone have observations or adjustments they'd like to suggest? I move approval. A motion to approve by Commissioner Brown and a second by Commissioner Dubé any other discussion of the minutes I'm sorry And if there aren't further comments on that all those in favor of approving the minutes from March 4. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. The minutes are approved to 7-0. And I think at this point, we could entertain a motion from literally anyone who was interested to adjourn the meeting. So moved. And second. And a Second from Commissioner DuBets. All those in favor? Aye. Okay. And opposed. One more 7-0. Thank you all very much. See you next month. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.