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I'm going to go to the other All right, let us call the Wednesday to December 4th, 2024, Planning Commission meeting to order. Mr. Tran, will you call a row please? Yep. Mr. Duncan. Here? Mr. Fraizelnder? Here. Mr. Crasner? Here. Mr. Pointes? Here. Mr. Coma? Here. Mr. Stevens? Here. And Mr. Hyra? Here. Thank you. We have Corm. Okay. We. And Mr. Hyra. Thank you. We have Corm. We're all here. So we'll go ahead and adopt the agenda. Again, it's a straightforward agenda. We have one action item on the love sculpture design and a couple of work session items. Do we have a motion to approve the agenda? Second. Second. Second. Second. Mr. Duncan. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay, we have no speaker series. Mr. Teran, we have any petitions written or otherwise? No, Mr. Chair, neither. Okay. Anybody here to speak on any items on the action items on the agenda? Or on the non-action items. Again, the work session items, okay. So then let's keep moving on to the action items then. Item six, A is the love sculpture design. Mr. Fuller, anything is there with you? Good evening, thank you. Tonight, the planning Commission is requested to review and recommend one of the four proposed love sculptures to be permanently displayed in the city. The Planning Commission is further requested to provide feedback on the location of where it is to be installed. And so this is pursuant to the city charter. The Planning Commission is required to make recommendations to council on the design and location of statuary and other works of art that become the property of the city. The charter does not include any standard evaluation criteria but does talk about the role of the planning commission. So the staff report tonight outlines some criteria that was developed and recommendations. And so I'll turn that over to Cindy Mester and she will present this item tonight. Thank you. Good evening, Chair and commissioners. I'm glad to be back. It is on a different topic because I'm usually here for the CIP, but where a lot, Caitlin has stepped up and I know you had a great work session with her on that. I had the opportunity to be sort of the city's champion for working on the 75th anniversary celebration, which we officially ended at Fall Festival this September. So we're now working on our 76. But there were several wonderful art projects and community work that was still unveiling. And so one of those is before you this evening. I do want to acknowledge that Mary Catherine Chase is in the audience this evening to part, she's a partner with me on this and she'll join me in any questions that you may have. She is the new communications director about to hit six months. And so it was a nice opportunity for her also to be here with the commissioners so we are Working as I said on several Sort of art initiatives that will be permanent remembrances of our 75th as we move forward All designed to honor the past the president the future Council recently awarded to artists contracts to add to new chamber art that will hopefully in two and a half months be unveiled in chambers. One will be honoring Carol DeLong as a first woman to serve as mayor and on council and also Mr. Foot who was the first constable and first council member of color that served. And so both were selected to be honoring democracy and good governance. We're also working on, we actually have almost finalized the welcome sign which you may have seen as you came into city hall today was just installed they're coming back on Thursday to do some final work and that is honoring inclusion and diversity and welcoming people to the center of democracy this hub where you all are sitting in part of that process And we have 18 languages that say welcome. I just sent out before this evening to the city clerk a invitation that will be coming out to all boards and commissions including you all. So as a save-the-day held heads up for Monday at 6.45 short notice but we just were able to know that we were going to get the sign done. We're going to officially unveil it, although you got the preview tonight. So we would welcome you all joining us, hopefully a relatively warm half hour outside and then the final council meeting of the year. But this evening I am here for the third item which is the love sculpture. So this is one of the third items that was in Council's work plan and came up from the 75th anniversary stakeholder working group. And Mr. Fuller gave you a good overview. I would like to walk through some of the details and the criteria in particular. You will notice that I do have two motions put before you in the staff report. One is the recommendation from the Arts and Humanities Council, and we'll talk about what the recommendation is as why, but I put an alternative out there because there are four designs that met the criteria that were reviewed. And so all are presented in the staff report with the motion from staff and the Arts Humanities Council being one specific one. So as noted, this is before the Planning Commission pursuant to the City Charter. We do have in the complaint, as you know, a focus on public art. And from that, we have established administrative procedures that's now going through the Arts and Humanities Council to make recommendations on public art. However, the city charter specifically calls out as we've included in the staff report a role for the Planning Commission on Design and Location for public Art and Art on Public Property. So that's why we're here before you. I do think the charter language is a good one because you all have a role in the site plan and the part of City Hall campus. It did proceed the comp plan chapter on arts and our administrative procedures so we kind of blended the together to go through them first, then to you, and then to council. So for a little bit of background looking at line, starting at line 20, of course love is quite a predominant thing in Virginia because they built that off on the sculptures for tourism and it has proven to be quite a good draw and a gathering place in a synergy for community, great photo ops, et cetera. So that's why that was chosen for us. We've included the website there so you can see the many variations that are out there. This was funded, as you can see, on line 25 as part of the Council's funding for the 75th. In order to, since the Chamber art and the welcome sign was really a community-based initiative with a lot of community input, we wanted to have something that the employees can embrace as part of their role in the 75th. So for this, we did a call for art and the attachment number one shows you the call for arts that went out to the employees. We had great enthusiasm and buy-in from the community. So it was really great to see the positive morale that came out from that. Looking at line 33, you can see the criteria as Mr. Fuller mentioned that we put into the call for art. It was to stimulate what comes to your mind when you think about the little city and we want people to think about the history, the people, our community, the events and any combination of that or they could come up with something else, but kind of gave them a framework. We needed to utilize the template and fill in the traditional love letters and that is also as an attachment that you can see. We're following the Virginia Turisms font in size, but beyond that they allow you to create whatever. And in the link, if you go into that, there's a map and there's hundreds of them around the commonwealth now They're quite unique and wonderful The artists could Make each letters stand alone or they could take the Concept of the art and flow it across the letters and one of the examples in the call for R in the first page is front royal and you can see where they have the green grass and the trees in the sky and it flows across all letters so we allow for that creativity. It had to fit onto the template and they had to use the template needed to deliver a brief description so that we would know the artist's thoughts behind the design. Totally open color palette had to be original artwork suitable for all ages because it was going to be out in the community and public space with no political or religious statements. And then at the end of the day, this artwork is going to belong to the city. We wanted to be clear up front in terms of who would own and be able to use this going forward. A lot of questions, a lot of interest we received at the end of the deadline. Nine submissions were received, which was really exciting. Four of them, once we tested it, and I guess the criteria met the criteria to be able to move forward. So it was exciting and challenging to have four wonderful designs to be considered. So I want to jump down now to 68 since we've covered sort of the city charter piece. And the Arts and Humanities Council met on November 21st and had a great and robust conversation about all of the submissions and then how did they test against the criteria and it would help be a draw in a celebration for the city. And at the end of the day, they selected unanimously with one assumption, a abstention and that was only because that member arrived late and didn't hear the whole presentation, so didn't disagree with the recommendation but felt prudent for that vote. And so you can see, well, that printed out blank. The sample is online 133. So Jack, I'll make you jump just for a moment so that you can see the reflection of diversity inclusion. And that was the one that was selected by the Arts and Humanities Council. They really felt that it reflected forward thinking and aspirations and was distinct and unique from the other submissions. And what is unique about this one is the O and the center will be the vinyl wrap that would go on the metal lettering and it's reflecting of different parts of faces and these are not the final faces, this is the representation, but to capture the diversity inclusion. So it's all ages, all races, ethnicity, and so forth. And then the other letters will be reflective, so you would look at them and reflect yourself back as part of the community. It's the artist's concept there. And if I, Jack, if you wouldn't mind going back to line 80. That's those four bullet points and summarize the meaning behind the selection of that one design is the additional conditions that they wanted to have. So they wanted to make sure that wherever it's located has gravitas. It stands out and the special is not just kind of put somewhere. And we'll talk about location in the moment and then have maximum interaction aspect and that's where the reflective piece came in, be aspirational as I mentioned and then speak to diversity. I'll go through all the designs in just a moment but I wanted to go ahead and touch on location since that is a key part of the city charter for your recommendation. When we presented this to council the original staff thought was to put it out in the front of City Hall campus at the intersection of Little Falls and Park where on the site plan it calls for a future park lit or gathering place. But when they looked at that was sort of the photo overlays that I was placing it just Pelt crowded and started blocking the view shed up to City Hall that Was done in context of looking at where the new covered bike shelter will be That's also part of the site plan is approved by the planning commission So in your packet for attachment to, I included the briefing that I had just provided to council on the love sculpture talking about the location and the bike shelter because they were trying to see where the bike shelter would be. And so since that's going to be up by the flag poles, which was one of our early locations for the love sculpture, but we couldn't because that's where the bike shelter needed to be. They just felt like the area was getting really crowded since we used it also so much for farmers market and Memorial Day and fall festival and all the events. So in doing some more collaboration and thinking, we looked at the park list because I was one of the suggestions from Council's code of this code to one of the park list that's being developed with the ARPA money. But in looking at those spaces, it was really constrained. We couldn't get the ADA accessibility and one of the things you also, and I want safety not next to the, too close to the road because self-washing 10 and self-mable intersections, which would be the two kind of obvious locations can be a little not safe if you're standing by the road taking photos. We also wanted people to be able to take photos. So staff recommendation is not the park list because it just doesn't fit. Each letter is six feet tall, so taller than me, but it's on a four by four base. So once you do that times 4 it starts getting. Long enough that you need space. Staff's recommendation that we're bringing for your consideration tonight would be to put it between City Hall on the West Wing and the Cherry Hill Farmhouse but close to the City Hall location and you can see those graphics on line 114. So city hall in this photo is to your right the west ring and there's the dry vial. Then you have the lovely green but necessary utility boxes which one day we hope to have wrapped in art. And then the D.A.R. Garden. And when you look at the photo at the left, that's the entrance from the Park Avenue sidewalk. So the Park Avenue would be behind you and you're looking into the garden on the center axis aisle. And then we would put the, proposed to put the love sculpture at the end of the garden before that lovely cedar tree. And so if you could roll down to the next set of pictures, I've moved now closer to the top of the garden on the left photo, and on the right is mine, not to scale, no great camera and artwork that you would I was probably used to, me trying to place it there and using the reflective piece. So it becomes the slight elevation up, say from park and if you're at the farmer's market or some event or just going to and from it would catch your attention. The two green boxes could be some tall bushes which we actually have in similar to in the new garden which kind of anchor. So from the side angle, you would have a softening of the edges and that would be preferable especially on the farm house side. So when you're at the farm house looking out, you wouldn't just see the metal edge. It is closest to City Hall and away from the farm house purposely. So it's not when you're looking at it directly, you don't have the view shut of the historic farm house. We've separated them, but they're compatible enough because it's just near the flat grassy area now that's been done where the rental tents are for weddings and reception. So it has a natural placement that people, if they're up there for a reception, might see it and go have fun gathering with the family or the wedding party for another photo opportunity. But it allows us to think about this garden as a place. This garden has just recently been redone. It is a historic landmark in that the D.A.R. has first built it over time the city took over maintenance. The box was, had gotten disease. And now it has a nice new fresh look. And staff, we think we could really anchor the love sculpture there and maybe this becomes the love garden. And I have to say, Mary Kathmandran and I have been brainstorming and we hope pending approval today and counsel of everything lines up in fabrication that maybe we can unveil it in February. It might be a nice tie to a certain holiday that's in February. So that's sort of the location concept that staff are bringing forward to you. I have done informal talks with the forensic cherry hill, the Victorians, because they use both of those, obviously, either maintain or use the farmhouse a lot. I've talked to the Rexon Park Director and our Chair E. Hill Farmhouse coordinator and tentatively I'm on the December 11th Rexon Park advisory board meeting to brief them. Everybody that I've talked to is feeling comfortable with the placement because it's part of the center of democracy, a good anchor and celebration but it doesn't. Accents and amplifies the historic house but doesn't take away for it. So that's also why we purposely put it closer to City Hall. I will say I'm also working with our public works folks on the utilities and the undergrounding because where you, let's see, one line, one roll back up a photos if you don't mind, Jack. On the right hand photo, you can see the overhead cable communication lines coming in. We are gonna be working in the utilities with the Great Street Park Avenue, with the undergrounding there to finish the undergrounding to City Hall because that didn't happen when we renovated City Hall. But that whole grassy knoll from the green utility boxes overhead lines, two-park avenue is what we call conduit alley. I mean, everything is coming there for eyes and everything's coming through that to City Hall. So we're not going to build or do anything deep there anyway. Love's culture doesn't have any foundation. We could do some light planning. I've been talking to the arborist so we feel like it just kind of comes together as a nice concept location and then to kind of wrap up on the design piece and then look forward to conversations your recommendations if we can go back to line 133 I'm as I mentioned this is the recommendation from the Arts and Humanities Council and it was one of the four that was submitted. I did want to highlight the other three so that you would have the four that met the criteria and were considered since you have the option to recommend the design for the charter. So number two is a community word cloud and it was submitted with the concept that you could generate the words as this artist did of what capture those criteria in the meaning of the little city. And then number three is trying to capture a bright and sustainable future. And so you can see what the artist talked about having bright, vibrant colors, this optimistic, the flowers in here to be native of Virginia looking at dogwood and aster. And then capturing movement of people, so the mobility, the pieces of walkable bikeable that we've been working in the community. And so the tracks were to represent different walking devices. So a wheelchair, walking stick stick, and a bicycle. And then the fourth one is a vibrant city, and each letter was capturing the concerts in the parks, the festivals, all the restaurants, the music, and the color and the environment with the sun. And so all of them really captured from a staff perspective, what I think the community has been trying to build in the little city. So it was really exciting. But at the end of the day, and as you, I think I put in this staff report, we didn't put the employees names there, because we're small and so many people know who the employee is. So we sort of wanted it just to be assessed on the design and not the person. But all of the employees, because of course Mary and Catherine and I know who are. They were just honored to have the opportunity, even though we've updated them on what's in the staff report and whether they were selected. They were just so excited that they got to a certain point and had the opportunity. And of course, the number one person is excited but knows that it's not a done deal to we get through the public process. And so those are the designs the last single highlighted lines. 178 is the timing. We are course here with the commission tonight. If it's the will of the commission staff would welcome a recommendation tonight, but we also know that may be hard. And so if it doesn't happen, we'll adjust our timeline. But if it does happen, it would allow us to go to council on the 9th, next Monday, which is their final council meeting of the year. And if we have the design then during the winter and January, we can work on fabrication. So with that, that's an overview of the love sculpture process, the design this before you and Clioad for comments and questions and Mary Catherine will join me as needed. Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much, Mrs. Mester's. It's really interesting I always feel over my skis a little bit with some of these design in our discussions, but this is really I Think it's great. I like all these concepts I like the welcome sign out front. I looks looks quite good It's also this is an action item. So it's a public hearing Do we have anybody here who's Prepare to speak on this item Mr. Trainer. No, Mr. Chair, I've not received any slips. Anybody who wants to speak? If not, we will close the public hearing and turn over to commissioners and for questions, comments, or anything else. Again, we're looking for a recommendation here tonight. So who wants to look at us off? Mr. Stevens, you got it. Nobody else wants to jump in? I will. OK, well, first of all, it's good to be finalizing these last bits of the site plan for this location. Well, it was a 2017. And in addition to this piece of artwork, there's also the covered bike shelter, which I think is going to be around the same time frame, so I'm looking forward to that as well. I'm comfortable with the Arts and Humanity Council recommendation. I get their logic. I mean, it's a little simple, but, you know, I think it works. So I can certainly support that. I liked the change in location from the intersection of park and little falls to the location that you mentioned. When I first saw the proposal to put it at the corner, which I think was what the site plan had recommended, my initial reaction was, yeah, there's a lot of emotions that go on in City Hall and I'm sure love is amongst them but maybe not all the time. Moving it around to the location that you've proposed I think makes a lot of sense to me. So nothing profound but those are a couple of reactions that I had. Thank you. Come on. Yeah, I like this design. I really, I thought it was really clever. The reflective surfaces, the letters, and that sort of interactivity that it encourages with viewers, I think is really, really clever. And I like the idea of the people in the O, sort of like reflecting the community. So I'm definitely a fan. So Kutus, whoever the staffer was, who came up with the design, I did have a question about the location and the greenery that's in that location. I know that we used to have kind of tall shrubs there. I think those have been replaced with other plant, yeah, they were boxwoods, which were tall. So you wouldn't really be able to. I'm just curious about like are these also going to be tall in the future? Do you know kind of what the height of them is gonna be? I just wouldn't want it to be obstructed. I want it to be easily viewable and so I don't really know how that particular location plays with the height of the shubberies. Yes, so the shubberies that's there on the right, they're designed to stay low so they're not going to get more than like two to three feet. Okay. At the end of the path you see the taller sort of ankle, ankle ones. Those will get maybe another foot taller. Okay. What they are best. So it's designed to be lower, more visible, and then they're going to come back in and do planting with seasonal colors and native plants. Okay. That sounds great. That sounds great. And not lost within the, unfortunately, the box was got diseased and weren't pruned enough to stay short. Yeah. Yeah. I think it looks great. That was my only question about the location. I'll add to the shrubbery representation that Cindy provided and the other. Can you scroll to the other set of photos? So this was based on a recommendation that the Arts and Humanities Council gave. As the sculpture is intended to be viewed head on or at angles to the side. They thought that the framing from an artistic perspective with a shrubbery on the sides would help that. And then also from the perspective of you wouldn't be looking at it straight on, you'd be encouraged as someone walking through that space to look at it and interact with it in the way it's supposed to be seen. I really liked that suggestion as when Cindy and I walked that space, we also felt the need for that, so it was good to see that other citizens thought so too. That's great and actually that makes me think of another question which is the O, going to be double-sided. So the rear, the back side of the O, because we could do that, right? Like I guess, I don't know maybe not. The way is designed the backside has a brace support and so the back side don't have interactive part. I wasn't sure how it was supported. Okay I think that that was my only question and if my colleagues agree with this recommendation I'm happy to make a motion. I don't know if we need like some where-azs but I wrote a quick motion if we want to do that. So if you have any more comments anyone's here? It's really later. Thank you. I do. I agree with the decision of the counts the humanities and arts and humanities counts. I do like the reflectivity of it to kind of see yourself as part of the city and part of this whole love concept. I think it's really great. And I do like the idea of kind of book ending it with, is the intention that those green rectangles are the same type of kind of vertical shrubs? We haven't really worked with the arborist of finalism. I do think it would probably be somewhat taller just because the letters are six feet and so we're kind of blocking that perpendicular edge. But Charles wants a little bit more time to think about what the right plantings are to tie it to the garden and also acknowledge the beautiful cedar tree that's behind it. No, I think it's great and I like the idea that we're thinking about how to kind of buffer the edges of that. I'm curious about what the support colors are or what they're finished as? Like in the other pictures that I saw there, like these rebar looking things, what are they gonna be? We're still working with the fabricators because of the price I have to get three quotes in design, so we're still in that process. The main letters are steel and the base are steel. They will be powder coated to prevent rusting. So we will have some ability to select the color for that. And part of that is we needed to know what the final design is so that it complements and ties into the environment. And so, you know, and part of it is also working with the arborist and what they're going to plant can't have deep bruise because of the conduits, but you know, would we want the back green just to kind of blend in or do we want it more to match the o colors of the differences? So there will be a metal brace, it's not going to be just a plain rebar of any of the designs I've received as more of a sort of a square linear support. That's good. No, I was curious how much it had been kind of developed and thought about and also the finish of the plans or what it's sitting on to just so that it's thought about in that process. That would be a compliment cut. And then one of the things we don't have in the pictures, but we will acknowledge that you're at the City of Falls Church. There'll be a plaque there honoring the artist and whoever fabricates this so that there will be some recognition there. It would be good if it's like embedded in the base of it. It's like it's in. It would be cool. And I think the location is great because it has a lot of space to kind of circulate. So I think it's a great option. So thank you. Thank you. Mr. Duckett. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Cindy. Mayor Catherine's welcome. I like the design that's been recommended to us. I like the location. So I'm going to have pretty short remarks. The only question that I'm going to have pretty short remarks. The only question that I'm sorry if I missed this and the materials or maybe in something somebody's already said, but it's shown as sort of sitting in the grass there. For those who are mobility impaired, is this going to be something that you can roll yourself up to and get your picture taken and so forth without having to cut through the grass. Yes, so Jack if you could go to the other photos at 1.14. So if you're standing at Park Avenue, the first part of the garden is brick and already ADA accessible. The gravel that was put in there was to do it, so it was quickly done for fall festival. The good look is going to be redone with 21a and BADA compliant, because the P gravel is not. And then at the other end, so then having you go to the 121 photos down. So then when you sort of get to the 121 photos down. So then when you sort of get to the end on the right, you can see where the gravel kind of tapers off right now. So what we need to do is work the final path up to the sculpture so that it's successful. It'd probably be similar to the gravel path that's between the farmhouse and the barn on the cornbread side, corn bit inside, going around to the playground. Okay. Or is that 21a? All right, good. I'm glad that's been thought about, and it'll be an improvement made at the same time that the sculpture goes in. So I think that's all good. All right, thank you. Thank you. Other comments? Well, yeah, first of all, I mean, there's a quite history of love statues. You know, having lived in Philadelphia, I know that is kind of part of the Virginia tourism, you know, initiative so it's like the Virginia is for lovers kind of thing which is also cool. So yeah overall I mean I think it's fine. I mean some of the other designs around the Commonwealth like that were in the the link, you know we're kind of more tourism focused on like you know things that kind of symbolized those locations like were in the link, we're more tourism focused on things that symbolize those locations. The one in Port Smith was Maritime. And there was one. So it also could have been cool to have a design that showed some landmarks or things that if you were a tourist and you're trying to, because it looks like the website's based on going around and taking pictures in front of all the love statues in different locations. But there's nothing wrong with celebrating diversity in our city, which is something we have some of and we aspire to have more of. So overall, I don't have any problem with the concept and the design. But yeah, and the location seems to work. So there's going to be some kind of like some of the other ones had like a Virginia's for lovers kind of like a logo as part of it. Is that like? Well, we do not intend to have a Virginia's for lovers logo. That is really for the ones that the state does or like when we rent for watch night or the music festival. They don't require that anymore because it's so popular, they stop giving up grants. So, okay. So, they're not providing money, that's not a requirement anymore. Okay. I appreciate the comments about the tourism aspect of it. We reviewed a lot of material that the state provided and then there was recently an article that a Northern Virginia magazine did that covered far more than the state has on their site. And so that was useful. One of the things the Art and Humanity Council's chair pointed out is that this is unique in Virginia. There isn't another one that we can find that is an interactive one. And so we thought that based on what the chair said is that in itself it shows the unique nature of false church and the fact that we have a dedication to art as an expression of our values. And so I think that does tie in well. No, it doesn't showcase, you know, putting a mirror up to some of our monuments and, you know, physical spaces. But that reflective piece will make it unique from a tourism aspect. Sure. Sure. Yeah. No, it's attractive design. So yeah, no, I don't really have a problem with it. Just a comment. But otherwise, yeah, we all love the love. So. Sure. Yeah, I'll say looks good to me to agree with my commissioners comments. And given the national, some more national leaders, the way they talk about diversity and inclusivity and really glad to see the city embracing it here, clearly related to our values and the extent of it. So I think we're ready for a motion and we have a volunteer, someone who has prepared a motion. I am. I just wrote this quickly. So I don't know, Jack, you will just maybe grab this from the tape and I can email you what I wrote and I'll just read it out here. Yeah, so it's an amendment to the motion. I guess so. I mean, you have a proposed motion. So I'm just going to add make up more full-some proposed motion. Sure. Okay. Whereas the City of Falls Church seeks to produce an install of Virginia love sculpture on the City Hall campus to celebrate the city's 75th anniversary. And whereas the city's 75th anniversary. And whereas the city put out a call for employee designs that reflect what comes to mind when thinking about the little city. And whereas submission one, reflection, diversity, and inclusivity highlights the diversity of the city's residents of the City of False Church and encourages interactivity through its use of reflective steel to allow viewers to see themselves as part of the sculpture. Now therefore I move to recommend the Love's sculpture design submission one titled Reflection, Diversity and Inclusivity be fabricated and installed on the City Hall campus to celebrate that? Okay, it's been moved. You have a second? Second. Second, Ms. Freelander. Roll call please. Mr. Duncan. Yes. Ms. Frieslinder. Yes. Mr. Krasner. Yes. Ms. Koma. Yes. Mr. Stevens. Yes. Mr. Hyra. Yes. And Mr. Pmont. Yes. Mr. Stevens. Yes. Mr. Hyra. Yes. And Mr. Pointes. Yes. Thank you. The motion passes. 7-0. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. Mr. Nester. Thank you. Mrs. Chase. Looks good. Can't wait to see that bike shelter as well. Mr. Stevens. Oh, it's really appreciate it. Okay. The other action I may have is for the minutes from the last meeting. We don't have those tonight. So we're going to postpone that item to the next meeting. We'll move on then to our work session items and start with the parklet naming. Mr. Fuller. Yes, thank you. The Planning Commission is requested to review and provide name suggestions for the two new parklets. One is dropped out. The staff will explain that. They're located in and around Southwestern Street corridor. And the two sites are 190 Southwestern Street, which is the triangle parklet at Washington and Annendell and then 430 South Maple located in front of Cavalier Trail. There's no action tonight. This is a work session for discussion only and staff will be discussion with you dates for your final action and so I'll turn it over to Emily. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, Planning Commission. Tonight, the Planning Commission. Tonight the Planning Commission is requested to review and provide name suggestions for two new parklets in the City of Falls Church located in and around the South Washington Street corridor. The parklets are located at the following sites. 190 South Washington Street. This has been referred to as the triangle parklet and it's located at the corner of Washington and Anandale and also 430 South Maple Avenue Parklet and this is a parklet located in front of the Cavalier Trail. A little bit of background and I just want to preface this by saying you'll see in the background section beginning on line 25 that there was an additional park lit at their park lit located at 410 South Washington Street. It was being referred to Asseton or Hill Alleyway or Vision Care Alley. This particular park lit was discussed by the EDA last night and they voted to delay this parklet until construction of the nearby Quinn project has been completed. So that's why you're only seeing two tonight. But to begin with background online 18 city staff has designed two parklets in the South Washington Street corridor. The two parklets located at 190 South Washington Street and 430 South Maple Avenue are nearing completion. These two parklets were funded with American Rescue Plan Act support, ARPA support, and staff worked with the economic development authority or the EDA to ensure that the ARPA funds were properly spent in support of economic resilience and recovery goals. Moving on to line 32 of the staff report, I just want to highlight that these parklets do not have names yet and that naming a public facility provides an opportunity to promote the parklets and also highlight the history of the city and more specifically also of the South Washington Street corridor. I just want to elevate that. One of the park lights was located in the Tenor Hill Historic and Cultural District. The two that we're focusing on tonight are adjacent to the Tenor Hill Historic and Cultural District. And you'll see that the City Council staff report was attached to this staff report. So I'm actually going to hop over to that staff report from November 12 to look at the code requirements. So you'll see online 46 of the city council's staff report that we have a bit about the naming process. Oh, and here's our map. If we just hover over that really quick. You can see the triangle parklet at the corner of Washington Street and Anandale in Green. And then you can see the South Meaball Parklet, right in front of the Cavalier Trail, and that's in the red box. So beginning on line 46, I'm gonna read it right off the report, but the city code lists the following requirements for naming public property of facilities under the article of public property and facilities. Beginning online, 49, criteria A, this is criteria for naming city facilities. So city facilities including buildings and parks shall generally be named according to the geographical, historical, or ecological relationships in which the site is located. Exceptions may be made in the following circumstances. Number one, to commemorate an individual service, facilities may be named after an individual who has made significant contributions to the City of Falls Church through participation in community, state, or national service. Number two, to identify the facility's purpose or usage, and maybe assign to a city facility if it helps to describe and identify the usage or purpose of the facility. I'll skip over section B right here because that's related to renaming city facilities. And we're gonna begin with section C, which is the process for naming city facilities. So beginning with number one, the naming of any city-owned building, park or other city-owned facilities shall be by resolution of the city council. Number two, individuals and or organizations may make recommendations to city council regarding the naming or renaming of facilities, parks, public open space areas and other related components of facilities. And number three, prior to adopting a resolution naming a city owned facility, the City Council shall hold a public hearing, and they shall seek a recommendation from the following. The Planning Commission, the Historical Commission, the Recreation of Parks Advisory Board, and any other board's or commissions or community organizations that the City council themes appropriate. I'm gonna begin with the public input section now. So we did create a project webpage that launched on November 15th for this project. It includes information on the location of the parklets, code requirements for naming city facilities, such as parklets, and an email address for sending in need ideas. The project projects also been promoted through the focus. We're working to coordinate efforts with the library to get it promoted on their information screens and in their newsletter and then also on city socials. Beginning online 76, we talk a little bit about boards and commissions. So even working with staff liaison to the following groups to provide a presentation on the project and gather some suggestions on potential memes. So first, the planning commission, also the historical commission, the recreation and parks advisory board. Last night, we visited the Economic Development Authority and then the Arts and Humanities Council. We've also reached out to the Tenor Hill Heritage Foundation and or a house for their ideas as well. Now I'm gonna hot back over to the Planning Commission staff report and I just wanna focus on some of the names that we've received to date. So staff has received the following name suggestions for the parklets so far. I also received some today, so I'm gonna include those in this list as well. We have Kato Adams Park. There was the idea of Civic, Social, or Religious groups that the Tenor Hill community established you're participated in. There are several listed here. We also have heard Ike and Mimi Eisenhower, who are residents of the city. Names related to military service. And this is actually one that we'll touch on with the names that were suggested today. Trajomite Park or Pink Granite Park, that might sound familiar from the Tenor Hill historic and cultural district. We talked a little bit about Trajomite and Pink Granite within your bicorri. Also Duckpin Alley or Duckpin Park, Playtime Park, and then Henderson McKinney Alley. We have started kind of a master list with names that have been received from the public. They've been emailed into staff through the project webpage page. That was included as an attachment to this report. We've also included the City Council Chambers Public Art Project as an attachment because there were various people, places, and stories that were included in the staff report, and they could serve as inspiration for Parklet names. So now I'm going to end with, oh wait, let me not forget that yes, we did receive some additional names today. So I just want to read those off as well. We received Frank Brooks, who was a member of this Falls Church Home Guard protecting Falls Church during the Civil War, who died in line of duties, so, uh, soundly alarm on the 17th of October in 1864, of a terror attack by the most-be-raders. We also received a name, John D. Reed, who was a fall stretch resident, outspoken abolitionist and union supporter, a member of the fall stretch home guard, and a founder of a local school and fall church for the education of the local African American population and the large number of formerly enslaved persons crossing into union lines from further south. He was abducted and murdered by most abuse raiders in the October 17th 1864 terror attacks. So we will add this into that master list as we continue to get name suggestions from the public, that's where we are collecting and including those names. So now I just wanna look at the schedule with you all and that's on the final page of the staff report. So here you can see that we did have a city council kickoff work session back in early November. This was discussing the process with Council introducing the park lit naming process and idea. We went for a city council referral on November 12th. Again, that city council staff report was attached. You can see the motion. Soliciting feedback from the community and also boards and commissions. Our website launched on November 15th. We visited the Economic Development Authority last night on December 3rd. We are with you all tonight. Next week we go to Recreation and Parks. On the 11th we also go to the Historical Commission on the 12th and Arts and Humanities on December 19th. I do want to highlight that we have you all listed as December 18th right now but depending on how tonight's discussion goes and if you all would like more time to think about any recommendations and suggestions we can always shift this date into January. I do want to highlight that that were to happen, we would have received recommendations from all other boards and commissions. So you would have the opportunity to review their recommendations, their feedback with me. We are looking to return to council sometime in January. Right now that would be January 13th. It could possibly shift, so these are tentative dates and then also a city council action on January 13th. It could possibly shift so these are tentative dates and then also AACity Council action on February 13th. Again, I just want to highlight that we are focusing on those two parklets at 190 South Washington Street and 430 South Maple Avenue. Thank you all, looking forward to our discussion. Great. Thank you very much, Ms. Beismour. This is a work session item, so we're not taking any other comments. And we'll just throw it open to the commissioners for their comments and reactions. So you're looking for both reactions to the current suggestions you're looking for additional suggestions from the commissioners to me? Yes. All right. And I do realize this item requires a little bit of research. So if you all want to review and kind of think about names and we can return with discussion that also works. Thank you all. I hadn't thought of any before this but then you just I do like the idea of the tying it into the to the cultural district, the Tenor Hill culture district and that maybe think of a gentleman who's buried in that cemetery behind the church on Andrew L. Roe, and I can't think of his name now, so I will send it to you. It's prominent, I think it was an early black position in Virginia, and he's buried in that cemetery. I'll find that name and send it. But any other suggestions or comments or thoughts from anybody on the commission. Mr. Kraz. Too soon for Paul Stoddard Park? You have to be alive, dead men. Just kidding. Too soon for that. Although he has contributed a lot to the city. Now, I mean, honestly, I think there's a lot of good names. I think it isn't going to be hard because you're going to get a lot of good suggestions and really things to honor. So it's hard. It'd be great. I'm a geographer by nature, so if there's a way to tie in the Cavalier Trail perhaps, I mean, there's already Cavalier Park, right? That's right, next to that site. Right, and this is more of a plaza style parklet. So we actually heard this from the EDA last night. Someone had suggested, oh, what about Cavalier Trail Parklet or Cavalier Trail Plaza. So I mean, that is a feature in your buy per the code. Well, then you know where it is. So it's like that's always helpful. Sometimes we name things because there's a worthy person, but then it gets kind of obscure and lost over time and no one knows who that person really is unless they look. So I think sometimes like a simple geographical name is good. I always try to find there are a lot of worthy people that deserve recognition in all kinds of ways. Although sometimes enough. And we've all learned in recent years naming things after people sometimes is fraught with strong opinions on either side. Yes or no. If you pick like geographic names or other kind of place names, you can kind of avoid like strong debates about whether somebody deserves to be there or not or, you know, wherever they are. So, anyhow, that's just my opinion, but I would vote more for geographic names, or place names as opposed to people. We have a lot of things in the city named after people. And, you know, so, anyway, that's, but like what's been thrown out there, and there are no bad choices, I guess, from what the list you've given us, but, you know, if it's something where you heard the name and you kind of knew where that was in town, I think that would be nice. But that's really all I have. Thank you. Unless we get support for Ball Stutter Park, that's what it is. That's really later. Thank you. I'm in the camp of more of a geographical name. I do notice that the one down at the end of Maple is literally on top of Trips Run as it has is under there. So it might be a combination of Cavalier Trips or then it starts to sound like it's a hazardous plaza. If there's a typo in there. So but I am in favor to of hearing what a lot of the other boards and commissions have to say and what the public has to say and have some time to kind of digest those. So I'm in favor of bumping our review to January. But yeah, I think this is a great option. So thank you. Thank you. Well, Fox, Mr. Stevens, Mr. Schumann. Yeah, just very short comments. I would agree that if we can comfortably defer for a few weeks, I think to get the benefit of the other board's and commissions, their creativity that makes sense to me. And I also agree that on Cavalier Trail Park, it might be confusing if that had a completely different name for that plaza. So tying it in with what's there now, I guess I could be persuaded that that makes sense. And I really don't have any bright ideas right now about the so-called triangle parklets, so I need to think about that. Maybe over the holidays inspiration will come to me. So thank you. Cool. I grew up here and so I both bold at the duckpin alley and went to the playtime. I didn't remember that it was called that. My brother lived at that arcade. So I appreciated those two suggestions in the staff report. I would say, I like actually, I have mixed feelings. I like honoring people. I like the geographic sort of this is where you are in the city. And I also like when we can use names to kind of evoke some of the city's past or history, not even just like from a people perspective, but sort of like the Duckpin perspective, right? Like this used to be here, and you might not know this about Falls Church, but we, you know, in this near this location we had a really large Duckpin bowling alley. So who would have think it? I would say like if we do that whenever I think whenever we do those kinds of historical namings there's no way that people would know why this is called duck pin park unless there's some sort of interpretive signage. So I think when we're thinking about those things if we want it to be historical in nature we need to a budget for that and include that interpretive signage so people can get a clue about why it's called Duckpin Park if that's what we choose in the future. So it is trips run there. I can't remember, I feel like I might have heard mixed things about trip as a, I don't know. Again, like you have to look into all these people and see kind of what, who were they, what was their history, how, you know, were their contributions to the city, do they deserve to have sort of a public space named after them or not. And I think in general, like people need to have like a connection to the area that makes sense. So I do hope that in the future we'll be able to name that the park lit in in tenor hill Anyway, those are my thoughts and I also have no brilliant ideas especially for the triangle park, but I'm looking forward to the suggestions that we'll get from historical commission and and the other boards Indeed Mr. Duckett. Thank you Excuse me. The good thing about having a park or park lit named after an individual's that tends to be more of a conversation starter. When you're walking around and you've got somebody with you's from out of town or you're walking with your kid or your grand kid and You know who is John Reed? You know and then get you started talking in a way that a geographically-based name might not, though. So, that's just one thought that pops into my head as I listen to everybody saying I agree that let's let some of the front line folks come up with some more deliberation and look at their suggestions in the new year. And I guess I would ask us to be mindful of the Civil War Trail signage that is scattered around town. I think there's even a sign in the courtyard of the spectrum building about read and his contributions and demise and so forth. So there may be you know some overlap the Suggestion of the physician that the chair brought forward is very interesting to me I don't think we can ever do enough to hold up the examples of people whose contributions were you know under appreciated at the time and forgotten for many decades. And if we can lift those folks back into visibility, I think that's always something worth trying. Especially given that both these locations are either all three of these locations. So the third part too are in or on the fringes of the Tenor Hill area. So I know that would be my opening thoughts. Don't be afraid of people if they tell a good story. Maybe tilt towards something that relates to the Tenor Hill or the general contributions of that community. Would be where I would start I think. No duck pen allink, dumb please. That's funny but you know I still have indigestion for meeting at the snack bar there for my daughter's night-worth day so I don't think we need to remember that. Thanks. Thank you. I agree with that too. Again, I just, my only comment, I think, as I said, capitalizing on the new cultural district makes a lot of sense to me. But as commissioners said, you know, hearing from the other commission, the historical commission in particular, I think would be so valuable. So any other comments from any other commissioners? You can hear a lot of support and a lot of openness to lots of different ideas. So I don't think anybody feels too strong. We get against anything than the duck bin. But we look forward to continue to work with you on this. But it sounds like general support for moving it into January if it sounds like you're making it. OK? Sounds good. Thank you all. All right. Thank you Ms. Bayesmore very much. All right, thank you Ms. Bayesmore very much. All right, let's move on then to item seven B, accessory dwellings update. So before we do that, there is a new procedure where a C stamp would like us to read either each of us individually read a disclosure statement or recusal statement given that some of those are property owners here in the city and maybe impacted by this particular item. So anything else on that Mr. Torrey? That's right Mr. Chair. The city attorney's advice that any city official discussing this item that owns property in the R1A, V, or RM districts, which is the current scope of the proposal. Read either of those statements, recusing themselves from the conversation or announcing their interests in it and affirming their ability to remain in the public interest. So, that's it. That is thank you. All right. So, we have here disclosure statement and the recusal statement. I'll go ahead and start. I do think this is a good idea too. So, I'm glad we actually are doing this too. So, can I ask a quick question? I'm a property owner, but I cannot. I can't build because we're in the RPA and flood zone. So, like, what do I, what do I read? I probably just read it. Either statement. Yeah, because you're still a property owner and your property would still be subject to the proposals. Even if it's not possible to build. So, okay, sure. Just to be safe. It does say in that. Turn away to you. Inside your house. No, I'm saying she gave an internal. Yeah. To it affects you. Yeah. Okay. Thanks, but. All right, so I'll lead off the disclosure statement. The Planning Commission is discussing tonight the approach, the proposed accessory dwelling unit ordinance. I like many others in the city and an owner of residential property that would be eligible for an accessory dwelling unit. If the proposed ordinance was were to pass, and as a result, my property may realize it reasonably foreseeable direct or indirect benefit from the ordinance. And to do consideration, I have determined that I am able to participate in this transaction fairly objectively and in the public interest. I will pass it to the vice chair. Do I need to read the disclosure statement at the top? The planning commission is discussing tonight the proposed accessory dwelling unit ordinance. I like many others in the city, I'm an owner of residential property. There will be eligible for an accessory dwelling unit if the proposed ordinance were to pass. And as a result, my property may realize a reasonably foreseeable director and direct benefit from the ordinance. After due consideration, I have determined that I am able to participate in this transaction fairly objectively and in the public interest. Do I go in the line? This prayer is up. I'm RC. the public interest. Do you want to go on the line? Mr. Fair, is that? I'm RC. So. I'm happy to read this, but I mean, I just think we all park and we're making, you know, judgments on our parking policies. So, you know, I think this is overkill, but I'm happy to read it. And, but it's sort of like if we're doing this, we're setting a precedent for almost every other thing that we pass. We have to read this. So I think we should think a little bit more deeply about these types of statements for the policies overpassing or that we're voting on. The Planning Commission is discussing tonight the proposed accessory dual unit ordinance. I like many others in the city and an owner of a residential property that would be eligible for an accessory dualing unit. If the proposed ordinance were to pass and as a result my property may realize a reasonable foreseeable director indirect benefit from the ordinance. After due consideration I have determined that I am able to participate in this transaction fairly objectively and in the public interest. All right. All right. Final commission is discussing the proposed accessory dwelling unit ordinance. I like many others in the city on property in R1D. So it would be eligible I suppose for an accessory dwelling unit, if those ordinance were to pass. And as a result, my property may realize a reasonably perceivable director and director and director benefit from the ordinance, but after due consideration, I have determined that I am eligible, sorry, that I am able and eligible to participate in this transaction fairly, objectively, and in the public interest. the proposal. The planning commission is discussing tonight the proposed accessory dwelling unit you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I agree with Mr. Hyer on this but I will do tofully read what we're asked to read the planning commission discussing the ninth proposed accessory dwelling unit ordinance I like many others in the city and owner of residential property that would be eligible for an accessory dwelling unit if the proposed ordinance for the past and as a result my property may realize. Reason we foreseeable director and director may benefit from the ordinance after the consideration of the term that I'm able to assay it in this transaction fairly objectively and in the public interest. Thank you all very much. Chairman, can I make one other comment? Yes. I just feel also that we're being asked to think about our vested interest in the policies that we're voting on. And often we get members of the public who testify before our commission. And often we know they have a vested financial interest in the policies that they're advocating for. And we might want to ask people who come before us to disclose whether they would be benefiting financially from policies that we've passed. So I think if we're asking us to do this, and I understand, you know, we have a role of a public servant, but I think that maybe we should be asking the people who testify before us if they have a vested financial interest in what they're speaking on. And I think that's a fair question to ask of them. So I just want to put that on the table. Yeah. And to your point, it could be also slippery slope too, but the points we'll take it, right? It's a, you know, we have, we have, we a lot of folks who talked to us about this stuff before and, and want to know what our motivations are, but I, I got the point for sure. Any other comments before we jump into the work session item? You know, I'll just real quick, just on that point. I mean, just for anyone on the commission's benefit, obviously the city attorney can make a recommendation, anyone here is free to, you know, I mean, you're all subject to the laws of, you know, the state of Virginia when it comes to disclosing, you know, interests. So, you know, in addition to what you fill out every year on your form. But it's ultimately up to you. So if you don't want to read something, I mean, that's kind of your call. The city attorney is your attorney, and that's in that capacity as a public servant, as opposed to somebody out there. They recommend you do something, but you don't have to listen to your attorney. You can do what you like. So just if people don't feel comfortable reading it. It's kind of your call as an individual to, you know, disclose or not disclose or accuse or not rescu- for a queues and then let the chips fall where they may. Yeah, just so people know. I mean, yeah. Yeah. And I'll just say that also just at your mind that I've never seen anybody here on the commission act in any way that wasn't completely above board and completely ethical too. So just for the record is one of the note that too. So all right, let's jump into the work session item. So we've seen this several times before. We're now in phase four on formal consideration. So Mr. Fuller, I think I'm turn over to you. Mr. Traitor. Yes, tonight. Mr. Michael. As scheduled, we have a work session on the reposal amendment to the accessory dwelling ordinance. As background as you alluded to, the planning commission had scoped this back in January earlier this year. Subsequently, there's been a number of workshops, sporting commission meetings and input, then the drafting of the code to date. And so there was a formal first reading by the council on November 25th. So now it's been referred to you formally. Staff is looking to discuss with you tonight the proposed schedule as part of tonight's discussion. There's a proposed listening session with other board and commissions in January potentially. Then there's a final work session in markup in February and then a final public hearing and recondition to the City Council within March. And so at this point the council has requested a recommendation from the commission no later than March 21st. So I'll turn this over to Jack or staff. Thank you, Mr. Fuller. Good evening, Mr. Chair, members of the Commission. Thanks for having me tonight for this work session on accessory dwellings. As I said at the top, this has been before the Planning Commission several times over this year. And City Council did grant first reading to propose amendments at their last regular meeting on November 25th. The request for the commission tonight, our two, is one to hold the work session on those amendments that were referred out from City Council and also to give some feedback and some thoughts on what the recommended remaining schedule is for the Planning Commission. Those dates, Mr. Fuller, read out, but those are beginning on line 21. We have included a proposed public listening session where we'd invite liaisons from the City's other boards and commissions to come and deliver some thoughts on behalf of their respective bodies to the planning commission. That would be January 15th. And I'll talk more about some of the reasoning and other scheduling for these things when we get to the rest of the schedule at the bottom of the report. But following that January 15th meeting on February 5th, the Planning Commission scheduled to have their final work session in markup ahead of a currently scheduled March 5th 2025 public hearing and recommendation to City Council. Again, City Council has requested a recommendation from the Planning Commission by March 21st. So beyond that, again, for some background on accessory dwellings, these have been utilized in localities across the country to address housing availability and diversifying their housing stock. utilized in localities across the country to address housing availability and diversifying their their housing stock There's you know several considerations for an accessory dwelling Regulations these are split up into dimensional programmatic standards and those Kind of different parts are reflected in those regulations that Council referred out. That staff report has also been attached for further background. Staff analysis and public engagements, so I'm happy to flip to those if there's any questions about anything in there. But I'm going to go ahead and talk about some of the other updates in this report since planning commission's last work session, which happened on November 6th, 2024. We've included this comment response table beginning on line 72. So I'll just breeze through some of these and again, happy to address some of these in more detail following my presentation. There was a question raised about how short-term rental was going to be regulated in accessory dwellings. What Council referred out was a prohibition of short-term rental use in accessory dwellings. Regarding an owner occupancy requirement there was no owner occupancy requirement. There was no owner occupancy requirement included in the regulations council referred out. And there was, there's been some discussion on an accessory dwelling definition. Staff included an amended definition on accessory dwellings, so trying to differentiate its use and intentions specifically from the accessory structures. This would be in addition to all the provisions needed and in accessory dwelling that make it a dwelling separate from a structure, all those things that are required for living and habitation. Those would obviously still be required, but in the zoning permit or the certificate of occupancy, it would be specifically stated that the structure was intended for use for habitation, for an accessory dwelling versus a accessory structure would be specified for nonhabitation. Regarding stormwire regulations, staff recommended and Council referred out no change from the current regulations. This includes that 2500 square foot disturbance area trigger for grading plans. Included in the code markup are some proposed amendments that would specifically facilitate zoning enforcement of current lot coverage. Maximums, this would take place during the certificate of occupancy review process. Currently the zoning is only permitted to enforce these lot coverage. Maximums when a grading plan is submitted. So that clause has been removed in the draft markup. And so the zoning administrator would be empowered to enforce those lot coverage as absent a grading plan. Also included in the draft code is a markup to the requirement or it included is a clarification that accessory dwellings would be permitted to hook up to existing facilities and utilities that may be there servicing the primary dwelling. This is kind of in reaction to conversation and previous work sessions around the cost that new utilities would surmount to and representing a potential barrier to an accessory dwelling construction. Also included is the continued conditional use of accessory dwellings in the RM district unlike what's being proposed for the R1A and R1B districts. What's proposed for the RM district is again, it's conditional use specifically of interior forms. So no detached forms, only interior accessory dwellings. A eligible lot analysis was included in the that November 25th meeting to council. Using GIS, the staff looked at what all the eligible lots would be for detached accessory structure looking primarily at existing lot coverages in the R1A and R1B districts. In the 2,400 approximately single family lots across those two districts 56% have at least 300 square feet available under those lot maximums. So staff use that 300 square foot number to determine what a reasonable new footprint might be for detached structure. So using that baseline, staff, you know, measure that about 56% of the lots in the R1A and R1B district have that threshold available to remain under those lot coverages. Further analysis of that is included in the Council report. Again, I'm happy to talk about the methodology there as well. And there's short one floor area measurement consistency. Previously, there was some inconsistency about how floor area would be measured. It was referred to as habitable floor area and gross floor area. And so that's been remedied to be just a gross floor area as to find in the zoning ordinance, which is simply that horizontal floor area wall to wall across all floors of the structure. Online 76 we've included a couple. We've highlighted the new code sections that have made it in here since your last work session. This includes the utility section 4236 and 42178 and then the RM District's conditional use is permitted by especially use permit. So next I'll walk through, you're all familiar with this chart but I'll just walk through the kind of specific components that Council referred out that are all included in the proposed amendments. So beginning with Gros floor area, the maximum accessory dwelling of the lesser of either 50% of the primary dwelling square footage or 1,000 square feet. There's no change there. Also no change in the lot coverage recommendation, which is compliance with those existing standards, and which are again the 25% building coverage maximum, 35% in pervious surface coverage, maximum, and a 20% tree canopy coverage minimum. Location, again, it mentions previously and accessory by-right uses in the R1A and R1B districts and a conditional use with one time especially use permit and the RM district which would apply to internal forms only. Parking staff continued to recommend nooning requirements. Short term rental, again short term rental was prohibited in accessory dwellings and the regulations referred out by Council. And no honor occupant requirement was included either. No change to occupancy limits as well. Staff was recommending no specific occupancy limits for accessory dwellings. No change in the approval process either for the R1A and R1B, again for our M districts. That would be required to go to the Board of Zoning Appeals for especially use permit. And each lot would be a cap to the maximum of one accessory dwelling per lot. So moving into detached accessory dwelling specific regulations. Again, there's no real, there's not many changes here from what the commission saw previously regarding height. Council referred out a maximum height of either 20 feet or one and a half stories when the accessory dwelling is set back at least five feet. And if it's set back at least 10 feet, a maximum height of 25 feet or two stories would be permitted with a caveat that no accessory dwelling may be taller than the principal dwelling. Setbacks again, either five or ten feet depending on the height. And there was the provision also included for existing accessory buildings that are non-conforming and that exists today, having been built before January 1, 2024 if they're non-conforming in any way would be eligible to go before the BZA for especially use permit for use as an accessory dwelling as well. So, I'll just wrap up with the timing section and I again kind of want to highlight we're moving into the formal consideration phase. But again, final consideration by council is not scheduled until April. There's still many public engagement opportunities scheduled and due to you know staff workload and turnover, a lot of the, you know, engagements and events we wanted to hold in December are unfortunately just going to have to be bumped to January. And so we are still going to be holding two open house community be updated on the next meeting. We will be waiting for the next meeting. We will be waiting for the next meeting. We will be waiting for the next meeting. We will be waiting for the next meeting. We will be waiting for the next meeting. We will be waiting for the next meeting. you on those days. We're looking at the first full week of January for those open house meetings. We're still also looking at the walking tour that'll also happen in January, probably a little bit later in January. So because we are moving a lot of these to January, that leaves less time to go to individual board and commission meetings and work sessions as we did the first time around. So it was proposed and discussed at the council meeting that the planning commission might consider having a listening session or collaborative work session with liaisons from other boards and commissions to comment. Again, represent their bodies and address any comments or concerns, ask questions, and so just hold a kind of joint work session in that way. So that we're still hearing those voices, but we're just being a little bit more economical with our time. So that's proposed for January 15th again. but we're just being a little bit more economical with our time. So that's proposed for January 15th. Again, we're looking for feedback on that date. So again, as proposed following that January 15th public listening session, the Planning Commission has its final work session scheduled for February 5th. A City Council work session is also scheduled for February 17th. That would be their final work session. And then the planning commission's public hearing right now is scheduled for March 5th with city council final consideration happening April 7th. Yeah, I'll leave there and give it back to you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you for walking through the timeline, too. I think you answered my question. So the public listening session is a session where we hear from the boards and commissions, rather than the public at large. That'll happen later in the winter. Correct. Yep. Okay. Well, thank you very much. I appreciated the updates, especially the changes since our last meeting. We've talked about this so often. It's good to keep it all straight, what's been updated from time to time. So again, still a work session. So we will just keep a kind of informal and throw it open to other commissioners for questions, comments, any other remarks you wanna make on this item? Start this, Duncan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Now, Mr. Stevens and I were able to attend the EDA meeting last night, and so I'll defer to him for any questions that might have arisen from that, except for a couple that I wanted to raise, Jackie Mann, I had time to look into these, but I just want to put them up there as a marker. One question was about the parking, if I wanted to put an accessory dwelling in my back lot and the park car related to that in my front yard without paving my front yard or putting gravel down or doing anything except just pulling my car onto the grass. Is that allowed? Would that be a relative of the standards on permeable surfaces and so forth? I thought that was an interesting question, because people are concerned about these dwellings I think have in their mind that you know some folks may take up what green space there is in their yards with vehicles related to the structure unless we unless they have the good fortune to live somewhere where they've got a driveway begging up to accommodate an extra vehicle. My particular lot would not, I have a single shot you know driveway and anybody driving into or out of an accessory dwelling would have to probably just park on the grass. So that's that was one question that came up last night and what was the other one that I wanted to bring? Oh, I know. Is the tree canopy measure that's used? Let's say that again, I'm putting one up in my backyard. And I'm going to need to cut down the big tree that's in the backyard in my room for it. I can plant in its place a smaller tree, maybe a tree even more appropriate to the location that it's living in than the tree that I have now, which probably was not the right species to put, you know, so close to my own main house. How is tree canopy measured? Is that a perspective, you know, at the 10-year point, you know, the tree canopy will be a certain percentage. That occurred to me last night during the meeting. Anyway, those are just a couple of things that, oh, the other separate address. That was the other question from last night that stuck in my mind. Some were concerned that the accessory dwelling would not have a separate address because its utilities would run through the main house. And that was raised as a concern for people needing to establish that they live somewhere and can get a real ID license because you got to have a utility bill. And anyway, there were wrinkles that I had not thought about. So let me just put those out there, and I don't like to say I'm not sure you've had time to react to that yet, but I think those are good questions that ought to be dealt with in the future weeks. Yeah, thank you. And no, I haven't had time to research those questions. They're all good questions. And we'll certainly look into those. The tree canopy question be questioned. It's probably in the city charter or the zoning ordinance somewhere or I could ask the city arborist if unless Mr. Stevens knows I'm not sure. But the so the parking question I'll have to check with the zoning administrator on to confirm. And the addressing's an interesting question, and it is something I'll have to get definitive answer to as well. I was under the impression that a, an address, specific address assignment might be mandated if an accessory dwelling had its own separate utility connection and was not part of the main house. So in terms of what allowance might be there, if they're able to have its own separate address or when that is required, those are answers will need to look to more. Other questions, comments? Mr. Stevens? Yes, just one other follow-up. You covered most of them. Mr. Duncan, but there's one more that came up last night, and that's what happens to current short-term rentals. Right now, I guess short-term rentals are allowed in the city. And assuming that the AD amendments go through as it's now fashioned, does that have any impact on other short-term rentals within the city? I guess that question came up last night. It probably falls in the same category of things that you need some more time. But I think the Planning Commission would be interested in all of these, and answers to all of these questions that came up last night when you have a chance. Right. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, that's one we'd have to. We're also looking at, we received last night, because short-term rental, you know, as proposed is prohibited in accessory dwelling specifically, and as proposed, an accessory dwelling would be, you know, identified through its certificate of occupancy stating as such that would be an update. So short-term rentals operating in, unpermitted accessory dwellings will be operating in technically unrecognized accessory dwellings. So we need to find an answer to how the city would handle that. Yeah. Also, I was just curious. I live in an RC district. It's why RC wasn't considered for this set of amendments. So right now accessory dwellings are permitted in the R1A B and M districts only. So the main consideration was to remain consistent with the land area that they're currently allowed under. And then, you know, maybe in the future or, you know, a kind of seeing maybe perhaps how the state legislation turns out if it does get approved, then the city might consider expanding that to other districts. But for consistency, staff kept the recommendation for those same districts that permit accessory dwellings today. As a practical matter, these are C districts, I think, are mainly townhouse communities that are under HOAs. And it would be almost impossible, I think, to practically speaking to build an accessory dwelling in one of those. But anyway, I was just curious what the thinking was. It's not a big deal. And practically speaking to build an accessory dwelling in one of those. But anyway, I was just curious what the thinking was. It's not a big deal. Just a couple of comments. I'm happy with all the changes that you've made. I'm particularly appreciative of the change on the short-term rental. I think that is kind of a large economic consideration that maybe down the road our residents would feel comfortable with. But I think right now just out of the gate it just struck me as just too dramatic of a change to allow short-term rentals in residential neighborhoods, so I'm particularly appreciative that you made that change. The other issue is a lot of communities have had trouble with short term rentals because it tends to increase the price of existing residential units, kind of forces, an inflationary impact there. So that's why a lot of locations will allow short term rentals. So anyway, bottom line is I'm glad you made the other change and I certainly support all there so that's why a lot of locations will allow short-term rent also. Anyway bottom line is I'm glad you made the change and I certainly support you know all the other changes that you made as well. As far as the timing and the schedule I think that's something you wanted feedback from us on. I'm okay I think we have to go through and make sure we're allowing all the public input that we can, you know, reasonably anticipate should happen. So, you know, if that adds a few weeks to the process, then I'm okay with that. Let me see if I had anything else. I think you explained the one stormwater question that I had. So, that's okay. As to whether we should go to a lower threshold for grading plans, I guess it's kind of hard for me to imagine that there would be many that would fall underneath that 2500 square foot threshold just simply allowing the limit of disturbance around the actual location of the accessory dwelling and then the kind of the driveways to get to that and so forth just seemed like that would add up pretty quickly to get to 2500 square feet. But if I understand your earlier comment that may not matter or did I maybe not understand that correctly? Do we still have the 2500 foot kind of threshold before? Okay, so that still applies. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's no change to when a grading plan is required What what the proposed change is? Allowing the zoning administrator to enforce those impervious in building coverage Maximums Even when a grading plan is not required. Right now, grading plans required basically to enforce those coverage maximums for our residential lots. I don't know whether you've looked at any hypothetical installations of an accessory dwelling and just say, okay, they would have to build an access lane here. Here's the amount of land they would need around, the unit and so forth, just to kind of test and see how small of a unit would be and how compact would it have to be to avoid that 2,500 square foot. It's not a big deal, but it may put some people's minds at ease if they realize that just about every application for an accessory dwelling is going to carry along with it, the grading plan requirement. So I don't think I had anything else at this point. I appreciate all the good work that you put into it. And like I say, I think you're about as expert in the subject now is anybody that I know. Thank you. Thanks. Indeed. Let's go on. I can go. Mr. Stevens touched on a couple things I wanted to ask about. Which is the rationale for us, allowing this in R.M. but not R.C. or R.T.H. I would add as well. I would support allowing it in all those districts. I don't really think it's a, you know, I would like it to be logical. Like if we're going to allow it in one townhouse district, then we should allow it in the, why would we not allow it in the others if we're making these changes? RM is also, I think, quite a bit larger than either RC or RTH. So I would support allowing it in all three of those districts, but internal only not detached. And I think only in townhouses, I'm not sure what other kinds of dwelling units are allowed in those districts, but that's my perspective on it. It just seems a bit arbitrary to say this is OK in RM and not these other districts. So that's one thing. It looks like the way it's written, we're only allowing one ADU. So I'm assuming that would be either internal or detached. Again, I would support allowing one of each, both. So I would like us to write this in a way that gives homeowners more flexibility in terms of the dwelling units that they're able to build on their property. Can you explain why you think one is the right number? It's an either or thing or why that was a staff recommendation. Sure, I think there's a couple considerations. One is keeping the momentum of the conversation and kind of we're starting with there's one accessory dwelling per lot allowed before we had all these regulations. So the city's exploring kind of loosening some of those regulations and so introducing the opportunity to have multiple accessory dwellings may be something that the city just may be better suited to tackle after accessory dwellings might become more of an Alexa con that people get more kind of familiar with. There's one consideration. I know communities on the West Coast, for instance, have had accessory dwellings in their communities for much longer time than those of us on the east, and they have those multiple accessory dwelling allowances. I haven't found many examples of communities on the East Coast that allow more than one, for instance, including our neighbors. So, I'll cover those, I think, considerations. So, yeah, I'll leave it at that. Okay, thank you. It's helpful. I mean, to me, they feel like different flavors. I think internal, eight accessory drawings are pretty different from detached. So I would personally, as a resident and a member of this commission be comfortable with both, but I defer to my colleagues on that question. Again, my interest is in giving homeowners more flexibility in terms of what they're able to do. I had a question about the CFO and not being the place where we would assess the impervious service coverage. Isn't that too late? Isn't it already built? Am I misunderstanding this process? It's when they come in for their, so when they're applying for it, they would have to demonstrate compliance. OK, so it's like the building plan. Like before they, when they submit their building plans and application for the certificate of occupancy, for zoning. It's a zoning consideration. And that happens at the beginning of the process before it's been. Yeah. So when I think of C of O, I always think of like, oh, that's the last step before you actually can live in the property, but this is something that happens at the beginning. And we use the term for both building occupancy and zoning compliance. Other places use zoning permit or use permit. But it's the same thing. We call the certificate of occupancy for zoning. It's confusing. That is a little confusing. We've had internal conversations about changing that to be more obvious about what we're talking about. Yeah. But we are talking about, yeah, demonstrating zone and compliance with your proposal. So we're not going to let you build an AD and then tell you you've exceeded your impervious maximum. Right. You have to demonstrate compliance before you. Okay. I had a question about the, well, a thought. Actually, I did some calculations on the proportionality of the setbacks that we have proposed. I shared those with you. And so it looks like what we're envisioning for the taller ADs, which is 25 feet, is a 10 foot setback, which is the same as what is required for a single family home, which can be up to 35 feet. So the ratio there, according to my map, is like it's like a 0.29 percent ratio for the single family home, whereas we'd be requiring a 0.4 ratio for the AD, which seems excessive. I think something like seven feet would be more in line with what we're requiring and in line with what we're requiring and more proportional to what we're requiring for single-family homes and it would also allow the homeowner to maintain more use of their yard. So I would like, I think we should consider that, you know, what those numbers ultimately end up being. And I feel like it's reasonable for them to be proportional. Sheds 0.25, three foot setback, 12 foot height, and then the 20 foot AD has also a 0.25 ratio, a five foot setback and a 20 foot height. So, I just, again, I want everything to be since and be proportional, so I'd ask you to consider that. I had a couple questions online 314. There was a change in the sort of powers of the BZA. And I guess I just didn't understand what it was trying to achieve, especially because I think the BZA is still responsible for approving special use permits for any like garage conversions or conversion of other accessories dwelling units. So why are we exempting what is this doing? This, let's see. And we can follow up on it later but I just it was confusing to me what this this is a good catch I think This may need to this was written. I think before The RM district was included which would be subject to the special use permit in BZ a This is also exempting that line and 314 is saying that on everything else the planning commission would provide an opinion or provide a recommendation to the BGA except on cases where they're hearing an ADU. So I don't know what the logic is in that or not. Yeah. So before right excess any accessory dwelling unit required to SUP. And so that wasn't even listed in here because it would go to the BZA regardless. The initial proposal in earlier draft was allowing all accessory dwellings only in R1A and R1B by right. And so removing that consideration. But we do still have they will still have to rule and like on conversions right right for for existing structures they would still have to rule yeah so we'll we'll take another look at that and see that's taken away from us though that line is taken authority away from us right now we the planning commission get to see and make a recommendation to the BGA on all special permits that Clause would say we don't when they hear ADU cases. I don't know if we agree with that or not Maybe we don't want to give that up our ability to give our opinion on it I mean just a recommendation to the BGA, but I don't know. Maybe we don't want to let me get feedback too Yeah, there are thoughts and opinions on that. We want to have a chance to look at that, or not. I would like to be able to, but. And we'd want to delete that clause. Yeah. I still don't 100% understand exactly what it's doing and what it is allowing or not allowing. It's just a very dense paragraph. Maybe there are some other changes we could make to make it easier to understand. But maybe something that we can look into more. I do think it makes sense for the, well, I mean, the goal, and I had more questions about the garage conversion. So the goal there is those are allowed through special use permit. And the BZA is the body that decides whether or not they're allowed, but they don't have to get a recommendation from us currently. And do we want them to? I guess it sounds like maybe we do. Right, so yeah, currently I think it only goes to the, well I'll double check on on what the process is right now. Sure, it sounds like today, all special permits come to us today. We don't see a lot because it doesn't happen very often. Right. And there haven't been any like literally since 2000 or something. Maybe a lot of unpermitted, eight useful. Right. You know there are some out there. But we haven't heard of a special permit application coming through. At least in the last five or ten years. Yeah. OK. application coming through, at least in the last five or 10 years. Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, I will double check on this. This might have also, yeah, we'll double check and have a response. Okay. And then the only other, the only other small thing, and we don't have to deal with it maybe now, but maybe for future zoning code, clean up, there are a few references to prenatal and infant care counseling center. I think this was the Hope House that was on Park Avenue, which I love that they were right there. I donated a whole bunch of stuff to them. I'm all for prenatal infant care uses, but they have left the city of Falls Church, and so I guess I just wonder, like, do we want to keep that sort of artifact of their sort of existing in that location? Or is this an opportunity because you know, there's some parts of the code that are being touched that reference them to maybe remove remove that those references Yeah, that's I can check the city attorney. I feel like that's that might be and out it's small I but yeah might be Technically outside the scope, but we could. We've done some zoning cleanups in the past. Yeah. Maybe it's also something that we could ask them about. Maybe when we look at the work plan again or the draft's annual report, it might be something we could see if it fits with another item that we have scheduled, some sort of zoning cleanup that's smaller. Yeah. Yeah. I think we had the zoning administrator came with, there were like three or four different things, right? Like six months ago, right? I think it's good to do this periodically. Yeah, things to clean up. Those are all things to clean up. Yeah, we've got a growing list. Yeah. That is it for me. Thank you. Thank you. It catches others. Mr. Crazner. Sure. I will go. And we shouldn't lose that effect that you know this is now been referred out after first reading. And so I'm sure some of you watched or attended the first you know the council hearing on this back just before Thanksgiving. So it is significant in that sense and that we're now at the kind I'm not sure if you're going to be going to be able to see the effect of the effect of the effect of the effect of the effect of the effect of the effect of the effect of the effect of the effect of the effect of the effect of the effect of the effect of the effect of the effect of the effect of the effect of the effect of the effect of the effect of the effect of the effect of the effect of the effect as we head towards stuff. So in that light, a couple questions I had for staff on this. And on some of the things you've heard me say before, but I'm going to keep on saying some of them because I strongly believe it. But first, before we even get to that, one thing I've talked about, and you guys kind of addressed it a little bit as far as the definition of what a dwelling unit is. Something that jurisdictions struggle with a lot is, you know, one thing I heard, I think Mr. Stoddard said it at the Council hearing last week, which kind of like made my ears perk up and I didn't like it. We said something to the effect of, well, we're only going to regulate the use of a structure. We're not going to regulate what's in it. So he was kind of saying that, well, someone could build a bedroom, a kitchen, a full bath, you know, and you know, something that meets the definition, but unless they actually put a person in that, we're not going to call it that. To me, that is completely wrong. We should not go down that road. You either enforce it, you either have a rule that applies. If you have, you know, the definition says one or more rooms that has those features for sleeping, sanitation, cooking, and whether or not someone's living in that. I mean, if someone comes in and says, I want to build this, that's an AD, to me, like if someone comes in with a new hat for a new house construction and they show a basement that has an apartment in it, then they should have to meet the other, otherwise meet the requirements, you know, whatever ultimately those requirements are. And that should count to me as an ALU. Whether or not, you know, someone's living in it at that moment or not. To me, it's still a dwelling unit, whether or not it's occupied or not. So to me that was kind of a slippery slope. I didn't like that response. I didn't hurt him, say that before. You know, that we're only going to look at the use of it. I mean, someone could like, you get into a situation where next thing you know, people aren't getting anything, they're not getting anything approved. They're not getting, you have a bunch of legal units now. People build it and they, under some other guys and then something happens, it changes hands, it gets sold. And next thing you know, like they're living, they're living in these things without see certificates of occupancy. We don't know if it's meeting the proper code and other things. So, I think we need to be careful with that. Because I think the question came up because one of the council, one of the council, it's all on council, I asked the question, well, what if you have the basement and now you want to build the backyard? And I think that was Paul's answer. I was like, well, if you're not using the basement, then they can build the back. To me, that's very dangerous to do that because then how would you ever control them renting out the basement a year later? You know they're not going to come in and tell you that typically. So, anyhow, I hadn't heard that before. My opinion is that we're regulating the thing regardless of who's in it, you know, or if someone's in it all the time or not. If you have all those features, if you build in a, you know, a little unit in your backyard, you have it. It's there. So, and again, I think it was more, and he responded to that question, but I didn't, I don't know, to me I have a problem with that type of approach. Because then you would wind up with multiple dwellings potentially, which is whatever anyone's opinion is if ultimately this is adopted is that you can only have one well then we have to enforce that and it would be very difficult for staff and others to enforce it if you did that. Can I just jump in because I just watched this like before I came and I think he said you could revoke the CFO for the interior unit. If you had one in the first place. Yeah but assuming you had one and it was a legit unit on the books you could go in and say please take it away, I'm going to build it back here. I'm concerned about where someone doesn't. I think they don't have to do that. I think they should be able to have one of eight. I'm concerned if someone, for example, builds a house or finishes a basement and says, well, I'm going to put in a full kitchen down. I just want it now. I mean, to me, that's, you know, that is a problem. Yeah, it probably already is happening. So we were going to regulate them that way or not. So anyhow, that was my concern just on that point. So I think you can fix that in the definition, and you can just be very clear. And I think right now, actually, the definition, as you read it's a dwelling unit. So it falls under that. But we should be clear about that, because that's anyhow, so that was a concern that I had. The other thing I would recommend that we to even make that definition even more clear, something that other jurisdictions, like Fairfax, and others have struggled with is what is cooking? What's a cooking appliance? If you just have a microwave downstairs, is that a wet bar? Is that a kitchen? And so if you want to avoid a whole bunch of really enane zone administrator interpretations, just make it clear. I'm not saying we have to do this, but in Fairfax, if you have a stove, if you actually have a stove, as opposed to just a microwave. Like a microwave is a wet bar, but if you have a stove, you know, you now have a function in addition to the other pertinences, the full bath in the bedroom. You now have a dwelling unit. So anyhow, and then we don't necessarily use that definition exactly, but we should try to be clear about it because otherwise I can guarantee you will have lots of gray area and a key to end others will be making, have to make calls on these things and it gets really murky. Let's see, I strongly, you know, I'll line myself with the two council people, at least two, I think maybe it was even three of them, although I know if the two didn't vote to send it on, but at least three had concerns about the owner occupancy issue. I strongly disagree with staff on that Arlington and Fairfax both do it. I know someone that raised was that legal. I'm fairly confident that the county attorneys in both jurisdictions have vetted it so that you can restrict the know, you can restrict it to owner occupied, one of the, you're requiring one of the units to be owner occupied. And I strongly recommend we do that. I think a few of us mentioned that last time that we had some concern that it would just invite a lot of potentially speculators or, you know, people who are, you know, just investing in a property and maximizing their return. And so I just disagree with staff on that. I think we should not be a little island surrounded by our two larger neighbors that, you know, allow it. I don't know why we would want to not, you know, have the under-occupancy requirement. If our goal is to help people stay in their house or help someone, you know, with an aged or disabled relative or whatever aging in place, whatever it is, then we should require it to be owner occupied. And yes, there was some discussion about, well, maybe have an exemption or have a special permit option for somebody who needs to, for a temporary basis, leave like our State Department community, which we have a large number. There are ways around it. If someone needs a relief from that, they can get reasonable relief under restrictions for a three year period or one year, whatever a lot of times those folks get stationed out for. But I think it's unwise for us to just open it up and say, I understand like, you know, sort of the idea of like we're trying to, you know, allow as many as possible. And I just don't think we should go there. I think having one that's rented out with two renters, I think is, I don't know, I wouldn't want to live next to that. I wouldn't want to live next to a house that was at an ALU and a main house rented out to two different parties. That's just me, I wouldn't want that. I think it's already tough when there's lots of turnover with the State Department folks when they leave every three years and you get new people in but Anyway, so strongly recommend we add that back or not add it back at it. I guess we never had it I Like the idea that might have been Councilmember Flynn or who said like if we're not necessarily putting a parking requirement in, but if they're going to take parking space away, they should have to replace that, or maybe that goes to the BGA. So if they're converting a garage that they now park on, they now park a car in there, and now they're, and that was one of their required parking spaces on the lot, and now they're removing that to turn it into an ADU. Is that a problem? You know, potentially. The Arlington has that. If you take away a space because of the ADU, you have to comment and say. Yeah, you might be right. Yeah, I don't know Arlington's rules as well. So you might be right. But the point is we should, Fairfax is even stricter. I actually require a spot for the ADU. But I'm okay not requiring a spot specifically for the ADU, but if they're removing one of their spots to put in the ADU, that could be a problem. And I think so, I think we should account for that somehow. And I've said this before, I'll continue to say, and I think that we're being a little too generous with the setback, I'm'm disagree with my colleague here. I think that they should have to meet the setback for the zone. I really do. When you're getting taller than what we allow, like when you're getting up to 20, 25 feet, that's really tall. And five feet, certainly. Five feet at five feet setback, a 20 feet tall is way too close, I mean, in my view. I think actually the new council woman, Downs, said that she has a neighbor that built something like that and it was that 10 feet and she was saying it's kind of close and we lost a lot of privacy. Because you can't plant much at five feet. You're not going to be a fence that's all. You're limited to seven feet on your fence. And you can barely plant at five feet, you know, barely, you know, maybe some very, you know, pure middle-arbrevity, you know, but it's, it's, um, so I think they should have to meet the zoning setback, which is already 10 feet in R1B, and it's 15 feet in R1A. I think if they're going to build essentially a little house in the backyard, it should have to meet the same setback because it does have impacts when you have someone living as opposed to a shed. I think actually our shed rules are a little too generous. I think being able to build 12 feet tall at 3 feet setback is too close. But you know, I don't know how long we've had it like that. That's kind of close to me. But we're not talking about sheds. more impact because they have more windows and there are people living in it and privacy issues. So my recommendation would be that if maybe it's above a certain threshold, they have to meet above one story or whatever, now they have to meet the setback for the zoning district which is the 10 feet or the 15 feet. So that's my recommendation. Also the one only, I don't think we should allow more than that. I mean, it's baby steps. I mean, we could see that I agree with you, like maybe everyone gets used to it. But certainly, I agree with keeping it at one only interior or outside, but not both. So that's where I'm at on this. I mean, I do think we're heading in a good direction on this overall. I still have opinions about maybe even requiring that if it's an undersized lot that they have to go to the BGA not just for the existing structure, but if your lot is undersized. Potentially, you have to go to the BGA in order to locate it. But I may not have the support from others on that one, but, but overall, like those are my, what I said before my main comments, I think that those points we need to address, for me, the other occupancies like a non-starter, for me personally, that thing to me is, that's super important. And, and the definition stuff, that's it. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Freelander? Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Brewer. Thank you. I agree with the bulk of my commissioner, to my right, Mr. Krazner, especially in the owner occupancy. We are on line 172 in the ordinance. It does say that we want to have a limited impact on the community character and sense of place. And I think that once, if we're inviting speculators in, who are just going to rent and make and more of a commercial enterprise, I think that changes the fabric of our community. In the intent, originally, it's stated that we want this for aging and plays for family members, for that kind of flexibility. I did want to mention too, with regards to the appliances and the definition of appliances. Right now here in Falls Church, there are short term rentals that do have cooktops and microwaves. So I think if you say it has to be a stove, it automatically allows a short term that has the cooktop and the microwave and the sink in a little kitchenette as an addition to whatever accessory dwelling. So just something to think about in terms of how we define that. I am in favor of having the ability to add a second stove for that accessory dwelling because I think that is a limiting feature of a lot of jurisdictions because then you are limited to a cooktop. But it's a slippery slope, both ways. But I did want to kind of, I know I've talked about this a lot, and I'm going to come back to it. The overall square footage, I don't understand why we would not go with the industry's standard size of 900 square foot maximum. When I think about that, I think I start thinking about like, what's the overall floor plate that can be for 1000 square foot. So it's 20 by 50 feet, right? If you just did a single story. Or you could do two floors that are 20 by 20 that gets you 800 square feet. Or you could do one and a half stories that's a 20 by 30 and a 20 by 15 so that you meet those requirements and are zoning for what is a half story. But that extra 100 square feet is a 10 by 10 bedroom. So if we know the industry standard is 900 square feet, why would we be increasing that to allow yet an additional bedroom? So I just want to be cognizant of the overall, I mean, you can paste it out and you can start to feel what those sizes are and then think about what that means in terms of setback and height. There are smaller lots, there are larger lots. I personally have structures that are right up against, they're like three feet away from the line where my neighbor could easily go up to under the way this is written now could go up to 20 feet, right? That's to the midline. So that's to the midline of the roof. So that's almost 29 feet, three feet away from my property line in my garden. So I still think that we're still too high at 20 feet. For, and I think all of them, I think 15 feet, that's to the midline. So I think that gets you to like 26, right, or not 26, but like 23, 22, 23 feet. I think that's more reasonable and put that across whatever, whatever height, whatever setback it is because I just feel that anything over 20 feet is too tall. And we're talking accessory. And when you start thinking about how do those floor plates, how can you stack those? You can get a really nice 10 foot ceiling in both of those, you know, if you do a 15 foot roof. So we're not restricting the aesthetics of what somebody's accessory dwelling environment would be like if we kept it at 15 feet to the midline. So I just think we need to think about this realistically and what those dimensions really feel like. And again, I think we do need to have an owner occupancy requirement on one of those. So thank you very much. That's all I had. Thank you. Thank you. Additional comments from anyone? Ms. Pire? I'll start by saying I'm glad that we changed the short term rental that we're saying that we're not going to allow that. I do think we need to think about how we enforce that because people are going to do it. Even if you don't give them permission and they're breaking the law. I mean, so we really have to figure out an enforcement mechanism. And so I know our city is tapped out at city staff capacity for the things we want to do. So if we establish this law, we absolutely have to think about an enforcement mechanism. So if somebody has an ADU and there, it's up on Airbnb, it wouldn't be very hard to figure it out. And you'll see it right there. Just like if you go on now, you'll see we have Airbnb's. There aren't a lot, but they'll be there. So again, an enforcement mechanism to penalize people that break the law. What are we going to do to those households that do that? Because I guarantee if we pass this, somebody will have it up there as a short-term rental. So we change that, which is good. I also think we do need to change what many of my colleagues have said about owner occupancy. If we allow the real estate industry to come in here, they want to profit, and they will figure out a way to make a profit off our single-family homes and the ADUs on the lots. We also will probably have investors that buy multiple lots. And especially since we don't have this in other jurisdictions around us, we'll be the target jurisdiction to see how much money you can make, and it will disrupt our neighborhoods. So we know this will be coming our way. So we have to prevent that. And by passing this without having owner occupancy in one of the units, we are just asking for this. We're asking for disruption in our neighborhoods. So I really think we got the council to change their thoughts and the staff on the short-term leasing and short-term rental, I think if we keep advocating and get others to advocate, we can get a change on the owner occupancy. So that is sort of my other thing that I would push for. And the last thing we ended the last conversation on this by trying to figure out how we could get some affordable housing out of this change. I see that there was zero thought, at least what was brought before us and council's conversation about that. We talked about we could do the calculation. You did the canopy calculation. You looked at the number of units. You looked at lot sizes, right? And you looked at how many lots were there in town that actually might qualify to have an ADU. So could we also please do a financial calculation about how many of these we think will be built? How much will it raise our property tax? And then let's have a conversation about how that additional tax revenue that's generated through ADUs is potentially utilized to build affordable housing. I sometimes wonder how we say inclusivity, we just had a whole conversation about our art in town, and how our art symbolizes the love that we have for other people. And yet consistently with our policies, we show we don't love other people. We only love the people that have income who can pay the price to live in our town. And for others who don't have a high income, we refuse to do affordable housing for them. And here's just another example where our chair and myself, since this policy came before us said, could we please do some thinking about how this change in our zoning could trigger some more resources for affordable housing and every time this comes back to us, there is nothing on that in here. So that's just my third point. So could we please do some more thinking and do the financial calculation that we're supposed to do when we make a zoning change? We're supposed to do an economic analysis. We haven't done that yet. So, let's do it. Let's think about the pot of money we might raise and then let's have a conversation of how we might allocate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I think the question on enforcement was the one thing I wanted to talk about, but it was already covered very well. And I'm also okay with the timing, and I think actually connected to the last point, maybe does give us some time to do additional analysis. Just to figure this part out, Again, Mr. Hire has said it very well, so I'm not going to repeat it. But I think that's an excellent recommendation, something that we can do with the additional time that we're going to get over the next few months here. Other than that, I don't have anything else to add. Any other comments from other folks before we close this work session item. Anything from staff? No, thank you all for the comments. You heard a lot up here. This is a richer conversation I thought we were going to have tonight so I really appreciate that. So, okay. Move close that item and then move on to where are we? 7C, 2024 work. Sorry, that's my glasses on? It's 2024 draft annual report. Mr. Foller. Yeah, sure. Okay, I'll take this one off the pad. This is your first look at the draft annual report. Planning Commission makes its report to a council every year summarizing all that happened in the year prior. And so we've taken a first crack at summarizing all that came before the Planning commission and all that The commission took action on and considered and looked at And so the request is for the planning commission to Yeah, review the draft report Providing feedback ahead of scheduled action to adopt the report and its next meeting on December 18th. And staff further recommends that the Planning Commission discuss priority projects and policies to recommend for Council consideration during 2025 to be included towards the end of the document on page 16 for reference to the draft Planning Division work program that was shared with the Commission during the November 4th, 2024 meeting is scheduled. It's included for reference. Excuse me. Okay. You know, we do this every, we get this every year and every year I always think that it's, I mean, it's useful and I guess it's helpful for folks to see the legal language. I think it'd be tough for general public to absorb everything is in here. Just given the format and the way that it's the way that it's structured, my only then comment, I mean I guess you have to retain the legal language and just the specifics of what we did, but if there was some kind of more of a narrative for folks that they could absorb what happened during the year, that might be helpful. Other than that, you know, the formats, what it is, and we've seen it every year. There would open up the commissioners in. Any other thoughts or comments or reactions? Anything on either the format or the priorities then for the next year. I can go first. Thank you. Thank you Jack. I think for Dr. Sir, whoever drafted it. Thank you for doing it. I appreciate you spending the time to pull this together for us every year. Only one error that I noted. I mean I didn't go back and check all the motions and stuff but on page two you're missing Sharon's last name from the caption. I know. You didn't catch that Sharon. There's only one Sharon. It's you. It's you. There was any doubt. And then I guess like the meat of the discussion, that was my only thing that I noticed in the report itself. So I guess like kind of the meat of our discussion might be on the recommendations and priorities for 2025. So familiarize myself. Thank you for attaching the planning divisions, you know, calendar year 2025 work plans. I feel like all those things should be on our list. Obviously closing out accessory dwellings, you know, closing out the bike plan approval and then looking forward to implementation and supporting those decisions. We're also closing out the Affordable Living Policy, I believe, over the next few months. There's a few chapter updates contemplated, public utilities in the vision chapter, and I saw Virginia Village Plan and minimum parking requirements on that list, as well as tree canopy. So this is a lot, and it's like a lot of media items for us to be working on. So I mean, it's like a nice variety of work, too. And I'm sure we're going to have more development projects reviews as well mixed in there. So that feels to me like a nice mix of work for us for 2025. So that would be my list. Yeah, it's hard to look at those. Just again, you know, it's staff has had capacity challenges now legitimately. And with the transition, obviously, the additional burden on staff. So it's hard to think through those things but I agree there it's hard to say anything on here is not not important so any other questions or comments or thoughts from commissioners Mr. Stevens Yeah, if we're talking about adding things There's a Couple of things that that occurred to me. I don't know if they'd rise up to be more important than anything that's on this good list here. But one of them has to do with the cottage ordinance. We, Carly Aubrey, when she was here, was working on an update to the cottage ordinance and unfortunately it kind of got dropped. I think a big piece of that was probably preoccupation with COVID as well that kind of delayed cause delay. But, you know, we haven't seen any other cottage development since the one that went in, and that's certainly an indication that the ordinance is probably a little too restrictive at this point. And I think that was what Miss Aubrey had and her recommendation were ways to make it a little bit more flexible. So I would find it useful at some point if we can work that back into our work agenda as something that the Planning Commission has a particular interest in. I guess that's the only one that I'll add because I've realized that there are constraints on staff capacity. I wasn't trying to restrict us from making suggestions, but I appreciate that too. Other comments? Okay. I think we're generally okay with it. So, look forward to the final one that comes through. Move on to 8a, information items, planning, commissioner reports. Any reports of many commissioners? You heard about the EDA meeting this week? Anything else, Mr. Stevens? Yeah, there's actually a couple more things from the EDA meeting that I thought would be good to pass along. One of them is at the end of January, we have the TAP, the technical assistance program for the Gordon Road Triangle. Right now that's scheduled for January 30th and 31st. It would be at the Hilton Garden Inn for the most part, for the inside piece and probably some tours of the space over there as well. The only thing is that City Council members have mentioned that they're not going to be here on those dates. So if it continues to be that date, I think it would be important, especially to have planning commission members there if schedules permit. I've attended some of those tap proceedings before, and they're very useful. I find that the people that they bring in to be very knowledgeable, experienced, and generally pass on some good ideas. The other thing was mentioned was that at the end of January, there's an event being planned for the name change, the honorary name from Wilson Boulevard to Saigon Boulevard. And the date on that, I guess, is TBD to be developed. But I thought that would be another one of interest for us to attend where possible. That's it. Thank you. Just to comment on the first item we have been corresponding with the city manager and he's been talking to the council on the attendance for the 30th and 31st referring to the ULA TAP program. And so in terms of stakeholders, you know, there'll be a number of groups identified and included. And then we're hoping that if council would be able to provide one or two people, maybe not everybody's going to be there kind of thing or they could substitute some former council members. But the entire council is going to be interviewed prior to this and so they're going to kind of capture things the week before leading into the tap. So they will be included whether they're physically there. And even if they were, it would be more of an immeasational observing where only one or two would have actually been participating in that small group in terms of the panel itself. So they're going to interview the entire group and kind of capture in a kind of a focus group kind of thing. They're they're interested in their thoughts on this. So so there is a mechanism to kind of include them and then the planning commission as well. And so Emily's developing the stakeholder list now and the panel. So we're so we're continuing with that date. So that's the plan. Thank you. Other reports? Commissioners? Yes, Doug? In the category of productive use of public spaces and developments that were special exceptioned into existence. There was a nice crowd last night at the Winter Wonderland event that Founders wrote. It's cold, it's the jeepers out there and it's really uplifting to go and see so many people you know families, little kids, really little kids and Santa and all that you know just a nice community gathering everybody cuts out pretty quickly once the festivities are officially concluded because it's just too cold to hang around. That space, which is not all tastes, I realize some folks would like a little bit more greenery there, but it really functions very nicely for events like that on the summer concerts that they have. It draws a nice attendance from the community. The Thunders Road? Yeah, Founders Road. Also at the EDA meeting last night, there were some more news about leases signed and other businesses coming into both Founders 1 and 2, so that proceeds epace nicely. And I just wanted to bring those examples up as good work by people who helped design those projects because they are getting used in the way that was envisioned all these many years ago. Theater folks were there too with the table just to, you know, do a little public relations and they said that they would be opening for business by April, first a couple of weeks of April. So I'll be a big event on our calendar. The first time we've had first-run movie theaters and false shirts and I don't know, 40 years probably. Since the state clubs, I think the state clubs I think the state clubs than the early 80s so marker calendar go to the movies in April all right exciting all right let's go then move on to item 8 be the acting directors report mr. Fuller. Mike Peronson. So for the Planning Commission upcoming schedule our next meeting is December 18th. We had continued the site plan for Yassini Jewelry. At this point we had given them a deadline of Monday to get the material in and time for us to review. They've missed that deadline so that I don't maybe continue but we're still going to try and work with them if they get something in this week. So anyway, we will, you know, since it was continued, it'll be on the agenda one way or the other. So we'll determine it in the meantime. So we also have a work session scheduled for the bike plan update and that's a final work session in this case and then the forable living policy work session that's going to council this Monday and so we'll be having a work session on that on the 18th and then the that was listed on your session, the Parkwood SNAAMing Work Session, that's now January 15th. And then we have the annual schedule of meetings that you would request it, so we'll talk about our meeting schedule with that meeting as well. January 1st is a first Wednesday, New Year's Day, so we will not have our normal first Wednesday meeting. Therefore, our next meeting would be January 15th, and that would be the election of officers, and then a public hearing on the bike plan update, final action on the parklets naming, then the accessory dwelling board and commission listening session where you would as described it would be a board and commission based work session in which you would be hosting that and you could also have your own work session once the other board and commissions have commented we've kind of done that with the development in the past and so we kind of envisioned that as a format for that evening it would not be a public open session. Then we were requesting since we don't have a first Wednesday meeting available due to the holiday that we schedule a January 22nd administrative meeting which we would do the rules procedure, you know, the appointments of the liaisons, annual report, annual, and so, you know, all the annual things that we normally do. So, so that's the request tonight is to do that. So, I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. So, I think that's a good idea. So, I think that's a good idea. So, I think that's a good idea. So, I think that's a good idea. So, I think that's a good idea. So, I think that's a good idea. So, I think that's a good idea. So, I think that's a good idea. the administrative meeting you normally have in January. Make sense? It's a lot to pack in any questions or thoughts on the commissioners. I mean, actually just like a procedural question on dates and calendar. I mean, do we, I know we, the fact that we meet on the dates we do, is that in our bylaws, is that in our rules of procedure? Do we have to vote on a calendar? I know I raised this question from time to time. It's in the rules of procedure, I believe, because previously it was on a different night. Yeah, we used to meet on different night. During COVID, we switched it. So it used to be Mondays for years, and then we went to Wednesdays, because we couldn't get a space during COVID. Right, so what I'm saying, the point is like as far as like you know for the purposes of advertising like we have like a set calendar that we should be adopt right. And so it's the bylaws say it's every whatever is the first and first and third Wednesday. Right. So you're saying you want to add a different day. So we don't need to vote on that. If we want to have a meeting that deviates from our rules of procedures. The J way 22nd. I mean, I mean, that's exactly what it would be a special. I would agree that that would be a vote and we could do that on the 18th. Okay. Yeah. We just need to. So at this point, you know, if the group agrees that we want to have this extra administrative special meeting then, you know, we'll set that for a vote. And so, you know, set that up. I agree. Thank you. Can I ask like agenda setting for the annual advance? Oh, by there. Is that something that we would do? And like at the 15th meeting, or is that something that staff would propose? Or like when will we have a sense of like what that? Yeah, we could talk about that at December 18th. I had spoken briefly with Paul on it. And then Jack and I were going to meet on that this week. So I'm just stepping into things this week. And so we're already internally going to talk about it. And then so we can come talk to you about it on the 18th. And then we'll figure out what that agenda will be. Yeah, it's just helpful to know so we can prepare. Yeah, because I know the feedback on the staff planning division work program was one of the things we'd originally anticipated kind of working through that and integrating it with your work program and we've already made a lot of headway on that. So anyway, but that still could be part of the discussion. So if you have some particular items then, you know, co-late those and then, you know, we'll discuss them on the 18th. And feel free to call me in advance or send me an email and just say, you know, we're thinking about these things for the advance. Because it's, you know, it's really kind of for your benefit. So if there's particular things that you're looking to talk about to kind of kick off the year, then that's that's the purpose of that. So, yeah. Thank you. So, feel free to email me and Jack. Copy both of those. So, feel free to email me and also copy Jack. So, that way we're sure. Anything else, Mr. Fowler? the other . Any other . In terms of the planning director report there was a couple items that were included in here. There was the ready set go technical assistance grant. So there was some information on that in regard to the Oak Street Elementary School walking zone and some adjacent streets in that area they were listed. That's a V. program. And then the share revenue bridge 60% of the design plans. At this point, the bridge construction is scheduled again in August of 2026. And you last saw this in the community meeting on November 12th, you had plans presented. And so anyway, this was just an update that we're getting from staff that are the project planners. Okay. Any other questions in regard to anything else to the planning division staff? Does it look like it? All right. And I don't think we have any correspondence, right, Mr. Trainer, HC. Okay. Then with that, and with anybody else, we'll do a little job. Thanks. I tried to finish it. You did good. Almost. 21. You're not re-upping? Yeah. Yeah, I didn't.