Coraggio Consulting City of Fairfax City Council Meeting, Tuesday, June 23, 2026 Date: Tuesday, June 23, 2026 Place: City Hall, City of Fairfax, Virginia Length: 3h 15m (video) Official meeting video (city, Granicus): https://fairfax.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=13&clip_id=4588 Agenda: https://fairfax.granicus.com/AgendaViewer.php?view_id=13&clip_id=4588 Minutes: https://fairfax.granicus.com/MinutesViewer.php?view_id=13&clip_id=4588&doc_id=9943173b-6fd3-11f1-9494-005056a89546 Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting. Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-12. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [00:00:00] who is also joined by Sri Namputhiri, if I said that right, from NVTA. She is going to do a presentation for us on NVTA's Bus Rapid Transit BRT Action Plan. However you want it. So good evening. I am Monica Backman, as the mayor stated, the CEO of the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority. I have a very brief presentation for you tonight talking about the Regents Bus Rapid Transit Action Plan for Northern Virginia. So before I get into the specifics of BRT, [00:00:39] MBTA to date has invested $5 billion regionally. Of that $5 billion, $125 million has been invested right here in the city of Fairfax. And that's from the authority 70%. From the 30%, we've redistributed to the city $33 million for your own public transportation purposes. Some of the key projects, not all, of course, have been identified, and they're noted on this slide, Germantown, Blenheim, North Fairfax intersection improvements, North Fairfax network improvements, [00:01:15] intersection improvements at Eaton Place, Cambridge Road, and Q bus system. The point is that we try to make sure our investments are spread out and that they are truly multimodal and, of course, that they reduce congestion. So to speak about the BRT system, two years ago, or about, give or take, when we adopted the region's current long-range transportation plan, which is transaction, the authority adopted that plan in December of 2022. Transaction is a needs-based plan and is [00:01:49] fiscally and geographically unconstrained, but that's our opportunity to see where the gaps are in the network. What projects do we need to create a more unified, seamless transportation system? And that is essentially how BRT was born. We've identified 28 routes. Of those 28 routes, five are in various stages of development, and we have a few that are actually operating. [00:02:17] What this BRT action plan is, it is a blueprint for the jurisdictions and agencies in Northern Virginia to develop future BRT lines. Now, that means everything will not happen overnight. It will not happen in the next five or ten years. [00:02:34] It will take place in incremental steps. But the goal is to have a seamless, integrated BRT network, something that will provide safe, reliable, efficient, frequent service, and this is not in lieu of Metro. I do want to note that, but this is something that we can put on the ground a lot quicker and at a lower cost. [00:02:58] So our BRT action plan, like I noted, identifies up to 28 routes to expand capacity across the DMV. When we took this task on, we had a working group that consisted of our member jurisdictions, the nine members of five cities, four counties in the region, and we had Maryland, we had the District of Columbia, we had WMATA, because of course, as a traveler, as a commuter, you don't want to be stopped or hindered by jurisdictional boundaries. So the five BRT routes that we're [00:03:33] currently investing in, the one in Fairfax County, Envision Route 7, which NVTC is working on, West End Transit Way and Duke Street Transit Way in the city of Alexandria and then Metro Way in Arlington. Those five routes, we have a total investment of $883 million. [00:03:53] Now, I will say, is that a big number? It's a big number. All numbers are big this day and age. However, the benefits that we get will truly, truly result in 47 million riders by 2020. [00:04:11] 20, oh, I'm saying 20, 20, 45, 47 million riders, 27,000 daily car trips shifted to transit, and 23 tons of carbon dioxide avoided. These numbers are very important because not only does it help reduce congestion, it helps air quality and really get people into other modes that helps improve the quality of life. You, at the city of Fairfax, you're in the middle of these regional routes. You have three routes that are a part of this plan that go through the [00:04:48] city of Fairfax, the Little River Turnpike, Cambridge Road, and Fairfax Boulevard. And I do want to note that Route 21, it's the I-66 Express, connects Haymarket with Vienna Metro Rail Station. Some of the next steps and why I'm here before you tonight, we really want to make sure that our member jurisdictions are aware of this plan and the next steps. The authority adopted the action plan of July of last year. So what we are doing now is we're updating the region's long range plan and we are making some tweaks to the action plan based on some of the responses [00:05:27] and comments that we've heard from the member jurisdictions and agencies. We would like to incorporate these BRT route stations and facilities into your comp plans, mobility plans, transit strategic plans, or plans that you are working on. Because once you do that, that means that you can put that information in the next update of our long-range transportation plan. And please know, if you don't get it in the one we're working on now, the authority adopts the long-range plan every five years. For staff, it's an every two-and-a-half-year effort, so you are not missing [00:06:04] out on an opportunity. Continue to advance a coordinated regional strategy. I don't need to read all of the points, but again, we have some of the lines that are underway, and others are in their preliminary stages. We want to make sure that there's regional buy-in beyond the authority, regional buy-in from our member jurisdictions and agencies. And then the big one that I'm often asked about, explore funding opportunities. When these routes are in your plans, it only puts it on the radar for other plans. We have to make sure that there is a plan that the local governing [00:06:43] bodies endorse. I spoke with the Secretary of Transportation and I said, hey, we need to get some of these routes in the state's long-range transportation plan. And he said, why? To gear it up for funding, and I said, exactly. So that's another conversation that we're in the process of having, but not only have it state-funded or regional-funded, we're doing things to put this in place for potential federal funds as well. [00:07:07] This last slide, which is my favorite, really shows the regional collaboration when we have our BRT working groups coming, and a working group coming together is representative of the agencies, the member jurisdictions, the people that are across the bridge, the All of us as a true DMV region to have a seamless integrated system. [00:07:31] Thank you very much. That concludes my presentation. And thank you very much. Looking at all of these different bus systems, it kind of highlights the fact that there is a lot of bus transit in the region. We have our own Q bus, which is a closed system. [00:07:47] And I think that what we're starting to talk about in addition to the rapid transit routes is simply how we lower the barriers and the challenges to more people riding buses. And I know WMATA is working on that. And there's just a lot of discussion throughout the region for how do we make this more frictionless. [00:08:05] So I think in the next decade or so, we're going to have a lot of proposals about how to make transit something that those 47 million people in 2045 are going to find it more desirable to use than a car. [00:08:21] So I will ask the dais if there are questions of Ms. Backman. Any questions? Yes, Council Member Hardy Chandler. Well, thank you. You indicated that part of your goal tonight is awareness. So thank you for the presentation. Just curious, you mentioned that you're also looking for integration into local comp plans, local transportation plans. Can you talk a little bit about your strategy to, you know, support that kind of communication? [00:08:52] Because I would imagine it's a bit complicated for all of these various regions to integrate this into their local plans, even though it's clearly needed for that seamless. Sure, that's a great question. So some are much further along than others. But I will say, when we were doing this study, we had public involvement, public involvement. [00:09:11] We went out to the people, which is one of the more effective strategies. And we also had the member jurisdictions and the agencies involved. And then we add to that, we have our own two, we have two statutory committees, one which consists of elected officials who do not serve on the authority but represent the 14, if you will, member jurisdictions, that's the nine of cities and counties and then the five largest towns in the region, and then we have the authority. [00:09:40] So we may outreach one of our top priorities because you can have the best plan, so to speak. But if no one buys into it, you really just have a plan that sits on the shelf. Now that we have the plan adopted, we want to go further because I told my team we don't do plans that sit on the shelf. [00:09:58] We need to be proactive about this. This means coming to all of the local governments more than once, to be honest. So, but what we do not control, we don't control land use, nor do we want to. We want to work in tandem, hand in hand with you and where you are. [00:10:17] For some of these lines, there may be land use changes that are needed. There may be comp plan amendments that are needed. We are there to support you to help implement some of these routes. And that's why I said it's not going to be overnight for a lot of these routes. [00:10:32] Again, the five that we're currently funding, they're in various stages. but the other 23, we are here to help those get further along as well so that can lead to implementation. Council Member McQuillan? [00:10:51] Thank you, Mayor Reed. How can we find information to better understand specifically how this plan will affect our city residents and how it benefits them? So we do have the plan on our website. Did we bring coffee, Shree, for the council? [00:11:09] I have a few. Not that if you so choose to read a hard copy, but you can go to our website. We do have a plan, and then you can pull up how those three routes that we have identified particularly impacts you. The other thing I want to note, just because we have a route, that doesn't mean that route has been defined in a way that, hey, this goes through an area that we don't want it to. [00:11:35] That's a general area for the particular route, and that's another area we want to hear from you, and you tell us how to really execute where the route should go when we get to that level. That's excellent information. Thank you. [00:11:53] I did have one more question. In this description with the return on investment features that you guys outline here, have you ever considered presenting the percentage of decreased time in traffic or wait times? Is that conveyed anywhere? So thank you for that. [00:12:09] Thank you. And I'll just take a little plug that includes the BRT plan. The authority, we adopt our six-year funding program every two years. With every adoption of the funding program, we actually contract out with an economic impact analysis firm, a firm that does these studies, so we can really see the benefits of these transportation investments on the economy. [00:12:35] And we have the numbers on travel time savings, what the dollar in, every dollar that's spent for transportation, what that means, the number of new jobs that are created, the number of new jobs that are created and stay in Virginia. We can get you that information. We do it with every funding program. [00:12:52] Fantastic. Thank you so much. Thank you. Councilmember Peterson? Good to see you. You too. I think the other night you may have mentioned that Virginia received a special award regarding commuting recently. We did. Can you tell us about that? [00:13:08] Sure. So last week, the NVTA, we hosted the celebration for best workplace for commuters. And Virginia was recognized nationally, including Canada, I have to know, that Virginia is the number one place for best workplaces for commuters. [00:13:28] And then to take a personal point, NVTA has received this recognition twice. But that really speaks to providing options. and what i told my team and told the authority we practice what we preach we invest in multimodal solutions and we do that for the commuting public but we also do it for our staff as well because we are members of the public and we want to be able to provide those options for our team so thank you for that council member peterson but yeah virginia's number one i told him we got to do it again next year and then just to think a little bit about the big picture we also talked [00:14:05] about the range of investments you make on our behalf for transportation alternatives, which include various forms of transit and bus rapid transit as a part of that. When you look at that whole mix of things, how much does this kind of transit move the needle in terms of the adoption of commuting in a different format than people normally do with cars? [00:14:28] So I will say it comes off, not even comes off, for us, we're always looking for alternatives alternative ways of commuting, an alternative to taking a single occupied vehicle. That's what we're all looking for, ways to get people out of their cars as a single occupied vehicle and take other forms of transportation to get to and from their destinations. You know, we care about air quality. We care about safety. We care about all of those things. But then there's also a quality of life connection as well. When you're spending time commuting and you can't go anywhere, [00:15:07] studies have shown that that does impact your quality of life and health. So we want to make sure that we are making those investments to get people out of their SOVs. And we see that throughout the region. There's no particular locality that says that's what we should do. [00:15:25] All localities are saying that's exactly what we need to be doing, so help us go about doing that. And when BRT goes in place, I'm guessing that that has required frequently the improvement of various types of connections to make it maximally effective and that that's one of the areas that localities have to look in really on their own basis to see what that involves. [00:15:57] Can you comment a little bit on how that has looked for localities that have seriously begun the adoption process? How much of these secondary investments in infrastructure and modal change have taken place to enable BRT? I would say, first of all, you have to look at the densities and what areas are the most dense, what has the activity centers and the employment and where the people, the bulk of the people, if you will, are going. [00:16:26] Because that's what we've seen for those five lines, if you will, those five routes. People are looking at where are the people going, where are the densities. Because trying to put something like BRT in a less dense area, that's maybe not what you want to do. Maybe that's best for more local service. [00:16:42] But when you're looking at centers of employment, centers of high residential, and where you have this mixed-use development, these are the types of places where BRT really, really works. But you have to be mindful for BRT to truly work. You can't have a lot of stops because it needs to be frequent. [00:17:00] It needs to be on a schedule to incentivize people to use it. It's a little different than local bus service where you see, you know, a significant number of stops. This has to have some spacing between stops, looking at the headways, what headways would be best. [00:17:17] And, like, I will give an example for Richmond Highway, which Fairfax County is doing. Their BRT system is fixed guideway, meaning nothing will run in that fixed guideway except the bus rapid transit. What Alexandria is doing, their BRT will run on the street. [00:17:33] Now you have to look at signal preemption and making sure that there is no violation and things like that because you don't want something that will decentivize or slow the bus down. And so BRT comes in various forms. But to start, you need to look at the densities and what kind of uses will the system serve. [00:17:51] Well, thank you, and it really leads to my last question, which is how have jurisdictions approached the potential dilemma of having to reserve a lane for BRT? It has to be fast, it has to be frequent, and in some cases that means allocating a lane to BRT that otherwise is currently used for current automobile use. [00:18:15] Can you comment a little bit on how that has been approached? Well, I will say Fairfax County is right now the jurisdiction that says, listen, we're going to have this lane only for BRT. But because VDOT owns most of the roads in the Commonwealth, we have to have conversations with VDOT. [00:18:30] But not every jurisdiction is saying we're going to reserve a lane exclusively for BRT. And that's what I'm talking about when we're talking about frequencies and signal preemptions and trying to control violations and things of that nature to make sure you're getting true BRT. [00:18:46] I will say I used to work in Prince William County, and at that time when I worked there, and it seemed like it was many moons ago, they had BRT in their comp planned on Route 1. Then they took it out. Now there's conversations about putting it back in. Now, will it look like what Fairfax County has? [00:19:04] Well, I'm not sure about that because when you have fixed guideway, you have to talk about expanding the road and then having that BRT there so it's dedicated. But that's not, again, the only definition of BRT. You can have signal preemption. [00:19:20] You can have on-road dedicated lanes. It's really what is the best fit for your jurisdiction. Thank you. Any additional questions? Council Member Bates? So you mentioned collaboration with stakeholders, including the Q system. [00:19:45] Did that include consideration of the potential revisions that, you know, we've had presented here in the past? Oh, absolutely. And, again, because we're doing what we call BRT 2.0, integrating a lot of the suggested changes or modifications, I should say, for BRT that resulted from the action plan, We are in close contact with your staff and, again, as the BRT working group that meets regionally because the changes you make impact the system. [00:20:18] And that's why we need everyone at the table. So the long answer is what I just said. The short answer is yes. And so we have a discussion later tonight about the process for reviewing the small area plans. [00:20:35] Would you see, and this might be a question for our staff as well, but would you see this as something that might be considered as part of that or more for a review of the comprehensive plan overall? Yeah, I think that's a question that I would defer to your team. [00:20:50] For us, the reason why we say put it in a comp plan or mobility plan, because that makes it easier to submit to us for inclusion in the region's long-range transportation plan, which means that we can fund it at that point in time. [00:21:06] Yeah. Well, yeah, we can talk about that later then. And lastly, just to comment, you know, the big thing, the big takeaway for me from this presentation is just how large of a role Fairfax City plays, despite its relatively small size and regional connectivity, not just for bus rapid transit, but also for motorists and for pedestrians and bicyclists. [00:21:32] and i think that's a large opportunity for us but also a significant responsibility thank you thank you and again i think you hit the nail on the head just because you're small doesn't mean that you're small in comparison to what this study will do we need you because you're so centrally located and so while we'll have three routes that will go through the city other routes will be impacted by what the city chooses to do council member amos thank you there we go thank you uh So great presentation. [00:22:10] I think this is extremely necessary considering that. I think for public transit to be successful, it needs to be convenient. And so very happy to see this. My only question really comes down to expectations or future advocacy and legislative efforts. [00:22:25] We do a ledge program every fall, just like many other jurisdictions. You mentioned that's additional state funding, maybe even for helping localities try to make that transition. What are some things that you anticipate that we may need to start involving in our LEDGE program or start addressing as part of a regional body? [00:22:42] So I would say once you've decided and taken action to put it in your comprehensive plans, that's the point that it can really be flagged for funding. And what I mean by that, when I talked to Secretary Donahue, he was like, oh, then we can put it in and be trans, which is the Commonwealth Long Range Transportation Plan, which is the vehicle for them to fund eligible projects. [00:23:09] Now, I'm not saying guaranteed funding because that's a separate conversation, but once you take action in putting it in your comp plan and making a decision on, okay, these are the routes we want to proceed with, it becomes more than a blueprint. [00:23:25] It becomes something that's more ready to be implemented, and that's when we can have that funding discussion. And I shouldn't say at that point because we're always having the funding discussions like we don't want to come out to you and say, oh, you've done it now. Hey, I don't know how you're going to fund it. [00:23:41] That's not our problem. No, it's our goal to help you with that. We can help on the capital side, but getting the operational funding is something that we're discussing now. Where would those funds come from? I know this administration is in support of BRT, which is a huge plus. [00:23:57] But, again, a lot of these routes will outlive, if you will, the administration. So we want to make sure that whomever we're talking to, whoever is in the offices in Richmond, that we're doing an outreach. But same for D.C. Whoever is in these federal positions having these conversations. [00:24:18] I was at USDOT a few weeks ago meeting with some of the heads of FHWA and FTA and, hey, BRT, BRT. And they were like, okay, so what do you have? So we are in the process of trying to lay that groundwork. Just a quick follow-up. [00:24:36] So, I mean, in terms of timeline and on top of that, prioritization, how does that work with BRT? I mean, I'm assuming you have certain routes that might be higher priority, or are you trying to do this more as a blanket? What is your approach to this? So for us, you tell us, okay, we have three routes identified for the city. [00:24:55] You tell us which ones are more viable or which one is the most wanted, if you will, or is the highest priority for the city. And that's something we would want to get from you. Again, it's not our job to come here and tell you this is the one you need to move on first. [00:25:13] Because you know the things that we don't know. You know you hear from the community. You hear from the people. You know what's in your plans. And again, we do talk to your staff, Ms. Block Sanford, as being great, but you know that. So it's not for us to tell us this is what you need to prioritize. [00:25:31] We want you, you know, to tell us. All right, did I say that more? It's not for us to tell you. It's for you to tell us. Excuse me. Thank you. Other questions? Council Member Hall? Thank you. I think most of my questions have been answered. It's nice to see you. [00:25:47] I see your name on emails a lot. I was just curious for the five routes that have already, that are in process in some way. Are they, you'd mentioned before that sometimes there are additional things that need to be done in addition to BRT and not having a dedicated lane. [00:26:03] Sorry, my son is calling. And so I was up in Toronto and they had rapid transit lanes, but they were not solely devoted. So I was trying to understand how that, you know, would work. In some areas, I think when you have a lot of traffic lanes, obviously, there's plenty of room for it. [00:26:22] But the five routes that are currently in action or in process, are those specifically BRT, just dedicated lanes, or are they inclusive? I know you mentioned the Fairfax County one, but I don't know what the one is. I can imagine some of the other ones, but the transit ways, are those other multimodal ways of transportation, or are they just buses? [00:26:43] So I would say yes and no for the one, and that's what Fairfax has called it, because they're building a redeveloping Richmond Highway around this BRT system. When that BRT line's open, it will be the longest, if you will, BRT in the Commonwealth to date as of now until something else happens. [00:27:04] So they are doing a whole redevelopment around Richmond Highway BRT, and that's the one that will be fixed guideway. The others are not fixed guideway. They are on the road, and you have other traffic that may be able to use these lanes when the buses are not in them. [00:27:22] And that's a key component. And you can have a system, or BRT, where you don't have fixed guideway because that does come at a cost, but they're exclusive to buses only. And, again, these are the types of conversations you have. [00:27:38] So while it's not fixed guideway, meaning that there are barriers, so nothing can infringe that lane because you have the buses there and you have physical barriers, you can have exclusive bus lanes. Or you can have BRT that runs in the commuting periods, you know, it runs in the AM peak, and I'm using air quotes because the AM peak has really changed since COVID, and the PM peak. [00:28:03] And then off-peak, you can have cars using those lanes. So these are the types of conversations that we would have because we would need to hear from you on what is the best fit for your community. Thank you. Yeah, I was also thinking about how I used to commute into D.C., and there are certain lanes that are only operational certain times a day, or the Bay Bridge, how they give you that extra lane on the other side of traffic. [00:28:27] So certain things like that, I think, tend to work when you don't have a physically divided highway in some ways. But also, I think, you know, could be considered in other areas as well. So thank you very much. Thank you. Other questions? I think one of the greatest things about seeing these maps and having you explain this is the fact that NVTA, NVTC, you know, WMATA are all invested in transit. [00:28:54] And a lot of this is going to change. You know, we're building new projects here. Where people want to go as things get developed, look at Tyson's Corner. Things get developed. So it is all subject to change, and that's the other thing to keep in mind about fixed lanes, too. It's great. [00:29:09] I mean, it makes sense to do it on the Route 1 corridor, but the rest of the region might change dramatically in the next 20 years. And so what we need to do is come up with the system for how we adapt to where people want to take the bus from and to. And I appreciate very much that NVTA is at the center of this. [00:29:26] I appreciate our staff looking at you, Ms. Wendy Sanford, Ms. Wendy Block Sanford, and the fact that we do have a wonderful staff, and Council Member Peterson and I are on NVTA, and the member jurisdictions are working very hard to make sure that transit becomes an important part of the foundation of our economy here in Northern Virginia. [00:29:48] I appreciate you coming out to talk to us today, and best of luck as you do your tour. Thank you, Mayor Reed, and again, I want to thank you for your service on the authority. I mean, you really have been a supporter of this from day one, and Council Member Peterson on our Planning Coordination Advisory Committee. [00:30:04] You have great people here, so it makes our job easier, so thank you. Thank you very much. All right. Ms. Shinneberry? We can go to the adoption of the agenda. All right, then. Is there a motion to approve the agenda? Council Member Hardy-Chandler? [00:30:20] I move to adopt the agenda as presented. Second. The motion has been made and seconded a roll call vote. Council member Amos. Aye. Council member Hardy Chandler. Aye. Council member Peterson. Aye. Council member Bates. Aye. Council member McClellan. Aye. Motion passed unanimously. We had nobody sign up for initial general public comments so we can go to the consent agenda. Okay, I will ask, are there any questions on any of the items on the consent agenda? Any questions? Okay. Seeing none, is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? [00:30:54] i move to approve the consent agenda items a through c second a motion has been made by councilmember hardy-chandler and seconded by councilmember peterson a roll call vote councilmember mcquillan aye councilmember bates aye councilmember peterson aye councilmember hardy-chandler aye councilmember amos aye motion passed unanimously so we will go to the public hearings our first one is a public hearing and council action on the adoption of the green building policy. I'm going to recognize Stephanie Kupka, our sustainability program manager for the [00:31:30] staff presentation. Good evening, Mayor and City Council members. Tonight, we're here to hold the public hearing for the green building policy, which is being considered for adoption. During [00:32:09] my presentation, I'll first provide background information on the development of the green building policy. I'll provide an overview of the research and community engagement that was conducted. I'll then provide details on the green building policy standards for both the public and private sectors. And then we'll discuss the administrative and implementation procedures for the green building policy. And then finally, I'll provide a recommendation to council pertaining to the adoption of the policy. I'll first start with background. So why does a green building [00:32:48] policy matter now. So when a building is constructed, that locks in 30 to 50 years of operating costs, which includes utilities, maintenance, and repairs. And right now, the city is facing multiple challenges regarding buildings, one of which is rapidly rising utility costs. For example, electricity rates are projected to increase more than by double in the next 20 years. And this year alone, we're anticipating to have a 32% increase in electricity rates. [00:33:26] So this is a challenge for ongoing costs associated with utilities. We're also experiencing high development pressure, which is putting a strain on our natural resources. And we're also seeing increasing climate risks associated with extreme weather events, flooding, and extreme heat days. [00:33:46] So the green building policy is about responding proactively to these challenges by improving resilience, reducing long-term costs, and helping the city achieve our goals. The development of the green building policy has been in progress for years. [00:34:05] So in 2020, the city council directed staff to develop the green building policy, and staff did so in accordance with the city's plans, policies, and state and federal guidelines. Staff has spent multiple years researching best practices, working with consultants, George Mason University, engaging stakeholders, and aligning this policy with the Virginia High Performance Building Act and regional standards. [00:34:37] So the scope of the green building policy includes both public sector and private sector green building standards. So the public sector applies to new construction, major renovations, and existing buildings, and the private sector standards applies to new construction and major renovations. [00:35:00] So what does the city get for this investment? For the public sector, there are substantial cost savings and long-term benefits for the city. For example, a LEED-certified building typically saves 20% to 30% on electricity bills due to energy-efficient design. [00:35:20] It also saves 11% on water bills due to low-flow fixtures, rainwater harvesting, and native landscaping. And it also saves 10% to 20% on reduced maintenance and repair costs due to the durable, high-quality materials used in green buildings and also the use of smart building management systems. [00:35:40] This policy also will promote renewable energy. And on-site renewable energy can reduce electricity costs 20% to 50% over 20 years. This policy also helps improve indoor environmental quality, which is shown to boost productivity by 6 to 9 percent. [00:36:01] And this policy also will help reduce disposal fees associated with race reduction due to construction waste and sustainable material choices. On the private sector side of things, there's benefits to that as well. [00:36:18] So the policy creates clear expectations with developers and provides multiple benefits to the city. The policy catches us up with other jurisdictions in the region and provides predictability with developers working in northern Virginia. It gets us higher quality development, reduces development impacts on our tree canopy, water resources, and habitat through smarter design and building performance. [00:36:43] It reduces demand on public infrastructure and utilities, lowering the long-term strain on our infrastructure. It improves building quality, comfort, and resilience, and also aligns with the city adopted environmental and economic goals. And then last but not least, it also helps promote access to the commercial PACE program that's available to commercial properties so they can get long-term financing and then also help pay for those green building enhancements. [00:37:13] So as mentioned earlier, the green building policy will help the city achieve its goals. It helps support climate and environmental goals by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, improving energy efficiency, promoting renewable energy, and minimizing environmental impacts. [00:37:31] It helps our city become more resilient and healthy by enhancing indoor environmental air quality and improving resilience to heat, flooding, and extreme heat days. It also helps support smart growth by encouraging sustainable building design, encouraging growth that aligns with infrastructure capacity and environmental constraints, and helps support fiscal responsibility by lowering long-term operating costs and reducing future infrastructure demands on the city. [00:38:00] And it also helps us align, as I mentioned earlier, with jurisdictions in the region, aligns us with regional best practices, and puts us in compliance with state requirements. This policy directly helps us achieve some of our targets. [00:38:21] So it helps us reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050, and it also helps us achieve our target to achieve 100% renewable electricity for city operations by 2035 and community-wide by 2050. On the pie chart on the right shows our total greenhouse gas emissions for each sector, and you can see that buildings shown in green account for almost half of our greenhouse gas emissions. [00:38:49] And the commercial buildings account for a quarter. So this shows that it's really important to have both public and private green building standards to help reduce those emissions and help us achieve our climate goals. The development of this policy has been a deliberate and inclusive process, as you see from this timeline. [00:39:13] From stakeholder committee formation in 2023 to conducting research, holding council work sessions, public meetings, obtaining advisory committee input, and developing multiple draft iterations and approving that based on feedback from the community, this policy reflects an extensive review, refinement, and stakeholder engagement. I'll now provide an overview of some of our research and community engagement. So this policy is grounded in best practices. [00:39:47] Staff worked with a consultant to evaluate peer jurisdictions, Virginia Building Codes, the Virginia High Performance Building Act, and reviewed nationally recognized green building rating systems. We also had the privilege of being part of the U.S. Green Building Council's Green Building Policy Accelerator Cohort, where we received free technical guidance, and they helped provide recommendations for how we could improve our policy. [00:40:14] So with all this research, it ensures the policy is legally sound, technically feasible, and aligned with what is already working across the region. For stakeholder engagement, we had an internal stakeholder team made up of representatives of various departments within the city. [00:40:36] We also had an external green building advisory committee, which included representatives from the development community, subject matter experts, George Mason University, Environmental Sustainability Committee members, and also members of the public. [00:40:52] So the stakeholders met three two-hour meetings each, and these stakeholders provided a lot of input into the development of the policy. Throughout the process, we also did a significant amount of public engagement. [00:41:14] We engaged with over 250 stakeholders during our outreach process. We held meetings with the City Council, the Planning Commission, the Economic Development Authority, the Environmental Sustainability Committee, Parks and Recreation Board, etc. We held a public meeting and also attended the development industry meeting. [00:41:35] And we also tabled at public events and had an online engaged Fairfax page. All of those, we were able to gather input and feedback from our community, which really helped shape the policy to ensure that it's feasible, equitable, and implementable. [00:41:53] So here's how that feedback that we received shaped the policy. So first, we balanced ambition with feasibility by focusing on the high-impact practices while ensuring that we were still remaining practical. We also received feedback on building size requirements. We wanted to prioritize larger buildings for maximum impact and also make sure that our building threshold aligned with the Virginia High Performance Building Act. [00:42:28] And another thing that was added was that we added public schools to the policy because that was not first specified so now we schools is part of the policy for green space and tree canopy stakeholders wanted us to encourage green space tree canopy dark sky compliance and stormwater best practices we took that feedback to heart and we added special requirements for credits to to ensure that we achieve those for state and regional consistencies the standards were aligned with the Virginia High Performance Building Act and also aligned with what's going on with the region. [00:43:07] For the tax abatement incentive, as we discussed earlier, we did look at a variety of incentives. Part of the feedback that we received was the tax abatement was the most attractive to developers. However, we did get a lot of feedback and concerns from the rest of the population about equity concerns and fiscal concerns. [00:43:27] So we did, after discussions with the council, we did decide to not include an incentive as part of this iteration of the green building policy so we could further study that to ensure that whatever incentive we had had the best impact and also address those fiscal and equity concerns. [00:43:46] For technical definitions, we heard from stakeholders they wanted more definitions, and so there was less technical jargon and made it more easy to read, which we did. We also streamlined the certification process to simplify that, to reduce the administrative burden, and to make it easier for the private industry to follow. [00:44:08] For the next few slides, I'll provide an overview of the public sector green building standards. For applicability for the public sector, it is existing buildings that are 1,000 square feet or greater, new public construction or major renovations for buildings that are 5,000 square feet or greater, and major interior renovations that are 5,000 square feet or greater. [00:44:37] So for all existing public sector buildings that are 1,000 square feet or greater, the city shall conduct energy benchmarking and energy audits of those buildings, achieve LEED building operations and maintenance silver certification, and then track and publicly disclose the public sector building energy performance for each of those buildings on an annual basis. [00:45:03] this ensures that the city is being transparent with the community and also identify the areas where we can make improvements in our buildings and then also achieve that certification for new construction and major renovations these apply to any new city buildings that are 5 000 square feet or greater the building shall align with the virginia high performance building act so we need to be in client appliance with all of those requirements we will achieve lead building design [00:45:37] and construction gold, meet electrification ready and zero emission standards, demonstrate a 50% reduction on modeled energy use above the current Virginia Uniform State statewide building code, and then earn key sustainability resilience credits. And for major interior renovations for buildings 5,000 square feet or greater, the city shall achieve LEED interior design construction gold. So this standard ensures that even a partial upgrades [00:46:09] improves the efficiency and occupant comfort. All right, now I will discuss the private sector green building standards. So for the private sector, the green building standards will apply to developments subject to special exception, variance, rezoning, planned development review, or special use review procedures, and our new construction or major renovations where the building's floor area is 5,000 square feet or greater. So for private development, this policy only applies to those seeking discretionary approvals. This will not apply to buildings [00:46:48] that are being built by right. So for the applicable buildings, they shall obtain certification at the silver letter level, and they have flexibility with either using lead building design and construction or earthcraft. And then they will also be required to obtain the key sustainability and resilience credits shown here. For administration procedures, the development of the staff will develop an annual green building policy report, which will [00:47:28] provide an update on how the green building policy implementation is going. And then at a minimum of every five years, the policy will be reviewed and updated. And then also with each of these reports, key performance indicators will be measured, tracked, and reported to show how we're making progress towards reaching our goals. This slide shows the implementation procedure for the green building policy. So tonight, the policy is being considered for adoption. If it is adopted, [00:48:03] the public green building standards will become effective immediately. In September, or sometime this fall, we anticipate to hire and onboard our brand new energy programs manager. This position will be responsible for implementing and managing the green building policy. In fiscal year 27, staff will be working on tasks for the pre-launch planning, preparation, and coordination for the private sector standards. So this does require a significant amount of coordination between departments, finalizing standard operating procedures, building the website and forms, [00:48:41] work with developers to train them. So this does take a significant amount of effort. So once that is ready to be launched we anticipate the launch will be launched and enacted in july 2027 and ongoing as mentioned on the previous slide each year we'll provide a progress report to council regarding the green building policy and then for incentives i mentioned earlier that incentives are not included in this iteration however we are we have scheduled to do further analysis and research on incentives to see which ones would have the biggest impact [00:49:17] while also addressing fiscal and equity concerns, and we're scheduled to conduct that in fiscal year 31, and then in fiscal year 32, that would be the five-year mark to update and present the revised green building policy to council, and if council directs it, that policy would include those incentive measures. So in conclusion, the green building policy is a practical tool that advances city goals, improves building performance, reduces long-term costs and environmental impacts, [00:49:56] and aligns the city with regional best practices. Staff recommends that council pass a resolution to adopt the green building policy. That concludes my presentation. Thank you. Okay, before I open the public hearing, I'm going to ask if there are any questions from the dais at this time for staff. [00:50:17] Councilmember Peterson? Thank you so much. The training program for developers, I'm guessing will include training around the financing of these investments for green buildings and you have an earlier slide that shows return i think their return on investment numbers and one could imagine adding payback periods in there that are particularly helpful as a matter of focus i think the payback periods for green buildings policies are two to eight years something like that and everything after that is profit i raise this because i think it's an information gap we want [00:50:54] to be sure we close on behalf of developers but I'm also curious to know as we do that do we have any sort of outreach or training program for financial institutions including banks so that they also understand financially how this would impact their lending decisions because these payback periods would be very favorable to lenders if they're aware of them and can incorporate them into their terms do we have anything planned along those lines so i guess there's two things so one is we will be working with the fairfax housing renaissance corporation but i think [00:51:30] that's only for residential so i guess that doesn't pertain to the commercial sector sorry i'm thinking out loud here and then for commercial pace we have been working with the pace authority who runs the virginia commercial pace program and we've reached out to their new economic development director to help promote that program with commercial property owners so we don't have any plans to work with banks per se at this moment but that's something we can look into i i just i [00:52:05] just raise it because oftentimes the way this works is a developer has a capital partner when they come forward and to be able to develop those capital partners and for the capital partners to be able to seek and support developers as something that might benefit from some technical education around this so i would just offer that as something to consider thank you for that suggestion thank you any other questions all right then i will open the public hearing ms shinneberry has this public hearing been properly advertised yes it has um we had nobody sign up prior to the meeting so if [00:52:43] there's anybody in the room that would like to speak on this agenda may come forward and when you come forward just please state your name and address with your statement hello mayor and council my name is ben rhodes i live at 3704 university drive i'm a member of the environmental sustainability committee and have gotten to hear over my year with the committee uh you know the progress that's been made on the green building policy as it's been developed incredibly heartening to see how much it's been improved over that year and i really look forward to being able to have sort of [00:53:21] consistent uh environmental features particularly in public buildings right away uh as um you know this gets rolled out and then you know seeing as our city develops and flourish it flourishes having consistency particularly in um the habitat natural resources features tree canopy uh storm water features um in private buildings so that's all i'll have for now keep it short thanks guys Is there anybody else in the room that would like to speak? [00:53:57] Good evening, Mayor and Council. It's a pleasure to be here at this moment to kind of speak on with multiple behalf as a ESC member. [00:54:14] Sorry, I didn't state my name. Faiza Alam from 10112 Radcliffe Manor Drive, Fairfax. And I'm a member of the ESC committee, a science teacher at Katherine Johnson Middle School, where my students presented, because for me that's the most powerful piece here. We are educating our students and giving them the platform to speak, and they came to you multiple times to different bodies here in the city, and they did talk about green building policy and the heat island effect and all the stuff in their presentation for North Facts and Courthouse Plaza. [00:54:46] Unfortunately, they couldn't come today because summer break was more important right now, and rightly so. And they were very, very happy. I spoke to them today that this is happening. might be watching live right now that this is up for adoption today so it's really really important that what we do here we are leaving a mark for our young ones and they see this so a seventh grader and eighth grader sees this is very important so for us adults to see this that is very important is really really the connection we are making here and leaving it a better place so ESC has worked really hard and to you know give our feedback and it's a pleasure to be part [00:55:24] of this. And as a resident, it's just really good to see that, as we just heard from the transportation person, that city is right in the middle of Fairfax County. What we do here, even though we are small, we make a huge impact, right? And we need to kind of have this policy, and this is the right step forward to build the momentum, and things will fall in the right place. [00:55:46] As we are developing, as Mayor, you said, you know, things will change in the next five years, 10 years as tyson's corner has changed we have changed we are building are we building impervious only or are we having some green space and that will help our storm water management our runoff our heat island effect i mean it just is a win-win situation so thank you so much for this consideration anybody else in the room that would like to speak on this item all right i will now close the public hearing is there a motion councilmember hardy chandler i move to approve [00:56:23] the resolution to adopt the city of fairfax green building policy second the motion has been made by council member hardy-chandler is seconded by council member peterson is there discussion on the motion seeing none a roll call vote council member amos aye council member hall aye council member peterson aye council member bates aye council member mcquillan aye council member hardy-chandler aye motion passed unanimously uh we will go to the next public hearing which is a public hearing and Council action on the proposed amendments to the Code of the City of Fairfax, Virginia, [00:56:59] Chapter 86, MPRIN Subdivisions, to amend portions of the articles and sections contained therein, including administration. I'm going to recognize Eric Foreman, our senior planner, for the staff presentation. Okay, thank you very much. This agenda item is a public hearing for consideration of amendments to the subdivision ordinance. [00:57:21] It's not often that we amend the subdivision ordinance. The last time was four years ago. And that was in response to updated floodplain standards. What these amendments pertain to is a relatively minor update. It's in response to state legislation from 2025 that changed the mandatory time frame for subdivision plat reviews. [00:57:42] And that particular section of the subdivision ordinance mirrors state code. So what these amendments do is they synchronize the city's ordinance with those state code provisions. There's two components to these amendments. One changes the first review period of an application from 60 days to 40 days, and again, that changes to make this consistent with state code. [00:58:08] The other component to this amendment deals with subsequent submissions of subdivision applications, so if an application is resubmitted for a second time or a third time or so on. For this component, we're amending the text to read that those submissions, those resubmissions, will be reviewed in accordance with the relevant state code section. [00:58:30] So just one other thing to note here, most subdivision actions are administrative, and staff's action is guided by this document, by the subdivision ordinance. Larger subdivisions, and this is defined in state code as being more than 50 lots, larger subdivisions do require planning commission review, But mostly these are administrative actions. [00:58:55] So, again, this amendment ensures that our ordinance stays consistent with state code. The Planning Commission held a public hearing on these amendments last month. The Commission recommended approval of these amendments, and we do have a sample motion here in your packets. [00:59:14] And with that, I'd be glad to answer any questions if there are any. Are there any questions for Mr. Foreman? Council Member Peterson. I think we covered this earlier, but just to double-check, does this have any impact, and if so, how much, and what do we do about it in terms of public outreach, public involvement, and awareness, because it's shortening the period of that? [00:59:34] It is shortening the period. Since these are typically administrative reviews, there's no public notice to a subdivision. For any larger subdivision actions, that would be a planning commission recommendation, and that would be unchanged. [00:59:51] Thank you. All right. any other questions all right then i will now open the public hearing ms shinneberry has this public hearing been properly advertised yes it has no one has signed up prior to the meeting is there anybody in the room that would like to speak on this agenda item all right seeing no one rushing to the podium i will now close the public hearing is there a motion council member hardy jandler i move to approve an ordinance amending chapter 86 subdivisions to amend portions of [01:00:25] articles and sections contained therein including administration. Second. A motion has been made by Council Member Hardy-Chandler and seconded by Council Member Peterson. Is there any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, a roll call vote. Council Member McQuillan? Aye. Council Member Bates? [01:00:42] Aye. Council Member Peterson? Aye. Council Member Hardy-Chandler? Aye. Council Member Hall? Aye. Council Member Amos? Aye. Motion passed unanimously. We have gone to our last public hearing which is a Public hearing and council action on an ordinance amending and reenacting Chapter 2 in Prince Administration, Article 2, in Prince Mayor and Council, Section 2-31 of the Code of the City of Fairfax, Virginia, pertaining to the compensation of the mayor and the members of the city council. [01:01:11] I'll recognize Brian Lubkman, our city attorney, for the staff report. Good evening, Mayor and Council. You all have spoken about this several times already. This tonight would be the public hearing and council action, if it so desires, on an ordinance that would increase the salaries for mayor and council from the current $13,000 and $12,000, respectively, to $24,000 and $22,000, respectively. [01:01:36] As we've noted and as the staff report sets forth, an increase cannot take effect until after the next election, so there's always an intervening election requirement. And an ordinance for it to be effective July 1, 2027 needs to be enacted at least four months before the election. [01:01:52] So this is the last regular meeting before that could be done. With that, I'm happy to answer any questions. Are there any questions of Mr. Lubkerman? Okay, I'm seeing none, so we will open the public hearing. has this public hearing been properly advertised yes it has no one signed up prior to the meeting so if there's anybody in the room that would like to speak on this item may come forward seeing no one i will now close the public hearing is there a motion council member hardy chandler i move that the city council enact the attached ordinance amending chapter [01:02:27] two administration is this the right one yeah administration article two mayor and council section 2-31 pertaining to compensation of the mayor and the members of the city council second motion has been made by council member hardy chandler and seconded by council member peterson is there any discussion on the motion council member bates i just want to reemphasize that i hope that the salary increase will make it more feasible more realistic for early career professionals perhaps single parents etc to run for office who might otherwise need [01:03:04] reduce their hours worked in their daytime careers and also that i hope that the next council will consider this take this into consideration as they look at the results of the classification and pay study and think about future budgets and how we're paying our staff and taking care of our staff as well thank you thank you any other okay uh a roll call vote councilmember amos aye councilmember hall aye councilmember hardy chandler aye councilmember peterson aye councilmember [01:03:44] bates aye councilmember mcquillan aye motion passed unanimously we will go to second general public comment is there anybody in the room that would like to make a general public comment tonight well all right then i will now recess the regular meeting to go into a work session we will take a a five-minute recess to move into the work session room. [01:09:38] Welcome back to our work session here on the 23rd of June. [01:12:02] Ms. Shinneberry, what do we have up first? Our first item is a discussion of potential reviews and updates to adopt the small area plans for Old Town, North Facts, Camp Washington, and Fairfax Circle. I'm going to recognize Paul Napty, our Division Chief of Planning, for the staff presentation. [01:12:18] Thank you, Mayor Reed and members of council. The purpose of tonight's work session is to discuss this potential upcoming effort to review and potentially update the small area plans. We will go over a proposed schedule with you as well as a proposed list of topics that staff recommends we review when we review the small area plans. [01:12:38] We will be proposing that we review and potentially update all four small area plans concurrently. And so we'll walk through that process with you as well. Our goal tonight is to receive feedback from you on whether or not to proceed with this effort, whether or not you support the proposed schedule, and to get feedback from you on the specific topics that we plan to discuss, whether it be that you support the topics that are in there or if there are any that are missing that you want us to include. [01:13:03] In general, this is a discussion about the scope of this effort, and so we'd like to get your feedback on making sure we're going in the right direction before we begin. I'm here tonight with some of the staff who will be coordinating on some of the major issues with this effort will be. This certainly isn't everybody, but some of the elements we'll be looking at from a bigger picture perspective will require some analytical components that we'll need their support on. [01:13:25] So we have Wendy Sanford, Director of Transportation, Colleen Cardez, Director of Economic Development, and Satoshi Ito, Public Works, Director of Utilities. So a quick background on the Small Area Plans. [01:13:43] The 2019 Comprehensive Plan recommended that we develop smaller plans to provide more specific guidance that will help ensure that development is coordinated in our activity centers. The city had already supported mixed use development in these areas in previous comprehensive plans, but there was no centralized vision to guide how that development should occur. [01:14:02] So with that, it was recommended to this comprehensive plan to develop the Small Area Plans that would help provide this guidance. And the elements that are listed the bullet points on the left of the screen are what was listed in the comprehensive plan at that time to be included in the small area plans so since that time we have adopted four smaller plans for four of the five activity centers the fifth one being picket in maine there's no sense of urgency to move forward with that one at this time and so we'll be looking at these first four this is a long-term timeline of how the smaller plans have been developed in concurrence with the comprehensive plan and how we expect to be reviewing and updating all of these [01:14:42] documents going forward so what this shows us is a timeline going back to 2019 at that time we had a complete rewrite of a comprehensive plan we typically go through a more intensive effort with a comprehensive plan about once every 15 years the state code requires that we review it and update it every five years but these more intensive reviews occur on a longer term basis and as I mentioned at that time it recommended that we develop a small area plans so the the boxes that are shown on this timeline those that are highlighted with the orange glow are where we are saying that we wrote a document for the first time that wasn't our first comprehensive plan but as I [01:15:18] mentioned it was a complete rewrite so we see it as our starting point then following that this is a smaller plan recommended or the conference plan recommended we develop small area plans or the course of the next four years we developed those four smaller plans I mentioned earlier so those are shown as what we consider being new documents at that point and by that time we had reached the five-year period where the state code requires that we review and potentially update our comprehensive plan so shortly after the last smaller plan was adopted in 2024 we also amended our comprehensive plan and that was actually about a year-long process that went into that during that process of updating the comprehensive plan we asked the City Council and the Planning [01:15:57] Commission if we should review and update the smaller your plans at the same time because they are considered an extension of the comprehensive plan and it was generally agreed that was not a good time to do that for a couple of reasons first that some of the smaller plans were relatively new at that point but also and more importantly the smaller plans have a lot more detailed information in the comprehensive plan and there was concern that that would detract the attention from the comprehensive plan itself and more people would focus on how we update the smaller plans and we wouldn't actually put the type of effort that we should into the comprehensive plan so we focused our effort at that time on the comprehensive plan with the understanding that we [01:16:33] would come back and review the smaller plans at a later date with the update of the comprehensive plan in 2024 one of the recommendations was also to amend the city's zoning ordinance to be more in line with the smaller plans because the the ideas and the visions that were in the smaller plans were not in place before 2019 when the conference plan was rewritten our policies and codes weren't up to date with what the smaller plans were recommended. So since we had those four plans in place, we had the general guidance that we needed that we could begin that update. [01:17:05] So we began that update late in 2024. We're still working on it now. We have a work session coming up with you on that effort in a couple of weeks, and we hope to wrap that process up by the end of this year. Following that, we can begin the effort on reviewing and updating the smaller plans. And since the smaller plans, the overall vision was put into place with the original documents we expect that the changes that occur through this review will be unsubstantial enough that we can amend the zoning ordinance if needed to adjust to any changes to the recommendations that will be in there we aren't expecting that the smaller plan review will result in an overall [01:17:39] change to the goals or the vision of those types of things then looking forward long term after the smaller plans are updated and i'll show you in a minute our proposed schedule for that but we hope to wrap that up by about mid-2028. We will then continue our five-year cycle review per state code. So we'll come up for a review with the comprehensive plan in 2029, then for the smaller plans in 2033, and then following that, that gets us close to around the year 2035. We're showing 2035 highlighted in orange again because, as I mentioned, this is the 15-year time frame. [01:18:10] We're not bound to rewrite the comprehensive plan at that time. Just looking at our past history, though, that seems like the time we would do it. Also, the 2019 comprehensive plan had a target date of 2035 so it seems like that'll make sense again we're not bound to that but just for the purpose of looking ahead we think that's when we'll put the effort into doing that so thinking more specifically about the update for the small area plans this is the schedule that we are proposing today we're starting by introducing the project to you and discussing the scope depending on the feedback that we get from you today we plan to be back to you later [01:18:48] THIS YEAR TO PROVIDE MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE SCOPE AND MAKE SURE THAT WE ARE CONFIRMED WE'RE ON THE SAME PAGE WITH WHAT WE WANT TO DO. AND THEN WE CAN BE IN THE WORK LATE IN 2026 OR IN EARLY 2027. THE NEXT TWO LINES UNDER CONFIRMING THE SCOPE SAY CITY STAFF ANALYSIS AND CONSULTANT ANALYSIS. SO THE TASKS HERE ARE SEPARATED BY THOSE THAT WE CAN DO IN-HOUSE AS CITY STAFF. WE CAN BEGIN THOSE RIGHT AWAY SO LONG AS WE HAVE THE CAPACITY. THOSE THAT REQUIRE consultant support that we will, after confirming the scope of you, will determine if we need to make a budget request in next year's budget. And if that is approved, those funds will become [01:19:23] available not until mid-2027. And so those consultant-supported tasks could begin at that time. So it'd be a slight delay there, but we'll be working on formatting the documents and planning throughout the whole process. And our goal, again, is to wrap this up by about mid-2028. [01:19:39] So the the function for tonight's work session is that I'll walk through all of the proposed tasks that we propose to do as we review the smaller plans. As I mentioned we propose to do all four at once and part of the reason for that is that some of these tasks that we plan to do include the type of analysis that once you're doing in one area you might as well do it in all areas at the same time to make it more efficient. This will also allow us to bring the documents more in line with each other since they were developed at four different times they weren't necessarily entirely consistent with how they're written they have a lot of the same information but as you look through them that that they [01:20:18] have some differences between them so we'll make sure that they are all aligned with each other also through the process we weren't showing in the timeline there how we plan to do community outreach we will refine that before we come back to you again later this year but certainly that would be a major component of this effort so as we go through these tasks they'll be separated into two areas those that have an orange title are those that we can do in-house. Those that have a blue title are those that we would need consultant support for. So just keep that in mind as you're thinking about what's important to include in this process. So the first [01:20:50] task is a policy review. So the goal here is to look at those policies and plans that have been developed by the city since the small area plans were adopted and make sure that they are incorporated properly into the small area plans. So some examples are shown here. There will certainly BE OTHERS. ONE EXAMPLE IS THE URBAN FOREST MASTER PLAN. [01:21:09] THIS WAS ADOPTED IN DECEMBER AND INCLUDES SOME COMPONENTS OF THIS PLAN INCLUDE RECOMMENDATIONS RELATED TO POLICIES REGARDED TREES AND OTHER TYPES OF RECOMMENDATIONS RELATED TO PHYSICAL SPACE WHICH IS WHAT THE PLANS REALLY RELY ON. [01:21:25] THAT INCLUDES THINGS SUCH AS GREEN SPACE ACCESS, WHAT THEY CALL A 33300 ANALYSIS WHERE WE We look at making sure that every facility and residence has three trees within view of them, that we have 30% tree canopy in neighborhoods, and that every location has a public open space within 300 yards. [01:21:47] There's further recommendations about open space connectivity, and there's a recommendation to conduct a forested area analysis that will provide more specific guidance on specific locations that are important in the city. Another example is the Affordable Housing Strategic Plan. It was adopted in February. [01:22:03] Some of the elements of this plan were already included in our comprehensive plan and were factored into the development of the original small area plans, such as the ideas of using public land or partnerships with nonprofit and religious institutions to develop dedicated affordable housing developments. [01:22:20] The problem there is that there aren't a lot of those sites in our activity centers. They're mainly commercial areas, so there weren't a lot of opportunities for that. So there's a new recommendation through the Affordable Housing Strategic Plan that suggests we look at underutilized commercial properties. And we'll talk a little bit later about doing market analyses and what might be included in those. [01:22:37] But that might help us identify some of those opportunities. Because activity centers really are important places for affordable housing to be located. Because that's where the services and the transportation infrastructure are. And so we need to look for other opportunities to establish those partnerships. Another example is the Small Year Plan Zoning Ordinance Amendments that I recommended earlier. [01:22:57] The reason these will be beneficial is that if they are adopted, they'll provide more specific recommendations on numeric standards that we don't currently have in the activity centers. This includes things such as how we'll be calculating open space, what the exact dimensions are for streets and streetscapes. [01:23:14] And it could potentially include introduction of density standards, which there aren't any in the small area plans. And so this will help us refine the plans to make sure what we're showing in the plans is something that can be actually developed and is in line with what the zoning ordinance is showing, as opposed to what we have now, which is a bit more speculative because it was developed when we were still generating ideas. [01:23:35] A couple other examples, things that are in development, green building policy is no longer in development, but we'll be using that as a resource. Move Fairfax transportation plan is looking at a circulation study for Old Town, so it will certainly have significant impacts in that area. [01:23:51] but it's also looking at pedestrian safety improvements citywide. And so we might take some recommendations from there, include them in the smaller plans. Parks and Recreation Strategic Master Plan will be looking at the facilities we have and demands we might have for new facilities. So as I mentioned, there might be others. [01:24:08] I also wanted to mention, this is where I would include external policies and plans. So you had the presentation earlier tonight about the NVTA BRT Action Plan. And so we can take a look at that as well. Certainly, this is something that there are a lot of steps we'll have to take before we know exactly how they'll impact the smaller airplans, but we can at least begin to incorporate those types of recommendations. [01:24:30] Similar to the policy review, we will do a project review. So here we'll be looking at projects that have been implemented or have changed since the smaller airplans were adopted. So there are a couple of examples here. Now, these are more specific site location-based projects. So a couple of examples are a Fairfax Circle floodplain study that is underway that might end up resulting in potential future changes to the extent of the floodplains in that area, and that will affect some of our recommendations for development there. [01:24:59] The Old Town Circulation Study I mentioned is part of the Move Fairfax Transportation Plan. Fairfax Circle Intersection Analysis is something that is just beginning, and that will provide more specific recommendations about how we handle the specific intersection in Fairfax Circle, which could have more repercussions for the street network beyond just that intersection. [01:25:19] And another one here is the Eaton Place intersection in North Vax. When the small area plan was developed, we had one concept for that intersection. That concept has changed, and that has resulted in changes to Eaton Place itself and what we can do in terms of lane configurations there. So we're looking at certainly additional projects throughout the city and how they impact the small area plans. [01:25:40] We'll be conducting what we are calling a property impact analysis. So through the small area plans, when it comes to private development, there's kind of a tradeoff that is proposed in that we are providing recommendations for additional types of uses and additional height and different types of setbacks that can incorporate more development than could be done before. [01:26:01] But in exchange for that, we're also asking for contributions to public amenities in return. And this can be in the form of many ways, but the two most common ways in which it shows up in the small area plans is contributions to the street network and contributions to public open space. [01:26:17] And when you look at the various sites throughout the small area plans that have these types of amenities on them, some of them have significant impacts from them and that we're showing a lot of area of land on a private property that we're expecting to be provided for public use. Other properties have almost none, and so the goal here is to make that more consistent so that we don't have development proposals coming forward, and we see it and we say, okay, this developer is getting a lot of additional uses or height or density in support of the small area plant, but they're not providing anything in exchange for the city. [01:26:47] And in other cases, developers have approached us and said, you're sowing so much on our site, we can't do anything. And so by redistributing these things, the goal is that we would keep the amount of amenities that are given to the city consistent across the board, but that would be distributed more evenly among property owners. As a precursor to the Urban Forest Master Plan, a citywide tree canopy analysis was conducted in 2023. So we see this as a resource that can help us identify locations, specific locations where there might be important trees [01:27:24] or stands of trees that should be considered for protection. And the smaller plans are a good tool for doing this because we can physically change the plans to move around these areas when they're identified, which is much more difficult to do on a citywide code-based basis. And so we would use this as an initial resource. [01:27:41] We would go about certainly and field check and make sure anything that we're suggesting be preserved is actually in good condition and can be preserved, and we would have support from our urban forester on that. But then we could actually go back and modify the plans where these types of vacations may happen. We think these will be few and far between because the activity centers are primarily developed and they are commercial areas. [01:28:01] But wherever they do exist, it would make sense to make an effort to protect them. This next task is what we're calling other recurring issues. These are types of issues where we are relying more on feedback from stakeholders and community members to give us direction on things that we should revisit as opposed to the more standard analysis and code policy that's already out there and written for us. So an example is building height. We hear about this a lot when development proposals come forward. In some cases, it's a major issue. In other cases, it's not. And so the idea here is that throughout [01:28:38] the outreach effort with this project, we would identify locations where we might need to reconsider height recommendations in the plans. Another one of these is where ground floor commercial uses are shown we often hear from members of the development community that certain locations is difficult to incorporate ground floor commercial and so we'd seek feedback on this as well a couple other examples are shown here general density open space meaning exactly where open space is shown and the types of open spaces that are proposed special uses in each of the smaller plants there are special uses that are recommended for example in old town there are [01:29:14] our recommendations to include beyond just the standard residential office and retail that we try to get a hotel to locate to Old Town, that we look for partnerships to develop performing arts or institutional uses or those types of things. So we want to make sure that we're still on the same page that those are the types of things that we're looking for. And there are similar recommendations in the other activity centers as well. And then general formatting. As I mentioned before, our goal would be to make the plans more consistent with each other. In addition, we would want to make sure that they are very easily usable for somebody who's coming in and looking at them for the first time whether it be a developer or a property owner or a member of the community who [01:29:54] just wants to know what is proposed near where they live and so the idea here is that you would be able to look for a site and then you'd be guided through the document to find all the recommendations related to that site whether it be about building height about uses about where open spaces should be and those types of things all that information is in the plans now as just scattered throughout and it can be difficult to find everything. And so the goal is that we would restructure these to make sure that when you're looking for something, you can find it. So now we're getting into the larger scale, more numerical based analysis. And this is where [01:30:31] we would need consultant support in some cases. And this is also why we have our professional colleagues up here as well, because some of these relate to them. So these are listed here. What we're proposing is first market analyses and there are different ways that we can look at this there are a couple of different factors that we'll look at so this includes things like overall demand for development currently in each of the smaller plans are projections on demands for the different types of uses that are proposed in the smaller plans so the projections for a matter of residential growth office growth retail growth in some cases hotel growth and those types of things In some cases, it's projecting that those things might shrink. [01:31:10] And so the goal here is that we would relook at that, update those. Things have changed over the past couple of years. Some of the plans were adopted back in 2020, so we know that was certainly a transitional time since then. But then separately, we can also think about specific uses and how we might want to promote or encourage them. [01:31:27] And this is where we coordinate with economic development. So a big discussion lately has been around office development or lack thereof. And one of the concerns is that there is increasing interest in replacing office with residential and other types of uses. And so certainly we can see regionally and national there's a trend toward that. [01:31:46] But we also hear that our vacancy rates in the city are not quite as low as in other places. So we need to figure out does that mean that we try to protect all of our offices or are there certain offices that we want to maintain and others that we should let move through the redevelopment process. And if there are some that we want to maintain, then what do we do about trying to specifically identify them to be protected and invested in and to ensure that they maintain as quality office space? [01:32:14] The second item here is traffic analysis. This is something we hear about a lot. There's a very high-level traffic analysis that was done, at least with the first two smaller plans, that projected trip growth based on uses. But there wasn't really the entire traffic study that projects how it will impact intersections nearby and those types of things. [01:32:31] And so the thought here is that we could do some kind of a high-level traffic analysis. We have to be very careful with this, though, because of a couple reasons. First, with traffic studies, the base figures that go into them, being traffic counts and those types of things, get outdated very quickly, so they can become obsolete very quick. [01:32:49] They also require a lot of assumptions. So when you receive a development application, you receive a traffic study with it. It's usually provided by the developer. and the factors that they put into their assumptions for those studies, they know exactly where different uses are proposed, they know exactly where their driveways are proposed, which streets they're directed on, and those types of things. [01:33:09] When we do this on a more comprehensive basis, we won't know all that detailed information, so we'll have to make assumptions, which means we're gonna lose a little bit of that accuracy. And then lastly, these can get very expensive if we put too much into them, so we need to really think about what questions we're trying to answer, and if it's worth it to invest to certain extents on that. [01:33:29] The third item here is utilities, and so there are two utilities in particular that we would focus on. That would be sanitary sewer and storm sewer because we have had cases come up where development projects have come forward, and the utility lines that serve those particular sites might be at or nearing capacity. [01:33:48] Now, in the case of some smaller utility lines, the developer can make the investment to improve that line, But if there is a larger line that is affected, then the city would have to decide if we want to invest in improving that line or if we want to regulate development in a certain area so that line doesn't have to be upgraded. [01:34:04] The smaller plans have, again, a high-level analysis of this, but it has shown that there have been cases that have shown up that weren't necessarily identified in those analysis, so we'll want to do a little bit of a deeper look at that. And then the last two items here are things that we have already done or able to do so we wouldn't necessarily need outside support for. [01:34:25] This includes the level of service study. So this is something that is underway. You'll be receiving a presentation about this in a couple of weeks where we are looking at the impacts of development on various types of city services and what the cost associated with that would be. [01:34:43] The goal of that study is to help set a standard for us to put out standards for profit contributions from developers. That's not something we want to try to address through the small area plans. However, the analysis that is going on to that level of service study provides us a lot of data that can help us understand the point at which we might receive an amount of development that will require investment in new facilities. [01:35:04] And that's something we should think about when we're thinking about how much we want to grow in certain areas. And the next item is fiscal impact analysis. This is something we do with each development project that we do in-house. Similar to the traffic study, we had to be careful here with doing a larger scale of fiscal impact analysis because, again, we had to make a lot of assumptions. [01:35:27] So with the development reviews that we do, we know exactly the mix of units that are proposed, the types of units, the amount of commercial space, and that type of thing. So if we're going to do it on a larger scale basis looking at an entire activity center, We'll have to estimate the types of units because that can have a significant impact on the physical impact analysis and even estimates on the mix of bedrooms and those types of things. [01:35:49] So things to be aware of with that. And then lastly, this is an item that was recommended in the North Fax Small Air Plan and has been supported by some other historic resource studies that we've done. And that is to conduct what is called a mid-century commercial theme analysis for the city, particularly focusing on those activity centers that are out on Fairfax Boulevard. [01:36:11] The mid-century commercial is kind of a key period of growth for the city, and there are some structures located along that stretch that still hold some architectural characteristics that are considered important with that characteristic. The 29 Diner, as everyone is aware, is listed on the Federal Register of Historic Places. [01:36:31] But there might be other locations. I don't think there are any other locations that would qualify for that register. However, there might be other locations that have architectural qualities that we might want to consider protecting. So we hear mixed reviews about this. This would require some outside consultant support on, but it would also help us to identify specific properties that we might want to maintain as is rather than encourage redevelopment on. [01:36:57] So that is a summary of what we propose to include. Again, we're looking for feedback from you on whether or not this is going in the right direction. Other things in here you think are really important are the things that are missing. Also want to just share with you, We had a work session on this with the Planning Commission a couple weeks ago. [01:37:15] Some of the key recommendations they included were to use existing studies and plans when we can, suggesting that traffic studies don't have to be detailed but try to be productive, suggest that we look at urban heat island effect and ways to mitigate that. There are some comments that the mid-century commercial theme study was a lower priority and a suggestion that we prioritize Old Town. [01:37:37] And what was meant by that is, as I mentioned, we plan to review all these plans at once, But there was a suggestion that there's a lot of activity and interest in Old Town right now. So when we get to wrapping up and finalizing the documents, we shouldn't wait to do all of them, that we should take Old Town as soon as we can. And we'll certainly be gauging development activity and city investments at that time. [01:37:56] But we don't have to necessarily carry all four of these plans at the same meeting. We can prioritize some if there are urgent needs. So that's all we have for the presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions. Wonderful. Thank you for that presentation. [01:38:11] Councilmember Amos thank you yeah just a couple of questions great presentation and just off rip I think this is heading in the right direction I think nothing wrong with updating our plans making sure the most accurate information and then applying that so we can continue to try to get to that central vision for the city that we want three things that I wanted to identify firstly and all three might be a little too granular for this discussion but just something to kind of flag we've seen a lot in Old Town specifically a lot of focus on market rate projects coming in with an affordable component to it but [01:38:48] considering we adopted the affordable housing strategic plan is there any space or possibility for emphasizing key locations like Layton Hall or NOAA projects or key sites that might be more accommodating for let's say affordable workforce housing so 30 to 60% AMI 80 to 120 maybe that's a little too in the weeds for this type of plan but maybe it would be helpful to start identifying sites that we want to hold for thoughts on that yeah so i didn't um i didn't touch on it but i had to mention in the slide there that one of the earlier things that was already listed in the comprehensive plan was [01:39:27] the naturally naturally occurring affordable housing uh and so those locations are identified in the smaller plans currently actually the only one that i would say stands out is um uh fox Trough Colony and Fairfax Circle. Leighton Hall is technically outside the small area plan, but if we want to, we could have some language that supports that. [01:39:46] But then separately, thinking more about workforce housing, which is not something that is really mentioned at all in the small area plans at this point, there may be opportunities to identify locations, as I mentioned, through the market study at where are those properties that have the least value to them now where we would want to encourage development versus those where there might be something that's slightly productive that we'd want to have go on further down the line. [01:40:08] um and so this is something that has come up as part of the affordable housing strategic plan also as we discussed it could come up as part of our market analysis and when those two combine we can can help to kind of pinpoint what those locations might be as i mentioned earlier with the only guidance we had in the smaller plans was religious institutions and publicly owned property which there really isn't much of in the activity center so this will be kind of opening a new window for us yeah no i i appreciate that i think identifying these sites and obviously there's a lot of financial components that go into it that's for a separate discussion probably one we're going going to have relatively soon. But I think it would be helpful to at least start making that more of a priority or at least having some distinguishing element in our plans moving [01:40:45] forward. The other thing, so two other items, when it comes to the historic preservation piece and kind of like the mid-century theme, I think that we've talked about it briefly, probably more behind the scenes. Have we considered some type of capital infrastructure or land bank or land acquisition some type of fund to start acquiring properties as it become available especially like for example i know we i know we had uh we had a lot of discussion about route 29 diner but just in general when we have these sites come up or even the grocery store right across from mount calvary baptist church i know it's come up and i assume this would happen through the eda i don't [01:41:23] know if you have any thoughts on that we've certainly been talking about what that would look like to be in whether or not we want to say land banking or land acquisition um but right now we're just trying to identify critical areas so that could certainly be part of this discussion is where are those critical corridors and critical individual properties because then we'd have to determine is that even an option for that property is is are there other underlying factors that would make it untenable for us to purchase so we will be looking at that thank you and then my last [01:41:58] question going back to the sanitary sewer line and that brief conversation I know with I think it's Fair Oaks Business Park one of the SSPAs that the county was doing the two developers who were developing in that area were required to upgrade that sanitary sewer system in the pump station as a part of their redevelopment have we been exploring that or in these areas that have capacity issues requiring developers to maybe pay into a fund for upgrading that system over time We have not developed a fund specifically for increasing capacity. [01:42:38] However, the system's charges for connection, the connection fees, are intended to pay for future, pay towards future capacity upgrades and operation. Councilmember Hardy-Chandler. [01:42:56] Thank you again for the presentation. I do support looking at the plans together for the efficiency reasons that you talked about. and also kind of getting that broader landscape of our city. They aren't in isolation, so I think looking at them together is strategically a good idea. [01:43:18] The thing that comes up frequently in conversations for me, and I think I shared this with you also, is when we have developer applications and them understanding how projects might align with the plan or not, some sort of a contribution I think in this would review would be some sort of guidance in how to navigate the spirit of the small area plans as people are considering development applications [01:43:49] because that seems to be a sticking point. Any thoughts on that? Yes and that comes down to the formatting task which is something that we would propose doing in-house and the goal there is that we would seek feedback from property owners and developers who have tried to use the smaller plans for the first time, other people who are kind of outside of the people who put it together, and see what the confusion has been, and then try to make sure that we structure it so that you're not lost when you're getting into it, because we often get into those kind of discussions with developers where they come in, they think that they're showing something [01:44:28] that's consistent with the smaller plan, and we say, well, if you look at detail on page 37 you know that's different than deal on page 18 so they're kind of losing that when you say the overall spirit of the small area plan that's something that we can try to emphasize as well you know there are general goals and visionary ideas in there but that's not being conveyed strong enough hopefully that's something we'll hear during the review process and we can try to strengthen that thank you councilmember peterson big picture question i'm just trying to get a little bit of clarity on how far down the pike this effort takes us towards [01:45:07] a complete update for smaller airplans. So the very first slide lists a series of what are these being I guess they're not really being called anything but it's a clear demonstration of a desired mix of uses etc etc that read a bit like a set of goals and objectives. Is the intent at this stage to update that list and the definition of the list of things that we are trying to [01:45:42] achieve in other words a set of goals and objectives or is this not the intent of this is the intent of this something more custodial at least initially clarity consistency and then some freshening up of foundational analysis that could be the basis of something that would happen later is that the way this should be understood yeah i say that the latter what you suggested is more what this is going in the direction of it's more of a review and update this list of items is from the comprehensive plan itself not the small area plans and so if we were wanted to amend this [01:46:18] and kind of change some of the the overarching goals of the smaller plans the first step would be to change the comprehensive plan to kind of redirect them and then we could go back to review it within the small area plans would we at what stage would we be formulating whether individually or collectively a set of goals and objectives that we would have for small area plans because other than this umbrella that we have from the comprehensive plan it sounds like we don't really have that in place is that right right well each each of the the overarching goals are what's in the comprehensive plan which is what's shown here there's a little more detail in the comprehensive [01:46:57] plan but it's not a lot then each of the smaller plans has guiding goals but those are kind of big picture things such as establishing north facts as a sustainability prototype or something like that and so that's the extent of the goals that we have we aren't proposing updating that at this point either if there is desire to revisit that certainly the things that are within the smaller plan we can we can make that a part of this effort we just want to be careful that we're not redirecting things so much so that every time we review these you know we're changing direction a little bit we never really go towards a [01:47:35] consistent vision good to know again I'm just trying to get a feel for how much we do here so just to push that maybe a step or two further when we do so the proposal here is to look at all four of these as a package right and there's a a lot of efficiency and strategy and sense that's involved in that. And one of the things that was noted was conducting fiscal impact analysis, which happens for individual sites. At what stage [01:48:09] would we be doing a cumulative impact analysis for fiscal impacts of the development of the small area plans? Would that be happening now? Is that something that would happen later? Is that something that's not planned yet that is one of the items that's listed in what staff is proposing to include in this effort where exactly that falls on the timeline is something we'll have to figure out as we go forward because all of those analytical items are leading toward the overall development or projected amounts of development of different types as opposed to the [01:48:46] individual site type things so we haven't identified how we're going to make all those things come together to kind of clarify what our our resulting long-term vision will be in terms of numbers um but that will have to be figured out as we go forward but it would be part of that process will you be coming back to us then to talk about the game plan for that yeah certainly i expect that will be later in the game and so i think we'll be have be talking to you multiple times before we even get to that point well part of the reason i raise it is just and i think you alluded to this to be careful about not getting ahead of ourselves and what we have is you [01:49:25] know a set of goals and there are some logical foundational analyses that support the development and implementation of those goals and it could be fiscal impacts environmental impacts traffic you name it and there's a huge value in getting a cumulative impact version of that done so we can see what happens if we embark on this journey down there. And we haven't done that yet. We haven't updated the formulation and certainly not the results of the foundational analysis that's [01:50:00] designed to support all that population growth, household growth, et cetera, to do that. So you will be coming back with further thoughts about how that can be done and when that would be done as a part of this. It's very helpful, again, because the one reading of this is we're jumping forward without that. But the real reading, I think, that you're saying is, no, we're not. [01:50:21] We're going to try to take a look at what would be involved in that and how we would approach it. Good to know, as we do this, even if we're not at the stage where we are starting to identify material changes to the goals and objectives of these plans, it still seems to be really important to find a way to involve the public so that they can be a part of the thought process on what we're looking at and how we are looking at it. There are different [01:51:00] ways to do that. This doesn't need to be a series of public hearings. That's not the top on my list of how you actually go through co-design and all that. But I'm wondering, will we be hearing more about how we might bring residents, the public, and stakeholders into this thought process as we're beginning to scope further these small area plans yeah I think as we come back and refine the scope with you toward the end of this year we can start to talk more about the committee engagement process and the further we go along I said we don't actually plan a beginning work till early [01:51:35] next year so as we get closer to that that'll be more refined and then to pick on our economic development director. I know that you're busy on formulating analysis around commercial and economic development opportunities here that presumably will make a heavy contribution here, et cetera. What's your vision of how best all of that can be integrated? Because I know you're kind of turning over a new page here in terms of having a look at all these things. [01:52:10] Yeah, I think one of the things that was mentioned was looking at existing reports. So, for example, within the last year, the EDA commissioned a report specifically on office conversions. And so that would be one of those reports we'd want to make sure is incorporated so that we can take all this disparate data that we have, plus what we're hearing and what's coming out of the market right now as we look at these individual plans. [01:52:33] So the intent is for us to be in this discussion fully invested both on those individual projects as we go along, but in the overarching, because, you know, when you, like Norfax, for example, that plan came out in 2020. So since then we've had COVID and massive changes at the federal level that impact our office environment greatly. So we have to go back and look at what the market has done. One of the reasons for an outside consultant on that market analysis is the intensity of the changes to the commercial structure right now. So to answer your question, we are going to continue to do [01:53:11] individual analyses as they come up, but then continue to feed that into the process because each property is bringing its own challenges to us. So we're going to kind of come at it from both sides, the individual side and then the larger market analysis. And just as a part of that, how would you handle the question mark that was raised earlier about the possibility that there is underused underutilized office space that could convert to affordable housing or any other different use how do you do that it's just a site specific review or is there more to it than that [01:53:47] i think it's again i think it's a bookend approach because we have a study that shows us that identify have in front of me that identifies the existing office buildings and what they're what maybe the risk factor is for each of those buildings then it's going to be actually looking at each individual buildings. So we know that in the market right now, in the Northern Virginia market, in Q1 of 2026, there's not a single office building under construction. But you've got 35% vacancy in the Crystal City Corridor, and they are still commanding almost $40 a square foot in rent. [01:54:20] So we know that there's a pent-up desire for flight to quality for office, even as the market is downsizing. So this is the critical timeframe for us to figure out which of our office buildings have the highest potential to attract some of that, of what's still happening in the office market. So again, it's bookends. It's individual properties, but also keeping an eye on that market movement. If financing starts to shift to commercial, having a plan that gives us the flexibility when the projects come in. So it's going to be both sides of that question. [01:54:55] And you mentioned the change in intensity, and I think probably embedded in your comments is the change in timing. So the market is stretching here. And if I understand it, the good news is that it gets us a little bit of time here to figure out the best approach. And so I gather you're taking full advantage of that with all the assessments you're doing. Yeah, we're seeing deals happening at smaller square footage than we've seen in the past and taking longer to go through. So companies are with the larger square foot footprints are staying longer. And the ones [01:55:34] that are moving are going to smaller spaces. That makes us a really valuable market because we have those spaces. What we have to decide is of the buildings we have, I don't think we have any building built, any office built past 2000, if I'm remembering correctly. So, and most of our office product was built in the 70s and 80s. So we need to make decisions on what to preserve, what to update, and what is perfectly acceptable at this point to go because we won't be able to compete in the market with it as it is. So that's going to be part of this analysis. I think it's [01:56:09] really critical that we know that. Well, great. Just the last thought to share is that the general, we could see a shift in general strategy for economic and commercial development, but housing development and growth in general that could be shifting away from accommodation of growth and much more towards aggressively targeting the kind of growth that we have. [01:56:33] So I would expect this effort could help us identify what a targeted strategy would be in all of these different areas. And let me just check with Mr. Nabdi again. Is that the kind of thought process that we would begin supporting in this to understand how we would identify the best strategies going forward that ultimately could be incorporated in the small area plans. [01:56:59] Yeah, you mean strategies dealing with all the topics that we talked about are focused specifically on? Well, there's a big picture thing here, which is we've had a pretty significant reconfiguration of the timing, intensity, and characteristics of demand for a lot of different things, and it changes perhaps the way that we approach our responses to that, and certainly is encouraging jurisdictions to take a pretty targeted view of exactly what they want to accomplish and not simply relying on supply to answer that question for them. [01:57:30] It sounds like we're headed in that direction with the kind of clarity that you're trying to achieve here. Yes, that's correct. And I will say with the first round of smaller plans, the overall numbers that are shown in there are projections. That's all they are. [01:57:46] There's no strategy behind them. There's no city goals of what we want to do or anything like that. So we are trying to hone this in on how we want to handle the issues that we're dealing with. And so we hope to get more targeted with this. So my reaction is based on this dialogue and this conversation, I think it's a good way to move forward. [01:58:07] But I think these dimensions of that moving forward are really important for us to incorporate. Thanks. Council Member Hall. Thank you very much. Thank you for the presentation. and I'm glad to have so many stakeholders at the table. [01:58:23] I think it's really helpful to come about this from a bunch of different angles, and I think it's clear that that is what is happening. I love the EDA analysis on these things, and I was happy to hear you bring up the fact that, you know, we're small, and so we can pivot easily much easier than larger spaces can, but I also think that one of the benefits that we really have is that we do offer smaller square-footed spaces and the ability to you know start off in something that's small and then we help them move up into different levels as they need it or people can stay in the small spaces and maybe be a little [01:58:57] bit more transient than some other locked in long-term leases and I do worry sometimes that with this big push of make many things that are commercial into residential that we we lose some of those things in the mix and so I'm I understand some things were built a long time ago and some things are a little bit more recent in the 2000s. But I think understanding, you know, where we want to be when we grow up, essentially, is a really, really helpful tool. And not one that we jump into very quickly, but one that we really do a good amount of research on. And like you said, things from COVID have significantly changed the landscape in, you know, many, many areas. [01:59:37] For the plan itself, I'm very happy to hear about the changes to the general formatting. I think that's one of the things that is frustrating for people. And, you know, When we did our renovation nearly a decade or over a decade ago now, it's one way in this document, but it references something in somewhere else. [01:59:55] Or you read this and you think it's this way, but then, no, you go to page 37 and that's not what we were saying. So I think that that has been a primary concern of developers as well as just regular people trying to understand what some of our policies and procedures are. So that's really helpful. I know height is one that always gets talked about, and it's one that I do struggle with as well. [02:00:15] I feel like if we set up our policies that we are on the lower end, it gives us the ability to make the changes. But I think what happens is when you give someone six stories, then they want seven. And then the next person says, well, they did seven, so we're going to do nine. [02:00:33] And then I think you end up with a much taller landscape than maybe was originally intended. So I think keeping on the lower side, at least for our small area plans, is a suggestion that I would certainly make. I am curious about the traffic studies. I know they're expensive and I know that they are easily outdated. But I would also be curious, I know we used to do in our neighborhood a lot, not a lot, but frequently we had those little, they always called them the Reader's Digest, the older people that talked about them. [02:01:01] they're like, oh, it's the size of a Reader's Digest on the ground that did kind of the traffic counts. And I am curious, how often are we checking some of those traffic counts or measures for some of our bigger area roads and then comparing back to what we thought in 2020 or 2022, let's say? [02:01:19] I can address that. So VDOT actually on many of our major roads is updating our traffic counts for us. And so we are getting updated counts through VDOT. We also do periodic accounts on some of our more minor roads, so we are doing those. We're not doing them regularly. We don't have a set program necessarily, but we are going back and taking counts of some of our roads. [02:01:38] To address your earlier question about the traffic study, we will be taking an approach that's very similar to the one that Colleen identified for the economic development, sort of that bookend, looking at it holistically and also looking at some of the parcels. It's really difficult to get into the weeds on some of the parcels because there are so many details that go into a detailed traffic analysis for any specific property it is in theory an objective analysis that said it there are so many subjective assumptions that need to be made when doing a traffic analysis so as soon as the development [02:02:17] comes in if it differs from what you've identified when you've done that traffic study your traffic studies really not that great so what I would recommend and this is what I've talked about with with the planning department is that I would recommend us looking at this holistically, revisiting some of the bigger ideas. If we take North Facts, for example, we originally had a roundabout proposed at Eaton and Chambridge Road. [02:02:40] We looked at doing a road diet on Eaton Place. Some of those big ideas have changed. We know that we can't accommodate a road diet on Eaton Place. We know that we're doing a different intersection design for Eaton. So some of those big ideas are absolutely what I think we should be looking at. I don't believe that we should be looking at assumptions for every parcel and doing that kind of in-depth traffic analysis. It's extremely expensive, and I'm not sure that it's worth it. I would agree with that, and I know that our residents are not traffic experts per se, but I do think that if you collectively ask people that live here, drive around here day in [02:03:20] and day out, again, not experts, but they can tell you where the problem areas are, where they're sitting and where things could or should be improved. And absolutely, those are the kinds of things we should be looking at. So the problem areas, the intersections, and identifying access points. Where do we want access? So again, those are sort of the bigger picture things. I believe though that when the specific development proposals come in, those big picture ideas can guide that, but I don't think that we should be doing the nitty-gritty traffic analysis at this point. [02:03:52] And I would agree with you in my very limited traffic knowledge. But I do think that, you know, you have the Davies property, which it's going to change things on its own, and then you have the next development next to it and all these different things. You can only predict what you know at that time and what you think is going to happen. [02:04:09] And I just think it does make it really challenging. I am disappointed to hear about the Roe diet uneaten not being a thing. I still feel like there are some opportunities there. But I do also think that the fact that the botanist was able to build out so close to the road, I mean, I think we probably should have seen that one coming and back them up a little bit in order to try to keep some availability for a bike lane or something else on there. [02:04:36] So this is when we can pivot. We had talked about doing a road diet to accommodate bicycles on road. So in light of the fact that we need to potentially, again, this is something that we'll be revisiting. We don't think at this point that we'll be able to accommodate that. And this is just an example. This is where we pivot, and instead of saying, let's have bike lanes on the road, maybe we have a wide shared use path that's behind the curb. [02:04:57] And so we still want to accommodate bikes, but maybe we're doing it differently. So that's the kind of thing that we'll look at more holistically when we're reviewing the small area plan. Yeah, and just to piggyback on that, because I think that's a really good idea, and I know there's lots of areas for shared use paths as opposed to double sidewalks, double this, double that. [02:05:14] Not everything can be as wide as what's going to be done on Blenheim. I know we brought up the bike lanes on University the other day, and I actually was surprised to hear that there's not bike lanes being considered for that because I thought that we were using that as a spine to offset some of the Cambridge Road traffic and volume, and I was just surprised to hear that there weren't bike lanes on there. [02:05:37] I understand we have the chicanes that are kind of making it a little bit difficult there, but I really did think that that was supposed to be an alternate route for bikers despite the somewhat large hill. That is the ultimate goal. Is there a specific portion of University Drive that you're referring to? [02:05:53] Yeah, specifically from Leighton Hall Drive down to 50. I thought that was supposed to be part of that big conversation of bike lanes. So what you have heard is correct, that right now what we are proposing on that stretch is the Sharrows. [02:06:09] What we have been talking about for the spine up to this point has really been from Mason to Leighton Hall Drive. And we're about, as you know, to implement the portion from North Street to Leighton Hall Drive, which leaves the center section still up for discussion, which is something we're looking at as part of the Old Town Circulation Plan, how we can get the bike lanes in that center part. [02:06:33] Yeah. And ultimately, it's not off the table that we could look at that as a subsequent step. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. And then just a couple more comments. The sewer situation and the proffers, I think that's something we really do have to hit heavily. [02:06:49] Because I think that with all of the increased development here, I know you've mentioned this before, Mr. Ito, with regard to the amount of water that we get from the Nomen coal plant. And I don't remember all the numbers exactly, but I think roughly what we have as far as millions of gallons or something would accommodate up to like 35,000 people or 34,000 people. [02:07:11] And as we continue to add high density and mixed use, we're obviously growing at a much faster rate. And so I know it's hard to tell a developer, hey, if you do this, you're going to have to put in this bigger sewer line, and maybe that's not the way to go at that specific time. [02:07:27] But I do think recognizing that added density adds additional strain on the utility system is something we really do have to think about because we're still dealing with so many old pipes and things that have never really been updated or upgraded and that we're trying to do on the city's dime despite having an influx of residents that I think should be helping. [02:07:47] out in some ways. And my last two final things, if I can read my handwriting. Oh, we already talked about that. It's a look forward to the 2050 plan. I know, you know, we, 2035 still seems so far away in so many ways, but I think really having a focus on that 2050 plan and starting to gather resident input, and I know we do resident input in so many ways that I know all these little conversations and surveys and questions lead to that next step. But I do think having that formal Goal and expectation is probably something that is definitely on your radar and I think it's something we really should be focusing on [02:08:26] So thank you for all the information Councilmember Bates and then councilmember McCullum. Thank you. So first off as I recall The botanist does include a ten-foot wide Sure-use path. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. Yeah. Yeah, and I believe the the other project on Eaton Place that's proposed would also include that as well is that right yeah that's on the other side so and I hope that that we see that continue and maybe fill in the [02:09:03] gaps in the future and thinking about what we want to see reviewed as part of the process so first off I think that most of what I was kind of on my mind is listed in the staff report including height I do believe that height should be considered, but I believe that whether height is revised downward or revised upward should come up from the review process itself as opposed to being prescribed. Now, thinking about, [02:09:41] I was excited to see the idea of property-based searchability being considered. I think that's really exciting. And as I recall, the intention behind how the targets for office space, for residential units, et cetera, I saw that mentioned on one of the earlier slides. The thought behind [02:10:12] that, I believe, was that those were not to be hard caps or anything of that nature, but more you know the projected demand that you know that we might see there and then if we kind of hit that then then we kind of reconsider is that sort of what the thinking was up to this point that's correct and in all honesty those the way we use those projections isn't defined very well I think when we were developing a smaller plans we wanted something that projected where we were going what [02:10:47] we should expect with this and so that's why it was really driven by market demand but then the language in each of the smaller plants and how it refers to those is slightly different and part of the reason for that is because we we didn't really know how we wanted to use them it's like okay this is a good starting point but it seems so far away that we would reach that point that we say okay is this a hard cap is this just when we get to this point we kind of review things and those kind of things and that's kind of how it's worded in there so that's the way it's it's used now it's not meant to say that we will stop development when we reach this point as we review the smaller plans we can think a little bit more closely about how we want to use those numbers [02:11:24] because we're a little bit closer to achieving them and so i think we are already like everyone in the back of their mind is starting to think you know what does that actually mean for us yeah yeah so i'm glad to hear that uh that's being considered i do recall that being a bit ambiguous in smaller plans as they're written now so i'm glad to hear that you know your attention of detail is bringing that forward. And then lastly, as we discussed earlier, the BRT plan, would that be something that might be considered as part of this review process or more the overall comprehensive plan review process? I have some thoughts, but I'll also defer to Ms. Sanford. [02:12:03] The fact that it's out there, I think the, at least incorporating the general idea in the form of a text reference in the smaller plans would be a good thing to do um but in terms of how far we take it in terms of guiding street widths and things like that i think we're gonna need some more information but i'll see a few thoughts the thing about the brt plan is that it requires the cooperation of fairfax county because these these routes that are proposed run through the city for just a small portion of the proposed routes and again these are large regional plans so i do believe that we should reference these in our comprehensive plan i don't believe they're [02:12:40] necessarily for the small area plans there i think they are larger concepts that will take a while to come to fruition if they do given that they they that we're probably the minority player in these because the majority of the route is outside of the city yeah yeah yeah i think that makes a lot of sense uh the one thing i will say i recall from the camp washington small area plan it's been a while since i've uh leaped through that one but i believe there was a you know transit hub or transit center proposed there i don't know if that's something that you know we might want to [02:13:16] you know consider if you know the brt plan presents any kind of you know opportunity to pivot on that or or just you know continue in that direction yeah i think that's something we can we can look at um i don't know if we'll get much more detail than we have now but maybe this as an opportunity to say is this the right location for that uh is there any additional information we should be thinking about when thinking about brt uh fairfax circle smaller plan i think actually has a similar record so yeah thank you council member maquillen thank [02:13:50] you mary reed um so just to confirm it sounds like the process is to analyze what we currently have going on um collect all the analyses bring them together and then create our goals for these small area plans. Is that correct? Is that where the goals are going to come in? We aren't proposing necessarily revising the goals. I think it's more about everything you said, collecting data and gathering information, and then looking at refining the more detailed recommendations in the plans. [02:14:21] I wouldn't want to say, though, if we had a community meeting and there was a lot of feedback about a particular goal in the plan that we would be opposed to changing it. I think we would certainly be open to that, but that we're not necessarily setting up the process to achieve that. I just want to ensure that it's being driven through data and the analysis of data, not just public outreach and so that we actually are basing it on current and then the analysis that we have. [02:14:49] Yes, that's correct. And that's one of the main purposes with this process is to bring a little bit more data background into it. Excellent. Okay. So going through the presentation, The -- I also support including a reference to the BRT plan. [02:15:08] I think it's just smart for us to recognize what the plans are and to try to be a good regional partner to at least have some expectation that these might happen. Also just to make sure that it's communicated to developers and to our residents as well through that, again, with the formatting, just ensuring that everything's as consistent as possible. [02:15:30] The analysis for traffic and infrastructure, I believe, is important. Some analysis on coming from the school board, often it was student yields was a large concern of ours. So I'm just thinking ahead about the, that's the number one thing I hear from all of our residents is the traffic. [02:15:50] So having, and again, not detailed, but if you look at an area, you should have an idea of if this is the expectation. We're expecting this many individuals here or this many developments. You should have some idea of how that should affect the traffic in that area. [02:16:07] I also, other reoccurring issues, I agree with everything you have here, building height. I also would like to include setback because I think those go hand in hand. A lot of the concerns I hear from residents, it's the feeling of the height, not necessarily just the height. And I think that is connected to the setback. [02:16:25] When you're really close to a building, it feels a lot higher and taller. So I think that needs to be included in that. I also agree with the ground floor retail. That is a concern I hear often. Parking, was that addressed as well? [02:16:40] I think I saw that. Parking isn't really touched on very much in the smaller area plans. There are general recommendations about providing or encouraging shared parking and those types of things. But for the most part, discussion on parking is deferred to the zoning ordinance. [02:16:59] And we will be discussing that with the zoning ordinance amendments that we will have a work session with you on a couple of months. Wonderful. Okay, great. As far as slide eight, let me get there really quick so I can be on the same page with you. Under the tasks, number one, does this include safety? [02:17:20] Do we consider safety elements? Is this the right slide that's up on the screen? Yeah, under one, anticipate variations and impacts to individual properties, open space, streets, others. What about safety impacts? So this is looking at physical impacts to properties. [02:17:38] For safety issues, does that mean like vehicular access and those types of things? I'm kind of taking into consideration pedestrian flow, traffic flow, how that kind of gets disrupted and changes depending on the developments and how things are working. [02:17:55] And travel time kind of plays into that. I was just kind of thinking big picture. Okay. Yeah. So that's not really what's meant here, but that is something that will be incorporated throughout as we develop these types of plans. We're always, pedestrian access is one of the primary things that helps drive the way these are laid out. [02:18:13] So that's certainly something that will be included with this. And also, you know, one of the general reviewers of this, you know, even without a traffic study, our traffic engineer does look at these. And so if we're proposing something from a traffic management perspective that he thinks is unsafe, then, you know, he'll provide feedback on that and we'll adjust. Excellent. I was just trying to figure out where it falls into the process, I guess, in the analysis area. The mid-century commercial theme, I really like this idea. It's the corridor is right as you enter our city. Having just visited historic Fredericksburg, a lot of these little locations really create the [02:18:51] culture and uniqueness of a community. So I think that's, I like that idea. And I hear from a lot of longtime residents that they really, you know, they have a fondness of these locations and these places. They all have a story that goes along with it. There's an entire social media page about historic Fairfax City, where they discuss these things and the evolution of the businesses. [02:19:15] And since this started, this is such a small little close knit community, I think it's something to definitely consider. And then I also just wanted to support that the formatting and ensuring that the end result is easier for both developers and our residents to understand, follow, and really get the information that they're looking for from it. It does seem, I echo my colleagues' concerns about it, it does seem that developers struggle with that a lot or that there's a lot of confusion between comprehensive and the small area plans. So i just wanted to echo those comments as well but overall i think it's it's you're on the right [02:19:52] track here so thank you councilmember amos only thing i'll add to what councilmember quillen brought up which i believe is also in part what she was referencing which we had the data from the move fairfax city steering committee was the pedestrian level of stress analysis and i know we currently already have that as a part of the committee but we'll also and i'm not sure what mechanism we have in place to track how we're improving over time i know you can't do it site by site that to your point that's a little too much but having uh data points on how we're doing like let's say where we are at in five years like are we making progress on our pedestrian safety [02:20:30] targets any other comments well it's a wonderful presentation and um i think this is the way to go about it speaking of just about bus transit regardless of brt is that we've got wmata q and connector who all come through here and based on how these small area plane plans change there might be some flexibility on how we move people through so they can transfer buses i mean i mean i just think depending on the developments that come up is going to have an impact on [02:21:07] how the buses in the short time they're in our city move through the city in order to maximize the number of people we're carrying from one point to the other, but also allows them to change buses. Pedestrian safety, paramount. I mean, walkability for the city. I think if we go back to the community survey, I hope that becomes a tool. We've done one, and I hope that becomes a tool that we use regularly as a way of getting feedback from the community. That's one way we do it. Walkability, I think, has always been a goal for the city. And some of the things that we can't [02:21:43] anticipate as well, but has come up recently, is things on automatic enforcement of things where it comes to traffic, pedestrian access. The Commonwealth of Virginia seems to be moving in a direction that says that technology can help with some of the safety issues that we have. [02:22:04] It's very narrow right now what we can do with automatic enforcement on intersections and stop signs. Right now it's just in school zones, but I think there is sophisticated technology that is moving forward. I think the state legislature is also going to have legislation that enables localities to do more to make things safer, to Councilmember McQuillan's point, about how people in transit stops and pedestrians and bicycles and scooters organize themselves in the city. [02:22:40] I mean, I think these plans are so helpful, and I think the review of them is so important, but there's so much we can't predict. So as we move forward, we're going to have to be agile, which, given our size and the amazing, amazing staff we have here, Given our sizes, we are in a position to pivot and be more flexible and to be early adopters on some things more than larger localities where it makes sense. [02:23:07] So I hope everybody remembers. We can only do what we can do with what we know today, but you always have to leave space for the things that we can kind of see are there that are going to have a really big impact. I mean, we just don't know until we get there, but these things will make a difference in how we think about these activity centers in these small area plants too. [02:23:29] You just have to kind of leave space for the unknown. But as far as what is known, I think there seems to be a general consensus and agreement that this framework and how you're going about doing this, the steps, the protocol, and the timeline, all seems to be, I hear agreement. [02:23:47] I'm seeing heads nods. So thank you so much for the presentation. I hope this has been helpful for you too. Very helpful. Thank you. All right. Our next work session item is the Northbacks in Lanier Park. design guidelines introduction. I'm going to recognize Paul Napty, our Division Chief of Planning, for the staff presentation. [02:24:12] Thank you again, Mayor Reed and members of council. The purpose of this work session is to introduce you to a effort that is going on to implement one of the, or support implementation of one of the recommendations of the adoptive small area plans. [02:24:38] This is the Northfax Linear Park. And I'll first provide a little background of what the park is and then what the city is doing right now to help support with that implementation. So looking at the Northfax Small Area Plan, this is the general concept plan that's included in that plan for that area. [02:24:56] And one of the key components of this plan is what's called the Northfax Linear Park. That area is highlighted here. In general, this is described as a public open space, a connector of neighborhoods, and green infrastructure. This is one of the five goals of the Norfolk's small area plan, is to establish this linear park. [02:25:15] The condition across the length of this proposed park varies. In some places, it really functions just as an enhanced streetscape with improved stormwater measures and visible open spaces that can be used and those types of things. In other places, it has functions as an urban retail plaza. [02:25:33] In other places, it functions as more of a larger programmable open space or park. and in some places it really just functions as a natural area the extent of the park traverses multiple private parcels as well as overlaps with public streets and many locations some of the development projects that have moved forward as well as some of the public projects that have gone forward in terms of implementing new streets have implemented some of the recommendations of this park from the small area plan however this has been inconsistent and in some places [02:26:12] the overall vision is intended to be met, but it might not be implemented the same way as it is on a site located in another part of the park. And so in order to provide better guidance to future projects that might be coming forward, the goal of this effort that we're working on now is to establish design standards. So no matter where our property is or a public area is along this linear park, we are implementing elements that make it read as a cohesive element. So as an [02:26:42] This map shows the Northfax small area plan with all of the parcels that overlap with the proposed linear park that have some kind of a development proposal either underway or completed. So the blue ones are those that are still coming forward, either pre-application phase. [02:27:01] And then the red ones are ones that have been approved or are complete. And then the dashed line area is the location of the Northfax East West Road. This is a city-led effort that will complete the connection from University Drive to Cambridge Road that also overlaps with the linear park. [02:27:19] And this is one of those locations that I mentioned where what's called a park really functions as an enhanced streetscape. So as I mentioned, the goal with this effort is to establish design guidelines that will be used by all parties, whether it be private developers or public entities such as ourselves, when designing various elements of this park to be consistent with each other. [02:27:40] So to support this, we are using our on-call consultant, Timmins, who does a lot of the engineering work for various transportation projects in the city to help develop these design guidelines. [02:27:56] And they are also the designer of the Northfax East-West Road. So they have developed this list of project goals, and I won't read through all of these, but I just want to point out that the first two are really the two that I would consider to be actual goals for the project, and really defining what is intended through the Northfax Small Year Plan. The last three are more process elements about how we'll go about doing this and what we hope to get out of it. And then the fourth item actually references the implementation of key ideas from the um the northfax linear park page in the northfax smaller plan and just to highlight [02:28:34] what that includes uh there are general descriptions of the design area types describes it as a natural urban setting uh discussions on stormwater strategies uh language that calls it the heart of the community and that it should be a major identifying design feature for northfax so the the product we hope to get out of this effort is to establish again design elements and design guidelines this is not proposed to actually develop a design for this park we're leaving that to happen on a case-by-case basis but we do hope to establish certain character areas as i mentioned there are different types of characters that are proposed in the plan and then establish [02:29:13] design standards for those those will include things such as ideal dimensions for certain types of elements ideal types of tree plantings and other types of plantings certain furnishings to make sure that they read as consistent across the length of the park stormwater measures including those measures that are ideal to be visible and operate at the surface level, as well as identify how the stormwater system will function as development happens on a piecemeal basis, include recommendations on materials and patterns, again, to create consistency, and location for amenities such as public art. This is intended to be functioned more as a [02:29:51] technical document rather than a guiding policy type of document. So the process that we are working on is in discussion with our consultant at this time. We have a meeting coming up with our first stakeholder group, which is a property owner group, but then later in July we have a meeting scheduled with other stakeholders, which are representatives from city divisions and boards and commissions. The list of divisions is shown there. We have asked the following boards to appoint someone to represent them, Board of Architecture Review, Environmental Sustainability Committee, [02:30:29] parks and recreation advisory board and the planning commission uh after these meetings then the consultant will prepare draft uh design guidelines uh and then heading into september the plan is for the city to review and recommend revisions to those and then hopefully be ready to finalize this by october again this is not a significant effort this is really just establishing these design guidelines so it doesn't have to be a lengthy process in the end we don't think that council um formal approval in the form of adoption is necessary but we we do hope to get this in [02:31:06] front of you to get some kind of informal support um and so uh you'll at least be able to kind of share your thoughts on that so uh that's all i have on this just want to make you aware of this effort and to see if you have any thoughts or suggestions for us as we go forward um and begin the design process um and that's all i have for the presentation thank you so much council member McQuillan. Thank you. I just wanted to share a thought that I'm really grateful to see that Parks and Recreate Advisory Board is involved in this as they just did a lot of work with signage [02:31:43] in their parks and they did a lot of this kind of collecting and information from stakeholders regarding you know what kind of looks and I think working with them to find and use some of that information to create some cohesiveness might be a really good idea. I mean they discussed a lot of things from you know just the color patterns and the materials used so they've done a lot of that work ahead of time but that's all thank you councilmember peterson remind me what's the [02:32:13] history and the status of this stream of the stream uh well the stream in northfax uh is separate from the northfax linear park uh but that is something that um i'm not sure what you mean by the history so is this creating a stream where there was none before this wouldn't be a stream It would be a series of stormwater measures that will serve the development around it as development comes online. [02:32:47] So, yeah, there are graphics in there that look like there's water, but essentially that's kind of like peak rainfall period is what it's showing. Okay. All right. So these are water management areas as opposed to a free-flowing stream. [02:33:04] All right. Correct. Will they go totally dry then at some times, and other times they're wet? Is that what's going on? Yes, I think most of the time they are completely dry, but I'll let Mr. Ito describe them. Most stormwater management facilities are intended to be dry and drained completely when it's not raining, and they'll fill and then slowly drain. [02:33:28] That's how they control pollutants and water quantity. Okay. So we're taking advantage of the opportunity to create that water management infrastructure in a way that helps to enhance an area and provide an attraction at the same time. Is that really the idea here? [02:33:48] Yes, that's a general idea, and that stems from the general recommendations in the North Fax Small Area Plan. i mean it's a great idea i would look forward to the way that it's done to make it as productive as possible you know in terms of the little bit of natural space that's in there between vegetation and if there's any opportunity to attract birds and pollinators and anything else in there to make it you know just as live as possible i think it would really help add to that whole anchor asset thanks council member amos thank you i only had two quick questions so [02:34:26] on the amenities side of things i saw that there was a for example artwork there two things related to that one when we say amenities is there going to be like a list of potential items that we'd be considering like we've seen on some other presentations yeah i think eventually we'll get there so there could be things like gazebos or other types of things and i think through this process uh particularly including a representative from prab as was mentioned um getting idea a sense of what types of things the city lacks in these types of spaces that could be added as this goes forward and so with that in mind I'd probably also [02:35:05] recommend adding the Commission on the Arts if that's an opportunity to help spruce up the artwork there I think that'd be a worthwhile venture the only other question I had and just let me know if there if this isn't applicable when it comes to materials are we also going to potentially discuss permeable pavers as an option? Is that on the table or is there like a configuration on why that would not be possible at this time? It's not infeasible. I don't recommend it for travel ways. It is maintenance intensive, but it is appropriate for parking spaces or lightly trafficked areas. So it [02:35:44] is an option that can be considered. Council Member Hall and then Council Member Hardy Chandler. Thank you. This is a spot that's especially near and dear to my heart since I live in Cobdale. Just a couple things. On slide two, I recognize this existing trail, and thank you for getting that cleaned up by the community the other day. I will say, I don't know if there's ever an opportunity to make that ADA accessible. You know, it does cross over the creek there and has little um, cement things that you can stand on, but, and moms do manage to get strollers over there, [02:36:24] but, and bikes can go, but you really could not get a wheelchair or a bigger, uh, baby carriage of some sort. So I was definitely disappointed with how that totally turned out, um, just with the lack of accessibility for some. So I think as we maybe look into doing this further, maybe there could be an opportunity to try to add a ramp or something over there. Um, but onto the positive part of this. I think this is great. I know we've discussed this at length, and this definitely needs to be an activated area of the city. It's got so much potential. In addition to the boards [02:36:59] and commissions that you outlined, I do wonder if maybe inviting a representative from Cobdale, Fairchester Woods, the Assembly, and the new townhouse community that's there, and then potentially the new uh senior living center just to kind of get people that live there and and we'll be utilizing this in a way uh that might just be different from a board and perspective i'm sorry board and commission perspective so that would be my only suggestion thank you council member [02:37:31] hardy-chandler thank you for bringing this to our awareness i love the use of atypical spaces and the natural enhancements and the kind of connectivity these kinds of environments can SUPPORT. THERE HAVE BEEN A COUPLE OF COMMENTS ABOUT BOARDS AND COMMISSIONS FOR THIS PRESENTATION AND FOR THE PREVIOUS ONE I'D LIKE FOR US TO GO BEYOND THE TYPICAL BOARDS AND COMMISSIONS. THE COMMISSION FOR WOMEN, OTHER COMMISSIONS I THINK CAN ALSO ACT AS FOCUS GROUPS BECAUSE THEY ARE REPRESENTATIVES FROM THE COMMUNITY AND THAT'S A RECURRING THING. I KNOW IT'S NATURAL TO GO TO [02:38:11] THE COMMISSION THAT SEEMS MOST AFFILIATED WITH THE TOPIC BUT ALL OF THE COMMISSIONS I THINK CAN SUPPORT BUY-IN AND BRIDGE COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT SO I ENCOURAGE FOR ALL PROJECTS TO USE ALL OF THE BOARDS AND COMMISSIONS AS A RESOURCE FOR INFORMATION AND AS A WAY TO GET WORD OUT ABOUT AWARENESS AND TO FOSTER ENGAGEMENT SO THAT'S JUST MY PUSH IN SUPPORT OF BOARDS AND COMMISSIONS GENERALLY IN THE PICTURE IT LOOKED LIKE SOME OF THE PROJECTS were proposed to sort of project into the project. [02:38:50] Will there be any kind of displacement or any disruption in any way for any of the affiliated properties? So, yes, but the intention is that this is implemented as development occurs. [02:39:07] And so the idea is not that the city is going in and acquiring land for park space and things like that. We do that for transportation infrastructure, but not for anything that goes beyond what's needed for that right-of-way. Anything that goes beyond that is this would become a tool that we would give to a developer who is developing the site adjacent to this and say, okay, the part of your site is shown in this linear park. [02:39:31] If you're going to design part of this linear park, these are the design standards you should use. And so it would be kind of a voluntary participation. Gotcha. And are there other sort of economic impacts anticipated? um you can say no i would say i don't know i mean eventually as this starts to come together i hope it's something that can will have a positive economic impact on surrounding properties um i just can't say that with confidence and that wouldn't be a driver per se but just a sort of [02:40:08] ancillary consideration but i appreciate the thinking behind this project and look forward to other similar projects for other spaces throughout the city thank you councilmember mcquillen i just wanted to echo the accessibility uh concern by councilmember hall i've also used that area and i know there's a lot of families over there when we did door knocking to that newer community over there there were a lot of young children and families with littles so we saw a lot of strollers out um so i just wanted to echo that as someone who likes to travel [02:40:46] throughout the city and especially did so when my children were little so thank you councilmember bates so thinking about the broader connectivity context we talked before about the importance of fairfax city to connectivity throughout the region at the confluence of multiple state and federal highways and this right here is basically right at the gateway to the city from i-66 and from the i-66 trail so beyond this um you know we have the i-66 trail spur that connects down to the [02:41:25] chambridge road shared use path that connects down to um the uh north facts east west roadway and the university drive extension which i believe both include shared use paths um and uh and then um i believe we also have a shared use path along the the southern side of point 50 um and uh And then the canceled Snyder Trail would have connected to that far corner of Willowood Plaza and then possibly with the potential for another connection up here at this near corner of Willowood Plaza. [02:42:03] So do you have any thoughts to share on next steps to in some way replicate that connectivity over toward Cardinal Road and the Fairwoods Parkway Neighborway Project and the Wilcoxon Trail project and up to Fairfax Circle? [02:42:26] We're working on it. So because we, without the George Schneider Trail, we're looking at ways to make those connections without that project. So one of them is through the Wilcoxon Trail extension that we're talking about and pivoting that project up to Draper and using Beach Drive. [02:42:46] We're also talking about, and we mentioned it a few minutes ago, the idea of putting shared-use paths on Eaton So that if you're coming down I-66 on the spur and you get to the intersection, you then have a shared use path to go from that intersection to University Drive, which has the shared use path to get down to Route 50. [02:43:06] So we are working on bridging all of the shared use paths and the different connections that we have. So this is something that we're working on all the time and thinking about where these missing pieces are and how can we accommodate them. So I was actually just speaking to Mr. Nabte a few weeks ago about the potential for a shared use path on the south side of Eaton Place between University Drive Extension and Chainbridge Road. [02:43:31] And whether this is something we should pursue, is this something that a developer could do? But either way, this is something we would like to see in place potentially on both sides of the street. So I don't know if that answers your question, but the answer is that we are working on it, and these are connections that we are constantly looking for. Okay. Anything else? [02:43:51] The thing I would just add is talking about the permeable pavers. You know, there are a lot of materials that might be desirable from an environmental standpoint, but create mobility issues. And to accessibility, yes. [02:44:09] I mean, walkability is one of the things that people in this community have said that they want. And it's not just people with strollers. It's people who just can't walk on uneven surfaces. So something you could park a car on that is, you know, it wouldn't matter so much. [02:44:26] But for paths and choosing the right materials, we have to balance true ADA accessibility and true safe passage with environmental concerns, too. And, I mean, I think that was really the struggle, a lot of the struggle with the George Snyder Trail was creating an ADA accessible way for people to get through the city. [02:44:50] so i do think we always have to keep that uppermost when we talk about wanting to be greener and be environmentally sensitive we are still trying to create a walkable city for people to safely of all ages and mobility issues to be able to get through the city and and sometimes that's going to mean people having to share space with bicycles right and these are just all considerations and i and Council Member Hardy Chandler pointed out that we need to use all the boards and commissions and that includes Village in the City because Village in the City also represents older people who want to stay and age in place here. [02:45:31] So it's easy to see the kids with small children in strollers. You see them. But what you may not see are older people because maybe older people are not actually out. And so I do hope that we can ask our boards and commissions to weigh in from their perspective And I don't know if we can create a system that says we're looking at something and does your board want to send us feedback, analysis, their perspective, just to get a fuller representation of the work these boards and commissions are doing. [02:46:03] But walkability, safety, accessibility, and being ADA friendly is really important, I think, to all future planning for this park and everything else that we do. and with that we will thank you uh for your presentation and um i'm now going to reconvene the regular meeting and kick it over to our city manager thank you mayor council we'll get into our future city council agenda items largely moving into the month of july already so of note on the [02:46:41] 7th in a work session we have a discussion on land use application at 41 17 chain bridge road I also want to bring back an update on MediaScribe, which would be our enhanced language access tool for meetings. [02:46:58] Also, a lot has happened in Richmond over the last day or so regarding budget. And so we're going to pivot a little bit from the 28th to the 7th. I'll have Assistant City Manager Martinez speak a little bit about the 1% sales tax item and some of the logistics and planning that might be necessary regarding that issue. [02:47:21] JC? Sure. Thank you. So as the manager noted, the General Assembly has approved budget language that may provide localities with the authority to pursue an additional 1% sales tax subject to voter approval. While the city is still waiting for final enrolled HB 30 language and any related implementation guidance, current indications are that revenues may be used for school construction and renovation projects and in Northern Virginia may also be available to support public transportation [02:47:55] and transit related investments. Although staff will continue to review the final legislation once available, the timeline for placing a referendum before the voters requires action in advance of receiving all final guidance. For a November 3rd, 2026 referendum, City council would need to adopt a resolution and request an order from the circuit court no later than July 21st, 2026. Given the statutory deadlines and the potential opportunity to secure a dedicated [02:48:31] local funding source for critical school and transportation infrastructure needs, staff recommends that the July 7th, 2026 meeting be advertised as a special meeting and that city council consider and take action on a resolution requesting placement of the 1% sales tax referendum on the November 2026 ballot. This action would preserve the city's ability to move forward should the final enacted legislation confirm the anticipated authority and eligible uses. Happy to answer any [02:49:09] questions. Any questions for Mr. Martinez? Councilmember Hall. Thank you. I was actually very disappointed to see that it included funds for transportation to be used in there and my understanding after speaking with the superintendent is that we may have the ability or authority to continue to devote those funds exclusively to schools as they were originally intended is that something that we can do as a council if there is the will of the council to do that or are we required to devote some sort of percentage in some way as of now we're not reading [02:49:45] anything in the legislation that would indicate a commitment to either or. Brian will probably step up and intervene if I speak out of turn. But as of now the language does not appear to suggest a percentage to one or the other. I also thought it was interesting that it's Northern Virginia when we already have the, I think it's a 0.7% sales tax that already gets applied. [02:50:09] So, hey schools. I think it's coming out of the desire to have dedicated funding source for WMATA and also some adjustments to the formulas that are going to create some issues potentially for municipalities in Northern Virginia related to that in terms of use of the funds and again we're waiting for the final signed budget it'll be a two-step the referendum obviously would need to pass the referendum question I think would include all of the options because that doesn't seem to be the flexibility to not include it so [02:50:44] So it confuses things because it's going to say in all likelihood to be used for new capital construction for schools, for transportation projects, or for both. So that will be sort of the referendum question. [02:51:01] If the referendum passes, then the city council would have to enact an ordinance that would provide how the funds would be used. So I think that would be the opportunity if the council or future councils would want to dedicate funds for certain purposes. again there's a lot to be determined in this but for the the the the resolution that would authorize placing the referendum on the ballot for November I think the options are going to be limited and I think it's probably going to be the broad it will have to be the broad language that would allow for one the other or both and I completely understand that and I thank you for pointing that out but I also think that we collectively as a council I don't [02:51:40] mean to speak for anybody else here but council school board we've been very heavily focused on this 1% for schools. I mean, that is when we did the referendum or when we did the bond referendum. I mean, all of that was really focused on let's get this passed. We're hoping the 1% will pass to go here. So I recognize that a future council would be able to have determination on that. But I also think that for the messaging for our residents, for getting the word out on the 1% sales tax and please vote yes for this, I would love to see our attention focused on using that for schools and getting that wording out saying yes we know it says this [02:52:18] but our intention has been this state provided this other transportation option only in northern virginia but this gives us roughly 13 million dollars a year for schools we need this for our four schools and so again not trying to speak for anybody but that that was where we've been focused this whole time so i'm just curious what others think about that thank you mr martinez [02:52:41] Just one clarifying, and this has not been solidified yet, and I think one of the reasons why they're allowing Northern Virginia to potentially use the 1% in addition to or in conjunction for transportation is there is also legislation that in fiscal year 2029, so starting July 1, 2028, there will be additional funding requirement from localities in Northern Virginia to WMATA. [02:53:12] And they're also potentially doing away with the 3% cap. That now puts potential additional burden on the jurisdictions in Northern Virginia to come up with additional capital and operating needs. For WMATA, this was unassuming a negotiating tactic to try to say, well, we'll give you access to this. [02:53:37] But to your point, Council Member, the amount of revenue that would be generated from the 1% basically covers the two elementary school renovations and the high school roof. There's really not much left for anything else, given that we may have additional financial pressures, given a pending upcoming WMATA increase. [02:54:01] Yes, and I think if you assumed the 1% didn't pass and we weren't able to use it for transportation, we would still have to find those funds. So as far as I'm concerned, mentally, this money should go to the schools. That's my take. Thank you. [02:54:17] Well, yes, and I agree, except that the broader language means that for however many years we use the revenue for schools, there's succeeding years where we have the flexibility to use the same 1% for any further funding for transportation, which I think is the idea. [02:54:40] So the 1% is not just unless they sunset it or something happens in the General Assembly and they're like, we're taking it away, but this enabling legislation that allows us to do this 1% sales tax for either or, it will be a budgetary process here in the city, and the budget is passed by the city council. [02:55:00] So every city council every year is going to have the opportunity to say, we're using 100% of this for the schools until these schools are renovated. The bill is paid. But it also gives us flexibility because you can't always see into the future. Future councils, I think, need the flexibility down there. [02:55:17] But it's a budgetary process. It totally is. But I also think that we are trying to or we're going to need to try to get the word out and say to our residents, we really want you to vote for this. We really want you to understand what this goes for. And I think if you said to your residents, hey, we're going to pass this 1% sales tax and we're going to buy some new buses or we're going to do this. [02:55:37] I think the enthusiasm, the desire, the drive is going to be hitting much less than it is for we passed this school bond, we need these renovations, and now we have an opportunity for the money. [02:55:53] So I understand 5, 10, 15, 30 years down the road, it could be great to have the extra 1% to do with transportation projects. But right now, when we're trying to get the word out, I think we need to be strategic in what we're doing. [02:56:10] And I agree. I mean, I think that was the whole point when we really when we did the school bond referendum and the messaging around that and and how we talked about the school bond referendum and the outreach we did in the community about what it could cost people as far as a rise in taxes up to 12 cents. [02:56:28] We talked about that, but I think ultimately it was over 70% of the voters said, sign us up for renovating the schools. I just, I don't underestimate our voters, our residents' ability to understand that the legislation coming out of Richmond says it can be this or this, but that we have looked at this as a tool for funding school renovation. [02:56:52] I mean, I think it's up to us to message that regardless of what the enabling legislation says, our commitment is to is to this. But Council Member McQuillan. And I think we're saying the same thing. I don't disagree with any of that. [02:57:10] However, I think it's I think it's completely prudent to put the vote to the residents. And as a referendum, like we did with the school renovations, we've done our school board has done a fantastic job of educating our public. [02:57:25] Everyone understands, as has our CFO, to educate the public on what our expenses are, what's going on. It is a renovation. It can only be used for renovation, and in this case, expansion. We understood that it had to have expansion included. [02:57:42] There were specific boundaries. So I don't have a problem with the language of that. I don't have a problem with putting it to the voters. I have no problem that transportation is potentially included in there because we don't know what's coming up. so i personally feel that that's going to be the city's job to you know let the voters know what's going to be on the ballot and to move forward with the process thank you council member hardy chandler i just don't want to miss the deadline so this means that we're going to be talking about this on the 7th we're going to be adding what we're going to recommend is advertising for a [02:58:18] special meeting on the 7th which was initially scheduled as a work session so i think what we're being asked at this juncture does everyone agree we should have a special meeting on the 7th i agree that's council member bates yeah just to follow on from what was said earlier uh i think it's important to point out that we've been asking the general assembly for greater flexibility in terms of taxation and they gave us exactly that with this so i don't think that they should be faulted for giving us additional flexibility with a um a certain tax now on that being said i think [02:58:54] that the to my mind the the messaging is that we have to pay for our school infrastructure regardless of what that money is used for years from now or what have you and um so i think from that perspective um you know this money will offset that because that is something that we have to use it for because we have to we have to fund those commitments of ours i agree council member amos yeah i think we just just need to be clear we already have a school bond referendum that was [02:59:30] passed i think in the broader community but also as we've discussed as a council that has to be the priority it's already passed we've been trying to figure out funding for it we'll really patiently waiting on funding for it now it's arriving so i think we understand that piece the transportation piece that's going to be have to be handled in the future we'll need to see what exactly is coming down the road. We don't know what the WMATA payment's going to look like, and if it's going to be significant enough where it almost eats up that whole 1% sales tax, or if we have flexibility for transportation projects. There's just too much we don't know about the transportation piece, [03:00:05] and it sounds like for the referendum in November, it would be schools, transportation, or both. So people will make their selection regardless. Is that my understanding, or did I misunderstand that? No, no, no. The referendum would say the funds could be used for, it won't ask the voters. [03:00:22] It will not ask the voters which they prefer. That might actually be easier. Yes. No, that decision will be left to future councils. Yeah, I think what we can trust that we've communicated it efficiently and we've talked about it as much as we possibly can. And I think our community is involved, aware, and we'll trust them to make the right call. [03:00:40] And assuming that this goes forward, the other thing we will be doing is obviously providing the appropriate cautions as to what you can say publicly about the referendum before it's voted on. There are restrictions under Virginia law as to what can be said publicly. [03:00:56] It has to be neutral. Am I in trouble? No. We good? No, no. Nothing's been done. Nothing's been done yet. Referendum hasn't been set yet, so everything's fine. I didn't like how you brought that up. No, no, no, no, no. Just setting the table. Setting the table. And I agree, and I think it's important because it's on the ballot in November, and so are people who are running for office. [03:01:18] So when you are talking to voters about the election in the city for mayor and council, you can say there is, you're going to see a referendum. You're going to see a referendum on the ballot. What we need guidance on is how you talk about the referendum on the ballot. [03:01:34] But you should tell people they're going to see it so that they're looking for it and they know it's there. But I do think when we talk about the fact, you can talk about the fact that the community voted overwhelmingly for a school bond referendum to renovate the schools. [03:01:50] This is a mechanism, this ballot initiative is a tool to fund the renovation of the schools. All good points, I might just suggest we put a little pin in this for now and save the discussion for another day. Another day, yeah, like on the 7th, like on the 7th during that special meeting of ours. [03:02:07] But yes, let's help the public to understand. uh mr city manager okay so um that wraps it up for the 7th on the 14th we're bringing back the urban forest master plan to give you an update on the one-year plan and five-year outlook we have the housing trust fund and a presentation on that we'll have a continued discussion on small area plan zoning ordinance amendments and a follow-up discussion is scheduled for you on code of ethics for the 14th moving to the 28th consideration of a contract award for an owner's [03:02:41] rep for school construction projects the adu pieces we've talked about is coming back to you and for a public hearing and then we have work session wise pre-application for 3541 chain bridge road and a discussion on the courthouse plaza project that essentially takes us up to the break notably a correction for you city-wide level of service will come back to you on september 1st note also that you see a number of items listed on the first that is our first foray into an [03:03:19] earlier start time and so we will do our best to schedule as much work session wise on that first tuesday so that hopefully takes us to a place that council is comfortable happy to address any calendaring items questions for the city manager on future items yeah councilmember hall thank you um mayor you brought up tonight the uh stop sign um uh electronic monitoring and i had saw i saw something about that passing and i was talking about pilot programs um is there a way that we [03:03:56] could have a work session item on what that might look like in the city or if there's an opportunity to do any um electronic monitoring i know you mentioned before the decibels and the the vehicular stuff yeah there there are there's some recent legislation uh on automated enforcement around loud mufflers that we're evaluating now and we certainly can evaluate anything else related to our district and safety related automated options so i've already have a meeting scheduled with pd on uh one of these items so we'll wrap that in into that and bring it back to you okay [03:04:32] great thank you council member amos did you have something no okay anything else on this are we all good always subject to change but for now it looks like we're good on this okay so we're going to do the manager report out and council comments uh anything else to add mr alexander very quickly we're excited about upcoming events obviously rock the block continues weather permitting this friday and then of course the fourth and the parade and fireworks i'm sure you'll [03:05:08] mentioned that but i don't think we're meeting again in this manner before then so appreciate staff community work up to this point on these important events for our community that's all i have mayor thank you we'll start with councilmember amos only one thing i just wanted to say a big congrats to uh the fairfax rehabilitation and nursing center they held an open house literally right before this meeting managed to squeeze it in real quick so walked over since they're not far They had a lovely open house. [03:05:39] The renovation to their facility is really beautiful. Highly recommend swinging by and checking out. But everyone was very excited. And it's really stunning and ongoing. So continued success to them. Yeah, absolutely. We love our city-based businesses. Councilmember Hall? [03:05:55] Just want to wish everyone a happy belated Father's Day. I will say, fathers, you seem to get the best day of the year every year. It was beautiful. It was sunny. It was warm. It was great. So I hope everyone had a great time. And I do want to apologize. I've been on my phone way more tonight than I normally am. [03:06:11] My dad's having some health issues out in California. So just checking in and doing a bunch of things. So thank you. Council Member Hardy Chandler. I would like to acknowledge all the work that went into a fabulous Juneteenth, starting with the invitation from Mount Calvary Baptist Church. [03:06:28] I really wish more of the community could support that event because it really is very heartfelt and very meaningful. I THINK IS PART OF FAIRFAX HISTORY, BUT ALSO LEADING INTO THE EVENING CELEBRATION, SO MUCH WORK BY THE JUNETEANTH COMMITTEE, CONGRATULATIONS TO THE LEGACY OF FREEDOM AWARDEE, THE AMAZING TALENT, THE SPOKEN WORD PERFORMER, BONE CHILLING, AMAZING PERFORMANCE. [03:07:01] And so I'm always impressed by the hard work that goes into our city celebrations and the engagement our various committees are able to get from the community and beyond to contribute to such an important celebration. [03:07:19] So thank you for that experience. Councilman Peterson. Well, it was great to have Monica Backman here from NVTA. And as Mayor Reed and I both know, that's a hard-working crew. Goodness gracious. [03:07:36] So they have just completed awards under the six-year program and I think awarded $76 million for 27 projects or some such and couldn't begin to tell you how much work goes into that by all of the jurisdictions that submit applications. [03:07:52] We didn't have any applications in this time. A lot of other jurisdictions did. A huge amount of design work, a huge amount of analysis, a huge amount goes into that. One of the things that they shared with us when we received a briefing last week on this was that there was a record number of applications for bike and pedestrian paths. [03:08:14] And I know there was a lot of conversation tonight about that. Six of them made the grade and got it into the final recommendation mix. And I had an opportunity to talk with Sri, who was here earlier, about what went into that process. It's really complex analytically. [03:08:32] It's not just a simple every single option, every single application for a shared bike path or a bike pedestrian project works. Quite to the contrary. And they run two grades on them. One is the degree to which they reduce congestion and how cost effective that is, cost of congestion relief. [03:08:50] They run another grade which has like 14 different variables on it that can score it additionally. And one of the key things that stands out on that is safety. Well, I raise this because one of the projects out of that, first off, all of the transportation bike pedestrian projects that were approved were street-based projects. [03:09:12] Most of them were sidewalk widening and sidewalk improvement projects. All of them were street-based. And where they scored the highest in terms of congestion relief and oftentimes safety was where the most people and the most cars are. But I wanted to share that one of those projects is a sidewalk widening project on Arlington Boulevard, Route 50. [03:09:38] It's at Glebe Road that includes a physical barrier. And the presence of the physical barrier improved the scoring of that project because of its safety enhancements to the level that it was actually able to get funded, get in the mix. It will now receive a $15 million award. [03:09:55] This is the beginning of what NVTA, Sri in particular, would expect to happen more often when we've got a lot of cars and a lot of people in the same place, and particularly when the cars are going fast. So these physical barriers are being used increasingly. [03:10:12] They're used quite a bit in Baltimore. Brooklyn has said that they want to be the world leader in this. We see Portland, Seattle, et cetera, and they're all over the place in Europe. We were looking at that very option on Fairfax Boulevard during the course of the George Snyder Trail conversations and the potential for adding a physical barrier there as a part of a sidewalk widening project. [03:10:36] I think there was some skepticism at the time, but it is, in fact, the case that an almost identical project is moving forward. Through this process the six-year project in Arlington, and I think we can look forward to more of that I think that what NVTA is expecting is also a lot of variations around it and for jurisdictions to be increasingly creative in the way that they Institute these shared bike paths with various types of Physical barriers to put more of them in place, and I think it's a real opportunity We'll have here in the city going forward. We are one of the things they pointed out is that [03:11:15] most cities whether they're large or small just don't have room to create new bike paths in areas where there is nothing at all and so the focus is really taking advantage of the street infrastructure and this is one of the big things that came through so I think they were really very pleased to set the precedent with this and to look forward to more of it so that's the transportation news for the week thanks councilmember Bates um so I think that the uh the skepticism around that at [03:11:48] least from my perspective was um also about the possibility of using uh funding that had already been approved for a different project for that which as understood it we could not um and now you know we don't have guarantee of of any funding for something like that but but certainly look forward to further conversations about increasing multimodal connectivity um and you just want to echo the previous comments uh wishing all the fathers in the city among the city staff and city residents a happy father's day and also want to wish uh echo the comments wishing everybody [03:12:27] happy juneteenth and um agreed you know it's a very beautiful uh very poignant event on friday and glad I was able to be there. Thank you. Council Member McQuillan. Thank you. I also want to thank Monica Bachman from NVTA for the briefing on the bus rapid transit action plan and to our staff for their presentations this evening. [03:12:53] I also want to briefly recognize a few recent upcoming community events. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the Juneteenth ceremony last week, but was encouraged to see all the pictures of the participation and attendees and just want to thank all that made the event a success. [03:13:11] I was really sad to have to miss that. Looking ahead, summer's a busy time, and if you haven't already done so, please consider signing up for Fairfax City Alert and City Clips on the city's website to stay informed on all the events we have going on coming up this summer. [03:13:27] Since I'm also talking about ways to stay involved, I want to give a quick plug to our local arts community. The city currently has several calls for artists opening through the office of cultural arts this includes submissions for the mini art vending machine project it closes tomorrow at 4 p.m the theis park mural and recycled art benches they all looked like some really neat projects to get involved in would love to see some new local artists come out and show your work please consider taking a look by searching for the public art program public art program in the search bar on the city's website pulls it right [03:14:03] up so you can access it easily and wishing everyone a safe and happy week thank you all right so um yes many thanks for the people the juneteenth committee and our parks and recreation department who put together juneteenth and mount calvary baptist church um and i would also like to see us figure out how to engage more with mount calvary as well uh fourth of july is coming up and i just want to give a shout out to katie mccammon people who are seeing that amazing 250th logo [03:14:37] that is just the best looking 250th logo ever to be seen in america was designed by our own katie mack and i just whenever you see it i want you to remember that that's in-house talent and we have got incredibly talented people on our staff but particularly parks and recreation know how to throw an event and to market it as well. So I'm going to see everyone, I hope, on the 4th of July along the parade route or from the viewing stand. And with that, I am now going to adjourn this meeting to go into a closed meeting, or I'm just going into the [03:15:14] closed meeting, however I do that. So I bid the rest of you a good night. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Coraggio Consulting ยท aguyonx.com