Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Meeting, Tuesday, June 27, 2023

Date: Tuesday, June 27, 2023
Place: Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 6h 39m (video)
Official meeting video (Fairfax County): https://video.fairfaxcounty.gov/player/clip/2950
Official Board of Supervisors page (Fairfax County): https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/boardofsupervisors/

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 2026-11-03. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:05] and good morning everyone and welcome to our board meeting of june 27th 2023 i'd like to welcome everyone who's here in our audience and listening at home we are going to begin this meeting as we always do which is with a moment of silence to be followed by the pledge of allegiance and before we rise for a moment of silence i will ask my colleagues if there's anyone that they would like to keep in our thoughts and prayers as we proceed and i'm just going to start by mentioning and that is Nate Wilson.

[00:00:36] Probably Supervisor Stork will have more to add, but Nate passed away on June 15th. He was 81 years old. He was the vice president and chairman of the Mount Vernon Lee Chamber of Commerce and chairman of the Quantico-Belvore Regional Business Alliance. He also served on the board of United Community, at that time United Community Ministries, and was the president and founder of Just-in-Time Community Development Corporation.

[00:01:02] Mr. Wilson was a veteran of the United States Air Force, having served in Vietnam and in various roles as a foreign disclosure officer and deputy base commander. I knew Mr. Wilson well. He was, of course, very active in South County, but most importantly, in military affairs, dealing with Fort Belvoir and a lot of the veterans issues in Fairfax County.

[00:01:25] And so if we could keep Nate Wilson and the Wilson family in our thoughts and prayers, I would appreciate that. And at this time, I will recognize Supervisor Gross. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Two folks I would like us to remember.

[00:01:43] The first was Joan Sakharov. Joan lived in Mason District for many, many, many years until she and her husband decided to move out of their multi-story home and into Greenspring in, I guess that's in the Franconia District.

[00:02:00] That's where a lot of our constituents do move to. At any rate, Joan was well-known in the community. She was one of the founders. She and her husband, Don, were founders of what is now the POSES Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia.

[00:02:17] She was on their board for many, many, many years. She served on the board of the Jewish Community Relations Council. She was active in Hadassah. She was actually named the top wedding planner by Washingtonian Magazine for more than 10 years. She had just celebrated her 87th birthday when she passed away earlier this month, but you would never have known that she was 87.

[00:02:40] She was a wonderful friend and a true mover and shaker in the community. So I'd like to remember her family and her service in our prayers this morning. Also, we don't often go across the river to remember people.

[00:02:59] This one really I wanted to mention because I knew Bruce Romer for a long time working with him at COG. He was the chief administrative officer for Montgomery County for 12 years, and he was well-known in the community for his calm and thoughtful approach to just about anything that would come up.

[00:03:23] He also was a board member, a member of the International City County Management Association, or ICMA, or ICMA. And he served in leadership positions on COG, the Greater Washington Board of Trade, NACO, and the District of Columbia Sioux and Water Authority, and the Maryland Municipal League.

[00:03:44] He was truly a regional leader. And although we talk about the Potomac Ocean, Bruce was always one who was able to reach across the aisle and across the jurisdictional boundaries to make sure that our region remained as vibrant as it was.

[00:04:05] And so I would like to remember Bruce Romer from Montgomery County. Thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Gross. And I'm going to go this way, this time, Supervisor Stork. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I wanted to echo your comments about Nate Wilson and really the many, many years, the decade of work that he provided to the community.

[00:04:28] And I would say he was everywhere, particularly related to Fort Belvoir and the chamber and his commitment to veterans and to community. So I just, he was one of those special people that you know you could count on to be there and to have the kind of presence and engagement that you want from anybody who is so deeply committed and cares about the community.

[00:04:53] So thank you. And the other thing I wanted to mention is I know many of you I saw just on Sunday, we had the service for Earl Flanagan. And I know many of you, we talked about Earl, not servicing a bit, but 98 years old on the Planning Commission in his 90s.

[00:05:14] He is another exemplar, if you will, of the community, Somebody who gave their all not only in the last decade in his 90s, but gave it beginning in his 20s, actually teens, in his service to the country in World War II, et cetera.

[00:05:31] So, again, I wanted to thank and acknowledge so many of our community, if you will, was there to honor him at his service on Sunday. So, thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Stork. Others who would like to be recognized? Supervisor Lusk. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[00:05:46] I'd like to think about the family of Marvin Wendell Lutzenheiser. He passed away on Tuesday, June 6, 2023, at the age of 94. He was a resident of Springfield, Virginia. Loving husband to Paula Ann Lutzenheiser, father to Thomas Lutzenheiser, Jan, and Constance to Kelly, and grandfather to Christina Miller, Michael Keene, great-grandfather to Matthew Miller, Wells Miller, and Woods Miller.

[00:06:18] He will certainly be truly missed. He was born in Maximo, Ohio, and previously resided in San Jose, California. Earned his BS degree in math in 1953 from Mount Union College.

[00:06:34] He also achieved several patents for computer memory architecture and enjoyed restoring theater organs. So just an amazing person I had the pleasure of spending time with over the last few years, and I'll be thinking about he and his family at this particular time.

[00:06:55] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Supervisor Luss, Supervisor Palchuk. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I just want to add to the thoughts and prayers for Joan Sakharov Don, who passed away not long before, truly the love of her life, an amazing couple, And having grown up at the JCC, they truly were like an uncle to many, many in the community and have given so much.

[00:07:20] So I appreciate you bringing that, though they lived in different places of the county. They truly were a staple and important parts of our community. So to that, thoughts and prayers to them, their families and the entire community. Thank you, Supervisor Pouchek.

[00:07:36] Anyone else who would like to be recognized, seeing and hearing no one? If all who are able could rise for a moment of silence to be followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. Please face the flag.

[00:08:07] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And this morning we have a lot of presentations and recognitions, and so we're going to try to move through them as quickly as possible.

[00:08:40] I am, however, going to change the order, given the presence in the auditorium and recognize our law enforcement personnel first so that they can get on their way onto their next adventure today. And recognizing we have a lot of folks here and we greatly appreciate that we're going to take this item up first.

[00:09:00] And this is a resolution to recognize the law enforcement personnel and others who contributed to the successful resolution of the Route 1 standoff. standoff and this was requested by myself by Supervisor Stork and by Supervisor Lusk and our speaker today of course is Chief Kevin Davis from our Fairfax County Police Department. If you could come on down and I will say I know this group to be very orderly so I think it makes sense for us Chief if we could have the personnel come down and join you so that we're ready for the photo at this

[00:09:36] time we'd welcome them to come down and join you as well and we'll take a moment to do that if you guys can just stack up out along where the speaker podium is yeah

[00:10:11] okay uh thank you all uh for doing that uh and doing that well at this time uh i'm going to

[00:11:26] recognize supervisor stork for a resolution thank you mr chairman and and truly on behalf of the chairman and supervisor lusk and particularly the folks who are most on richmond highway but but the board overall, it's an honor to read this resolution and to thank you for the amazing work that was done on that day. Whereas in March, officers from the Fairfax County Police Department's Mount Vernon District Station encountered an individual in her vehicle, armed with a gun, experiencing a mental health crisis, and whereas over the course of the subsequent 34 hours, these officers, assisted by uniform and civilian crisis managers, negotiators, and teams from

[00:12:04] surrounding jurisdictions work towards a peaceful resolution of this crisis while managing the impact of our barricade situation on our busiest main street, Richmond Highway. And whereas local businesses displayed exemplary patience and support for the law enforcement personnel and others working to end the standoff despite the significant disruption it caused, and whereas a successful resolution of this situation would not have happened without the assistance and support of the Virginia State Police, the Alexandria Police Department, the George Mason University Police Department, the Fairfax Falls Church Community Services Board Mobile Crisis Unit,

[00:12:45] the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department, and the Fairfax County Department of Public Safety Communications. And whereas the outcome of this incident is one that our community can be proud of, where our commitment to the sanctity of all lives, first responder training, and the professionalism of our police served and protected perpetrator, the victim, police, and the greater Mount Vernon community. Now, therefore, be it resolved, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors on behalf of all residents of Fairfax County does hereby thank our local law enforcement and civilian responders

[00:13:21] for their incredible efforts to successfully resolve this crisis. I'm happy to second that motion. Discussion on the motion, Supervisor Stork. I just have a few comments, and I I first and foremost want to thank everyone, but I absolutely have to thank Shift B because the folks on Shift B, Day Shift B, are the ones who really made it happen, and frankly, particularly the initial response.

[00:13:50] I see Lieutenant Wallace here, and now Major Fred Chambers, who's being taken away from us again. But we were happy for his promotion, clearly, but his work, Lieutenant Wallace's work, And really, Shift B and, frankly, the whole Mount Vernon department was engaged in supporting and, frankly, doing what I know we are all deeply committed to, which is protecting the sanctity of life.

[00:14:16] I know it truly takes a village. In this case, it took a significant part of not only our police resources but so many others in the area. And that's, I think, what it's all about is that we will move heaven and earth. We will assemble whatever it takes to protect lives and to do everything we can to ensure that we have a truly welcoming and supportive community.

[00:14:39] You all, your presence here today, your work on that day absolutely exemplified that in every possible way. And I am, again, deeply honored and thankful that we have you protecting and serving all of us. Thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Stork. Further discussion?

[00:14:54] Supervisor Lusk. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to say congratulations to all of you for what I would say is a job well done. When we think about de-escalation, when we think about how do we approach situations like this, everything that was done was done textbook and perfectly in terms of providing distance, time, cover, using patience.

[00:15:23] I think all the things that were done to address the mental health issue here as well and the approach that we took, which is reflective. It's reflective of our desire to have the co-responder model and to be able to address those issues in real time.

[00:15:45] I know this was extraordinarily difficult for the community. We got lots of calls. People were complaining, asking me to reopen Richmond Highway, asking me to do everything to resolve this quickly. And I even said, we've got to give this the time it needs.

[00:16:03] I even had the opportunity to go over and meet with Chief Davis during the height of this. And I said to him, I appreciated everything that the department was doing. And I said I was supportive. And I said, whatever amount of time it takes, personally, this was my position.

[00:16:19] to ensure that we got the most positive outcome. We got the most positive outcome possible by doing the things that we did. This proves how de-escalation can work and why it's so important.

[00:16:37] So I just want to commend everyone who was a part of this, and I think we can all look back and see this as an example of how to use de-escalation in the future. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Supervisor Luss, Supervisor Gross, then Supervisor Herity.

[00:16:54] Thank you. This was a very long siege for the community, and it turned out favorably. And it demonstrates what we, as Supervisor Luss said, all the things we've put into, we, the board, the community, the police department, have put into resolving difficult situations.

[00:17:17] I contrast that with a clip I saw on the news within the last couple of days. in san antonio texas where a woman was headed into her apartment um there had been some sort of call the police stopped her she went into her apartment they got on her balcony and patio and so forth and ultimately within within minutes minutes because she threw something at them um the officers fired and killed her this would have been a perfect opportunity for de-escalation

[00:17:56] because the woman was obviously having some mental health crisis, but they didn't do that. If that had happened in Fairfax County, we would have handled it the way you handled Richmond Highway issue.

[00:18:13] I can't, it's just amazing to me that so many large police departments have not figured that out yet. There is a way to handle these kinds of situations, and Fairfax County is mastering that.

[00:18:32] Hopefully, we don't have to do it very often, and I'm sorry, I shouldn't continue to say we, you, but it is something that is implanted in your training, and I'm just very proud of that because when we we somebody asked me a long time ago how can you as a democrat uh support our police department the only way you do and i said how can i not you know it was the strangest question um this was years ago but we can all support our police department because you do

[00:19:08] things the right way and when we've put in new procedures you've done those the right way and Those are the kinds of headlines we want to see, not what San Antonio is seeing right now, but what we see here in Fairfax County as a successful conclusion to an extraordinarily difficult situation, but it came out so well.

[00:19:31] Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Supervisor Gross. Supervisor Herdy. Yeah, I'll try to be brief, but I want to thank you not only for what you did in this instance, which got a lot of exposure, but what you do every day in many more stressful and traumatic incidents that happen throughout the county out of the scenes of cameras.

[00:19:51] Today is National PTSD Day, and over 80% of you are going to experience some kind of traumatic event over the series of your career. That's why we opened our new wellness center, which is really for you to address those kinds of things.

[00:20:07] And the mental health of our officers, because you have to take care of the mental health of our citizens every day. We're working on another one, another mental health wellness center. We need to continue to do everything we can to support you from compensation to wellness to the training that Supervisor Gross kind of referenced because training is what makes a difference.

[00:20:29] So you can count on my support as we continue to move forward. But thank you for everything you do every day. Supervisor Pouching. Thank you. And I'll also be brief, but I think mental health was brought up. And we will be celebrating PRS under 60 years with Crisis Link coming up shortly.

[00:20:47] But we know that you are at the front lines and your staff every single day of dealing with our mental health crisis in the community. And as was mentioned, how you are able to address that, address it well, as you did here, and making sure that we're helping to support you so that doesn't go home.

[00:21:07] We know how difficult and challenging that can be. So leadership starts at the top, and I want to thank Chief Davis, your deputies, your captains, everyone here. I see state police. I see, I believe, from every agency in the county.

[00:21:23] I won't try to name them all because I'll get in trouble. But I think it was mentioned, and it cannot go without saying that it truly does take here. It was our first responder public safety community. You have shown once again that we have truly the best police force in the nation.

[00:21:41] I know we are going through challenging times, and I know the work that you've done on the ground, the way your staff, your leadership celebrates that, supports that, and we here celebrate the excellent work that you all do in helping us support our community in these very difficult times.

[00:21:59] So I know I joined my board and our community in thanking you again for your excellent response, for showing the best practice and that we wanna, we will continue to see that and just wanna thank you all. I know we feel safer today, excited to see you back out in the community.

[00:22:17] And we know that you are out there every day and thank you for what you did here and what you do for us. So thank you. - Thank you, Supervisor Pouchek. And I'm gonna add my congratulations as a co-sponsor of the resolution and Supervisor Stork and I had an opportunity To meet with a lot of you at the station, a lot closer to when this incident occurred and had an opportunity to talk to you a lot that day.

[00:22:42] So I'm going to save some of my comments, but we did think it was important to have the rest of the board be able to recognize all the moving parts here that made this event successful. and I think most people watching on their TV were probably predicting a different outcome because, as Supervisor Gross had mentioned, many times across the country the outcome is very different.

[00:23:07] And here I was among the people getting complaints from folks about the disruption that was occurring. Miraculously, none of them called back after we know how this incident ended to say sorry that we called and that we were inconvenienced while our men and women in uniform were ultimately inconvenienced.

[00:23:30] And so having driven down there to the site on two occasions during the 34-hour standoff and looking at the way in which it was being handled was remarkable. As someone who grew up on the highway, lived most of my life on Route 1 right around the corner from where this incident happened, And I don't think most people in the county who aren't familiar with the corridor can understand how many moving pieces there are going on at one time.

[00:23:57] Supervisor Stork mentioned this was a major Main Street arterial, so certainly a lot of traffic, but a whole lot of other stuff happening as well. Pedestrian activity, business activity, a whole lot of things happening in a very vital corridor to the county.

[00:24:13] And knowing all of that and seeing how we handled this situation on such a high-profile roadway, I think is a testament to how all of our units within the police department work together. Seeing the motors out there running the traffic, I mean, you're talking about rerouting tens of thousands of cars for 34-plus straight hours.

[00:24:36] You know, that's a part that wasn't heavily publicized in the news coverage. Of course, it was about this person suffering a mental health crisis and our negotiators trying to work on that. But this is why we wanted the whole group here, because this was a massive undertaking that disrupted, inconvenienced a lot of people, including all of you, for a long period of time.

[00:25:01] And it could have ended in a very different way, but for the work of each and every one of you. It also highlights the importance of our regional partnerships. This is something that this county, in particular in this police department, has been a lead on.

[00:25:16] We are a large police department. We are proud of that, a well-resourced, sophisticated, forward-thinking, large police department who others in the region look to repeatedly. And in this particular instance, we needed some of their help to provide relief and to be able to come in and participate in this operation.

[00:25:36] and then also to learn from the ways in which we handled this as well. And so being a part of a region is a piece of this that wasn't really emphasized a lot, but is important to all of our residents and certainly important to the relationships we have with other law enforcement agencies across the region.

[00:25:55] We all saw 9-11, you know, what happened that day with regional cooperation. And while we want to never see these incidents occur, it is nice to know that as a region, we can approach them and approach them properly. And in this particular case, Fairfax County proudly led and showed the region how we handle an incident like this and to be able to do it successfully.

[00:26:17] And so I do want to thank the chief for his leadership, particularly the Mount Vernon District Station personnel who were upended for a long period of time in their leadership. and as others have said, it is a very active station.

[00:26:34] It's one that, you know, I personally know a lot about, but in particular to have this station, this active already on calls, have something like this occur is a remarkable lift on personnel and the leadership of the Mount Vernon Station who did an amazing job.

[00:26:52] And then lastly, one of the groups that wasn't mentioned, and I guess maybe they fall under the category of community, is to thank the business owners in this corridor. And I've spoken to a number of you individually about this to have their support. Instinctively, you might think they're mad that customers can't get to their business.

[00:27:11] But I think the way they reacted and opened their doors to support and called in my office, I spoke with several of them who were supporting you and what you were doing and understood that anything they had going on that day was certainly secondary to what you had going on that day.

[00:27:26] I think speaks volumes to how our entire community, both citizen and business, responds to the outstanding work of our police department. And so this is a proud moment for the entire county, made happen because of you. And because of our continued support of you, we will have the resources to be able to continue to lead not just Fairfax and the region, but the nation in so many different ways.

[00:27:51] And so thank you to each and every one of you for the outcome that we had here, the teamwork that we had here, the cooperation, and frankly, the really successful outcome that I think could be a textbook. And I hope that it does become a textbook for other police departments across the country and how to handle something like this so that we can get more outcomes like this across the country as we deal with the mental health crises that you all deal with on a daily basis. And so congratulations to all of you. And I think we are ready for a vote.

[00:28:25] All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? And that motion, not surprisingly carried. Chief, welcome. The floor is yours. Thank you, Chairman McKay and Supervisor Stork and to the entire Board of Supervisors.

[00:28:42] It's meaningful to do this for the men and women who stand here before you today. They'll never admit how meaningful it is, but it certainly validates their effort, their training, their mindset, and where their hearts are.

[00:28:58] Police officers, deputy sheriffs, troopers, fire and rescue personnel, we deal with people at their worst moments, and we deal with people in crisis, and that, as we all know, is increasingly so with behavioral and mental health crisis.

[00:29:15] So we're never going to reach a moment of perfection, but we're certainly on a journey to achieve a goal of policing in a way that our community expects us to police under very constant trying and challenging circumstances.

[00:29:33] So I never thought I would be a police officer long enough to see a robot deliver a pack of cigarettes to a person in crisis in her car. But, you know, that speaks to the commitment to de-escalation and doing what we have to do. And Major Dalton Becker has allegedly paid for the pack of cigarettes, and he's still seeking reimbursement every time I see it.

[00:29:56] But whatever we had to do with the clinicians, with the co-responders, we did because this was a dangerous situation, but the immediate danger was to herself. There was no one else in immediate danger necessarily.

[00:30:13] So it afforded us the opportunity to do what we say we're going to do and take advantage of time and distance and negotiation and de-escalation. And we certainly collectively lived up to that. And I appreciate the patience of the board as well.

[00:30:29] I think a couple of us had conversations. We, too, received some phone calls, some interesting. But they didn't call back, Chairman, like you said. And Supervisor Gross, we just this morning were talking about that incident in Texas and how that would not happen here because we would recognize what the situation was and we would take our time and take the time necessary to achieve a safe resolution for everyone.

[00:31:00] The examples that I used to a couple folks that I spoke to during the course of those 34 hours made the analogy of a water main break or a snowstorm. We have to treat this the same way. We're going to get through it. It's going to come to an end, but the end that it came to was the right resolution.

[00:31:19] And we are being asked, Chairman, to speak about this across the country. And we'll have another opportunity in a couple days in Washington, D.C., because it's a matter of putting our money where our mouth is and trying the best we can to always live up to the new and evolving expectations.

[00:31:38] So we recognize the importance of this moment. We've probably missed a couple people. I always personally take for granted the role of the 911 call takers and the dispatchers. you know they're constantly dealing with people calling in who are in a state of real or perceived crisis when an incident like this happens and i think for the board in particular and i know the county exec and the deputy county exec work to to you know push through the memorandums of agreement and the memorandums of understanding and the mutual aid agreements that constantly come through i think this incident shows why they're so valuable so whether it's the council of governments

[00:32:17] whether it's the mutual aid agreements with Alexandria, with the Virginia State Police, don't need one. But all the surrounding jurisdictions, we know that we can call on them and vice versa when we're at a moment like this. And we don't need to create a document allowing that to be so because elected officials like yourselves realize the importance of those relationships.

[00:32:40] So on behalf of everyone here, thank you all so very much for taking the time to recognize this effort. it doesn't go unnoticed so thank you super thank you chairman thank you very much chief and thank you for your comments and again congratulations to all here and thank you all for coming including all of our partner law enforcement agencies that made it a point to be here with us with our team here in Fairfax today that means a lot and I think with that we're ready for a photo we're going to try to do this in an equally and orderly fashion so if you all could come forward and face the

[00:33:15] audience and if Supervisor Stork and Supervisor Lusk want to join me we're going to get back on

[00:36:46] the schedule that was posted and so our next resolution is to recognize the Vienna Youth Inc varsity boys rugby team in their championships and if you are here for this if you could make your way on down. I know that Stuart Zimmerman, the Commissioner of Virginia, I'm sorry, of Vienna Youth Rugby is here and others who are here. Welcome. This was requested by myself, Supervisor Herity, Supervisor Alcorn, and Supervisor Palchek. I understand Supervisor Herity is holding the resolution. Supervisor Herity. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I have a resolution to move. Whereas on May 24th,

[00:37:22] The Vienna Youth, Inc. varsity boys rugby team, made up of 9th to 12th graders, defeated the longtime powerhouse Fort Hunt 36-28 to win the Virginia State Rugby Championship. And whereas after runs at national titles in 2021 and 2022, and on the heels of their state championship, the team traveled to Indiana and won the Tier 2 Boys High School National Rugby Championship.

[00:37:52] And whereas these championships were the culmination of a tremendous dedication and effort from players and coaches and cap a 17 to 2 to 1 season, and whereas much of the team has been playing together since elementary school, with others joining in middle and high school, and the commitment and resilience of every player led to the championship season, now therefore be it resolved that the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors on behalf of all residents of Fairfax County does hereby congratulate the Vienna youth and the staff.

[00:38:22] Inc. Varsity Boys rugby team, along with their head coach, Kendall Erickson, and their assistant coaches, Dave Roper, Jeff Edmetes, Paul Mateer, and Tim Rieger, for their exceptional accomplishments on winning both the Virginia State Championship and the Tier 2 National Championship.

[00:38:42] So moved. I'm happy to second that, along with Supervisor Palchuk. Discussion on the motion, Supervisor Herity. Yeah, and I'll try to keep it brief, but it's been quite a month for rugby in the DMV area. I was at West End's alumni event a couple weeks ago talking about the growth in their program.

[00:39:00] We've got Old Glory, our major league rugby team in Washington, D.C., made their first appearance in the playoffs and actually won, so they're moving on. And those teams have many local players, including, I don't know, do you have one playing now?

[00:39:19] No, there'd be any. Okay. But I know we've got a bunch of local players on there. And now we celebrate the growth and success of Vienna Youth Incorporated's Vienna Rugby Team. Congratulations to the team, head coach, the coaching staff, all the administrators on your victory.

[00:39:38] Your journey from the program's beginnings in 2006 to being ranked the number 10 youth rugby club in the nation. It took a lot to get here. I know it was easy. It wasn't easy. If it was easy, everybody could do it.

[00:39:55] It wasn't easy. It wasn't easy. But really, it comes down to a couple things. I know Coach Erickson could not be here today, but his strategy of bringing in some international coaches to help get you along. It takes good coaching. It takes a strong administrative group, which the Vienna Club certainly is.

[00:40:15] And it takes strong team character. And playing together all those years from elementary school through the touch rugby programs that are now in place, And we're looking at potentially bringing into our middle schools as a middle school sport on to on the high school and then even into now major colleges and major league rugby.

[00:40:36] So thank you for everything you all do for the program. Thank you for representing Fairfax County strong, bringing home not just the state title, but a tier two national championship crown. So congratulations. Thank you, Supervisor Herdy, Supervisor Palchuk. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just very briefly, having been born in South America and graduated FCPS in 2001, I'm very excited to see the work that your team and the whole community is doing to help elevate rugby, to bring it to our community and our students. I think in my time, it wasn't until college that kids were getting more involved with it. And so just want to congratulate you on your win, on your title, and thank you for bringing

[00:41:16] the future generations of students into rugby. And thank you so much for your support and for all of your coaches who helped you get here. Thank you, Supervisor Palczyk. And I too want to add my congratulations. I will tell you that when our high school sports teams or youth organizations win state titles like this, normally it's over a school from another jurisdiction and we jump for joy over a big Fairfax County win.

[00:41:43] In this particular case, though, beating a longtime powerhouse right here in Fairfax, I know for the kids participating, that's huge because that's a local rivalry that, you know, Fort Hunt's existed and been exceptional for a long period of time.

[00:41:59] And to be able to knock them off is a huge feather in your cap. We celebrate, of course, both. But in all seriousness, that is huge. And then as I've been told and I learned, I didn't know the Tier 2 National Championship, what a huge deal that was.

[00:42:17] And several people have told me, you know, it's arguably one of the most competitive rugby national tournaments to date and that particular tier. And so this is a huge accomplishment in a sport that, as others have acknowledged, is on the rise. But here in the United States isn't necessarily as recognized as some of our other sports.

[00:42:38] And to be able to recognize you today, not only to celebrate your achievements, but to celebrate this particular sport and all the people who participate in it. here in the united states but more personally here in fairfax county is huge and as others have said it takes a team effort and anytime we have our young people here we of course want to recognize them for their academic and athletic achievements but also the parents the coaches the staff all the people that make this happen because it is truly a community effort to succeed in the way that you

[00:43:15] have and i know all of you know that none of this could happen without all that support from parents from coaches administrators people in the community vienna youth all of the other community members that that helped you get to this point and so you made fairfax county proud and we're proud of you and proud to honor you today so congratulations and with that i think we're ready for a vote all All those in favor of the motion, please say aye.

[00:43:41] Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? And that motion carries, and Mr. Zimmerman, welcome. The floor is yours. Thank you very much, Chairman McKay, esteemed members of the Board of Supervisors, Supervisor Harrity.

[00:44:00] I am Stuart Zimmerman, Commissioner of Vienna Rugby and a volunteer with Vienna Youth Incorporated. On behalf of the players, families, and coaches, thank you for this recognition. The team's achievement at the High School National Tournament in Elkhart, Indiana last month was the culmination of years of dedication and hard work.

[00:44:22] The success is not just an achievement of the players on this championship team, but the many players and families that came before whose commitment has built the club over the 17 years since we were founded. I'd like to recognize Tanner Argenbright and Trevor Argenbright, who are rising members of the varsity team, and David Kendick, who is a graduating senior.

[00:44:49] They were able to join me here today as high school students who just got finished with the semester, the year of school, getting up this early and coming out was a real challenge. So I would like to appreciate these players for joining us here today to represent their teammates.

[00:45:09] The success, excuse me, as we set our sights on next year with rising varsity players like Tanner and Trevor, we say goodbye to 22 seniors like David, many of whom started playing rugby in first grade. We wish them good luck as they move on to college.

[00:45:26] We hope that they all continue to play rugby. Rugby is a unique sport. It's similar to basketball in some ways where you can always find a game. It's a little, you know, the clubs are fewer and farther between than your local basketball court, but rugby is a worldwide sport, and there are opportunities to play for, you know, people as they progress through their ages and continue to play even as, you know, old guys like me.

[00:45:58] So just with that, thank you all very much for your time and this recognition. We appreciate being an active part of the community, and we're very happy and hope that we can bring home the championship again next year. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Zimmerman, and congratulations again, including to all those kids who couldn't get up this morning.

[00:46:18] We congratulate them as well, and I think we're ready for a photo. And so if Supervisor Herity, Alcorn, and Paucek want to join me, and if you all could come forward for a photograph.

[00:46:53] And next, we have a resolution to recognize the Reston Community Players for their recent awards,

[00:47:53] and this was requested by Supervisor Alcorn, and if all the folks who are here today, including Joey Olson, President of the Reston Community Players, could come on down, we would welcome you, and Supervisor Alcorn, let me turn to you. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

[00:48:09] I do have a resolution I'm going to read. Whereas in the spring of 1966, which I must mention was right before I was born, so. uh close call very close very close the rest in players was born when rest and founder robert e simon jr was approached about whether its residents might like to perform an original musical the greatest game in town and whereas in 1972 the group organized as the non-profit rest and community players and in 1979 held its first production in the brand new state-of-the-art center stage at rest and community center in hudders woods where the group has performed ever

[00:48:47] since, and whereas the mission of the all-volunteer Reston Community Players is to entertain, engage, educate, and challenge, and to create a safe, positive theater community culture that demonstrates its commitment to diversity and inclusion, and whereas this year the Reston Community Players received an astounding 13 Washington-area Theater Community Honors Awards for the productions of A Little Night Music, The Games of Foot, and Bright Star, now therefore be it resolved that the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, on behalf of all residents of Fairfax County,

[00:49:25] does hereby congratulate the Reston community players for their many years of contributions to the performing arts in Fairfax County and for their award-winning year of performances. I'm happy to second that motion. Discussion, Supervisor Alcorn. Yeah, thank you very much.

[00:49:40] Yeah, this is an honor. It's a big, big day. I'm so glad you're getting the recognition you deserve. This really does go really back to Reston's core, Reston's founding. You know, Bob Simon knew a little something about the performing arts and certainly brought that with him when he created Reston back in the day.

[00:50:01] And this wasn't in the resolution, but I understand that in the early days there were performances at the Reston Writing Center. So I wasn't there. You've come a long way. Come a long way, come a long way. But, you know, from from that day, you know, you really have have been an integral part of Reston and sharing and and contributing that vision that Bob had of of having arts be part of our lives.

[00:50:29] So thank you for everything you've done and congratulations on the recognition. Thank you, Supervisor Alcorn. And I also want to congratulate you. You know, this is a, obviously the watch awards are a big deal. Getting the number that you got is remarkable.

[00:50:45] And while this is the Reston community players and is essential to Reston, clearly the entire community supports what you do and the arts in Fairfax County. And we have so many of these organizations across the county that we get an opportunity to recognize them.

[00:51:02] want to do that, not only to celebrate arts in general, but to celebrate in this particular case 13 watch awards, which is amazing. And several of my colleagues recently were at the CAPE's program at the Kennedy Center. And I always love that event because this is our pipeline of young people going into arts, going into theater and celebrating the arts and the excitement that they have over that is just just amazing but the piece of it that I really wanted to mention today is they are running that whole program and being backstage with them that day recently

[00:51:42] I don't think people understand what a team sport literally putting on a production is everything from the lighting crew to the music to the scripts to the costumes to the performers you simply see the music a lot of times you see a few people on stage and have no idea the army of people that it takes to put on a high quality production like you do and this really is a major team effort in the same way an athletic event is is choreographed and and and done to perfection and so we congratulate you recognize you on these awards know that there will be many more to come

[00:52:21] But this is really an award, not just for the Reston Community Players well-deserved, but for arts in Fairfax County to celebrate. So congratulations. With that, I think we're ready to vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye.

[00:52:37] Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? And that motion carries. Mr. Olson, welcome. The floor is yours. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, my name is Joey Olson. I am the president of Reston Community Players. I'd like to thank the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors for recognizing us today, especially Supervisor Alcorn for nominating us.

[00:52:58] As you said, Wrestling Players is 100% run by volunteers that have a passion for the arts. We are lucky to be a part of a greater community of 27 sister theaters known as WATCH. This year we had 42 nominations for WATCH, and yes, 13 wins.

[00:53:14] The most of any theater company and the most of any show won that night for A Little Night Music with nine awards. The best part of those awards in total is because they're mostly for back end stuff like set design, decoration, set construction, set dressing, lighting, hair, makeup and costume design.

[00:53:35] Actors get all the accolades usually, but it was so nice to see my design teams get their time in the spotlight as well. You have no idea how it is to build a set in the summer when it's 90 degrees outside and there's no AC. Again, thank you for this amazing recognition.

[00:53:52] I ask that you keep the arts in mind when you are doing your budgets, as we are here to keep your Fairfax citizens thriving. One laugh, one tear, and one ticket at a time. Thank you so much. Well said. Thank you very much, and congratulations again. And I think we're ready for a photo if Supervisor Alcorn would join me.

[00:54:09] And if anyone wants tickets, we're doing Avenue Q in October.

[00:54:15] And next, we have a resolution to recognize PRS on its 60th anniversary and its contributions to the community.

[00:55:31] And this was requested by myself, Supervisor Palchek, and Supervisor Walkinshaw. And I know Joe Goetsch, CEO of PRS, is here. And others who are here for this are welcome to join us. And at this time, let me see. Who has, Supervisor Palchuk has the resolution.

[00:55:49] All right, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good morning. Good to see you both here with us today. I'm very excited to read this. Well, I know it's not in here before I read this. I know the 988 number has been huge, and you've been a big part of that.

[00:56:04] So I hope we'll be able to address that as well today. But whereas, since its inception in 1963, PRS has provided mental health services and support to individuals with mental illness and co-occurring disorders, such as substance abuse, substance use disorders.

[00:56:22] and whereas in August of 2014, PRS and Crisis Link merged to transform the delivery of mental health services in response to the community's growing needs and the changing mental health landscape, making Crisis Link a core program of PRS, offering crisis intervention and suicide prevention services. And whereas PRS has expanded to provide a broad continuum of behavioral health and crisis and suicide intervention services and programs, supporting young adults experiencing a first psychotic episode, integrating primary and behavioral health care services, providing

[00:57:00] mental health, outpatient therapy, and peer supports to families, and expanding crisis-linked services, including a suicide text line and outbound well-checked calls to isolated seniors in Fairfax County. And whereas in FY 2022, 90% of individuals served by PRS avoided psychiatric hospitalization, 85% used coping skills to manage psychiatric symptoms or behavioral challenges, and 85% demonstrated ability to complete basic independent living tasks. Now therefore, be it

[00:57:36] resolved that the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, on behalf of all residents of Fairfax County to hereby congratulate PRS for 60 years of changing and saving lives in our community by empowering hope, safety, recovery, wellness, independence, and community integration.

[00:57:56] I'm happy to second that motion. Discussion on the motion, Supervisor Palchik. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know we spent a lot of time together over the past several years, and while I am very so happy to see the excellent work, those statistics, over 80% in the effectiveness of your programs, and also knowing that the ability to text, to call the 988 number, to lower the barriers to mental health and the stigma to mental health are huge things we've been looking at for

[00:58:29] many, many years in our community, but ever more so. And we see the growing needs and demands, as we out earlier today in our community especially not just post-pandemic but we knew it was there before the pandemic as well and especially for our youth I know that our schools see it every single day on the front lines our early childhood providers see it every day our health providers see it every day and I know the work that PRS crisis link and all of our county supports nonprofits, networks continue to see. We know that there are many challenges, though,

[00:59:07] from the workforce, being able to hire and retain a workforce, constantly competing with each other in the region, across the state, and beyond. We know that you've been at the front lines of helping innovate, helping find new solutions, and it's been very exciting the times I've gotten to come in and visit you and see your team, both virtually and in person, and the excellent work that they do every single day to help support our community in need so again I know there's so much work ahead but I'm very excited to thank you to congratulate you and especially your team on those

[00:59:43] front lines helping us move ahead forge ahead and try to help people every single day facing mental health crises and other needs in the community so a warm warm heartfelt thank you and excited for the continued improvement and growth and supports that PRS has been helping lead, not just here in Northern Virginia, but across the region. Thank you, Supervisor Paucek.

[01:00:12] Any other discussion? Let me also congratulate you. This is 60th anniversary is a big milestone, but I remember in August of 2014 when PRS and Crisis Link merged and really transformed delivery of mental health services and how we deal with folks living in crisis and crisis intervention and suicide prevention. And, you know, it's nice that finally mental health is being talked about in an aggressive way. But organizations like PRS were well aware of the

[01:00:47] mental health challenges of our community far, far sooner than most people who now are focused on this issue that is really getting headlines, but was underlying in our community and is profound numerically now in ways that challenge us all. But I don't know what we would do without organizations like yours. I mean, you're literally in, we can call this whatever we want, but it's literally life-saving business. You are saving lives one person at a time.

[01:01:17] And Supervisor Paucek raised, you know, read the statistics here. What we may never know is how many people who otherwise would have met a different fate if it hadn't been for the professional services and support that you provide.

[01:01:33] And there's nothing worse than hearing of a suicide incident or having a mental health crisis in our community. This is tough work. And so while I want to recognize PRS on its 60th anniversary, I really want to recognize the staff because, you know, I know it takes a toll.

[01:01:53] There's no way it couldn't to do this day in and day out. It takes a toll on the individuals who are on the other side of the phone call or face-to-face working with somebody in mental health crisis or suicide prevention. There's no way that can't take a toll on you.

[01:02:09] And it's really those folks that we're honoring for the work, the very difficult work that they do and wishing you many, many more years of success. And we literally in Fairfax County, we're counting on it to save lives in our community and certainly the work that you do well outside of Fairfax County that we recognize as well.

[01:02:29] So thank you and congratulations on 60 years. And thank you, thank you, thank you to the hardworking folks behind the scenes every minute of every day who are helping our community. With that, I think we're ready for a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye.

[01:02:45] Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? And at this time, Mr. Goetsch, welcome. The floor is yours. Thank you. Chairman McKay, Vice Chair Gross, Supervisor Palchik, and members of the Board of Supervisors, on behalf of PRS's dedicated staff and Board of Directors, I extend my thanks and appreciation to you for recognizing PRS's 60 years of service in Fairfax County.

[01:03:10] Again, my name is Joe Goetsch. I'm Chief Executive Officer of PRS, and I've had the honor of being part of this amazing organization for 18 of its 60 years. From our humble beginnings as a social center operating in a church basement and supporting just a handful of individuals discharged from the state hospital, today our team of more than 300 professionals offer a continuum of behavioral health, crisis intervention, and suicide prevention services not only here in Fairfax County, but across the region and the nation.

[01:03:39] One in five adults and one in six youth in the United States experience a mental health challenge each year. Additionally, 12 million people in the United States seriously think about suicide each year. And shockingly, suicide is the second leading cause of death among kids between the ages of 10 and 14.

[01:03:56] PRS exists to meet the behavioral health service needs of these individuals and to help create suicide-safer communities. Over the last 60 years, PRS has served tens of thousands of individuals and families through our behavioral health programs. And as Virginia's premier 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline call center, we've answered hundreds of thousands of calls, texts, and chats from individuals in crisis or those thinking about suicide.

[01:04:22] In fact, our call center is expected to handle over 200,000 calls, texts, and chats in the next year alone. One of our greatest strengths as an organization is our ability to evolve to meet the changing needs of the communities we serve. According to Mental Health America, Virginia currently ranks 48th among states for youth mental health, which means that Virginia has a higher prevalence of mental health illness among our young people with lower rates of access to care.

[01:04:51] For this reason, PRS has expanded some of our service offerings, and we're launching new programs to better meet the behavioral health and crisis service needs of our younger community members. For example, our outpatient therapy services are now available to kids as young as 12. We're also in the process of hiring our first-ever Director of Youth and Family Services.

[01:05:12] And in the coming months, PRS is launching a new program, the Transitioning to Independence Program, or TIP, that will provide services to youth and young adults with emotional and behavioral disorders between the ages of 14 and 29. And we'll do this work in four key domain areas, including education, employment, life skills, and their living situation.

[01:05:34] And beginning on July 3rd, as part of the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline efforts to better meet the needs of some of our most vulnerable populations, PRS will become one of only four lifeline centers in the nation that will be answering chats and texts from LGBTQ youth accessing the network.

[01:05:51] While our reach as an organization has expanded beyond the borders of Fairfax County over the years, our roots are and will always remain here. Much of our success as an organization has grown from deep, long-term and trusted partnerships with many Fairfax County agencies, and we look forward to another 60 years or more of serving the Fairfax County community. Thank you once again for recognizing PRS, and we hope to see all of you at our annual Imagine Hope benefit on October 13th at the McLean Hilton, where we'll continue to celebrate our 60th anniversary. Thank you so much. Thank you very much, Joe. Appreciate those words, and if you could introduce who's with you here. This is Lauren Padgett. She's our

[01:06:31] Director of Resource Development. Excellent. Welcome. Thank you for being here as well, and And thank you for all the great work that you do. And 16 years goes by quick, doesn't it? Yes, it does. With that, I think we're ready for a photo. And if you all could come forward, and Supervisor Walkinshaw and Supervisor Powcheck want to join me.

[01:07:24] And we now have a resolution to recognize Larry Butler of the Reston Association upon his retirement and for his many contributions to the community.

[01:07:56] And if you are here to support Larry, if you could please come on down and join him. And at this time, I will turn to Supervisor Alcorn. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I do have a resolution. Whereas after serving the Reston Association for more than 40 years, most recently as Chief Operating Officer, Larry Butler has retired from the organization.

[01:08:18] And whereas, known by many as Mr. R.A., Larry Butler began his career with the Reston Association. I think it was actually not called. I think it was ROA back then. As a seasonal employee in the spring of 1982, briefly leaving the association in the mid-1990s before returning to the organization as director of parks and recreation.

[01:08:38] And whereas, during his tenure, Larry was instrumental in starting Reston Association's lakes and watershed management programs and was active in the Virginia Lakes and Watershed Associations. Whereas, Larry served for several years on the North American Lake Management Society Board of Directors and as the organization's president.

[01:08:57] And whereas, among numerous accomplishments during his career with the Reston Association, Larry led the Northern Virginia Stream Restoration Bank Program, assisted with fundraising and approvals for the Nature House, worked on the conversion of the Southgate Pool to a well-utilized and county-operated community center, now known as the Kathy Hudgens Community Center at Southgate, and helped light the Browns Chapel Little League field.

[01:09:21] And whereas Larry Butler's many outstanding accomplishments with Reston Association are noteworthy and commendable, now therefore be it resolved that the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, on behalf of all residents of Fairfax County, does hereby thank Larry Butler for his service and offers its best wishes and congratulations upon his retirement.

[01:09:42] I'm happy to second that motion. Discussion, Supervisor Alcorn. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. So, Larry, I'm glad you're here. I'm glad Melanie here and the RE president, John Farrell, is here as well. So glad that you're getting this recognition.

[01:09:59] It's so well-deserved. I know those years involved a lot of meetings, a lot of community meetings in the evening. And, you know, it certainly is a sacrifice by you, but also your family.

[01:10:15] so not only thank you for for being here uh as well and and this is uh you know larry you you really have been remarkable for your your steadiness through quiet times in reston and sometimes the not so quiet times in reston and you know you've been there and you've you've basically kept your feet on the ground kept everybody focused on the important things and have made a real difference in the community.

[01:10:45] So thank you for all your community service. I know you're not disappearing, and I'm grateful for that. Certainly the community will continue to benefit from your presence, but perhaps just in a little different way.

[01:11:00] So thank you, Larry. Thank you, Supervisor Alcorn, and let me also congratulate you, Larry. What we have in front of us is living proof that someone can work for a resident association or community association for 40 years and survive.

[01:11:19] I mean, this is pretty remarkable. And, you know, I think probably the only thing we have in common is I remember leading the charge to get lights on a little league field, and everyone wrote my demise for doing that, and we've survived even after lighting a field in Fairfax County.

[01:11:37] But in all seriousness, as Supervisor Alcorn mentioned, we know this is a position that is really 24-7. I mean, the night meetings, the issues that come up in the community that you've had to deal with, and really the tremendous value of the institutional knowledge that you have.

[01:11:56] And I think that's kind of an unwritten story many times when folks have served as long as you have a community. You literally know everything over that 40-year period of time. And as a result of that, every resident of Reston has benefited also from that institutional knowledge that you have had for all these years.

[01:12:17] And so 40-year career doing anything is remarkable. But 40 years in particular with the same community association, RA, is amazing. And so congratulations to you. And I do understand that you're going to stay in the area and stay active, at least is what I have heard.

[01:12:35] And I pray that is the case and that you continue to contribute to Reston and to Fairfax County. But congratulations on 40 years of dedication, commitment, and a job well done. With that, I think we're ready for a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye.

[01:12:52] Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? And that motion carries. And Larry, welcome. The floor is yours. Well, thank you very much. Yeah, 40 years is a long time. I look back on it. So I've been, you know, I've been wrestling for two-thirds of wrestling's existence, essentially.

[01:13:11] But my introduction to wrestling didn't start in 1982 when I was hired as a seasonal. So back, I grew up in Vienna, outside of Vienna. And I was, it was a perfect time for me to have a dirt bike because the WNOD trail, they took up the tracks in 69 or whatever.

[01:13:31] It was gravel rail bed until the late 70s. So it's a perfect time to be a teenager and have a dirt bike and ride illegally on the roads, get to the W&OD, get to Reston where Lake Thoreau and Lake Audubon were under construction, and it was motocross heaven. The only other coolest place, I think, was the pits at Tyson's where I never went because I was too young to drive.

[01:13:51] So I just took off for hours, no cell phone, you know, five bucks. So 10 years after that, I get hired in Reston, roughly 10 years. And one of the first things they tell me is, if you see any dirt bikes on the parkland, you kick them off.

[01:14:07] And I'm like, man, that's pretty difficult to do, but okay, I'll do it. And so it became a full-time gig. One of my other good early memories, I think it was 1983, Reston Land Corporation was turning over Lake Ann Dam to us.

[01:14:23] And, of course, it's Reston, right? So there's activists that do pretty much everything. And so there was a group called Stop the Dam Nonsense, which they were basically saying, look, the homeowners association has no business owning, operating a dam, maintaining a lake and so forth. Well, they actually filed suit and lost.

[01:14:41] So we actually became the owners of the dam. And then we were like, what are we going to do now? So I said, I will volunteer to, you know, look into lake management and all that kind of stuff, which kind of started my career in water resources, which was, you know, one of the most rewarding things that I did throughout, you know, three decades.

[01:14:59] And then we got the other lakes and dams, too. So that was really cool. But I remember there was a meeting on the Lake Ann Dam, and Martha Penino and her beehive was walking on the top of the dam where Wheely Avenue is in high heels, and I thought, this could go very badly.

[01:15:16] Fortunately, it went okay, and she didn't follow or anything. But there was great interest in a community association taking over a dam. And then just a few of the other projects. I mean, Walter mentioned those in the resolution, but because we had a watershed management plan, we were approached by Wetland Studies and Solutions to do the stream restoration bank.

[01:15:38] I mean, you talk about community engagement, the Saturday meetings, walking through the woods in January, people identifying the specific tree they wanted saved in that process and so forth. But it was a great project. I think many of you have probably come out and seen it. And, of course, I know the county is partnering with us and many others on additional stream restoration.

[01:15:57] Getting the ball field lights at Brown's Chapel One, which is the only ball field in Reston under the DRB's jurisdiction that has lights. That took quite an effort. But it was fun. We succeeded. The work on the Kathy Hudgens Southgate Community Center, where we basically had a pool that was hardly used.

[01:16:18] And is there a more beneficial thing for the community that can be done there? So we've always appreciated, you know, Fairfax County stepping in to make that a great resource that it is for Reston. Yeah, so many stories, many of which I can't tell. Oh, please do.

[01:16:38] I'll get somebody in trouble. I'm not sure who that might be. But I do. I thank you for the recognition. It is kind of amazing. You know, I look a lot. There's a lot of people that don't work in the same place for, you know, maybe 25 years, right? And then they're like, 40 years? You were a kid. And I say, yeah, pretty much. But it's been super rewarding.

[01:16:56] As Mr. Farrell will know, you know, it's not always easy. And some of the meetings go not – they don't go as late as you all to the planning commission. Those are still my record, like, you know, 1.30 on a planning commission. But, yeah, tons of meetings and tons of engagement.

[01:17:14] But throughout it all, it's been very rewarding. And, of course, my wife Melanie and my son Drew, who couldn't be here today, stood there next to me through all of it. Sometimes watching the live stream and saying things that I won't repeat here. Like, what? So, but great times, and it's a great community.

[01:17:32] I will still be back there, probably riding my bike through the center of it on the W&OD or some of the other pathways. But, again, very enjoyable, and, again, I thank you for the recognition. Thank you very much, Larry, and thank you for the history, too. That's the institutional knowledge, you know, we were talking about.

[01:17:49] But you've made a real difference in those 40 years. And most people don't, as you acknowledge, stay in one, you know, one organization for 40 years. But there's a lot of people who can't look back over their career and literally see the difference that they made. And you don't have that problem. You can do that. So congratulations. And we all thank you for that.

[01:18:09] I think we're ready for a photo. And if Supervisor Alcorn could join me.

[01:19:30] And next, we have the presentation of the E. Heath OnThank Awards. I'm sorry, A. Heath OnThank Awards. And at this time, I would like to welcome John Towns, Commissioner John Towns from the Civil Service Commission, who's making his way down to the podium.

[01:19:48] We're going to invite him to make some remarks, introduce the award committee chairman and other committee members who are here. And at this time, let me welcome you to the auditorium. Welcome, John. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One of my honors as chair of the Civil Service Commission is to welcome everyone to the 56th presentation of the A. Heath Onthank Memorial Award for Merit.

[01:20:16] This is the highest award granted to county employees. The award was created by the Board of Supervisors in 1966 to honor the memory of Colonel A. Heath Onthank, the first chairman of Fairfax County's Civil Service Commission, and the creator of the county's merit system under which these employees work today.

[01:20:39] The purpose of the OnThank Award is to grant recognition for accomplishments of outstanding worth in advancing and improving public service in the Fairfax County government and school system. These three employees join the ranks of 351 prior recipients of the award.

[01:20:59] They represent the best of the county and school system, and I am proud to honor them today. I will now introduce Mr. Renko Hardison, chairman of the OnThank Selection Committee, who will introduce his fellow committee members.

[01:21:28] Good morning. It is my pleasure to be with you this morning and assist in the presentation of the AHEAF OnThank Award. My name is Renko Hardison, chairman of the OnThank Selection Committee.

[01:21:47] I will take this opportunity to introduce my fellow committee members. If any are present, please stand. Michael Coyle, Paul Davis, Jane Gwynn, Ernestine Heastie, Suzanne Holland, Philip Rosendahl, and Wesley Speer.

[01:22:14] Thank you. Good morning. My name is Alicia Seard-McCormick, Deputy County Executive for Administration, and I'm honored to be here today to recognize the recipients of the 2022 OnThink Award.

[01:22:39] I'm going to call each person's name for them to come down individually so I can read some details of their accomplishments, and I ask that we hold our applause to the end. The first recipient, Elisa Brooks, nominated by Joanna Hemmett of the Health Department.

[01:23:01] With outstanding leadership and initiative, Elisa assisted in the coordination of the Care to Share program and developed the Care to Share toolkit, dually addressing food waste in schools and childhood food insecurities in Fairfax County. Since its development, food rescue programs have expanded to schools across the county with PTAs, students, school staff, parents, school nurses, and school clubs all getting involved.

[01:23:31] As a result, hundreds of pounds of food are being redistributed to those in need, making a positive impact on the health of food insecure individuals in our community. Our next recipient is Jillian Etheridge, nominated by Gabrielle Graves, Department of Public Safety Communications.

[01:24:05] To help with a staffing crisis, Jillian stepped up to supervise and train new 911 call takers, receiving on-the-job training during a newly formed training shift covering the busiest hours of the day. The shift's purpose was to train recruits quickly and increase staffing during busy call times.

[01:24:22] Jillian reviewed all daily observation reports and mentored trainees on proper documentation and best practices. She coordinated ride-alongs with field responders to help trainees understand their role and develop games to promote teamwork and camaraderie.

[01:24:40] The new training shift was successful, resulting in quicker call answering times and training completion. With new call takers being released from training faster, workloads were normalized, and mandatory overtime for call takers and dispatchers was reduced.

[01:24:59] And our last recipient, Natalie Washington, nominated by Kelly McDonough of the Health Department. Through exceptional collaboration with epidemiology, nonprofits, and the Office to Prevent and End Homelessness, Natalie created a more efficient COVID-19 screening and isolation protocol and monkeypox evaluation process for the Homeless Health Program. She led a team of nurse practitioners to provide 1,075 medical care visits, addressing over 1,500 critical health conditions and

[01:25:37] appropriately referring more than 1,300 individuals to higher levels of care and subspecialty evaluations. Through her dedication and direction, 132 vaccine clinics were successfully organized in locations including shelters and the streets, rendering high quality, highly needed care in this

[01:25:59] vulnerable population. Thank you all. Congratulations again to our A. Heath On Thank Award winners of

[01:27:35] 2023, a huge accomplishment for our county employees and one we always look forward to recognizing here at the boardroom and with that our next agenda item is appointments to boards authorities commissions and advisory groups and let me ask supervisor gross if she has a motion mr chairman i move approval of the appointments to boards authorities and commissions listed as final copy and dated june 27th 2023 second you've heard the motion it's been multiply seconded by Supervisor Lusk and Supervisor Palchek. Is there any discussion? Any discussion?

[01:28:13] Supervisor Stork. Mr. Chairman, thank you. There was a name that was inadvertently left off here for the Mount Vernon District Representative for the Human Services Council, Barbara Roman. I was wondering if we could have her name added again under the Human Services Council Mount Vernon District Representative. I would consider that a friendly amendment. A friendly amendment? Okay.

[01:28:36] any other discussion so we are voting on the package as amended here from the dais all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any opposed any abstentions and that motion carries and that brings us on to board matters and again the clerk has compiled these digitally and we will go alphabetically in district by district following myself and chairman gross vice chairman gross and i only have one written board item and a few announcements my written board item is i move to approve without objection the proclamation request listed in this document

[01:29:16] and these will be presented inside or outside of the boardroom as appropriate that is a proclamation to recognize sickle cell awareness month recognize members of the master arts plan task force for completion of the master arts plan and a proclamation to recognize the organizers of fairfax county pride month events throughout the county without objection so ordered thank you very much and just i want to make a couple quick announcements and i think these are are things that are worth mentioning and worth celebrating i'm happy to announce that our own fairfax county government channel 16 won an emmy for the national academy of television arts and

[01:29:55] sciences national capital chesapeake bay chapter known as the capital emmys and the emmy is the gold standard in the television profession across all media platforms and speaks volumes about the work and the work really that all of our staff associated with Channel 16 does on a daily basis.

[01:30:16] Over almost 40 years of operation, Channel 16 has received six Emmy nominations and one other Emmy win in 2011. This year's winning entry is in the health medical short-term content and the program is Larry's Story, HIV Testing, produced by Valerie Bay with voiceovers from Fran Guastadasegni, graphics by Kenneth Rucker, camera work by Steve Adams, and engineering support by Kenneth Gilbert.

[01:30:48] And so we want to give our team at Channel 16 a round of applause. Secondly, the NAOP Research Foundation released its Development Approvals Index, which is a new tool to evaluate local approvals processes for the first time in 2021.

[01:31:09] And this index provides a systematic method to objectively evaluate and compare approvals processes in different jurisdictions across the country without the use of opinion surveys or experiences of a particular individual. The index focuses on site and building plan reviews, permitting, and inspections, which are weighted and summarized under three broad categories, transparency, accountability, and consistency, all of which affect the duration and cost of approvals.

[01:31:39] I'm very pleased to announce that Fairfax County came in first place in both the initial and updated 2022 report, which expanded from 30 jurisdictions in 16 states to 100 jurisdictions in 30 states in Ontario.

[01:31:55] Ontario and as we know this board has been focused and I in particular have been focused on improving our development process and making that a priority not just for our economic recovery and economic development but just to streamline our process make it transparent make it inclusive but make it effective and I want to congratulate our development review staff for this accomplishment And the latest report, for anyone who wants to see it, can be found on the NAOP website.

[01:32:25] And again, this is a big achievement to be number one in the nation. So if we could give our team at DPWS a round of applause as well. Sorry, I was corrected. Not just DPWS, really LDS.

[01:32:41] So we'll give a round of applause for our team at LDS. And then finally, I just want to also announce that July is Family Golf Month. And I say that. Not as someone who is a golfer, but someone who golfs, and there is a difference between the two.

[01:32:59] But I would like to highlight Laurel Hill Golf Club, which was ranked among the top 20 best golf courses in Virginia, according to the annual golfers choice list generated by the Golf Pass Community Ratings and Reviews. And this course was rated number 11th in the entire Commonwealth of Virginia.

[01:33:17] And I think speaks volumes to all the commitments that this board and many boards before us made to the Laurel Hill area of South County and the tremendous golf course that is there. I know we had the amateur U.S. Open there some years ago and got national recognition.

[01:33:35] But being 11th in the entire Commonwealth is a huge recognition, both of our Fairfax County Park Authority, but most importantly, among users of the facilities to rate it so high is an achievement. And so if we could give the Park Authority and the team at Laurel Hill a round of applause as well.

[01:33:54] Some great achievements for Fairfax County that we can all be proud of. And with that, next up on board matters is Vice Chairman Gross. thank you mr chairman and thank you for recognizing channel 16 i've done a lot of television in my time in office and i can tell you that there are there is never a crew at a television entity like channel 16 they take such good care of you and make sure that you know what's going on and they take the time to make sure that their angles are right it's not just check the box

[01:34:30] and get out of here and um i i've been i'm a great fan of channel 16 and thank you for and supervisor gross i think all of us have recognized particularly over the last couple years they are everywhere yes uh too and so it's not just what happens here in the auditorium what happens here in the set uh but channel 16 is covering events all over this county weekends nights it doesn't matter they do a tremendous job so thank you even even when the sun is shining they try and get you to...

[01:34:59] Even in the rain. Even in the rain, yes. It's terrific. They've got a terrific staff. Mr. Chairman, I have two written board matters and then one that I want to add to that's not distributed. This is a joint board matter with you, Mr. Chairman.

[01:35:17] Constitution Week is observed each September to commemorate the signing of the U.S. Constitution at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. That was before Mr. Alcorn was born. And the daughters of the American Revolution have asked the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, following the actions of the president and many state governors, proclaim the week of September 17th to 23 as Constitution Week in Fairfax County.

[01:35:43] I ask without objection that the board proclaim September 17th to 23, 2023, as Constitution Week in Fairfax County, and invite the appropriate local DAR leaders to receive the proclamation at our September 12th board meeting. Proposed proclamation is attached to this board meeting.

[01:36:01] And without objection, that is so ordered. Supervisor Gross. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This next one is a little longer, but I think I have to read the whole thing because it does deal with land use. There's a motion to expedite. The applicant, Versar Property Owner LLC, is the owner of the Versar Center.

[01:36:18] This office center is located between the Virginia Railway Express Railroad tracks and the I-95, I'm sorry, I-495, I-95, I-395 interchange in Springfield and is identified as Fairfax County Tax Map Parcels 80-2 Double Circle 1, 22A, and 22B.

[01:36:38] The property is improved with two office buildings constructed more than 40 years ago and a bridge that crosses the floodplain. The owner has invested significant capital and resources in the property such as major interior improvements, the construction of spec suites, and launching intensive marketing campaigns.

[01:36:57] Despite the owner's efforts, there has been minimal leasing activity on this site in years, and it is almost entirely vacant. You can see it from the interchange. You just can't get there from the interchange. The property is located within the Beltway South Industrial Area Zoned I-5, subject to RZ81-A-001 and PCA78-A-094.

[01:37:21] The property is also subject to special exception SE80-A072, which was approved by the Board of Supervisors to permit fill in the floodplain to allow the bridge connecting the two parcels. The applicant has filed Special Exception Amendment SEA 80A072 to modify the conditions to allow for use and site modifications outside of the floodplain boundaries.

[01:37:48] The applicant does not propose any changes within the floodplain. Given this narrow amendment and that the applicant is not proposing any changes within the floodplain with this Special Exception Amendment, the applicant has asked for consideration to expedite the scheduling of public hearings. Therefore, I move that the Board of Supervisors, Director Clerk to the Board of Supervisors and Director of the Department of Planning and Development to expedite the scheduling of the public hearing before the Board of Supervisors for this special exception amendment to a date certain of September 12, 2023.

[01:38:19] This motion should not be construed as a favorable recommendation by the Board of Supervisors and does not relieve the applicant from compliance with the provisions of all applicable ordinances, regulations, or adopted standards. You've heard the motion. It's been seconded by Supervisor Lust. Discussion on the motion?

[01:38:35] Mr. Chairman, just to point out, the numbers on the rezonings and PCAs and the SEA are A, which stands for Annandale District. So this was a part of the Annandale District a very long time ago.

[01:38:52] 1980 and 81 and 78. It came into Mason District after the, I believe it was after the 1990 census. We don't often see A on any of these. Thank you. We don't. Very good. If there's no other discussion, all those in favor of the motion, please say aye.

[01:39:10] Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? That motion carries. Vice Chairman Gross. Mr. Chairman, the board has received a request from the National Association of Counties regarding designating a voting delegate and alternate voting delegate to represent the county at the NACO annual meeting to be held in Travis County, Texas, on July 21st through 24th of 2023.

[01:39:31] I move that the board designate Chairman Jeff McKay as the voting delegate, and this is a little bit different, the county executive, Brian Hill, as the alternate voting delegate. That's my motion. Second. It's been moved and seconded, and just for clarification, we know that Mr. Hill will be there.

[01:39:49] We do not know if I will be or not, so we want to make sure that we have a game plan in that event to make sure that our votes are cast at this National Association of Counties annual meeting. Yes, Mr. Chairman, this is pretty much a housekeeping exercise, but we do have to maintain, you know, if we don't do this, then our 18 or 20 votes will not be able to be cast.

[01:40:12] Yes, and Mr. Hill, we know we'll be there because he's on a panel celebrating some of the successes of Fairfax County, which is a great opportunity. With that, all those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions?

[01:40:28] That motion carries. Vice Chairman Gross. Thank you. Just to make sure that Mr. Hill understands this is not a heavy lift for him in Texas. Thank you. We promise. We promise. Thank you. That's all.

[01:40:44] All right. Thank you, Supervisor Gross. And next up is Supervisor Walkinshaw. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't have any board matters. just two things that I wanted to note. I want to congratulate the Burke Center Library and the staff and the friends of the Burke Center Library on the celebration of their 15th anniversary that took place this Saturday. I unfortunately had a family commitment out of town and wasn't able to make it, but I know they had a wonderful celebration. The library opened in June of 2008.

[01:41:16] It is, I think, still the only library in the county that offers drive-through service. at least post-COVID, and they're still doing it. Among the 80,000 pieces in their collection, they have 3,000 books in Korean, which I always remind people of, and I know some of my colleagues have been there.

[01:41:35] It's really a beautiful building and a beautiful space, and we're looking forward to many, many more years of success at the Burke Center Library, so congratulations to the library system and everyone there. Also just wanted to note, we had last night the first meeting of our task force on the future of Lake Akatink upstairs in conference rooms 2 and 3.

[01:41:58] Very successful meeting. Great turnout of community members and task force members. I want to thank Chair Bulova for chairing the task force, Supervisor Cook, who was there, and all of the participants. And we're on the thanking of Channel 16.

[01:42:15] I want to give them a special thanks for doing a really amazing job kind of at the last minute in televising and live streaming the meeting. And I see some of the folks who are here with us today working.

[01:42:31] We're here last night until pretty late to do that. So thank you to the Channel 16 for doing that and DPWES, Chris Harrington and Charles Smith and Marsha Pape and everyone in my office put a lot of work into, and Clayton Medford as well from the chairman's office, into getting the task force started on a good note.

[01:42:52] And I'm really optimistic about the work they're going to be doing over the next several months. And that's all I have. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Excellent. And thank you, Supervisor Walkinshaw, for all your work on this task force, too. We know how vitally important it is, and that is a heavy lift.

[01:43:08] The NACO conference is not a heavy lift. That's a heavy lift. So thank you for your work on that as well. And next up, I have Supervisor Faust. I have no board matters, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Supervisor Faust. Supervisor Lusk.

[01:43:25] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have one board matter, which is a joint board matter with yourself and Supervisor Dahlia Palchuk. Mr. Chairman, as you and many others on this board know, a parent's top priority is to ensure their children are healthy and safe. Too often, parents in our community have their worst fear realized when the doctor tells them their child has cancer. As troubling for the parent as this is, we can only imagine how their child feels as they navigate such a difficult experience. Today, I want to focus on the importance of childhood cancer awareness in 2023, an estimated 15,000 children

[01:44:04] below the age of 19 will be diagnosed with cancer in the U.S. The rate of cancer in children has increased steadily since the 1970s. And although mortality rates have greatly improved, serious side effects and complications continue to be an issue for a vast majority of patients well into adulthood. Childhood cancer is the leading cause of childhood mortality by disease, killing one in 10 who are diagnosed, yet only four to eight percent of federal cancer research funding goes to studying childhood cancers. Evidently, there is an ongoing need for further education about the

[01:44:43] impact of childhood cancer. Spraying awareness about childhood cancer can promote additional dedicated funding for research and development of new treatments so that we can save more children's lives. To advocate for our children is to advocate for our future. Children are the leaders of tomorrow, and acknowledging and uplifting their struggles can give them a voice.

[01:45:04] As a community, as a board, it is our duty to be a source of comfort and of support to our kids, especially for those who are experiencing cancer. Therefore, Mr. Chairman, I move with you and Supervisor Powcheck that the board direct the county executive to assign the Office of Public Affairs to prepare a proclamation to be presented to the board to officially establish September as Childhood Cancer Awareness Month in Fairfax County to coincide with the already established National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. I also move that the board direct the county

[01:45:41] executive to assign the appropriate staff to create a childhood cancer awareness campaign for the month of September and the creation of a county website dedicated to information, services and resources on childhood cancer i'm happy to second that along with uh supervisor palchek discussion on the motion supervisor palchek uh just really thank you very much for for bringing this forward with us and um i think definitely supportive and my one request i know there are organizations um definitely i know as life with cancer home institute um already does

[01:46:15] quite a bit of work um and has online supports as well as what they do in their facility which just impressive both for the children and their families so we definitely ask if there are making sure they're included as well as there may be others in other districts that are doing similar work sure but definitely appreciate you bringing this forward and seeing what's already being done collaboratively and helping support enhance and publicize all of that work sure yeah we will we'll definitely make sure that happens and there's a lot of groups in the county involved in in this work which is a good thing but this is a a chance not only to raise awareness about childhood cancer, but also

[01:46:54] an opportunity to raise awareness about the rich resources we have in Fairfax County, and many of them are provided by private organizations, which we can highlight as well. Okay, any further discussions? Seeing and hearing none. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye.

[01:47:11] Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? And that motion carries. Supervisor Lusk. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That concludes my board matters. Thank you very much. Supervisor Alcorn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have two board matters. First is an expedited and concurrent processing request.

[01:47:28] So as background, WSADW Owner LLC, the applicant, has filed for PCA 93-H-004-03, CDPA 93-H-004-02, and fdpa 93h004-02-02 for the property identified as 17-4 double circle 1 35d and 17-4 double circle 1 36b this application seeks to replicate a pca cdpa fdpa application approved by the board of

[01:48:06] supervisors on august 2nd 2022 so this goes in the category of you live long enough you might see everything. However, that approval became null and void when the applicant missed a payment deadline associated with its buyout obligation under the Dulles Rail Tax District. The applicant therefore requests that the board reapprove the project, which remains unchanged since its original approval on August 2nd, 2022. As the board may recall, this rezoning permits the construction of townhouses in lieu of another high-rise office building on the site. The rezoning was negotiated extensively with the community and county staff and if ultimately built will provide a number of

[01:48:44] environmental and public benefits due to the unique circumstances the application and the fact that site plans to implement the project have been under review for several months the applicant has requested an expedited public hearing date before the board as well as concurrent processing for the site plans so my motion mr chairman i move that the board of supervisors direct staff to expedite the scheduling of the board of supervisors public hearing for pca 93h-004-03 cdpa 93h-004-02 fdpa 93-h-004-02-02 to the earliest practical

[01:49:24] practicable date available i further move that the board direct staff from the office of land development services to concurrently process the associated site plan under the county's modified processing regulations. And just to note, this motion should not be construed as a favorable recommendation by the board on the proposed applications and does not relieve the applicant from compliance with the provisions of applicable ordinances, regulations, or adopted standards in any way. I heard the motion. It's been seconded by Supervisor Lusk. Discussion on the motion?

[01:49:55] Seeing and hearing none. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? And that motion carries. Supervisor Alcorn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So this is a board matter, and it also now includes Supervisors Palchik and Smith, who were inadvertently left off.

[01:50:14] But this is recognition of yet another James Madison High School championship. So a recent article in the Washington Post sports section referred to championship crazy Vienna, commenting on the number of state championships that have been won by the James Madison High School teams.

[01:50:31] And so it continues into 2023. We recently recognized the girls' basketball team, as the board will remember, and this spring the school had two more state championship teams. Earlier this month, the Warhawks baseball team won their second Virginia Class 6 title in the past three seasons.

[01:50:50] The team was led by Bryce Eldridge, who is expected to be a top draft pick by Major League Baseball next month. This will be the second MLB draft pick for Madison in three years and, of course, is coached by Pudge Jorman, that team. Next up was the lacrosse team.

[01:51:06] Madison recently won its second straight title and its third in the past four postseasons. Notably, the team lost only two games this season and ended it with a 13-game winning streak. So with that point of pride, I would move, Mr. Chairman, to ask that the Office of Public Affairs prepare a certificate of recognition for both teams to be presented at a time and location that is convenient for the school and the student-athletes.

[01:51:33] Second. we we it's been moved and seconded we learned a convenient time is 9 30 on tuesday mornings for for students that are out of school right now uh but i i appreciate that you've added that we'll we'll make sure that that that happens um if there's no further discussion all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any opposed any abstentions that motion carries supervisor alcorn No more board matters, Mr. Chairman.

[01:52:00] Excellent. Supervisor Stork. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a joint board matter with yourself, Supervisor Penny Gross, Supervisor Pat Harity, and Supervisor Rodney Lesk. For years prior to 1948, there have been generations of African Americans serving in the military, including during World War I and World War II, fighting to protect the very freedoms that were frequently denied to them at home.

[01:52:30] In November 1947, Civil Rights Leader A. Philip Randolph and Grant Reynolds formed the Committee Against Jim Crow and Military Service and Training, which originally targeted Congress for action to desegregate the military. When they found this route fruitless, they turned to President Truman.

[01:52:49] If he issued an executive order on the issue, it wouldn't be subject to a legislative vote, which were being filibustered by Southern state senators. To give Truman that final push, Randolph Reynolds sent a letter to Truman threatening that African-American youth would boycott the draft if he didn't sign an executive order to end segregation in the military.

[01:53:11] On July 26, 1948, President Harry S. Truman signed Executive Order 9981, establishing the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Forces, committing the United States government to integrate the segregated military.

[01:53:29] Executive Order 9981 stated that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed forces without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin.

[01:53:45] Today, you can see the effects of EO 9981 and the diverse and multiracial makeup of our men and women serving in the armed services. It is a testament to our nation's strength and democratic ideals that all Americans hold dear, that all persons are created equal.

[01:54:03] To honor this momentous occasion in our nation's history, Mr. Chairman, I move without objection that the Board of Supervisors direct the Office of Public Affairs to prepare the attached proclamation with our signatures to recognize July 26, 2023 as the 75th anniversary of the signing of the Executive Order 9981, committing the United States government to integrate the military services to be presented to the Fort Belvoir garrison commander at the unveiling ceremony on july 26th where the garrison will be renaming lee road to ee eo 9981 road

[01:54:44] you've you've heard uh the motion without objection it is so ordered um and let me make sure there's no discussion even though it's without objection it is so ordered supervisor gross thank you mr chairman i just wanted to um notify the board um that the um community military and Federal Facility Partnership at the Northern Virginia Regional Commission, which I chair, will be devoting its July meeting to the celebration of the executive order.

[01:55:13] And we'll have last meeting we had someone from the Truman Library give us a taste. And because we have all of the three Quantico, Belvoir, and Meyer Henderson Hall commanders at those meetings, I think it will be a really, really good discussion.

[01:55:30] So I just wanted to, it's open to everybody, either in person or virtually. So if you want more information, you can get in touch with me. Excellent. Thank you, Supervisor Gross. Although, actually, without objection, that is so ordered, Supervisor Stork. That's all I have, Mr. Chairman.

[01:55:48] I'm very excited to rededicate this street to a higher purpose, to be honest. And I think hopefully many of you will join me, and I'm sure that there will be a grand celebration. There are a couple of other streets that are also being named in Fort Belvoir, but this is the one that we have the name for at this point.

[01:56:07] And our history commission, I mean, I think we had this discussion in a previous meeting, our history commission has been very, very involved working with the military. We still don't have any new information on, there were some efforts to rename Fort Belvoir, which frankly aren't rooted in history of our area.

[01:56:24] And our History Commission has been very active in ensuring that the facts were out there and the consideration of that would be based upon the facts and not, if you will, speculation or other assessments people were making about whether it should or should be renamed.

[01:56:39] But thank you. Excellent. Thank you very much, Supervisor Stork. Supervisor Pouchik. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do have three written board matters. The first one is recognizing Annie Turner, the Executive Director of Food for Others. As many of you have had the opportunity to work with Annie, after seven years as Executive Director for Food for Others, Annie Turner will be stepping down at the end of July.

[01:57:05] But Annie's work with Food for Others began as a volunteer in 2002, just a few years after it was founded in 1995. And Annie was a neighborhood site volunteer with her growing passion for the need for Food in Northern Virginia, as well as the Food for Others community and staff, led her to serve on the Food for Others board of directors for seven years before becoming its executive director in July of 2016. Since 1995, Food for Others has been helping countless families facing food insecurity, ensuring that these families have the resources they need. When the pandemic hit, the demand for food increased by about 400 percent, increasing the daily people serve from

[01:57:45] 60 to 80 families to about 250. Annie led the Food for Others team through this chaotic and unprecedented time to ensure our community's most vulnerable residents didn't go hungry, and she continues to manage the ongoing needs of so many residents. During her time leading Food for Others, Annie has also shared her passion around healthy food access to the startup development and growth of the Fairfax County, sorry, of the Fairfax Food Council, a community coalition dedicated to healthy, equitable food access for all.

[01:58:21] She lent her expertise and leadership to work with the Food Council, including serving as co-chair for two years, very critical years during the pandemic, and her contributions have been greatly appreciated and meaningful. And he is an integral part of both Food for Others community and the Fairfax Food Council and has made a tremendous impact on so many people by providing essential services and unwavering support to our families in need.

[01:58:46] And may I also add innovation and improvement in everything that Food for Others does. So I truly want to thank Annie for her years of dedication and commitment to our Fairfax County families and therefore move to recognize Annie Turner for her many years of dedicated service and for the positive impact she's made in our community and request that the Office of Public Affairs prepare a proclamation for presentation outside the boardroom may I add it will have to happen before she she moves out of the region to be closer to her husband's family out west and so that's why this is timely some big big shoes to fill and he will be

[01:59:26] greatly missed but I know she has less food for others in the county in a much better place definitely and i'm happy to second uh that motion uh if there's no other discussion all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any opposed any abstentions that motion carries supervisor pouchek thank you mr chairman uh next is a joint board matter with you uh to request to designate june 2023 as immigrant heritage month while we are near the end of the month hoping next year we do a little bit sooner so we can bring the groups together during june

[02:00:00] but very delighted about this board matter members of the board immigrant heritage month is a special time to honor and celebrate the courage culture and countless contributions of immigrants who have lived and continue to live in our community generations of immigrants from different parts of the world have helped shaped fairfax county's history and continue to define our future. In line with the One Fairfax policy, we welcome all who wish to live in, work in, and enjoy our community, including those who have immigrated from other countries to choose to make Fairfax our home. Fairfax County's diversity makes our community strong and vibrant,

[02:00:39] and our immigrant population is no exception. Representing the full diversity of Fairfax's race, color, nationality, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, disability, and income, our immigrant community is truly representative of the richness of our cultures and experiences. In 2020, 29.4% of Fairfax total population were immigrants, and 71.6% of immigrants aged 16 and over were in the labor force. Our community is rich with many cultures, with 38.7% of our residents ages 5 and over speaking a language other than English at home, and many

[02:01:19] even more than one. We embrace and celebrate one another's differences and cultural backgrounds. While we must continue to work every day to ensure that all residents deserve an equitable opportunity to succeed, Fairfax County continues to value and celebrate our county as a place where all are welcome and have the opportunities to succeed and to give back to our community.

[02:01:43] Therefore, I move without objection that the board designate June 2023 as Immigrant Heritage Month in Fairfax County, and that the Office of Public Affairs prepare a proclamation to be presented in the boardroom at a future meeting. And without objection, it is so ordered.

[02:01:59] Supervisor Palchuk. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And finally, these two are together and meaningful in many ways, but very delighted that the next is a joint matter, again with you, joint board matter, to request that we designate september 15th to october 15th 2023 as hispanic heritage month members of the board hispanic heritage month is an annual celebration of the rich history culture and diversity of latinx and hispanic communities the event which spans from september 15th to october 15th commemorates the

[02:02:34] contributions and influence of hispanic american communities to our society hispanic americans represent a vibrant and thriving part of our diverse nation. In Fairfax, 16.24% of residents are Hispanic Latino or Latinas, I like to say, and 13.5% of households speak Spanish in addition to English. We are very proud of the significant role that our Latinx and Hispanic communities play in our county. This is why I'm so pleased to announce that Fairfax will celebrate its first ever Hispanic Heritage Month full event with the Fairfax Fiesta. This inaugural Hispanic Heritage

[02:03:12] celebration will be on saturday september 23rd from 12 p.m to 5 p.m at the park at tyson's 8505 leesburg pike and it has been organized by quite a large and diverse group from our county agencies and staff fairfax fiesta celebrates not only hispanic culture but also our diversity in our community this free event promises a unique experience for all ages and backgrounds with cultural performances and entertainment and artists and markets featuring handmade goods from local vendors children's activities and delicious cultural foods to tantalize your taste buds

[02:03:48] the festive atmosphere of the family-friendly gathering makes it ideal for creating lasting memories while learning about different cultures additional event details will be available soon at celebrate fairfax.org fairfax that's yes therefore i move without objection that the board designates september 15th to october 15 2023 is hispanic heritage month in fairfax county and that the Office of Public Affairs prepare a proclamation to be presented at the Fairfax Fiesta event on September 23, 2023.

[02:04:23] And just also delighted that we are truly celebrating, honoring, and working to ensure that our very diverse community is welcome and celebrated and integrated in our county. And without objection, that is so ordered, Supervisor Pouching.

[02:04:39] That is all for today, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Thank you very much. Supervisor Herity. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I have one written and one unwritten board matter. The first is a SE fee application waiver for VFW post 8469.

[02:04:57] The Veterans of Foreign Wars post 8469 has been a pillar of the military community in Fairfax County for many decades. It was first chartered in 1946 following World War II and was known as the Blue and Gray Post. In 1986, it acquired a two-story family home located at 5703 Vogue Road in Fairfax Station using the ground for activities and meetings.

[02:05:20] Due to increased membership and a lack of accessibility, the post applied with the county to permit the expansion of the home to accommodate more members in their meeting hall and to be ADA compliant. However, during a review of the application, it was revealed that VFW Post 8469 does not have an established special exception and is not permitted to operate on the premises.

[02:05:44] In order to come into compliance and expand the property, the Post is applying for special exception for a residentially zoned site. The VFW Post 8469 has had extensive communications with county staff and is willing to meet all the requirements to move forward with the project.

[02:06:00] It's requested that the fee associated with the special exception application be waived so that those funds can be put towards the ADA upgrades for the facility. The county attorney has confirmed the board may waive fees under the zoning ordinance for good cause shown. As assessed in our sound discretion, VFW Post 8469 has operated from this location for nearly 40 years.

[02:06:23] Its membership is around 330, including members of the Fairfax County Circuit Court, Virginia General Assembly, and a Medal of Honor winner. Many of us may be familiar with their community activities such as honor flights, Veterans Day and Memorial Day ceremonies, Independence Day parades, and financial and medical services for the veteran community.

[02:06:42] The membership of this organization fought to protect their country and chose to continue to serve their community and their fellow military members. The organization's roots in Fairfax County, its zoning and occupancy history, the post desire to bring the facilities into compliance and its ties to service in the county under the umbrella of the largest organization of combat veterans in the country leads to the uniqueness of this request without concern of setting precedent.

[02:07:09] Therefore, Mr. Chairman, I move the Board of Supervisors waive the fees associated with VFW Post 8469 Special Exception Application for Good Cause, shown. So moved. And I'm happy to second that discussion on the motion. Let me just say I, you know, support this, And I think it's important to point out the uniqueness of this and that this not be precedent setting.

[02:07:33] And I took the opportunity to go back and look at how often we do this. And there have been two, one that was done in 2022 and one other one that was done in 2023. And so we want to be really clear that this is not a standard and this is an extreme exception to the rule and not precedent setting because it really could get out of hand.

[02:07:55] I think everyone has a grievance, but this particular case, I think, is set apart from others that we may consider. And it's just a word of caution. I appreciate that being in the board matter and, again, second the motion. Further discussion? Supervisor Gross.

[02:08:11] A quick question. This is a two-story family home, but I looked it up on the tax records, and it was built in 1899? Yes. Is there a historic component to this that would be? Well, they're part of the St. Mary's Historic Overlay District, so they're going to have to comply with all that going forward, too.

[02:08:33] So it's pretty complicated. Okay, thank you. Yeah, it will be preserved in that sense. It's a fascinating-looking building. Yes, it is. Okay, thank you. Great property. Any further discussions? Seeing and hearing none. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

[02:08:49] That motion carries. Supervisor Herdy. The next unwritten one's pretty simple. We start our summer concert series on Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the wonderful Birk Lake Park. We've got the Randy Thompson Band, who's a Clifton local favorite. It's the first of nine that we're going to do this year, so we're going to run all the way through August 23rd, I believe, every Wednesday night.

[02:09:10] There will be two kids' events with Celebrate Fairfax July 12th and 19th, and they start at 5 before the concert. So you can bring your kids and take them as long as they last in the concert. Thank you. That's it for me. Thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Herity. And I know most of us have concert events that we sponsor with the Park Authority as well.

[02:09:32] And so without objection, if we could ask the Office of Public Affairs to work with the Park Authority in our offices just to make sure that the many concert opportunities that exist countywide and movies are shared countywide so that folks know of those great opportunities.

[02:09:51] Okay, next up is Supervisor Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have one board matter. Kay Hovnanian Homes at the Gallery Park at Westfields LLC has filed a rezoning application for a site previously approved in June 2022 for a stacked townhouse community on tax map parcel 043-202-0029G3.

[02:10:17] This recently filed application, RZ2023-SU-00008, also known as Gallery Park, was submitted to the county due to the voiding of the previous approval resulting from missing a tax payment deadline required for the buyout of Route 28 tax district properties.

[02:10:40] The application currently under review is identical to that approved by this board a year ago, with the sole exception being the sought-after approval will change the board's approval date to allow a timely tax payment for the Route 28 tax district buyout.

[02:10:56] The application was previously thoroughly reviewed by the community and staff. A site plan was submitted by the applicant and its processing was put on hold pending resolution of the new rezoning. The applicant is requesting to continue to process the site plan at their own risk during the review of the rezoning in order to allow the project to move forward as expeditiously as possible before the board hearing.

[02:11:19] Therefore, I move that the Board of Supervisors direct acceptance of concurrent and simultaneous processing of any site plans, architectural drawings, or other drawings as may be necessary in conjunction with the pending application. This motion should not be construed as a favorable recommendation by the board on the pending application and does not relieve the applicant from compliance with the provisions of all applicable ordinances, regulations, or adopted standards.

[02:11:43] And I'm happy to second that motion. Discussion on the motion. Seeing and hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? And that motion carries. And is that all? That's all. Supervisor Smith.

[02:11:58] Okay. We now are going to move on to admin items, and let me ask if there's a motion, Supervisor Gross, to approve admin items 1 through 15. Very long list. So moved, Mr. Chairman. You've heard the motion. It's been seconded by myself and Supervisor Lusk.

[02:12:16] Let me ask if there are any admin items that board members would like to have discussed and or voted on separately. Any for discussion or a separate vote? Supervisor Stork.

[02:12:37] 14. 14, thank you. Okay, admin 14, and that is a separate vote or just discussion? A separate vote because I have to read an amendment to the item. Okay, a separate vote. So if the maker wants to amend her motion to approve admin items.

[02:12:57] That would be admin items 1 through 13 and 15. Okay, and those seconders are happy to second that as well. Any other discussion, any other items for discussion? Seeing and hearing none, all those in favor of approving Admin Items 1 through 13 and 15, please say aye.

[02:13:18] Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? That motion carries. Admin 14, Supervisor Stork. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I've been asked to adjust this. It will now read, I move we approve the county executive's recommendation for public hearing on Appendix O and to amend Section 3 of Appendix O to update the reference to the state code.

[02:13:43] You've heard the motion. It's been seconded by Supervisor Gross. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing and hearing none, all those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? And that motion carries.

[02:13:59] And that brings us to action items. Action item number one is approval of a memorandum of understanding between the board of supervisors and the southeast fairfax development corporation supervisor stork i move the county executive's recommendation second been moved uh by supervisor storick seconded by myself and supervisor lusk discussion any discussion on action item number one supervisor stork just to acknowledge the amazing work that southeast fairfax development corporation does and has done for decades on behalf of the richmond highway corridor and its redevelopment and frankly

[02:14:38] I know that our shared appreciation and valuation, if you will, of not only the work that the staff does, but frankly the board does to help sustain and frankly fund the organization in addition to the support that they get from the county.

[02:14:53] Thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Stork, and have certainly come a long way and are doing great things along the highway corridor that we are grateful for. Okay. All those in favor of Action Item 1, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

[02:15:08] any abstentions and that motion carries action item number two approval of parking reduction for the redevelopment of the west falls church metro station i think this is going to be deferred supervisor faust yes uh thank you mr chairman uh unfortunately we have to defer i move that the board defer the parking reduction request pound sign pks dash two zero two two dash zero zero 0 0 1 to a date certain of july 11 2023 with the record remaining open for written or electronic

[02:15:44] comments so moved you heard the motion it's been multiply seconded um any discussion seeing and hearing none all those in favor of action two please say aye aye any opposed any abstentions and that of course was to defer action two uh action item number three is approval of a parking reduction for chesapeake bay plaza llc at 5501 to 5515 leesburg pike supervisor gross mr chairman i move the county executive's recommendation second you've heard the motion it's been seconded by supervisor lusk any discussion on the motion mr chairman i simply find it a little ironic

[02:16:20] that auto zone is asking for a parking reduction note taken all right uh knowing that all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any opposed any abstentions and that motion carries and brings us to action item number four designation of the telestar court site as a revitalization area supervisor Palchig thank you mr. chairman actually I will be moving deferral of this until after this afternoon's public hearing on the site however I know staff are all here if any of my colleagues do have

[02:16:59] questions on this designation but I will move deferral I don't have a time certain but I think I can do deferral of action item 4 until this afternoon can i keep it that open okay until this afternoon okay any discussion mr chairman yes just a notification that um i represent the county uh on the ANOVA board of trustees and in an abundance of caution even though that's an unpaid position an abundance of caution i will be recusing myself

[02:17:31] from both of those votes okay at the time okay um any other discussion uh supervisor walkinshaw I'll also note I'm a member of the Quality and Reliability Committee of the NOVA Health System Foundation Board.

[02:17:48] And out of an abundance of caution, I'll also be recusing myself from those roles. And importantly, we'll repeat those again this afternoon. Of course, now we are voting to defer it, but we've taken note of those recusals. Any further discussion?

[02:18:04] Seeing and hearing none, all those in favor of deferring action item number four, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? any abstentions? And that motion carries. Action item number five is resolution of support for modifications of the limited access line of interstate 495 to provide direct pedestrian access. Supervisor Palczyk. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move approval of action item five as recommended by the county executive. Second. You've heard the motion. It's been seconded by

[02:18:38] supervisor lusk i will second that as well uh any discussion on the motion seeing and hearing none all those in favor of action five please say aye aye any opposed any abstentions and that motion carries action item number six is approval of an agreement between the fairfax county school board and fairfax county board of supervisors relating to the installation and operation of a video monitoring system to enforce the law against passing stopped school buses in accordance with the code of the county of fairfax chapter 82 article 2 section 82-2-8 supervisor lusk

[02:19:17] thank you mr chairman i'll start by saying i'm so happy to see this item coming forward today uh personally over the years i've actually witnessed um individuals failing to stop when the school bus has its stop bar deployed it's un inconceivable and so uh insane but this action today will allow us to install and operate this video monitoring system to enforce the law and to make sure that when the buses have their stop camera excuse me stop arms out that those who are driving will actually stop

[02:19:54] so we'll have the opportunity to have 50 bus camera pilots in the program that go live in the spring of 2024 so with that mr chairman i enthusiastically move approval of action item number six as recommended by the county executive i'm happy to second that along with supervisor faust i'm going to second this on behalf of supervisor faust but in all seriousness i mean this is something that you know john you and i've worked on for embarrassingly long period of time to get to this point with a lot of complications, including, but not limited

[02:20:34] to, multiple changes that had to happen to state law. And so this is a momentous moment here, and I do want to thank Supervisor Faust, I want to thank Tom Arnold and our team in public safety who have really lit a fire literally under this over the last year or two to make sure that we could get to this point and get this operational. And I get that it may not be a number one or number two necessary priority of the school board or the school system, but candidly it is to us because passing a school bus with

[02:21:13] flashing red lights under no circumstance that I can conceive of is appropriate behavior. And I have seen it. I'm sure everyone here has seen it. I listened to the bus drivers honking at the cars passing, which is literally about all they can do about it. And I've talked to a lot of school bus drivers who are excited about this opportunity because, as you might imagine, they are distracted a million other ways trying to protect kids' safety. The least our traveling public can do is recognize a school bus with flashing red lights, follow the wall, and stop. And so my hope is that

[02:21:50] while the school system and partnership with the county is deploying this on 50 school buses, that frankly everyone in the county and traveling through the county will realize that those buses will be all over Fairfax County and that anyone who passes a school bus is at risk of being photographed and and being issued a citation and and this is a long time coming frankly I think it will save lives and more importantly or equally importantly make the very tough job of our school bus operators a little bit easier with maybe one less thing that they have to worry about.

[02:22:28] And so this is a big achievement to get here, a huge team effort. In my opinion, frustratingly, it still took us way too long, but I'm going to set that aside and celebrate the moment with my colleagues. Supervisor Faust. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to, well, first of all, thank you for your comments. It has been a frustrating experience. One of the frustrating that I've had as a member of the Board of Supervisors in terms of failure on the part of the school board to cooperate with us on a very

[02:23:04] important issue and very disappointing. I really do want to thank Mr. Arnold I feel like once you got involved it was the first time I felt confident that we're going to get to the point where this was going to happen and I just want to say that you know the the background write-up talks about an ordinance that passed on january 17th 2017 we started this process a couple years before that yes we did and then the background uh write-up uh takes us from january 17th to 2017 and says that on february

[02:23:39] 7th 2023 you know we inquired about it yeah uh that's true but there were many occasions in between uh that we thought we had it uh and it just slipped through our fingers uh but anyway water under the bridge i think this is really important i think you know i my commute is past several uh schools and locations where lots of kids and i see it all the time people driving

[02:24:12] through the bus stop uh flashing lights uh my technical question is that the the second page uh of the uh right up uh the paragraph against initial implementation it says a summons that directs payment of a 250 civil penalty will be issued to the drivers of vehicles identified in the bus camera system i my question is is it not the owner of the vehicle or is it specific i mean

[02:24:47] if it's the drivers i mean we got a problem uh supervisor faust uh karen lockett on behalf of the county attorney's office both the state enabling authority and the county ordinance specifically say that the driver of the motor vehicle is the person who is charged with the civil penalty the civil penalty is mailed to the owner of the vehicle because that's how they would probably track it through the license plate and it was mailed to the uh to the owner of the vehicle the owner of the vehicle the registered owner the portion of the code section that refers to them

[02:25:25] that's about presumption of guilt and goes through many different uh a checklist of what they can do what the owner can do if they decide if they if they were not the driver and they want to appeal the uh the summons they appeal the uh the charge so but the driver is the one statutorily who is charged with the violation of the offense does that answer your question yes unfortunately uh it just seems to me every single incident is going to be you know can be disputed unlike red light

[02:26:04] cameras and everything else we do where it's the owner of the vehicle it's actually very similar in nature to um i think the way that it was depicted in the board item may cause you concern but it's very similar to the enabling code sections for the photo red light and for uh the uh school the recent school red light uh camera or uh sections they're very similar in nature so um it may just be that the way that the board item was worded is um is a little different but if you look at the underlying ordinance it does charge the driver directly and that is

[02:26:39] pursuant to uh state code and this is something that uh you know frankly we have the speed zone cameras in place now we have we have a lot of citations that have been issued as a result of that so at some point probably in a public safety committee meeting we should get an update on that as well as how many of those are being paid uh because this is you know hopefully it's immaterial um that that language but if it is something that creates a concern with people protesting these

[02:27:15] or not acknowledging uh guilt then that's something we may want to recircle back with the general assembly in the future but let's not presume it's a problem and unless there's data that supports that and now we have we're starting to see some data come in at least on the the speed enforcement element of this campaign so if we could just make sure we we get that for a future public safety committee meeting i think that would be helpful sure sure tom arnold deputy county executive and we will provide that to you and one bit of good news that we've received recently following the first three months of the speed work zone cameras we've seen a on average 33

[02:27:51] reduction in speed uh in those locations and so they are certainly working uh but the uh the effectiveness and working with the vendor for the citations and billing will make sure that we provide that and a neighbor public safety committee as well as the impact of the reduction in speed thank you mr arnold and that was you know that as we repeatedly said that was our hope um is that people would slow down and that is the goal of both of these in particular the school bus when it is for them to stop.

[02:28:18] But the goal is to change driver behavior, not to collect revenue. But I think we need to be mindful of it, you know, the collection piece of it, just so that we make sure they continue to be effective. Supervisor Faust, was that all? Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Mr. Arnold, for your leadership.

[02:28:38] Okay, Supervisor Gross. Thank you. You're right, we have been doing this a very long time. It was, I thought it was dead at one point. Um, but, um, I'm, I'm really glad to see that we're, we're doing this because the community has been demanding it. Curiously, my office received an anonymous call this morning. Maybe you all got them. Um, someone who called and said that he was a CDL driver and he believes that the enforcement of video monitoring of vehicles passing school buses puts CDL drivers

[02:29:13] at disadvantage because of their inability to react and stop in time. If the road contours, there's a, you know, the medians. And I'm thinking crocodile tears. Uh, you know, anybody, any responsible CDL driver is going to be able, it's going to be watching the traffic and going to be able to stop react and stop in time. Uh, if they don't, then they absolutely deserve to have a ticket. Um, but I, I wanted to just raise that because there are those who apparently feel that

[02:29:47] this is targeting certain people, and it's really improving safety for our children and the caregivers who are on the buses, especially for those who have disabilities, who have caregivers on the bus. That's an especially difficult situation, so I'm glad to see that we're finally getting this done. Thank you to staff. Thank you very much. Supervisor Palchuk. Thank you, Mr.

[02:30:14] Chairman I also want to thank staff but I want to go back to a point you made mr. Chairman which is the goal of this is to change behavior and I think that's part of why it's taken so long it is a very complex issue and I appreciate everyone involved especially our staff who helped get it to the finish line I think my question and I appreciate that we've definitely seen change in behavior is to continue to ensure that is there I was trying to read through the package is Is there outreach or education that's going to be tied to the program coming out to ensure that this really is about changing behavior?

[02:30:52] Yeah, correct, Supervisor Palachuk. Similar to what we've done with the school and work zone cameras, we'll work with OPA and Fairfax County Public Schools to message us in the same manner so everyone is well aware as we lead up to that spring 24 implementation that they won't necessarily know the locations like the school and work zone, but they will know about the program and familiarity with that.

[02:31:14] I appreciate that. And I'm wondering with that, my follow-up question is, number one, are we able to put some initial information directly on the buses to educate the public on that as they're approaching buses? Like, reminder, this is the law and this is what you need to do.

[02:31:31] And number two, are we able to get a list of the initial cameras or be able to monitor where those cameras are going in? I'll check with schools and we'll get back to you on that. Excellent. Thank you so much. Very much appreciate this. Okay. Supervisor Alcorn.

[02:31:47] Thank you. Supervisor Palchuk actually raised the outreach question, which I was going to raise. And thank you for doing that. I think that's going to be really important. And perhaps during that outreach, if you could use the opportunity to educate people, remind people what the law is, particularly as it relates to passing on, you know, divided highways or, you know, other more complicated road situations, I think that would be really helpful, too.

[02:32:10] So thank you. And I would say, you know, we've been working on this for so long, I'm not going to complain much about how much longer we have to wait. But it is disappointing that this can't be rolled out in advance of next school year when you have parents in the community focused and we have a lot of opportunities for education.

[02:32:30] I know schools and public safety in particular do a lot of work with OPA and others to raise awareness about changing driving habits and a lot more pedestrian activity and other things happening with the start of school. And so if there's any silver lining in the fact that we're not able to get this up and going before the start of the school year is that we do have plenty of time in advance of the rollout to provide a lot of community information out there so that folks know what is going to happen and, again, what the existing laws are.

[02:33:03] They're not that confusing, but I still see people not knowing what to do on divided roadways. And so whatever we can do in education and the front end of this will help us on the back end. So it's a good point and plenty of time to mount that campaign. Supervisor Stork.

[02:33:21] I know about everything that's been said, but I wanted to echo your point, Mr. Chairman, And the fact that I also have been deeply involved with this, the tail end of my school board work as well as here, and incredibly frustrated with, I guess, some of the legal assessments that were made along the way that frankly took this thing so much longer than I think it really needed to.

[02:33:46] But the bottom line is we have something now. I think we should start that messaging now. Even if there's not a camera on the bus, we can sure indicate that they're coming if they're not already there. and that alone because we know the kind of the police officer on the corner is kind of going to change some behavior regardless and we can at least be out there messaging that and getting that behavior change early on so thank you very much and and something we still can coordinate at the beginning of the year and then also again uh when the program is rolled out and and just to be clear um it was not our legal team uh that was the problem in fact they were part of the solution

[02:34:25] They had a different interpretation than the school system's legal team throughout this entire process. And so among the people to thank is our legal team who was with us fighting this every step of the way. And I just wanted to clarify that.

[02:34:40] I very much appreciate you clarifying that because we've spent a lot of time talking about it has nothing to do with us. I saw Ms. Teer backing up her chair. I just wanted to make sure there wasn't an explosion over there. but but i just that is an important distinction because it was the legal issues in this that cost us all the time which is really frustrating because there were different interpretations and i think we probably could have gotten this going a lot sooner but we are where we are with all of that being uh discussed uh all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any

[02:35:16] opposed any abstentions and that motion carries and that brings us to action item number seven approval of and authorization to execute the tyson's community center development agreement with arlington partnership for affordable housing inc and the fairfax county redevelopment and housing authority for the development of the tyson's community center in the dominion square project supervisor alcorn thank you mr chairman i move approval of a7 as recommended by the county executive and i'm happy to second that along with supervisor palchek uh any discussion supervisor Alcorn yeah thank you mr. chairman I appreciate this coming for this is a big

[02:35:52] deal you know it's it's a big deal not just for this affordable housing development that's coming in there it's also a big deal for this part of Tysons you know we've known all along that we have a dearth of public facilities community facilities in Tysons this this really helps and this also this was one of the major item that frankly helped us get the 55 million dollars from the Amazon housing equity fund into this project so this is a wonderful example of a of a win-win I think it's gonna be a major asset not just again for the

[02:36:30] folks moving in there but also for the broader community I know NCS has been engaging with other communities in the area about programming and how how the the community center is going to be a benefit to again the broader community which is just fantastic so i'm i'm a little bit over the moon over this one so uh thank you to everybody with staff that's brought it this far and look forward to uh seeing it actually come to fruition thank you thank you supervisor alcorn and with that being said all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any opposed any abstentions and that motion carries uh brings us to action item number

[02:37:10] 8, which is approval of a parking reduction for Dominion Square West building C5 and C6 multifamily development in the 100 mil district. Supervisor Alcorn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And on this one, I do just want to clarify something. It is, it's a little bit confusing in the background. It actually talks about not only the 17.2% reduction, that's 89 fewer spaces, which we're voting on. It actually provided a little bit more information on some alternatives that were being explored and just for background on for the board this actually was the subject of

[02:37:47] some review of other parking options in the immediate area none of those penciled out unfortunately so we're looking at the lower parking reduction 17.2 percent and just to confirm with staff that when we approve this that's what we're approving with this motion Is that correct?

[02:38:08] Thank you. Michael Davis, Land Development Services, that is correct. That is the option that is being approved. Fantastic. Okay, thank you. And I just wanted to also note, you know, in Tyson's in particular, in this part of Tyson's anyway, we have the interesting conundrum of an overabundance of parking, but it's privately owned and wrapped up in development approvals and sometimes over the other uses that aren't fully using those parking spaces.

[02:38:42] We do, and Supervisor Faust and I and Paul Cech and I have talked about this, we do have some longer-term needs for public parking, on-street parking, other public parking options in this area. And in my mind, we shouldn't be thinking about this as a commuting option, but truly as the area develops and there are more amenities, there's more retail for public parking.

[02:39:10] So I'll be talking more about this as Parking Reimagined comes up, which, of course, is focused just on Off Street. But I see this as a very important future activity for us, not just in Tyson's, but in other parts of the county as well. So, but very happy to move approval of aid as recommended by the county executive.

[02:39:31] Thank you very much, Supervisor Alcorn. It's been moved and was seconded by me and by Supervisor Faust. Any further discussion? Any further discussion? Seeing and hearing none, all those in favor of action item number eight, please say aye.

[02:39:47] Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? And that motion carries. Brings us to action item number 9, authorization of the fall 2023 school bond referendum. And I am going to hand the gavel for a moment to Supervisor Gross and move approval of action item number 9.

[02:40:06] I'd be happy to second that motion. Is there discussion on the motion? Discussion on the motions? Just very briefly, I just want to point out here, as board members will see, the commitment we made to increasing the school bond amount by $50 million. You can see that laid out here in an increase between FY 2022 and 2023 from $180 to $205 million.

[02:40:28] And then again between FY 2024 and 2025, an increase from $205 million to $230 million to help the schools catch up on their capital programming. And this was an increased commitment that we made some years ago and is coming to fruition.

[02:40:45] I just wanted to point that out. Thank you. Any other comments or discussion? Seen and hearing none. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. Any abstentions? That motion carries unanimously. Thank you, Vice Chairman Gross. And finally, we have action item number 10, which is approval of the Consolidated Community Funding Advisory Committee recommendations for the FY 2025 and FY 2026 funding categories for the Consolidated Community Funding Pool.

[02:41:14] Move approval, Mr. Chairman. Second. Been moved by Supervisor Gross, been seconded by Supervisor Palachuk-Lusk and the Chair. Any discussion on the motion? I just want to thank staff, I know they've walked down here, for their amazing work on this.

[02:41:31] I think it's been many, many years of looking at, you know, the excellent work and the support that is able to be accessed through CCFP and our nonprofit network.

[02:41:44] But I think this also takes the opportunity to try to, there's no perfect, but to try to improve and ensure the access with the two lanes, ensuring that emergency food and emergency housing assistance are absolutely essential, continue to be essential and more than ever in the county and ensuring that the nonprofits that are providing this across the county, especially in geographic areas where we know without this, those lifelines would not be there.

[02:42:14] And so I'm very excited to see how this goes. And again, a continued process with evaluation and seeing how the two tiers, the two lanes work through this two-year process.

[02:42:31] And that if there are any other further refinements, adjustments, improvements that need to happen moving forward, or if we see any critical, urgent needs, that we'll be able to come back and look at them through our committee work through our board work but really want to thank number one the nonprofits who do this work who provided their input and continue to be at the forefront of supporting our community and being such a vital lifeline and support system for our county through their their work so excited to see this come forward I know there's been a lot

[02:43:06] of input to this process and I think this is the right step forward as we continue to refine that and especially those live lines for food and housing so thank you I know Ramona and Sarah Allen who are here and Deputy County Executive Chris Leonard have really been leading this effort and appreciate your work and your partnership okay further discussion Supervisor Harity yeah just a couple of quick comments i could make a bunch but i kind of continue to be a little disappointed there's

[02:43:41] there's just a lot here and there's no real prioritization and it's uh i mean we there's obviously a whole lot of good programs but there's and there's a whole lot of money that goes towards this i want to thank you all for including uh you know the number one cause of unnatural death in our county is is fentanyl and opioid overdoses um but thank you for including drug misuse misuse preventions and recovery is a is a piece of this standing out because i think that needs to needs to be there i assume that's what that covers all right and uh also you know that's the uh the

[02:44:20] language at the beginning thank you for including that i assume this provides recipients with the opportunities for stability is really that the hand up not the handout and that we want to focus on programs that get lift people up out of the situations they're in so i appreciate the changes Still wish we were focused a little more on the real problems, the life health safety problems, but I'll leave it as it is because I'm not getting anywhere.

[02:44:49] Okay, Supervisor Faust. Thank you. I appreciate all the good and hard work putting into the CCFP. I think it's getting better. There were issues in the past I felt, and I feel like there's a serious attempt not to make it an even better process than it was.

[02:45:13] this is not intended as criticism it's just a fact that when you go around one by one to the board members and get their input and then we don't know what the other board members have said and then you decide which of our comments are going to make it into the you know the plan and this is true of other times i mean it's not just what you've done it's other efforts that we make and i don't know what the right answer is but somehow or another we need to get feedback

[02:45:48] after you've completed this the circle and we need to know you know what the other board members have said and what you've decided to put in and not put in uh uh but it it just and again it i don't intend it's christmas hard work and i'm not but i i didn't know what comments were going to be in here until i opened up my board package you know so anyway just a thought i don't know how you how you address it but and i it's not just this process it's other things where the staff decides

[02:46:27] to rather than putting it in front of us in a meeting where we can deliberate and hear each other's comments and say i like that you know or you know it's kind of a vacuum and that that's not the that's not how we operate best we operate best as a deliberative body i feel yeah mr leonard yes deputy county executive for human services uh chris leonard uh great point we we certainly heard that this this cycle um we we fall into sometimes especially with cycles that we okay

[02:47:03] we've got a new cycle coming up so what do we do last time um as as you all are aware there's extensive community outreach with this so that we start with the timeline we back up clearly we need to we need to back up the timeline a little bit further to be able to address uh your concerns that you are a state there um so we'll definitely do that next cycle i would also like to share this is the this is we're just finishing the first year of an of a one cycle right so and it was our first ever attempt to really do some of the prioritization that we've heard from you

[02:47:38] in the past when we split the funding pool into two separate rfps i i i talk to brian all the time about change and i like the big swing that was a really big swing for our community to get behind that was a prioritization because we took funding out of the traditional funding pool and said okay we're going to keep it in the funding pool but it's going to be in the second line and not only doing that we learned from our from our pandemic response and said further within that second lane we're going to apportion that off geographically by need we had never done that

[02:48:15] with a funding pool before so we have heard the the the uh repeated and consistent and that's a concern that we've had in the past uh with regards to um prioritization so we are definitely moving in that direction but clearly we need to we need to build an additional time in advance of the next cycle um i do think that we're going to do a full review at the end of this cycle so certainly the board will be very much involved with that and that will be done i'm certain at a uh at a community meeting i mean at a committee meeting so supervisor faust your your and several other colleagues uh

[02:48:53] concerns around that clearly heard and we're certainly going to address that in the next cycle thank you mr leonard thank you very much uh supervisor lusk thank you mr chairman i'll just echo some of the same comments that were made earlier which is I appreciate the prioritization and the focus and particularly what you've done on the emergency housing assistance so I'll say in light of the process this year I appreciate having the opportunity at least engage and talk about some of the concerns and issues that I had but acknowledging what was just stated by my

[02:49:29] colleague we probably should have a different process to include all of us but I do want to acknowledge looking at the line that you added including youth experiencing housing instability and homelessness I this was an issue I brought up and I just appreciate that this is included because I think it's an important point that certainly needs that elevation so again thank you for all the work that you're doing and I'll say when I was working in the county so many many years ago and i just think back to verdia haywood who was the architect of this program just to think

[02:50:06] about how it has evolved over the years it's uh it's impressive so um i don't know if we ever get to tap into him in terms of uh the evolution of it i don't know if he's had any um you know background and information on how it's been restructured but it would be interesting to maybe even have his take on how the programs are actually evolved over the years as well so thank you mr. Lusk I did just with regards to mr. Haywood he is not only on this but on several other items he is perhaps the county's best

[02:50:44] paid unpaid consultants correct that is probably the smartest thing that Fairfax County is doing so thank you very much we're gonna be quick try not to repeat the same thing, Supervisor Gross. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The way it's presented today gives us a lot of flexibility in attending to issues that come up. I think if we looked, one of the smartest things that was ever done was to remove the board from making the decisions

[02:51:20] on the community funding pool. I think that was then in 1997, because I remember, I think, my first year or two, I was getting bombarded with requests from folks. And we don't do that anymore. We occasionally get a complaint, but we don't do that anymore. So that was a very smart thing to do. But if you look at, if we put everything side to side over all those almost 30 years, you would see sort of the hills and valleys of the societal issues that we've had

[02:51:54] throughout the county. I'm thinking back to in the mid to late 90s, we had gang prevention was a big thing here. I don't see a mention of gang anywhere in this because it's changed.

[02:52:10] The vocabulary for one thing has changed and the approach has changed. There was, and financial literacy didn't used to be such a big deal. Food and housing, emergency food and housing, We wouldn't have even thought anything about that. It was not an issue.

[02:52:27] But now, as we look at all the things that have happened over the past two or three decades, we really could follow what's happened in our community just by looking at how we funded the community funding pool and how those decisions were made.

[02:52:45] I find it a fascinating look at how we've changed over time to accommodate what we need today. This is not our original approach. It was the template that we were able to put the meat on the bones.

[02:53:03] It's a very good exercise. It's a very good program. The one thing that maybe would make it better would be we need to increase the size of the pie rather than making the slices smaller.

[02:53:20] Thank you. That we have the authority to do. And I might add, have been doing consistently over the past couple of years, especially as we saw what happened during the pandemic. And I just, you know, I'm going to get around.

[02:53:37] We're going to try to do this as quickly as possible. I did not expect this to engender this kind of conversation. But I do want to say that I support everything Supervisor Gross just said, because the history of this has been a long and winding road. And there were times when any nonprofit that had a complaint would just go to an individual supervisor.

[02:53:55] They'd pick up the phone and try to just pressure staff to do something for them. And that wasn't efficient, nor was it effective, nor was it transparent. And so the process we have now, you know, we do have to be careful about and protect the integrity of the Consolidated Community Funding Pool Board and also make sure that, you know, we're not overly asserting ourselves into the decisions that are made here, which ultimately are also procurement decisions in the long run.

[02:54:22] And so I definitely think, you know, the board needs to be part of the conversation. I think this process, what we have before us here, is markedly better than what we had before. And I think it will continue to evolve. As Supervisor Gross said, it's a continually evolving process as we learn things. But we do want to be careful, as a cautionary note, to making sure we don't get ourselves back into the situation where we were before.

[02:54:45] because I see everything that's in here as a very real issue in the community. It was suggested there's real and fake in here. To me, everything that's in here is a real issue in the community, and we need to make sure that we continue to have a system that can evolve to meet those needs of things that are happening in the community that our nonprofits many times are first to see.

[02:55:07] If not our nonprofits, our staff are first to see, and we hear about later. And so we want to protect the integrity of that process as we move forward. Supervisor Alcorn. Yeah, thank you. Just very quickly, I was the budget aide to the Providence District Supervisor pre-CCFP, and I do remember those days very well.

[02:55:26] So this is a real process improvement. But to follow up on Supervisor Gross' comment about the budget, when will we as a board have the discussion about how much we're going to put in these categories? Good afternoon, Sarah Allen, NCS.

[02:55:47] The $13.8 million that we had for the budget is not broken out by specific categories except for RFP-2, which is for emergency food and emergency housing. That's $5 million or about 40% of the funding pool. Well, I'd suggest that since we've actually expanded some of these categories a little bit, that at some point the board might want to have a discussion about making the pot a little bigger so that we're accommodating all the needs.

[02:56:17] Because I know this is a priority, not just for me, but I think for many of us. So I would appreciate maybe to have some opportunity at some point for that. Thank you. So this is something we decide in the budget and as a part of the budget process. And so we can certainly have a separate conversation.

[02:56:34] I will just remind everybody that there's some significant fiscal challenges ahead of us. And so I think we need to be mindful of that. would be helpful in advance of that conversation is to send the board history of funding of this particular program especially maybe over the last 10 years because we have consistently increased the amount of money that is in this program and and i think it's important for us to know that but also to be mindful of how this fits into the larger budget discussion because i like everyone would like to put more money in this but then it comes down to in exchange for what and that's what

[02:57:14] our budget process is and this one is a piece of in exchange for what when we see mounting expenses that are coming our way and some challenges on the revenue side ahead and so that's why this is a part of the budget process will be discussed as that but i do think either in a budget committee or in a health and human services committee we can get a presentation on on you know where we've been where we are today uh with funding and at least we can be mindful of that as we enter the more formal uh budget process where actions will have to be taken on on future years available funding

[02:57:49] uh with that uh and last comment supervisor yeah and i just want to add to i mean i'm very supportive i think we absolutely need to look at the funding i would say it's important for us to see what applications we get um i know this part of this is the timeliness why some of this This conversation needs to happen without stopping this cycle that needs to continue to go through.

[02:58:11] So I think it would be important for us to know what we're looking at, the applications, what the need is versus what's currently available. And then I think whether it's HHS or budget, I think it would be really important to have that conversation once we have more of the facts in front of us. Absolutely.

[02:58:27] Agreed. Agreed. Okay. With that, we haven't voted on this. That was all discussion. It's been moved and multiply seconded. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? And that motion carries.

[02:58:43] And that brings us to closed session, which is going to be longer than normal. And a lot of it in the hands of the board to decide how long. Not necessarily in the hands of the county attorney. So I'm going to ask her an unfair question anyway, just so that it's out there.

[02:59:01] Madam County attorney, how long do you think we need for closed session? Mr. Chairman, I'm anticipating approximately two and a half to three hours. Two and a half to three hours, of which a large portion of that is dependent on the board. But it will be a longer than normal closed session, without a doubt.

[02:59:19] And so what we are going to do, should Supervisor Gross' motion pass, is we're going to take a five-minute break, and then we're going to report directly into closed session. We will have lunch brought in to close session to save time to make sure that we can complete our work, hopefully in advance of, maybe well in advance of, but in advance of the public hearings that start this afternoon.

[02:59:43] They start at 3.30. There's a lot of them, including public comment. So we want to be as efficient as possible. Should this motion pass, we will report to close session, let's say at 12.40. It is 12.33 right now. Supervisor Gross.

[02:59:58] Mr. Chairman, I move that the Board of Supervisors recess and go into closed session for discussion and consideration of matters enumerated in Virginia Code Section 2.2-3711 and listed in the attached agenda for this meeting and in addition, one, as permitted by Virginia Code Section 2.2-3711A8, legal briefing regarding Senate Bill 1151 from the 2023 General Assembly regular session, two, as permitted by Virginia Code Section 2.2-3711A8.

[03:00:28] 1A1 and 8, legal and personnel analysis regarding constitutional officer salaries, and 3, as permitted by Virginia Code Section 2.2-3711, A1, personnel discussion regarding an annual employee evaluation and consideration of candidates for a vacant position.

[03:00:50] You've heard the motion. I'm happy to second that, along with Supervisor Palchuk. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing and hearing none. all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any opposed any abstentions and that motion

[03:01:05] carries and the board will report to closed session at 12 40 it is 12 34 right now don't talk to don't

[03:10:34] speak to welcome back to our board meeting of june 27 2023 uh the board having just come out of uh closed session let me recognize uh vice chairman gross for a motion to bring us out of closed session mr chairman i move that the board of supervisors certify that to the best of each

[03:11:13] members' knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements by virtue of Virginia Code Section 2.2-3711, and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion by which closed session was convened, were heard, discussed, or considered by the Board of Supervisors during the closed session.

[03:11:30] You've heard the motion. It's been multiply seconded. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing and hearing none. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? And that motion carries. We have a number of other motions coming out of closed session.

[03:11:46] Supervisor Gross. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that the Board of Supervisors authorize the risk manager and county attorney to participate in mediation regarding the claims of former Fire and Rescue Department employee Ramon Estrada as filed against the county with the Virginia Workers' Compensation Commission and to settle those claims under the terms and conditions outlined in closed session.

[03:12:07] You've heard the motion. It's been seconded by Supervisor Lusk. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing and hearing none. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? That motion carries. Supervisor Gross. Mr. Chairman, as required by Virginia Code Section 15.2-1627.1B, I move that the Board adjusts the Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney's annual salary to $200,269.10, effective July 1, 2023.

[03:12:42] Second. You've heard the motion. It's been seconded by Supervisor Lust. Discussion on the motion. Let me just reiterate the first sentence of that, just so everybody is clear, that the salary adjustments that you're hearing here for the Commonwealth's attorney and subsequent ones that you're about ready to hear are for constitutional officers' salary increases, which are required and mandated by state law.

[03:13:09] Not options for this board, but required by state law. Any further discussion on the motion? Seeing and hearing none, all those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? And that motion carries.

[03:13:25] Supervisor Gross. As required by Virginia Code Section 15.2-1609.2F, I move that the Board adjust the Fairfax County Sheriff's annual salary to $241,978.74, effective July 1, 2023.

[03:13:44] Second. You've heard the motion. It's been seconded by Supervisor Alcorn. Discussion on the motion? Seeing and hearing none. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? And that motion carries. Supervisor Gross.

[03:14:00] Mr. Chairman, as required by Virginia Code Section 17.1-287, I move that the Board adjusts the Fairfax County Clerk of the Circuit Court's annual salary to $173,960, no decimals, effective july 1st 2023 you've heard the motion it's been seconded by supervisor lusk any discussion on the motion seeing and hearing none all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any opposed any abstentions and that motion carries supervisor smith thank you mr chairman i move

[03:14:38] that the board of supervisors authorize the county attorney to file a petition for appeal in the the Virginia Supreme Court, challenge of the Virginia Court of Appeals, June 13, 2023, decision in Rita M. Leach-Lewis, trustee of the Rita M. Leach-Lewis Trust, 18, March 13, versus Board of Supervisors of Fairfax County, Virginia, record number 0815-22-4, as discussed with the county attorney in closed session.

[03:15:07] You've heard the motion. It's been multiply seconded. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing and hearing none. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? And that motion carries. Supervisor Alcorn.

[03:15:24] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that the Board of Supervisors authorize a settlement of the court cases styled JBG Tyson's Hotel LLC versus Board of Supervisors, Fairfax County, Virginia. case numbers cl-2021-17762 and cl-2022-15892 which are pending in the fairfax county circuit court on the terms and conditions outlined by the county attorney in closed session you've heard the motion it's been multiply seconded uh any discussion on the motion seeing and hearing none all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any opposed

[03:16:00] any abstentions that motion carries and i believe that brings us to the end of motions coming out of closed session i'm not seeing any others at this time we'll move on to public hearings and before i call the first public hearing as a reminder individuals wishing to provide testimony have a number of options they can testify here in person or they can provide testimony by phone or youtube video at the designated point in the public hearing i will call for any speakers from the speakers list and they will either come forward or their video will be shown or they will be connected by telephone. There will then be an opportunity for anyone else who would like to

[03:16:37] speak to the application to come down to the podium or to call in on a number that will be provided on the screen. Speakers testifying via video must have signed up and submitted their video no later than 9 a.m. on the day prior to the hearing. For all testimony, you are given three minutes to speak as an individual. If you are a spokesperson for a group, you are given five minutes and as you can see there are quite a few public hearings this afternoon so if your public hearing is next up if you can be prepared and make your way down closer to the podium that would be appreciated and with that our

[03:17:12] first public hearing is a public hearing on SC 2021-MV-00018 Old Town Pet Resort Springfield LLC in the Mount Vernon district and could the applicant please reaffirm the affidavit. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. My name is Lynn Strobel. I represent the applicant and I reaffirmed the affidavit dated March 1st, 2023. Thank you.

[03:17:38] Thank you, Ms. Strobel. Disclosures from board members. I will disclose, while it's not required, that Barbara Freed gave in excess of $100 to the Friends of Jeff McKay. However, while it is listed on the affidavit that donation occurred more than one year before today's date so in an abundance of caution i will disclose that other disclosures from board members seeing and hearing none at this time i will now recognize county staff for a staff presentation good afternoon i'm kathy lewis with the department of planning and development the applicant old town pet resort springfield llc

[03:18:17] is requesting a special exception to permit the use of outdoor components for an existing kennel 1.67 acre property is located at 8101 alban road east of alban road and west of interstate 95.

[03:18:33] the site is zoned c6 and is currently developed with an existing kennel which was constructed in 2002. the subject site has three front yards including the northeast which is abutting i-95 and the west abutting alban road access to the site is from alban road in the c6 district kennels are permitted by right so long as the kennel is within a completely enclosed building however outdoor components require the approval of a special exception on november 16th 2020 the

[03:19:09] applicant was issued a notice of violation for existing outdoor areas which were used in conjunction with the kennel as a result the applicant is requesting this special exception to permit the existing outdoor components these include a day camp area along albin road an elimination yard abutting i-95 and fenced in agility yard located in the southern tip of the site shown in gray are the concrete surface elimination yards abutting i-95 and the concrete surface play areas for doggy day for the doggy day camp abutting albin road the applicant also

[03:19:48] proposes to cover the elimination yards and doggy day camp areas with awnings to allow these areas to be connected to sanitary sewer the awnings are necessary to ensure storm water does not enter the sanitary sewer additionally the applicant proposes to enclose all the outdoor areas with an eight foot high fence to secure the dogs the requested variance for these features was approved by the board of zoning appeals on march 22nd 2023 thank you mr chairman thank you very much at this time

[03:20:24] we'd welcome an applicant's presentation thank you very much mr chairman members of the board i don't plan to provide a lengthy presentation given your agenda this afternoon but i would be happy to answer any questions i would just say that the old town pet resort was constructed in 2002 the applicant became aware of the fact that the existing outdoor component of its use was not in compliant with fairfax county requirements and that happened in 2020 and

[03:20:58] since that time they have been diligent in trying to correct that situation they filed this special exception to keep the outdoor facilities because they are integral to the applicant's business i will note that they are not expanding their current services they're not adding any additional pets to their services they're just hoping to allow certain outdoor play areas that will be improved to address environmental concerns and as was noted environmental concerns were probably the primary topic of discussion on this application and especially as regard to pet waste there have

[03:21:36] been a number of plans put into place through the development conditions and protocols that will ensure that that waste is not entering the storm drainage system there's a combination of items that will be done by the applicant including disposal in trash bins regular cleaning and installation of new sanitary sewer improvements so all of these features really most of them are going on today this will memorialize those and require that they be continued the applicant provides a valuable service to the residents of fairfax county this was endorsed by the south

[03:22:14] county federation land use committee by the staff as well as the planning commission so i would ask your favorable consideration this afternoon and i'd be happy to answer any questions thank you Thank you very much, Ms. Strobel. Are there any questions of staff or the applicant?

[03:22:31] Any questions of staff or the applicant? Okay. This is a public hearing, and I have no speakers who have signed up in advance. To testify on this matter, is there anyone here present in the auditorium that would like to speak on this subject? This is a public hearing. Anyone here present who would like to speak on this matter?

[03:22:50] Seeing and hearing no one, let me ask if anyone has called in. There are no callers. There are no callers. I assume the applicant waives rebuttal. Closing comments and a recommendation from county staff. On June 21st, 2023, the Planning Commission voted to recommend approval of SC-2021 MV-00018, subject to the development conditions dated March 16th, 2023.

[03:23:16] The Planning Commission also recommended approval of the modification of the 75-foot setback from I-95. Staff concurs with those recommendations. Thank you. Thank you very much. Any questions from board members? Seeing and hearing none, I will now close the public hearing and turn to Supervisor Stork for a motion.

[03:23:35] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's taken us a little while to get here. I think it's only for all the right reasons, protecting stormwater and groundwater. And I know it's an important facility in our community, and the South County Federation and others have been very supportive of doing this.

[03:23:52] So with that, Mr. Chairman, I request that the applicant please confirm their agreement to the development conditions dated March 16, 2023, for the record. Thank you. Supervisor Stork, the applicant is in agreement with those conditions. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Humble. I move that the Board of Supervisors approve SC 2021-MV-00018 subject to the development conditions dated March 16, 2023.

[03:24:17] I also move that the Board modify the 75-foot setback from an interstate highway to that as shown on the SC Platte. I've heard the motion. It's been seconded by Supervisor Lusk. Any discussion on the motion? seeing and hearing none all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any opposed any abstentions and that motion carries thank you very much our next public hearing is a public hearing on sc 2022-le-00047 enterprise rac company of maryland llc in the franconia district

[03:24:55] and uh if we could please have the applicant reaffirm the affidavit thank you mr chairman members of the board again my name is lynn strobel i represent this applicant i reaffirm the affidavit that is dated march 14 2023 thank you thank you are there any disclosures any disclosures seeing and hearing none i will now recognize county staff for a staff presentation

[03:25:31] uh thank you mr chairman uh members of the board my name is curtis roulette and i'm with the department of planning and development uh the subject property is located at 6701 lowestale road the 1.83 acre subject site is uh located just northeast of the intersection of a spring wall road and lowesdale road and is developed with an existing shopping center and associated parking the applicant seeks to construct a two-bay car wash along the southern portion of the property the car wash only serves the vehicles rented related to the existing vehicle rental

[03:26:05] establishment on site. The applicant will provide a six foot high board onboard fence with and every green shrubs along a portion of the southern portion of the property line in order to limit the impacts of the proposed car wash that may that it may have on the future park located just to the south of the property. The floor plan shows the orientation of the proposed car wash and rental car operation cars will be washed by hand within these bays the applicant

[03:26:38] proposes an oil grit separator to treat wastewater produced by the car wash the applicant proposes to recycle water used within these wash bays the garage the garage doors that will be installed on the wash bays are similar to one shown on this slide because the wash bays will not be air conditioned uh the garage doors will be open during warmer days of the year thank you so much thank you at this time we'd welcome an applicant's presentation thank you mr chairman members of the

[03:27:17] board again i will be brief and again happy to answer any questions that you have this is a proposal by enterprise which is an existing tenant in this commercial shopping center they operate a vehicle rental establishment and as a part of their practice they currently take cars off site to be washed and this is a proposal to allow them to install a two-bay car wash which actually will improve the conditions surrounding the property because they will not be taking cars off site it'll improve the surrounding road network and i will note that this car wash is solely for

[03:27:55] enterprise it will not be open to the public we've worked very closely with staff we do have conditions that require water recycling as well as water treatment and any remaining water will be the runoff will go to the sewer system and not the storm drainage system so again we've worked very closely on this and I think that this will be a positive result for this particular business owner in Fairfax County so again I'd be happy to answer any questions this comes to you with a

[03:28:32] Recommendation of approval from the Franconia district land use committee as well as the staff in the Planning Commission. Thank you Thank you very much Any questions of staff or the applicant? Mr. Chairman supervisor last just two quick ones Thank you, mr. Obel The first is on the oil water separator. So I'm really appreciative of this being included as a component And I think it's important that it'll help us remove some contaminants From the order before we dispel it into the sanitary sewer system, not the stormwater system

[03:29:09] So just so I'm clear. What are the specific sort of maintenance that will be? Provided on the system and can you tell me how often that will occur right there is a? a filter system within this right and that that is cleaned by a maintenance company that comes by it's no less than once a year sometimes twice a year in order to as they say vacuum out you know the particulates and dispose of them um and that's how they keep

[03:29:44] this they keep this functional okay and then just so i'm understanding it too is that the system basically takes the water through this separator and then you're recycling some of that back into the overall system that's right okay perfect just wanted to make sure i got that thank you very much thank you are there any other questions of the staff of the applicant any other questions um this is a public hearing um we have no speakers signed up is there anyone in the room wishing to

[03:30:20] speak on this um to this particular application anyone wishing to speak um i will now recognize the clerk to note if we have any speakers who've called in there are no callers there are no callers have called in okay in that case um i guess i would be the applicant like an opportunity for rebuttal on anything no okay um closing comments and a recommendation from staff mr ellett uh yes ma'am uh on june 23rd or june 7 2023 the plan commission recommended that the board approve

[03:31:00] se 2022 le-00047 subject to the development conditions dated june 7 2023 the planning commission also recommended the approval of the requested waivers and modifications staff concurs with the planning commission's recommendations thank you so much thank you are there any questions from board members any questions from board members i will now close the public hearing and recognize supervisor lusk for a motion thank you very much um madam vice chairman so let me first um state that this is a pretty straightforward application so

[03:31:35] i do appreciate that and let me please have um ms strobel come forward to confirm agreement to the development conditions that are dated june 7th 2023 for the record yes uh supervisor lost the applicant is in agreement with those conditions thank you okay thank you very much um so again straightforward application as we heard car wash that will be specifically used by this rental car establishment enterprise i think there are a number of benefits that we get by moving this forward one the number of vehicles trips on the site are reduced

[03:32:15] by having the cars not be cleaned off-site it also reduces the traffic in the greater community second the applicant is proposing to add shrubs plantings and other native species in their replantings as well as re-striping all of the handicapped parking spaces which have faded over time and then i want to acknowledge to the six foot high fence providing screening to what will

[03:32:46] be that future dog park is also appreciated so we note and this is always a positive thing you have support from the staff support from the franconia district land use committee and the plan commission for uh this special exception application so with that um and vice chair i will make a series of be four motions if i may the first is i move that the board of supervisors approve sc 2022-le-00047

[03:33:23] subject to the development conditions now dated june 7th 2023 i further move that the board of supervisors approve the waiver of the transitional screening and barrier requirements along the eastern property line for the move that the board waived a lot with requirements to that shown on the se plat and finally i move the board of supervisors approve the modification of the major paved trail requirement along lowestale road to permit the existing five foot wide sidewalk you've heard the motion which i'd be happy to second and this supervisor pal check is there discussion on the

[03:34:02] motion any discussion on the motion seen and hearing none all those in favor of the motion please say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. Any abstentions? That motion carries with the chairman being out of the room for the moment. And Madam Vice Chair, if I could just thank the staff for their work on this. That includes Kathy Lewis and Mr. Curtis Roulet. Thank you for your time and effort here and the work with the Laney's Committee as well. So I appreciate it. Thank you, Supervisor Lusk. I'll turn it back over to the chairman. Thank you very much. And with that, we are going to

[03:34:38] move on to our next public hearing, which is a public hearing on RZ 2022-PR-00017, Madison Investment Portfolio, LLC, in the Providence District. And as soon as they are ready, if the applicant could please reaffirm the affidavit. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm Greg Regal on behalf of the applicant, and I'm reaffirming an affidavit dated May 26th of this year. Thank you. Thank you very much. Disclosures from board members. Supervisor Walkinshaw. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Out of an abundance of caution, I'd like to disclose that James Walkinshaw for

[03:35:17] Braddock District Supervisor received a contribution in excess of $100 from Penny Gross for Supervisor. Also, out of an abundance of caution, I serve as a member of the Quality and Reliability Committee of the Innova Health System Foundation Board. Innova Health Care services is the title of the owner of the application property in rz 2022 pr 00017 and out of an abundance of caution i'll recuse myself from the public hearing and vote on this application thank you supervisor walkinshaw supervisor smith thank you uh penny gross

[03:35:54] donated in excess of 100 for kathy smith to kathy smith for supervisor mr chairman that was penny grows for supervisor i didn't do it myself and i also will disclose that penny grows for supervisor uh made a contribution in excess of 100 to the friends of jeff mckay and is a trustee on the anova health system foundation board and supervisor grows mr chairman um as you noted i represent fairfax county on the nova's board of trustees appointed by this board it is an unpaid position

[03:36:29] But as in an abundance of caution, I am going to recuse myself from this particular item and also from Action 4, which I believe will be held right after this. And I'm going to recuse myself and leave the dais. Thank you. Thank you very much, Supervisor Gross.

[03:36:47] And are there any other disclosures from board members? Any other disclosures? Seeing and hearing none at this time, I would recognize county staff for a staff presentation. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the board. I'm Zach Fountain with the Department of Planning and Development.

[03:37:05] I'm joined here this afternoon by Samuel Chainsman with the Fairfax County Department of Transportation. The applicant, Madison Investment Portfolio, LLC, seeks to rezone 8.5 acres from the I-5 district to the PDC district to repurpose two existing office buildings into residential uses.

[03:37:24] The site is located within the Merrifield Suburban Center between Gallows Road and I-495. Currently, the site is zoned to the I-5 district and developed with two existing office buildings. The 8110 Gatehouse Road property is developed with a 245,000-square-foot office building and a five-story above-grade parking garage.

[03:37:48] The 2990 Telestar core property is developed with an 89,000-square-foot office building and surrounded by an expansive surface parking lot. The applicant proposes to repurpose these existing office buildings into live-work units and affordable residences.

[03:38:07] The building located along Gatehouse Road would be converted into a maximum of 240 live-work units, which could be used by tenants as either an office space, a residence, or a combination of the two. The other building located along Telestar Court would be converted into 82 affordable dwelling units.

[03:38:26] The applicant proposes to enhance the existing sidewalks and create new pedestrian connections. In addition, the applicant would deliver a new six-foot-wide sidewalk along each frontage, as well as sidewalk connections within the proposed park spaces.

[03:38:47] The on-site sidewalks would vary in width, integrating with existing and proposed landscape areas. Additionally, a new interparcel, vehicular, and pedestrian connection is proposed. The applicant also proposes landscape areas around the site by preserving existing mature vegetation and incorporating new landscaping.

[03:39:07] In addition, the proposal would provide three publicly accessible park spaces in common open space areas. The park spaces include the Game Table Community Park, the Community Play Zone, and the Wolf Park. These three parks would be publicly accessible and maintained by the property owner.

[03:39:25] Further, three common open space areas are proposed exclusively for the future residents. This elevation displays a comparison between the existing and proposed treatment of the gatehouse building. This building will keep its existing glass facade, but would add a new metal entry feature at the northern and southern entrances.

[03:39:46] This elevation displays the comparison between the existing and proposed treatment of the Telestar building. The applicant proposes to replace the Telstar building's glass exterior with nuclear glazing to allow for operable windows and panels. The applicant also intends to use wood paneling to serve, soften the ground floor and entrance.

[03:40:07] It's important to highlight that the applicant has also committed to provide bicycle parking consistent with the policy. Standard Park and Public Schools contributions will pursue green building certification, deliver EV charging, remediate soils, and provide WDUs in accordance with the policy.

[03:40:25] Overall, staff finds the application is in conformance with the comprehensive plan and applicable zoning ordinance provisions. Thank you. Thank you very much. At this time, we would welcome an applicant's presentation. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, good afternoon.

[03:40:40] And as we went through the exercise of the disclosures, I think it became apparent that these buildings were once the administrative headquarters of the Inova hospital system. And I'd suggest that the fact that Inova moved away from these conventional office buildings in the favor of a much more amenitized mixed-use environment and the fact that we are now charting a similar mixed-use and affordable amenitized future for them now has a certain full-circle quality to it and is, frankly, indicative of a growing and evolving story of Merrifield really functioning as a true mixed-use place.

[03:41:13] This is actually the fifth major repositioning project that this team has been directly or indirectly involved in, and I don't think there's any question against that history that Fairfax County stands as a leader in seeing both the issues and opportunities around issues of repositioning. And against that backdrop, approval of this application will reinforce the county's position of leadership in that space, And I'd further suggest it indicates a willingness to embrace creative policy choices in the face of a very quickly changing economy.

[03:41:42] To the matter at hand, we've talked in the past about the inherent efficiency and affordability that results from repurposing empty buildings, particularly in the context of the live-work concept that we see as a significant step forward by embracing some of the most fast-growing segments of the new economy.

[03:42:03] Beyond those benefits, I'd suggest there are two major takeaways with this application. First is what staff touched on in terms of the depth and quality of the public spaces. Simply stated, we take what was an exclusively automobile-oriented place and introduce a range of new public spaces, and public in the sense that they're available to the community at large, meaning that this site can start to be a focal point for community engagement, gathering, and connectivity.

[03:42:28] Secondly, and of equal or greater importance, is the opportunity to significantly advance well-established affordable housing policies. This application represents a commitment well beyond the base policy recommendations, and I'd suggest to you that the location is equally significant.

[03:42:46] This is a premium location for affordable housing with immediate access to jobs, transit, and the amenities of Greater Merrifield. I did want to touch on one question that was raised coming out of the Planning Commission public hearing, and it dealt with the issue of parking and particularly making sure that we don't have adverse impacts on the surrounding community.

[03:43:06] and i'll note for the record that this site is parked collectively above zoning ordinance minimums and parked conservatively we parked the live work actually at the office environment just in case those units were ever fully used for office that's a much more conservative rate than the residential rate is and frankly we've left the door open for a parking reduction in the future that's not unusual in merrifield and i would reiterate or emphasize that doesn't occur in isolation when and if we need to do that we'll be back here having a conversation with all the attendant data necessary to evaluate that accurately lastly there was a request for the community to consider providing parking on-site for community

[03:43:45] overflow parking it's possible in the future we could have some ability to do that and nothing in this approval today precludes that but it's a case where we need to get the building reoccupied operational and a lot of what got us here is a result of a very productive conversation with the community and we certainly would expect those conversations to continue they were intimately involved in the design of the park spaces by way of example. I'll close by saying that at the Planning Commission, the chairman noted a uniquely positive collaboration with the staff on this application, and that was a well-chosen comment. Staff has been a consistently cooperative partner in sorting out some of the unique issues associated with building

[03:44:25] repositioning, and I'd suggest to you that's also indicative of very good government. It's a good project. We hope it earns your support, and I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Regal, are there any questions of staff or the applicant? Yes, Supervisor Palchuk. Thank you. Just one question. And I know we've been working with your team for a couple of years now. And as you know, the, as you mentioned, circulation as well as pedestrian access are quite crucial already. An issue not created by the site, but cannot be fully fixed by the site.

[03:45:00] But one question I know as we look at those interpartial access, if you could describe what was done to look at the sidewalks, the width of the sidewalk, what was considered, and why the final design was brought forward.

[03:45:18] Well, as you allude to, Supervisor Pelchek, we think we can really start a template or an opportunity for much greater connectivity. And we've put a real emphasis on making those sidewalks functional, making the site porous in nature. And I think those amenities we talked about really create a reason to be walking and engaging.

[03:45:37] I also think that that same spirit of partnership and collaboration, there was a pretty involved discussion at the Planning Commission from your own FCDOT staff talking about improvements that the county is also going to be making the Gatehouse Road to improve pedestrian and bicycle connectivity, effectively putting it on a road diet of sorts that will make it a little safer and a little better functionality, frankly, having our site developed and operating will contribute to safety, too.

[03:46:02] Right now, there's no activity there, and there's no reason to slow or be careful. So I think it's a combination of the on-site package and then, again, that collaboration with what you're doing at a county-wide level that starts to be a really good solution. Thank you. Just one more follow-up question, and I know there's been quite a bit of work on this and outreach, and you alluded to it's in the process for this year.

[03:46:26] I don't know if to date it's been repaved. I think it's in process. But the outreach, I know there are quite a few communities there. If you could just describe what led from those conversations to improvements that your team is looking at or the team will continue to work on with the county and with VEDA on improvements to those intersections.

[03:46:50] I mean, the short answer is yes. And on the community outreach, we had a series of community meetings, frankly, invited people into the buildings. A lot of people had never been inside, so to speak. and as i maybe touched on we spent a lot of time engaging the community directly on the the public amenities in terms of what makes sense in those outdoor amenities and it was a very constructive conversation and that led to that sort of three-tiered approach different experiences from dog walking to more passive things and as i've said i fully expect that communication to continue we are escrowing some money for off-site transportation improvements

[03:47:25] and I would expect the community in your office will be an active part of that discussion in terms of how we can spend those monies smartly and wisely, and we certainly look forward to it. Thank you, Mr. Egal. That's all, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much.

[03:47:40] Are there any other questions? Seeing and hearing none, this is a public hearing, and I do have two speakers who have signed up in advance to testify. Speaker number one is Charles Rimbach. Is Mr. Rimbach here? He is here, and he will be followed by Ann Sweetster.

[03:47:58] Is Ann here? Okay. You will be speaker number two. Welcome, sir. Thank you for this opportunity, Board of Supervisors. I'd ask that you consider vehicle and pedestrian safety improvements along Gatehouse Road and Telestar.

[03:48:15] I live on Gatehouse, and I know that it seems as though Gatehouse has used a cut-through to bypass the Mosaic District. They come down Gatehouse eastbound, turn north to go on Telestar to bypass the Mosaic District.

[03:48:32] Recently, cars have been speeding up and down Gatehouse, especially heading westbound. And so I've seen other parts of Fairfax that have speed humps, 15-mile-an-hour speed humps to help control speeds.

[03:48:48] The intersection of Gatehouse and Telestar, I was hoping to be able to look at the traffic study because those are the public roads. But then as Gatehouse continues east, it goes into another development, and the names of those roads change.

[03:49:07] And then from Telestar, as you cross Gatehouse, you go on to a road called Slater Lane. So it's an odd intersection, and some of the safety concerns are that both Gatehouse and Telestar are both Fairfax County community public schools bus stops.

[03:49:25] And so there's only two crosswalks at that intersection, and one of them is farther east of where Gatehouse terminates. And so the issue is that I would request that a traffic study be conducted that includes the private roads, if you will, because of the number of vehicles that are there.

[03:49:50] And then if you're coming from, if you're trying to go eastbound onto Gatehouse, there's an odd intersection that then makes a quick right that limits site distance. And so, again, I think in terms of traffic calming devices, I request that you consider those or have the planners consider using the monies that the organization is going to donate to help improve the safety of vehicles and pedestrians.

[03:50:25] Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Rimbach. And speaker number two is Ann Sweetser. And after Ms. Sweetser, is there anyone else present here who is wishing to testify on this matter? Okay. Welcome, Ann Sweetser.

[03:50:43] The floor is yours. Thank you. I'm getting this set up. Oh, dear. Excuse me just a moment, please. Sure.

[03:51:08] It's okay.

[03:51:26] Sorry. All right. Not to worry. We're not counting this against your time. No worries.

[03:51:35] I beg your pardon.

[03:52:59] this will be a reprise of Oh excellent okay thank you I spoke with the Planning Commission a while ago so this is a reprise of that talk with a bit more detail my name is Ann Sweetser I'm a resident of Jefferson Park townhomes I've been there for resident for 11 years and on the board for eight I'm speaking for myself but as a board member now to make it move I have to oh just use this okay

[03:53:36] thank you the neighborhood is a very crowded diverse area there's Jefferson Park with townhomes and condos on either side of the education building beyond that is High Point and behind it and beyond it is High Point and then there's Yorktown condos that run along Telstar it's mostly it's diverse there's a lot of young couples young families many other people are both working both parents are working so they have two cars there's occasionally one with just one car and there's occasionally one that's been rented out to a group of young men or women who

[03:54:12] have their boyfriends and girlfriends so there can be six or eight even eight cars on one place and we have 104 units in jefferson park there are a total of 24 visitor places and there every night is an overflow um i've been in the board meetings except when i was away working the only issue that has come up over and over and over again is parking these tedious painful discussions and there's nothing that we can do about it. Recently a woman told me that her husband takes the car when a guest comes and tries goes off with it to find some place to park and that her guests always complain about the lack of

[03:54:49] parking. There are only about six places on Gatehouse Road and Telstar has places but they are half full of it seems semi-permanently parked work vehicles of one sort and another. I attended the public meeting or the only public meeting i was aware of about this project the the change in the use of the building seems fine um and we welcome the idea of access to the park areas and the dog park and the children's playground and so on and they even mentioned that we could be part of the pickleball club but but there is nothing there is no one thing no privilege that will make up for messing up the

[03:55:24] parking in that area paragraphs 11 to 13 of the proffer are all about looking for minimizing parking so they there's there's no and certainly there's no need to add any parking but it seems that there's an emphasis on moving toward a minimization without referring to the zoning process which doesn't seem important but without any connection or consideration of the neighborhood so I did a little bit of figuring and I know that there could be 240 units but I don't know what the size of the building is so in order if using the building use standard business

[03:56:01] use standard for deciding the number of parking places only if the average size of each unit, whether business or home or otherwise, or both, would be that you'd have to have at least a thousand square foot average to get one parking place per unit.

[03:56:22] So I did a little back of the envelope calculating. I thought if 20 were business and 220 were residences of different sizes, that if it's small under 750 square foot business you'd have an owner and an assistance of two cars if it's between 750 and a thousand you might have an owner in either one or two so i said two and a half cars if it's over a thousand feet maybe an owner and and two cars just guessing so i'm coming up with a figure including visitors of maybe up to 90 a day for the residential areas again if it's small they're probably one owner if it's a medium it could be one or two maybe three quarters of them

[03:57:01] would have two cars and one would have one quarter would only have one car so 1.75 cars for each of those two cars for the larger ones so i came up with a figure probably probably exaggerated but came with a total figure including guests for business and for homes of almost 500 a day but that doesn't include employees building building vehicles overflow from telstar which is discussed as as part of their plan or adding space for neighbors which is my concern um i counted the places in the parking lots um gatehouse has 70 on the bottom where if telstar cars came in there

[03:57:41] they can walk on the same level back over to telstar then there are three levels with a ramp and a floor each with 150 spaces approximately um so there's plenty of sparking there and there's still a whole ramp and top layer for solar panels and green gardens and pickleball and all of that The Telstar unit, I have up to 82 units, I counted the number, I'm assuming that there may be a number of people there who have work vehicles, a van with ladders on the top, or a pickup truck with a lot of tools in it or something.

[03:58:14] They might not be able to get into the Telstar, into the gatehouse garage, because there's a very low clearance. I'm also assuming that many of those people might be from the area, and that therefore they'd have a lot of friends who'd be coming over to visit. there might be quite a lot of need for parking and if you could sum up we would appreciate that okay um let's see so i'm what what i would like to present to you is this argument that assuming that most of most of gatehouse is residential um assuming that there's a similar pattern of of

[03:58:50] family young families two cup two two people working in order to pay the mortgage and a similar pattern of car ownership i'd like to recommend please that you consider some mechanism for adapting amending the proffer to have a requirement of consultation with the neighborhood boards about parking if there's any reduction to be considered thank you very much thank you very much and let me ask again if there's anyone else here who wishes to testify on this matter anyone present in the auditorium this is a public hearing sir if you could come down and introduce yourself

[03:59:27] an address and sign in with the clerk. Is there anyone else who wishes to testify on this matter? This gentleman will be our last in-person speaker. Plan to address the intersection at Gatehouse and Gallows Road. It's already a pretty heavily backed up intersection. I don't know how that really could be improved for additional traffic than what we already have today. And also

[04:00:05] any improvements for Cal Star and Porter Road, which is a pretty free-flowing intersection with a lot of traffic throughout the day. And like the gentleman said before, it's a cut-through road to get to the Mosaic. We're on to Lee Highway. So I was just curious about what kind of improvements would be made to those two intersections. Okay. Sir, can you repeat your name and address for the record? I did not hear that. I'm James Parks, 2947 Gallows Road. Okay.

[04:00:40] Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Parks. And the clerk is here now. If you want to sign in for her as well, just so that we have your name and address. Appreciate your testimony. And the question that you asked, I'm sure, will be answered by staff and or the applicant here as we sum up. And seeing and hearing no one else in person who would like to testify, let me ask the clerk if anyone has called in. No one has called in to testify. At this time, I'd welcome the applicant's opportunity for rebuttal.

[04:01:10] Thank you. Rebuttal may be a little strong. I appreciate the constructive comments and I guess sort of heartened by the fact no one seems to be opposed to the notion of converting these buildings, which is good.

[04:01:27] I'd start by saying, foundationally, when you compare what we're talking about today relative to the historic use of these buildings or the zoned use of the buildings now, we're offering a significant reduction in trips, both in terms of number and the timing, compared to an in-and-out office use, which hopefully can help things relative to the Gallows Road intersection was referenced and some of the collective circumstances as well.

[04:01:49] I think maybe the only part of the testimony that I might take some issue with is the notion that we are going to somehow mess up the existing parking condition further. Again, I would remind the board that we are parking this very conservatively. I made reference to five prior projects that have been through this process, some of which are operational.

[04:02:09] We're seeing consistently that the actual occupancy and demand in these live-work environments, which are new, admittedly, is actually below the projected assumptions we were making when we first came through the process. So I think we've got a decent cushion. I think the second-to-last speaker made a very constructive point in terms of continuing the dialogue.

[04:02:29] So if we accept the fact that we're not perhaps creating a problem, it begs the question, can we be part of a solution? Perhaps. We can't make an unambiguous, definitive commitment today, But I've committed, and the applicant has asked me to reaffirm the commitment, that we will keep the dialogue going.

[04:02:47] There are other instances in this county where uses like ours have been able to share parking with the community on an as-needed basis. And as the history evolves, if we can find those opportunities, I think that's a win-win. There's no reason not to do that if we have the ability. And I suspect we'll be talking more about parking going forward, and certainly that will be in an open process with all the requisite engagement.

[04:03:09] So I'll leave it there and happy to answer questions. Okay. Let me ask if there are any questions. Yes, Supervisor Alcorn. Yeah, could I just ask Mr. Regal, how much are you going to park this? I was looking for that. I couldn't see it.

[04:03:25] How many spaces per unit are you doing? So we're parking the most significant number is we're parking the gatehouse portion, the live work, at 2.6 per thousand.

[04:03:44] 665 space, 637 spaces required. I would dare you to, if you calculate the traditional residential requirement, even at 1.6, which nobody parks that in Merrifield, it's probably, what, half that number. So we start with a pretty good cushion there.

[04:04:01] And your average unit size is how many square feet? 900, thank you. So you're parking, gosh, that's quite a few per. And similarly, on the Telestar, which is the affordable component, Their units are also only one and two bedrooms.

[04:04:18] And, you know, it gives us some ability to balance the site between the existing garage and the surface parking and may still create an opportunity to have a dialogue with the community. About shared. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay. Closing comments and a recommendation from county staff.

[04:04:34] On June 7, 2023, the Planning Commission recommended approval of the requested rezoning application subject to the execution of proffers dated May 18, 2023.

[04:04:51] The commission also recommended approval of the requested waivers and modifications referenced in the handout dated June 7, 2023. Staff concurs with these recommendations. Thank you. Thank you very much. Final call questions from board members. Supervisor Palachuk.

[04:05:08] Mr. Chairman, thank you so much. And a question for staff. I know, Zach, you're representing staff here, and this is a little bit more of a DOT question because so many of the questions that have come up are related to this area. we know there's a Gallo study that is now underway.

[04:05:25] I think we have due to our presenters. If you could just confirm for us that that Gallo's gatehouse intersection is included in that study and if we have any further information on where we are on the timing for the study, we know this area overall needs transportation improvements.

[04:05:43] - Sure, my name's Sam Chanisman with the Department of Transportation. It's still in the early design stages but they're looking at a good portion of gatehouse and it will include that intersection as well okay thank you and you know um will the transportation studies that are done include um this area that goes past gallows or uh the areas feeding into gallows i know there is it sometimes uses a cut through from route 29 will that be included in the studies done by d.o.t yes okay thank you appreciate that thank you supervisor

[04:06:18] Paucik. I will now close the public hearing and recognize you for a motion. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, I want to thank all the staff who have worked with us on this over the past several years. I think right now Zach and Kathy are the main representatives, but we've gone through quite a few iterations. I think this definitely shows quite a bit of opportunity and repurposing as we look at repurposing empty office building, and this is about to become one of those as well as the opportunity to build with partners additional affordable workforce units

[04:06:55] and to try to address an area that is becoming much, much more urban, to have it be accessible and to address the multimodal needs in that community. So never a perfect application, but I think we've really put it through the ringer over the past couple of years, as applicants will probably attest to, that this did receive anonymous us are yeah full support nine to zero support from the Planning Commission and that I appreciate that the applicants and the community have worked together to help address the main issues number one I'm

[04:07:31] excited about the turning some of the parking lot space that is currently impervious to some community use space while knowing that there are large garages there that will be able to meet the majority if not more than the majority of the needs for the parking always an interesting mix in this area of people using vehicles versus hopefully getting more into multimodal use as it becomes safer and appreciate the commitment from both staff the

[04:08:08] County with VDOT as well as from the applicants both in this application as well as moving forward to help increase the safety for all and the multimodal needs as we heard not related to this application this has become a different kind of intersection I think it used to be a pretty sleepy corner of the of Merrifield and now has become a little bit more used and traversed and so definitely the needed attention that we need to give it as a county as a whole as well as through VDOT and FCDOT I know that some of the the concerns being

[04:08:46] posed related to existing parking issues and again appreciate that the applicant will be addressing definitely it's on-site parking as well as open to the conversations with the community should there be opportunities for supporting the other existing parking issues that exist from other application from previous applications from them finally I think in addition to the open space that's being used to the I'm looking at the exact I believe 82 workforce dwelling units that are being proposed in this establishment and that those if I'm

[04:09:25] correct are going to be from 30 to 80 percent AMI so we know average median income 30 to 80 percent of that is definitely a need in this part of the community and I know that they are working with Conifer which is a respected developer of this housing type so appreciate the work on that and then finally as we continue to work together and I do recommend that the residents who came to speak today and the communities you are representing will continue to work with us and FCDOT on this ongoing gallows corridor study I

[04:09:58] I know it is a long-awaited study and one of the major important issues of it is to be able to really hear from the community and those of you who know every intersection better than any one of us in the county can know it to ensure that we do everything possible in partnership to improve those so to that I do have some motions now I have a motion I move that the Board of supervisors approve rz 2022-pr-00017 and the associated conceptual development plan subject

[04:10:36] to the executed proffers dated may 18th 2023 and i further move that the board of supervisors approve the requested waivers and modifications contained in the handout dated june 7th 2023 you've heard the motion it's been seconded by supervisor alcorn discussion on the motion any further discussion on the motion as you know we did defer this morning morning's action item 4 because the application will be submitting for additional state support and housing funds and so hopefully if this is

[04:11:12] approved we will be able to target this is what we call that braided or the lasagna funding in order to be able to access additional funds at the state level for the housing development. Yes, and we will take that up immediately upon completion of this vote.

[04:11:30] Any further discussion? Seeing and hearing none. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? And that motion carries. And as we mentioned, we do have a quick item from this morning relevant to the case that was just approved to act on, which is action item number four, designation of the Telestar court site as a revitalization area. And as soon as county staff is ready, we will have them say

[04:12:03] a few words about action item number four. Welcome. Hi, Anna Shapiro, Deputy Director at the Department of Housing. The item is relatively straightforward. This is the approval, this request is the approval of the Telestar court site to be basically designated as a revitalization area under the Virginia housing definition, so this is not related to the zoning of the county, but of the state funding

[04:12:42] sources that we are, or that the development team is applying for by the end of July. Happy to take any questions. Thank you very much. Any questions? Seeing and hearing none. We'll turn to Supervisor Paucek for a motion. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move to approve action item four as recommended by the county executive. Second. Heard the motion. It's been seconded by Supervisor Lusk. Any discussion? Can I just add briefly that I think this is one of those areas of public-private

[04:13:17] partnership. Hopeful that we both receive this funding and allow us to be able to better meet the needs, especially of our revitalization areas, our urban centers, closer to transportation, where we know that the need for housing continues to be an issue to support our community and our continued success. And so I want to thank staff for all their work on this and hopeful that we will receive this funding for the Telstar site. Thank you very much. With that being said, all those in favor of action item four, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? And

[04:13:57] that motion and the previous motion carried by a vote of eight to zero with Supervisor Walkinshaw and Supervisor of Growth having recused themselves. And that brings us on to our next item, which is a public hearing on RZ 2022-DR-00006 FCGP Metro Development LLC in the Drainesville District.

[04:14:25] And if the applicant can reaffirm the affidavit for us. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. My name is Andrew Painter with Walsh Colucci. It's good to see you this afternoon.

[04:14:42] I'm speaking today on behalf of the applicant, FCGP Metro Development LLC. I reaffirmed the affidavit dated May 22nd, 2023. Thank you very much. And are there disclosures from board members? Supervisor Alcorn. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I serve, as the board is aware, as an alternate director on the WMATA board.

[04:15:01] I'd like to ask the county attorney if that means I should recuse myself from this case. Supervisor Alcorn, under a 2013 decision from the Virginia Supreme Court WMATA, is a government entity organized in corporate form, and it is not a corporation within the meaning of the relevant law.

[04:15:20] And based on that ruling, it actually explicitly addressed whether or not members of this board who serve both as members or alternate members on the WMATA board need to recuse themselves, and the court found that they did not because of that governmental status. Okay, thank you very much.

[04:15:36] I will choose to participate in this case, but out of an abundance of caution, I'll also disclose that I have both contributed more than $100 and received more than $100 from Supervisor Lusk for our respective campaigns for Supervisor. Okay. Thank you, Supervisor Alcorn.

[04:15:54] Other disclosures? Supervisor Lusk. I'll just reiterate that I have also received, out of abundance of caution here, I've received a contribution to the Friends of Rodney Lusk from Walter Alcorn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Any further disclosures?

[04:16:11] Seeing and hearing none, I will now recognize county staff for a staff presentation. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm Kathy Lewis with the Department of Planning and Development. The subject property is the WMATA-owned property abutting the West Falls Church Metro Station.

[04:16:28] The site is bounded to the southwest by the City of Falls Church and Virginia Tech's Northern Virginia Center and to the southeast by Haycock Road and the Village and Pavilion condominiums. Currently, the site serves as a park-and-ride metro rail station, which includes two surface parking lots, a five-story parking garage, a kiss-and-ride lot, a bus drop-off, and a stormwater management pond.

[04:16:57] This application proposes to rezone the property to the PRM district for a mixed-use, transportation-oriented development. In addition to the uses listed in this slide, the applicant proposes to retain the existing five-story parking garage for use by Metro Rail riders as well as the stormwater management pond.

[04:17:20] The applicant proposes that development will occur in four phases. The first phase, depicted in turquoise, is the infrastructure, which will ensure that access to the Metro Rail station and bus services will continue unabated.

[04:17:37] Phase 2 includes Building D, which will contain up to 320 dwelling units. It is depicted in yellow. Also included in this phase are the townhouse blocks E, G, and H, depicted in pink. This phase also includes the park area along Haycock Road.

[04:17:54] Phase 3, depicted in purple, includes Building F with 280 multifamily dwelling units, as well as two centrally located parks. Finally, Phase 4 includes Buildings A and B, which are a multifamily residential building and office building abutting I-66.

[04:18:13] Because the site is within a transit station area, the applicant has proposed a design which promotes walking and biking to the metro station. As such, the proposed roads generally contain a single travel aisle in each direction. These lanes are narrower in width, 10 and 13 feet, in order to calm traffic and shorten pedestrian crossings.

[04:18:36] The applicant has placed garage entrances in alleys so that the walk to the metro station is not interrupted by driveways. Finally, the applicant proposes wide sidewalks, shared use paths, and on-street bike facilities throughout the site in order to encourage active modes of transportation.

[04:18:56] The applicant has proposed a number of roadway improvements, including the continuation of West Falls Station Boulevard to the west through this Virginia Tech site to the boundary with the City of Falls Church. Second, the applicant has proffered to adjust signal timing at certain nearby intersections to improve the flow of traffic.

[04:19:18] Third, the applicant is proffered to provide an additional turn lane at Grove Avenue in order to reduce the delay for people turning right onto Haycock Road. Last and most importantly, the applicant is committed to significant pedestrian improvements along Haycock Road between West Falls Station Boulevard and Turner Avenue on the other side of Interstate 66.

[04:19:42] In order to serve the recreational needs of the development, the applicant proposes a network of six parks, which include a sport court, dog park, civic plazas, a pocket park, a linear park, and a children's recreation park. As depicted in the phasing plan earlier, the applicant has proffered to construct the parks to serve the needs of each phase.

[04:20:05] In summary, SAF finds that the subject application has satisfied the criteria set forth in the comprehensive plan for a mixed-use development in the West Falls Church Transit Station area. This concludes staff's presentation, Mr. Chairman. I would note that I am joined here this afternoon with my colleagues from Fairfax County Department of Transportation, Mark Dreyfuss and Nina Amat.

[04:20:30] So if there are any specific questions regarding those issues, they are here to help me answer it. Thank you. Thank you very much. At this time, we'd welcome the applicant's presentation. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Again, Andrew Painter with Walsh Colucci. I would like to, first of all, thank staff for its hard work on this request.

[04:20:49] We have worked tremendously hard over three and a half to four years, both in the comprehensive planning process and then during the rezoning on this. And to ensure that this project goes above and beyond in terms of meeting and exceeding the county's comprehensive plan policies. This project has been born out of a spirit of cooperation between this county, the City of Falls Church, a major transportation agency, a major state university, and the applicant, all of which have come together to sort of jointly envision a new community and attract new investment and boost rail ridership.

[04:21:21] Redevelopment of this site is shown on the screen, and this site, the application property is in green. Redevelopment will complement development that is occurring on the West Falls development site, the former high school site, which is shown in pink in the city of Falls Church, as well as the Virginia Tech site, which is shown in blue, which is anticipated to come before the board next month.

[04:21:41] And when all three sites are developed, it will create one larger 42-acre inter-jurisdictional community that will function together seamlessly and provide approximately 3.2 million square feet of office, retail, residential, and hotel uses. The city, if you've driven past the intersection at Leesburg Pike and Haycock Road, the cranes are up, the city is coming out of the ground with vertical construction, and the request before you this afternoon takes the first step on the county side of the boundary.

[04:22:07] As Ms. Lewis mentioned, this property was included in the July 2021 West Falls Church comprehensive plan amendment. Those recommendations are shown on the left-hand side of the screen, and what's shown on the right-hand side of the screen is what the applicant is proposing. It's about as by the book as one can get with staff, and my hat's off for staff for holding our feet to the fire to make sure that this project delivers on every single one of those recommendations.

[04:22:30] And so we do view this application as a major positive first step in the implementation of the 2021 comprehensive plan amendment policies. I just want to spend a second to talk about the design approach. When we first started laying out the neighborhood, we had to recognize that this site sits at a very prominent location in the county.

[04:22:47] So it has a lot of design opportunity, but it also has a lot of design responsibility, and we've treated it as such. There are five design drivers that we internally have developed through our discussions with staff, Supervisor Faust's office, members of the community, and more. And I just wanted to touch on them briefly.

[04:23:04] The first is that we are providing infrastructure up front. The entire impetus of this project is to achieve WMATA's twin aims of boosting rail ridership and upgrading the aging infrastructure at this station. So, we're providing approximately $30 million in rebuilding infrastructure for WMATA, which, per the joint development agreement with WMATA, has to be completed up front prior to the issuance of any RUPS or non-RUPS for the property.

[04:23:26] So, the emphasis is really on improving the experience for WMATA's customers, construction of new utilities, base paving, new streets, and more. Second, the proposal has chiefly been crafted out of an understanding that pedestrian, vehicular, visual connections between people and places should be celebrated and provided.

[04:23:48] So you will see pedestrian connections between all uses in the metro rail station, which is absolutely vital to the economic health of both this site and the adjacent two sites. Third, we have followed what the board has authorized in the 2021 comprehensive plans recommendation that this be a lower key, quieter residential neighborhood that's supposed to step down in density as you approach established residential communities, but then help drive the demand for retail and office uses on this property and in the city and on the Virginia Tech side.

[04:24:16] So we have played by those rules. We are providing the recommended heights, the recommended densities and tapering and vegetated buffering to adjacent communities. Fourth, we have worked with staff to develop a variety of streetscape activation, placemaking elements, building architectural requirements, landscaping, and more to indicate how individual buildings and blocks may take shape.

[04:24:36] What's shown here is the linear park along New Street 3 with some of the live work units, and you can see the existing WMATA garage towards the right-hand side of the screen in the background. And fifth, and I think perhaps most important, when we first started designing the neighborhood, we really let the open space and the Comprehensive Plans Grid Network kind of guide the layout.

[04:24:56] So you see the grid, you see the open space, and the stationery, if you go out there today, really lacks areas for the community to come together. It's paved with concrete and asphalt. The lungs of the community are simply not being addressed. So in response, we have provided a series of publicly accessible open spaces across the site.

[04:25:12] And I think the key for us, at least, was, okay, how do you get people to come together? How do you get them to socialize and interact? So we intentionally focus on the quality of each space and the types of activities that are taking place in each of those spaces. All these spaces are going to be open to the public at large, not just the residents of this community.

[04:25:29] They're in addition to any individual amenities that may take place on individual blocks. And they're also in addition to the off-site park authority contribution that we have also proffered to. In terms of transportation, one of the biggest reasons that WMATA is so excited is that this project dramatically improves the pedestrian experience.

[04:25:47] This plan is all about changing the typology of this station from one that is vehicular oriented to one that is pedestrian oriented. We are providing a grid of streets and using the urban design framework set forth in the comprehensive plan. We have seven new streets, three alleys.

[04:26:02] We have wide sidewalks. We have a variety of wayfinding signage, street trees, on-street parking, and pedestrian oriented lighting. The three primary WMATA vehicular facilities, which is the park and ride, the kiss and ride, and the bus drop off, Those will all be routed to the exterior of the project so that we can use the interior, the central part, to create placemaking opportunities.

[04:26:23] But they all have individual entrances and drives. And then as Ms. Lewis mentioned, there's a couple of key transportation improvements that are taking place both on the site and off site. And I'd like to highlight two of them. She highlighted in the presentation, but just to talk about it a little bit more.

[04:26:39] The first, and it was shown on the screen, is Westfall Station Boulevard. This is a critical link that will provide a parallel road to Haycock. And it will run from this site all the way to Leesburg Pike through the city site. It will provide internal circulation between this site and the Metro Rail Station. Per the Comprehensive Plan's recommendation, the on-site portion will be open prior to the first RUP or non-RUP for the property.

[04:27:00] And the off-site portion will be open within 24 months after the first RUP on the WMATA property. And we've been working with Virginia Tech to ensure that that occurs. The second major improvement that's an off-site improvement is the Haycock Connector Trail. And this is in response to comments that we heard during the comprehensive plan policy process.

[04:27:19] Some of you all may recall that there was a follow-on motion following the adoption of the 2021 comprehensive plan to create something called the West Falls Church Active Transportation Plan. My hat's off to Commissioner Ollfelder and Supervisor Faust for leading this effort. Six months to get from idea conception to actual recommendations is nothing short of remarkable.

[04:27:38] We are taking on what's known as the Haycock Connector Trail that will run between our site and Turner Avenue over the I-66 bridge. If you go out there today, it is a two-foot-wide concrete ledge. It is not friendly to the pedestrians at all, and we're going to be upgrading that to between a 10 and 12-foot-wide asphalt trail, new concrete barriers, pedestrians crossings, and new sidewalks.

[04:28:00] In terms of landscaping, we're particularly proud of our approach with this. We do believe that this project will expand the mitigation of stormwater runoff. It will ultimately aid in the reduction of the urban heat island effect. Our landscaping will include street trees, opportunities for biodiversity, and really the humanizing of the landscaping.

[04:28:18] In terms of stormwater management, we will upgrade the site to meet the PFM and Stormwater Management Ordinance. But we've also further agreed to meeting the heightened stormwater management recommendations for this site, which results in a 40% reduction in stormwater runoff below the pre-development condition through the use of underground vaults, urban bioretention facilities, and other mitigation measures.

[04:28:39] There is a pond on the property. That pond serves not only the Womata site, but two adjacent communities, the pavilions and villages. We have negotiated an extension of a maintenance agreement with those two communities to provide certainty for the next 30 years.

[04:28:54] There's just a clean, straight 30-year extension that at last provides predictability in terms of division of maintenance costs and leaves the door open for a permanent agreement. And my appreciation goes out to the supervisor's office for kind of encouraging us to negotiate with them and provide some certainty to those two neighborhoods.

[04:29:11] One of the attorneys for the neighborhoods is in the audience today, and I appreciate his work on that as well. In closing, Mr. Chairman, I would just say that as a result of these efforts, this is a unique project in the layout that we think fires on all cylinders in terms of placemaking, in terms of open space, transportation, and mobility.

[04:29:28] And in stepping back and thinking about what this station is today and what it can be in the future, I think it will substantially increase metro rail ridership while reducing auto dependency. I'd like to again thank Supervisor Faust and Commissioner Ohlfelder. I'd also like to say thank you to the McLean Citizens Association. They have done a remarkable job of analyzing the application and being a good partner and providing feedback that we've sought to incorporate.

[04:29:51] We've had more than 40 meetings on this project from the comprehensive plan through today. Those meetings continue. We will continue to have neighborhood liaison meetings. But for today, we appreciate your consideration. And our entire team is here, can answer any questions that you may have. Thank you very much for your time and consideration.

[04:30:07] Thank you very much for that. Let me ask if there are any questions of staff or the applicant. Any questions of staff or the applicant? Let me just ask staff one question, because I think it's been answered already, but I just want to have it reiterated.

[04:30:25] There's been a suggestion that there was not sufficient coordination with the City of Falls Church. And so, you know, obviously this is right on the property line. Can you highlight for us again, and if the applicant certainly wants to weigh in on this as well, but what type of coordination occurred with Falls Church specifically?

[04:30:49] Well, for our part with the plans, they have reviewed the plan. And I've spoken to, I know Henry Zhang with the City of Falls Church has reviewed it and sent a letter of support with it. And I believe that the applicants have been working very closely with the developers on the City of Falls Church side with ensuring that there are these coordinated linkages, particularly West Falls Station Boulevard between the sites.

[04:31:17] Mr. Banner. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I would echo that. They did attend meetings. They attended all of the, they had to send a representative to all of the task force meetings. They did review the plans. As Ms. Lewis mentioned, they did submit a letter for the record supporting the project. We have coordinated with both the city and the Virginia Tech site, which is the intervening project.

[04:31:38] So we are not right on the line. There's the intervening one with Virginia Tech, which will provide a transition between the city plans and the county plans on our side. But we have all worked together to create a coordinated street grid, bicycle network, and public. parks framework. And then again, as I mentioned, they have been in support of this being a predominantly residential community because this will help drive the demand for the retail and office uses on their side of the ledger. Okay, very good. Thank you. Any other questions of either staff or the applicant? Supervisor Palczyk. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. No, just very briefly, if you could describe again, I think you went through it pretty quickly, the HACOP connector

[04:32:17] trail, where exactly that's located and what's that connecting? Sure. And yeah, I guess we can we can go here so um this is the haycock connector trail um it will run between metro access drive which is just east of um highland avenue so it's it's probably one block away from the interstate 66 bridge uh it will go over i-66 uh and go uh to the next intersection which is turner avenue so there will be a new crosswalk there there will be a new pathway there we have a 10 to 12 foot wide path whereas today it's about four feet wide um and then that will link up to the trail that will take you all the way further to Great Falls Street.

[04:32:53] Okay. Any other questions at this time? Seeing and hearing none, this is a public hearing, and I do have two speakers who have signed up in advance to testify, and both of these are call-in speakers. So let me ask first if we have speaker number one, Adrienne White.

[04:33:12] Ms. White, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Can you hear me? We can hear you just fine. Welcome. The floor is yours. Thank you. My name is Adrienne White. I'm the president of the Ellison Heights Montanual Civic Association. Our territory of about 240 single-family homes borders Haycock Road and is directly across the street from the WMATA parcel that is the subject of this rezoning application.

[04:33:38] You should have a resolution from us from the first hearing that states that we do not oppose the rezoning, provided that our conditions, which I submitted, on the applicant, Board of Supervisors, VDOT, Fairfax County DOT, and the County Police Department are met. The conditions are extensive. If I recall correctly, there were 17 of them.

[04:34:00] They were developed to protect our neighborhood and adjacent neighborhoods from the expected adverse effects of the proposed development and are aligned where appropriate with the West Falls Church Active Transportation Study, in which Bob Boggs, our vice president, and I participated.

[04:34:16] The WMATA parcel combined with the Virginia Tech parcel and the City of Falls Church parcel make up a very dense urban development that is largely surrounded by stable residential neighborhoods like ours. I testified about this rezoning the last time you considered it.

[04:34:34] I told you that our association, right across the street from the WMATA property, did not object to the rezoning as long as our conditions were met. That wasn't a ringing endorsement. You approved it, and it appeared that our conditions were not considered by the Planning Commission or the board.

[04:34:53] So much for citizen input. The county has tried to freeze neighbors out of the land use process with ZMOD, and I see that extending to rezoning and other applications that will change our neighborhoods forever. Given civic associations only five minutes to testify on such a huge development are a great way to suppress civic input.

[04:35:22] I understand this application is back for a rehearing because the Supreme Court's invalidation of ZMOD after this rezoning was heard spooked someone. So here we are again. I realize that today the Board of Supervisors can grant the parking reductions, but I must mention our objection to the reductions EYA is seeking.

[04:35:45] Forty-some percent for multifamily buildings is ludicrous. They are making the incorrect assumption that residents can get around Fairfax County without a car, or worse, that we will walk, bike, or take buses. How many of you take buses to get anywhere in Fairfax County?

[04:36:03] If you need to go to a doctor who isn't located at a metro station, and most aren't, you'll drive. That's the same of all residents of our area, the census-designated place, McLean.

[04:36:19] How many of you actually, and I'd love to hear an answer to this, take buses to get wherever you need to go? The transit areas are not the answer to a car-free community.

[04:36:34] This is not New York City. The residents will get the same number of deliveries, in addition, as everyone else around here does. Every day, my neighborhood hosts USPS, FedEx, UPS, food deliveries, Lasership, and other services.

[04:36:51] With inadequate parking, whose parking or street will the delivery trucks block? Will they block the handicapped spaces? The proposed dockmaster is unrealistic. You can't schedule any of the services I just mentioned, and I feel that multifamily residents are being treated as second-class citizens, especially our first responders who may, if they're lucky, be able to lease one of the spaces reserved for workforce housing.

[04:37:30] And should visitors to any multifamily dwelling unit have to pay to park at the WMATA garage or in other paid spaces? The applicant has previously said there were no plans to close WMATA-owned streets.

[04:37:45] However, the latest proffers referenced their closure for events. Last time I checked. We believe this is counterproductive. Access to the WMATA station should always be readily available to the public when Metro is operating.

[04:38:01] We believe the county's intention to create workforce housing is hollow. Here's a chance to do that, but the applicant barely exceeds the minimum requirement, and I could find no differentiation between affordable and workforce housing in the application.

[04:38:17] Please take the opportunity to make a difference, a huge difference, for our first responders and teachers. The amorphous TDM proffers are impractical. They are a wish and a prayer. I could go on. I won't. You didn't appear to be concerned about my community's concerns of the dense development at a metro station in an area without adequate infrastructure surrounding it, and I don't anticipate your concern this time.

[04:38:44] We are stuck with the overdevelopment on the three parcels on Haycock Road that will add thousands of new residents in total to our neighborhood without corresponding infrastructure to support them. Can you name another transportation-oriented development of its magnitude on another two-lane road with an already stressed school system?

[04:39:06] You have my testimony from the last hearing on this rezoning application. We feel abandoned by the officials of Fairfax County who appear to be delighted by this rezoning without considering our conditions that reflect issues and concerns.

[04:39:21] We are worn down. Thank you for referring to my previous testimony on this application. I don't wish to repeat it. I wish you a good afternoon. Thank you. Thank you very much. And speaker number two is Sonia Brihi. Is Sonia on the line?

[04:39:38] I am. Can you hear me? We can. Welcome. The floor is yours. Great. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Sonia Brihi. I'm the Northern Virginia Advocacy Manager for the Coalition for Smarter Growth and a resident of Falls Church in the Providence District of Fairfax County.

[04:39:56] CSG advocates for walkable, bikeable, inclusive, and transit-oriented communities as the most sustainable and equitable way for our region to grow and provide opportunities for all. For disclosure, among CSG's donors and supporters is EYA, one of the developers of this project, who provides less than 1% of our annual budget for our small nonprofit organization.

[04:40:19] Transit-oriented development has always been at the center of CSG's mission and advocacy and we conduct objective reviews of all proposed plans and projects that we comment on. My testimony today on behalf of CSG reflects joint comments that we submitted to you all yesterday with our partners of the Fairfax Healthy Communities Network in support of the rezoning.

[04:40:39] Together, we envision a Fairfax County where people can live, work, and play in connected communities that are healthy, sustainable, and inclusive. This redevelopment presents a great opportunity to do just that, transforming acres of underutilized parking lots at the West Falls Church Metro Station into an inclusive, walkable, bike-friendly, transit-oriented community.

[04:41:01] Providing more homes and jobs in walkable communities at our Metro Station is how we can accommodate future growth with more sustainable transportation options and help reduce vehicle miles traveled and splash our greenhouse gas emissions. This application provides a good mix of uses, including office and ground floor retail.

[04:41:22] It will create approximately 900 new homes, including much-needed affordable and workforce housing, all of it walkable to Metro and the future Route 7 bus rapid transit. This is a well-designed, transit-oriented development that will provide a grid of streets and pedestrian and bicycle improvements throughout the development.

[04:41:40] It's also the right place to reduce parking so close to Metro. Some people do want to live a car-free lifestyle, and this will be an opportunity for them. And for those who still want to drive, there will be ample parking. I want to add that I appreciate the timely implementation of the West Falls Church Active Transportation Study following the approval of the plan amendment in 2021.

[04:42:03] I participated in the advisor group as a Falls Church resident and representative of the Fairfax Families for Safe Street. The study culminated with several community-identified pedestrian bicycling improvements that are needed in the surrounding community. The timeliness of it allowed some of those recommendations to be tied into the redevelopment.

[04:42:21] I'm grateful the applicant will be providing a shared-use path along Haycock between Metro Access Road and Taylor Avenue, crossing over the I-66 bridge, as well as improvements to the Haycock and Great Falls intersection. There are additional bike pad improvements recommended in the study that I urge the county to prioritize and fund to ensure safe access as the new development comes online.

[04:42:43] These include improving the Route 7-Haycock intersection to make it safer and easier for people to cross, providing a shared use path along Route 7 between Falls Church Drive and Idlewood Road, including high-disability crosswalks and rapid flashing beacons across the I-66 ramp, improving the path on the north side of Shreve Road, and implementing a road diet along Haycock between the I-66 bridge and the Falls Church city line to calm traffic, add pedestrian medians at crosswalks, and make room for protected bike lanes or shared use paths.

[04:43:16] These are the types of investments the county should be making to support its transit-oriented development. CSG continues to urge the county to spend less on road widening and prioritize transit station bike-ped investment packages as part of a TOD-first strategy to reduce overall driving.

[04:43:34] This application also includes good environmental benefits and recreational opportunities. We're grateful the plans include open space and linear parks, including the Grove Recreation Area and Natural Play Space and the Dog Park. Redevelopment will provide significant upgrades to stormwater management, including green infrastructure.

[04:43:54] The applicant has also committed to preserving the forested area along Metro Access Road and planting native plant and tree species. On a personal note, I'll add that I'm excited and welcome these investments in my community. I look forward to the vibrant, transit-oriented neighborhood being created in West Falls Church.

[04:44:14] I ask that you vote in favor of the rezoning application. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Breehee. And let me ask if there's anyone else present here in the auditorium that would like to testify on this matter. This is a public hearing. Anyone else present who would like to speak? seeing and hearing none let me ask if the clerk has anyone else who has called in no additional callers um give the applicant an opportunity for rebuttal very briefly mr chairman if i may pull up the map that chose the the overall area first just to respond to some of

[04:44:49] the speaker comments as i mentioned we had 40 meetings on this we sought to incorporate community feedback where possible and again there were two bites of the apple with this there was the comprehensive planning process which was heavily negotiated with the community and then we hit it all did it all again with the rezoning and so at each step of the way we have solicited feedback we have we have met with representatives of the community and where possible we've incorporated constructive feedback concerning the density and over dense development for this and i just bring this up to show on the city side at the intersection of leesburg pike and haycock road the former

[04:45:24] George Mason Junior Senior High School, that is planned and being developed at a 4.0 FAR. When you cross the county boundary and you hit the Virginia Tech side, that jumps down to a 2.5 FAR, so it tapers down. And then when you hit the green, you know, the application property shown in green, that goes to a 0.98 FAR.

[04:45:45] So it's one of those weird things where, you know, it might be the only place in Fairfax County where we have a tapering down in density as you approach the Metro Rail Station site. um so i just wanted to mention that as far as this being sort of an over dense development i would disagree with that um the first speaker also mentioned just short-term loading spaces proper 42d requires those loading spaces be shown with each ftp and in for in terms of affordable housing the westfall search comprehensive plan recommendation calls for a heightened commitment to housing affordability that being a minimum of 15 of for sale units and 10 of rental units being provided as affordable dwelling units or workforce dwelling units and we are meeting that so thank you

[04:46:24] you very much for your time. Thank you very much. Let me ask once again if there are any additional questions from board members. Seeing and hearing none. Closing comments and a recommendation from staff. On June 7, 2023, the Planning Commission voted to recommend approval of RZ 2022-DR-00006 subject to the executed proffers dated April 13, 2023. The Planning Commission also voted to recommend approval of all requested waivers and modifications in the handout dated June 7th,

[04:47:01] 2023, which was also passed out to you. Staff concurs with these recommendations. Thank you very much. Any questions? Seeing and hearing none, I will now close the public hearing and turn to Supervisor Faust for a motion. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm going to put my motion on, make my motion, and then I have comments to follow up. But initially, Mr. Chairman, I move that the Board

[04:47:29] supervisors approve rz 2022-dr-0006 subject to the executed proffers dated april 13th 2023 and i further move that the board approve the waivers and modifications listed in the handout dated june 7th 2023 2023 so moved second i've heard the motion it's been multiply seconded by supervisor palchek supervisor lust uh discussion on the motion any discussion on the motion supervisor

[04:48:05] faust thank you mr chairman i just uh you know have quite a few comments probably uh this application was submitted in response as we stated to the comprehensive plan amendment the board approved in july 2021 that planning effort for the amendment included a task force of area residents and stakeholders who met for approximately two years uh they had multiple uh meetings where the public at large uh were part able to participate uh so with input from other community

[04:48:43] members the task force helped draft guidance that encourages mixed-use development around west falls church metro station to create a vibrant pedestrian realm deliver attractive public space and that is compatible with surrounding communities so since the adoption of that plan the applicant has met with nearby residents many times uh homeowners associations and the mclean citizens association uh in my opinion this was uniquely good uh outreach over

[04:49:16] the process of the plan uh the initial planning process then we had the the trails uh effort that we worked on planning the trails and then the multiple the two rezoning efforts one of which is before us today and one will come in a few weeks so the application was improved dramatically in my opinion by the input from the community and these applicants were very receptive i mean this

[04:49:51] was not a situation where we're pushing back it was a situation where we're encouraging and working with the community. I couldn't have been more pleased with the way it evolved. The overall neighborhood design is based on a creation, as was discussed, of a new grid of streets that will improve connectivity to the broader area.

[04:50:16] In a comprehensive plan, the subject property was planned in a holistic approach. There was a question about coordination. Yes, there was a lot of coordination with the city and with the Virginia Tech application, which is immediately adjacent.

[04:50:37] A critical component of the design is the new spine road. That was, that's a game changer for that area when that road is constructed. And it will be constructed. The commitment is there. So, in addition to the office and retail use, the project will deliver up to 810 multifamily dwellings and 85 single-family attached dwelling units.

[04:51:05] There is a significant number of workforce development units and the affordable housing ADUs under the ordinance that will be delivered. This is, I mean, Mike, I don't know the exact number, but approximately, I think, in the 90 range, which is an affordable housing workforce project on its own, and it's incorporated into this project.

[04:51:32] So I'm very pleased with that. The development's going to meet green building standards. Neighborhood's going to be anchored by six new parks, including two civic plazas, each nearly a half acre in size, a third-acre linear park that will run from the New Spine Road to the station entrance, 5,000-square-foot pocket park, and in addition, over an acre park area that has been set aside for a nature play space, a fence dog park, and a sports court.

[04:52:02] If anybody knows that area now, I think it was suggested. It is not inviting. It is not. This, it will be when they're done. It's going to be a beautiful development. So to improve connectivity of nearby communities to the station area, the applicant has proffered to construct, well, it's been mentioned many times, bicycle and pedestrian trail along Haycock, that the community was adamant.

[04:52:30] They needed, if this was going to work and serve them, the community, as they felt it should. I appreciate Supervisor Paulczyk's efforts. we we work together on this joint planning effort which so we're talking about the drainsville side but in the future we'll be talking about some things that are happening over on the providence side to get the wnod railroad uh trail uh quality of pedestrian bike in this area is going to improve dramatically as a result of this project so in my opinion the project meets all the criteria

[04:53:08] for a mixed-use development option in a comprehensive plan i'm excited about the benefits it will provide to bring to the community and it's not just me it's the community residents who are also excited uh there's a i want to mention there's a pending parking reduction request i think uh ms white mentioned uh that will not be decided today that will be decided on july 11th there's some open issues we want we're still working on uh that came up kind of

[04:53:38] late in the process but uh the i want to say that you know there are basically three communities that are immediately adjacent uh where most all the residents are immediately adjacent some of those residents of uh agent miss white's community are adjacent but most are set back uh the gates at west falls is one of the three community communities closest to the amada site and

[04:54:09] And President Gates at West Falls Unit Owners Association said in an email to the MCA case managers who are reaching out to get input from the nearby community so they could form their own opinion. She said the plans and designs will enhance this neighborhood, improve our quality of life, increase our safety and positively impact home values.

[04:54:36] She went on to state that we believe that the development as designed, in particular, the EYA plans currently under consideration will create a viable, vibrant, and safe community that improves the quality of life and property values in our neighborhood.

[04:54:56] We strongly support the plans and designs as the developers continue to move this project forward. there are two other communities immediately adjacent the villages and the pavilions they've indicated that their communities generally support the development they have issues that we're working on most involving the pedestrian and pedestrian issues at this point many issues addressed and resolved by the development team over the time so mr. chairman yeah it's you know it this is

[04:55:34] really a good project and it's going to create a really good community on the metro transit oriented I need to thank many people and I'm not going to list them all but I do want to thank staff thank you and the applicant as you guys all of you were it was a pleasure working with you were some really rough spots mr. the chairman's probably knows what I'm referring to we had it didn't started out smoothly but uh you guys worked through it and you did a really good job for us

[04:56:10] and i appreciate that and i think it's going to be a really great addition to our community so that's all i have mr chairman thank you very much uh supervisor faust any further discussion let me also uh thank the community i know there were a lot of people involved in this and as was suggested I heard from a fair share of them but I also you know it's pretty remarkable that you know here we are at the public hearing and we had one speaker opposed to the application I think speaks volumes to the amount of outreach the amount of work the amount of meetings the task force work and the

[04:56:47] energy that was put into this because I know it was a heavy lift a lot of questions asked a lot of good answers given both by the applicant and by staff And so, you know, I certainly want to thank the members of the community who are involved, including the ones that were able today to take advantage of our remote participation options here in the boardroom.

[04:57:08] And so it was good to hear from them. But I do think this will be an outstanding addition to the area. And I do think that, you know, these properties adjacent to metro stations, I mean, these are the prime pieces of property in the county where we can accomplish so many goals from workforce housing to parks and to reduction in vehicle trips and encouraging people to use mass transit.

[04:57:33] It's certainly something that is needed with WMATA. And I know these applicants are fully signed on to that agenda as well, and the residents of these properties will be. I mean, that's the reason why you would want to locate in this particular location, is to be able to take advantage of the mass transit options that are in the area.

[04:57:52] And so, again, thank all those who were involved in this, and particularly you, Supervisor Faust, because I know you've put a ton of effort into making sure we get to this point and to do it successfully. And so, congratulations on that. And with that, I think we're ready for a vote.

[04:58:10] All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? And that motion carries. Thank you very much. And our next public hearing is a public hearing on RZ 2022 LE-00012 Beezer Homes LLC in the Franconia District. And as soon as the applicant is ready, if you could please reaffirm the affidavit for us. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. My name is Lynn Struble.

[04:58:48] I represent the applicant, and I reaffirmed the affidavit this dated April 6, 2023. Thank you. Thank you very much. Are there disclosures from board members? Disclosures from board members. Seeing and hearing none, I will now recognize county staff for a staff presentation.

[04:59:08] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's me again, Kathy Lewis, with the Department of Planning and Development. The applicant, Beezer Homes, LLC, requests to rezone the subject property from the R1 to the PDH-8 district to permit the development of 26 single-family attached dwelling units the 3.34 acre subject property consists of five parcels is currently zoned r1 and located on the west side of beulah street and to the immediate south of alfworth avenue of the alfworth avenue intersection it is across beulah street from the future franconia government center the site is currently

[04:59:46] developed with five single-family detached dwelling units that were constructed between 1934 and 1950. The site is generally surrounded by existing residences including the Devonshire townhomes and Windsor Estates. The stormwater detention easement encumbers the western portion of the site for a county stormwater management facility. The applicant proposes to rezone the subject property from the r1 to the pdha district for the development of 26 new single-family

[05:00:19] attached dwelling units at a density of 7.8 dwelling units per acre a private t-shaped street is proposed for the development which will provide both interior circulation and direct access to the site from beulah street the applicant had sought access via alforth avenue but was unable to secure permission from devonshire for use of this private street 47 of the site is open space amenities including a fenced hot lot a picnic area with shade structure grill and tables are proposed

[05:00:53] near lots one through six the applicant proposes to provide on-site stormwater management detention via two proposed underground detention facilities a pollinator garden and buyer retention is proposed in the northwestern corner of the subject property this conceptual rendering shows that the proposed single-family attached dwellings would be three stories in height with two car garages during the review of this application staff and the applicant worked closely to assure that the architecture would be compatible with the neighborhood the applicant

[05:01:28] has proffered that the architectural design of the dwellings will be in substantial conformance with the bulk mass type and quality of materials and elevations shown on the cdp ftp in addition to mitigate the noise impact of beulah street on the subject property the applicant has proffered that a six foot tall fence will be located along the rear of lots 12 through 26. this fence will be constructed with muted or tone colored composite material and feature masonry peers staff finds that the proposed development is in conformance with comprehensive plan and satisfies

[05:02:06] the applicable zoning ordinance provision this completes my presentation thank you very much at this time we'd welcome an applicant's presentation thank you mr chairman and members of the board again my name is lynn struggle i represent the applicant i believe this rezoning application is straightforward so i'm going to keep this brief the applicant was able to assemble five parcels that are zoned to the r1 district and proposes a rezoning of the 3.34 acres

[05:02:40] to the pdh8 district that zoning classification is consistent with the comprehensive plan which recommends residential development at a density of five to eight dwelling units per acre the applicant did work with staff and the community very closely and did put together several iterations of the plan we have consistently proposed 26 single-family attached units at a density of 7.8 dwelling units per acre as was mentioned we could not connect to alforth avenue because that is a private street and the devonshire community opposed that connection

[05:03:19] so we have a single access to beulah i would just note that that is in a location as approved by fcdot and vdot it does not require an access management exception nor does it require turn lane a turn lane we did look at both the deceleration requirements as well as turn lane requirements and that was not necessitated by these 26 homes we also are providing 17 visitor parking spaces we were really trying to strike a balance between the community's desire to have on-site parking and the staff's desire to have open space

[05:03:57] but i hope that we struck that i believe that we struck that balance correctly during this process of course we put together a comprehensive list of proffers a lot of those are probably familiar to you i won't go through them but i would be happy to answer any questions during this process we made several presentations to the franconia district land use committee i'm pleased to say that they recommend favorably and also we've worked with the adjacent community windsor estates with andrew rutledge their representative and we did make some modifications

[05:04:32] to plan in order to address their concerns so with that again i'll be happy to answer any questions i would ask your favorable consideration this afternoon and i would note that in addition to the franconia district land use committee the staff as well as the planning commission has recommended favorably thank you thank you very much any questions of staff or the applicant yes supervisor gross if staff could put up the um the slide that has the um shows the

[05:05:07] two-car garages my question is the two-car garage yes these are front-loading garages is that right correct and so the parking tabulation would be include two spaces in the garage and then it looks like i'm not sure there's room for spaces on the driveway there is and we have proffered to a minimum length of 18 feet so we do have the ability to park in the driveway as well okay and is there a proscription on turning any of the garage space into something that would not allow

[05:05:44] cars we have we have a proffer that requires residents not to convert those garages to living space okay any other use all right that's what i needed to know thank you thank you okay any additional questions of staff or the applicant thank you okay uh this is a public hearing and i have no speakers who have signed up uh in advance to testify on this matter is there anyone present in the auditorium that would like to testify this is a public hearing anyone present who would like to speak on this matter seeing and hearing none let me ask the clerk if anyone has called in

[05:06:20] no one has called in i assume the applicant waives rebuttal closing comments and a recommendation from county staff on may 17th 2023 the planning commission recommended that the board approve rz 2022-le-00012 subject to execution of proffers consistent with those now dated may 1st 2023 The Planning Commission also recommended approval of the requested waivers and modifications.

[05:06:48] Staff concurs with that recommendation. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much. And at this time, let me ask if there are any additional questions from board members. Seeing and hearing none, we'll now close the public hearing and recognize Supervisor Lusk for a motion.

[05:07:05] Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I agree with the applicant's representative. This is a very straightforward application. I'll just make a couple points again Beezer Homes is proposing to develop a 3.4 acre infill lot with 26 townhome units project proposes to rezone the property from the R01 to the PDH 8 district which is consistent with the density of the abutting Devonshire townhome development which is immediately adjacent in regard to the environment this was mentioned but I I think it's perfect to reiterate.

[05:07:41] The application is retaining 47% of the site as open space, which I think we all are aware in the PDH-8 district. Its requirement is 25%. The applicant has also agreed to address stormwater management in a number of ways, including low-impact development measures, which are in their proffers, as well as innovative BMTPs and infiltration techniques, which we are excited to see.

[05:08:09] Additionally, I'd like to acknowledge that the applicant has worked very closely with the community and also with my office. And in response, she mentioned Andrew Rutledge, who was with the Windsor Park community. The applicant has agreed to add additional vegetation and plantings adjacent to the common property lines.

[05:08:32] This additional planning will provide a better buffer between those respective communities. Additionally, in response to concerns that were raised by the community as it relates to trash collecting along the fence line that extends along Beulah Street, the applicant has noted, again in their proffers, that the HOA will provide periodic pickups of trash along lots 12 through 26, which abuts the community fence.

[05:09:01] And then in response to the concerns about architecture, particularly with the rear elevations and the fence, the applicant has agreed that the colors of the front side and rears of the units will be consistent, and the window treatments and trim will be the same on the front and rear as we saw in the depiction.

[05:09:20] And then lastly, which I think is helpful, is that the fence will have a masonry brick or stone pillars as it abuts along Beale Street. so again i appreciate the efforts um to address the concerns that were raised by the community and with that said um the application enjoys as we heard uh support from the staff from the front county district land use committee and the planning commission so with that mr chairman i will make two specific motions uh the first is i move that the board of supervisors approve rz

[05:09:57] 2022-LE-00012 subject to the executed proffers that are dated May 1st 2023 and second I also move that the Board of Supervisors approve the modification of the transitional screening and waiver of the barrier requirement along the southern property line to that shown in the CDP dash FTP. So moved. You've heard the motion. It's been multiply seconded by Supervisor Faust and Supervisor Paucik. Discussion? Let me, I should have asked this earlier. I do have one question,

[05:10:36] but I was having a hard time pulling up the electronic version of the map. And I know that VDOT has signed off on the access and that this has been heavily discussed. But if you could just give me the explanation for why this development couldn't have tied in immediately across from Silver Lake Boulevard. In other words, I realized there's a right in, I guess there will be a right in, right out access to the development, but it's right up almost across the one edge of the property is right across from an alignment with Silver Lake Boulevard across the street, which as

[05:11:14] was acknowledged in the presentation as the future home of the Franconia Government Center, and I'm just wondering, was there an attempt made? I understand the Alforth Avenue is a private street, but I'm just wondering if the access to the development, we looked at coordinating it so that it would be immediately across the street from Silver Lake Boulevard.

[05:11:34] I believe we actually, in our first development plan that we submitted, we did have our access further to the south, And I think that there was a desire, I think it's between FCDOT and VDOT, thought that I don't think that that met all of the requirements for FCDOT and VDOT.

[05:12:04] We would have needed an access management exception in that location, and then by relocating it to where we did, we did not need an access management exception. I don't think that that would have been supported by VDOT in that location. Okay. So in the future, if that intersection was to be signalized, would there be a way for the 26 units in this development to access that intersection?

[05:12:33] I'm just thinking, I mean, it's a write-in, write-out now. I don't know in the future if the warrants will be met for a signal there. I know that's been discussed in the past, and I'm just curious if this application has any provisions to allow your private street, If there's any easements or anything else in place, that it would allow that to extend to a potential alignment with Silver Lake Boulevard in the future.

[05:12:59] I think that there are a couple reasons why that may not be appropriate. First, there is an existing median there, and there's also a turn lane there, I think, that would preclude making that a full intersection.

[05:13:21] Today. Today. Yeah, I'm just, my question is thinking, trying to think forward here, because I've run into this problem before, where a signal gets added later. There's a right-in, right-access to this neighborhood, right-in, right-out access to this neighborhood being proposed. And there's a lot of growth going to happen at the future Kingstown Government Center.

[05:13:39] And if VDOT were to ever warrant a signal anywhere between the Franconia-Springfield Parkway and the existing signal that is further south than this, it would likely be at the intersection of Silver Lake Boulevard. And I just want to know if there's been any provisions put in place to allow this community, should that happen in the future, to be able to easily tie in to that signal if that signal were ever put in place.

[05:14:04] We had not anticipated that, honestly. And I'm going to turn this over perhaps to Ariel, who is with Groveslade, who might be able to provide a better explanation than I can.

[05:14:24] Hi, Ariel Jarvis with Groveslade. And so we have already addressed why the existing site entrance, or sorry, the proposed site entrance could not be, sorry, if we could put the map back up.

[05:14:48] Yeah, could not tie into that intersection because it would be in what we call the influence area or the functional area of that existing intersection to Silver Lake Boulevard. But in the future, so the question is if it could tie in to the future.

[05:15:07] Well, I just my question is, I'm looking at your main travel way that serves all these communities. And I'm looking at the end of it where you have parking and the stormwater facility. And then there's a stub there.

[05:15:23] And my question is, is if VDOT were to ever install a signal there, would there be an easement or something else in place to allow this community to tie into that road easily? Mr. Chairman, if you look at the layout, I think if there was a, right now, you can see that there isn't a unit in the way, that it might be possible to amend the layout to then take the road through that landscaping, perhaps.

[05:15:53] But again, I'm not, I guess you would have to look at the geometry to see if that leads up. But the good news is this layout does not have a house in the way. so it would just require the layout to be amended to show that road connection in the future a couple of other points I would make is I think that we would probably need the cooperation of that property owner in Windsor estates so it wouldn't just be this development that would have to participate and then the applicant also did provide an inter parcel access to the south so that if

[05:16:30] If there is a connection made through Windsor Estates, we could accommodate that. So I think we try to be cognizant of the future, but I'm not sure that we could do that just on this property.

[05:16:46] I think it would have to require the cooperation of others. Okay. My reason for asking the question is I've seen this exact situation before. And later a signal comes, and everyone who lives in this 26-unit development will want access to that signal because they won't want to live with the right in, right out predicament that they're in now, realizing they've bought into that.

[05:17:12] But if there is to be a signal built there, making it as easy as possible for these 26-unit owners to make the choice to want to tie in to eventually access to that signal as opposed to living with the perpetual right-in-right-out movement as something that is not out of the realm of possibility given the activity that's occurring across the street and the existing layout of Silver Lake, which is a pretty significant road coming in almost right across the street from the edge of this property.

[05:17:43] So I wanted to make sure I took the opportunity to raise that issue and to have a discussion here because it may be something, while it might not be immediate term, be something that these property owners in here will we'll have to deal with at some point and we want to do everything we can to make it easier for them not harder to be able to participate in that i think if these property owners wanted to do that they could find an opportunity i think it would require the cooperation of windsor estates but i don't think it's precluded by this layout right okay excellent thank you very much uh any further discussion seeing and hearing none all All those in favor of the motion, please say aye.

[05:18:22] Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? And that motion carries. Thank you very much. And Mr. Chairman, if I could just thank staff for their work on this application as well, because I know that someone had to pick this one up after we lost one of our staff coordinators.

[05:18:40] So thank you very much, Captain. Thank you very much, Supervisor Lusk. And our next hearing is a public hearing on a proposed plan amendment, 2021-4-FS1, 6235 and 6245 Brandon Avenue in the Franconia District.

[05:18:59] And there is no affidavit for this item, so I will now recognize staff for a staff presentation.

[05:19:22] Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good evening. And good evening, Mr. Chairman and members of the board. My name is David Stenson, and I'm accompanied by Salem Bush, and we are both with the Department of Planning and Development. This is the staff presentation for Plan Amendment 2021-Romanumeral 4-FS1, which is proposing an option to the conference of plan for a self-storage facility in the Springfield CBC.

[05:19:48] This plan amendment was authorized by the Board of Supervisors on January 22, 2021, and directed staff to evaluate a plan amendment concurrently with a rezoning application that proposed a self-storage facility with community-serving retail or alternative non-residential ground floor uses up to 7 stories and 175,000 square feet.

[05:20:09] This authorization was for a vacant parcel in the Springfield CBC in conjunction with a neighboring parcel that's developed with a hotel to ensure a coordinated development plan. The board directed staff to consider innovative architecture that does not present as a traditional self-storage facility, and a site design and other measures to achieve the goals of the Springfield CBC.

[05:20:30] The subject property for this plan amendment consists of two parcels that total 4.3 acres. The subject parcel located at 6235 Brayden Avenue is 1.4 acres and is vacant except for a gravel surface parking lot and underground stormwater management facility associated with the adjacent hotel.

[05:20:51] This subject property at 6245 Brandon Avenue is developed with a hotel that was constructed in 2003. No changes in use or intensity are proposed for the hotel site as this parcel is part of the plan amendment to ensure a coordinated development plan.

[05:21:13] The area to the north of the subject property is developed with a five-story office building, and there is also a single-family residential neighborhood located to the north of the office building, which is just outside the boundaries of the Springfield CBC. The area to the south and west of the subject property is developed with community-serving strip shopping centers and freestanding retail and restaurants.

[05:21:34] There is also a 12-story office building located to the south. Interstate 95 is located directly to the east of the subject property. The subject property is part of the Springfield Community Business Center, which is part of the larger Franconia-Springfield area. The Springfield area is comprised of the Springfield CBC and Franconia Transit Station area.

[05:21:55] The CBC is also a commercial revitalization district. The CBC functions as a neighborhood and community-serving retail and service center and is envisioned to function as the community-serving urban village for the larger Franconia-Springfield area. Within the Springfield CBC, the subject property is located within Land Unit A.

[05:22:18] The current plan text envisions Land Unit A as a central node of activity within the CBC, featuring urban and pedestrian-oriented mixed-use development at medium to high intensities. The mixed-use development envisioned for the area should consist of multi-story mid- and high-rise buildings with street-level retail, along with civic spaces and amenities developed under a common design or architectural theme. The plan recommendations and maximum intensities for the subject property are shown on the slide. As stated previously, there is also a proposed concurrent rezoning application as under staff review, which proposes self-storage use up to

[05:22:56] 175,000 square feet and a maximum height of seven stories. The Planning Commission hearing for the rezoning application is scheduled for July 19th, and the Board of Supervisors hearing is scheduled for September 12th. The analysis by staff was guided by the proposed plan amendments conformance with the comprehensive plan. The review included an assessment of the impacts of the proposed plan amendment compared to the existing planning recommendation staff analysis focused on the on the compatibility of self-storage use in the springfield cbc urban design guidance

[05:23:32] opportunities for active ground floor uses transportation impacts pedestrian and bicycle improvements and storm water management improvements staff analysis concluded that self-storage use can be compatible with the goals for the springfield cbc with careful Attention to architecture and urban design including a design that results in a visually appealing building That does not appear as a traditional self-storage facility as well as orient the building towards the street and the inclusion of active on ground floor uses This concludes the staff presentation. Thank you. Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much

[05:24:10] Let me ask if there's any questions of staff not seeing or hearing any I know miss Strobel is representing the original nominator in the plan amendment and we would welcome comments from you Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the board.

[05:24:27] My name is Lynn Strobel. I'm with law firm of Walsh Colucci. And I have represented the owner of Parcel 5C2 for several years now. And unfortunately, this property remains vacant. It is approved. It was approved with the adjacent hotel for a freestanding restaurant.

[05:24:48] In addition, there is comprehensive plan language that would suggest this should be a gateway office building up to a 2.0 FAR which unfortunately is not economically feasible so this property has remained vacant for more than 25 years now so this comprehensive plan amendment that I filed in December of 2019 so it's been a while ago does propose an option that on this vacant parcel there could be self storage so we've made a number of presentations to the lead district land use committee to

[05:25:22] franconia land use committee and i apologize the lead district task force and the franconia land use committee as well as had numerous meetings with the springfield civic association which is the closest community and we have worked through this i think very thoroughly and i appreciate that what we're talking about now is the comprehensive plan but i do want to let you know that this has been a real unique approach to a self-storage building the whole premise was to make it not look like a self-storage building so it will look like an office building we spend an awful lot of time on design again early in the process also a unique

[05:26:01] feature of this is that we will have first-floor retail or community uses and I have a lot of confidence that this will happen because the particular company that is going to be building this has done this they have done this in the past in fact one of our meetings with the Springfield Civic Association There was a gentleman, it's amazing what you can do now, but he had his iPhone, and he walked through the first floor of the building and showed everyone exactly what it looked like and how this could be accomplished.

[05:26:34] So I think that that was, you know, a real great way to show them how this could be something that really will support the vision for the CBC. So with that, I would, excuse me, ask your, the one last thing I will mention is that also the trip generation for this particular use is much lower than an office building, and I think it's something that really will serve the community.

[05:27:01] So with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions that you might have, and I would ask for your favorable consideration of this plan amendment, and I look forward to coming back next month with our rezoning. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ms. Strobel, and you were the only speaker signed up to testify on this matter.

[05:27:20] Let me ask if there's anyone else here present who would like to speak. This is a public hearing. Anyone else who would like to speak on this subject? Let me ask the clerk if anyone has called in. No one has called in. Closing comments and or recommendations from staff?

[05:27:36] On June 27, 2023, the Planning Commission recommended adoption of the staff recommendation, as shown in the staff report, dated May 11, 2023. This recommendation proposes to add a second option to the plan recommendations for self-storage use up to 175,000 square feet for the parcel located at 6235 Brandon Avenue with conditions.

[05:28:02] Staff concurs with this recommendation. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much. Last call. Any questions from board members? Seeing and hearing none, I will now close the public hearing and recognize Supervisor Lusk for a motion. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm delighted to be here.

[05:28:18] This has been a marathon and certainly not a sprint. So, Mr. Chairman, it is my belief that the Brandon Avenue Plan Amendment will serve as a catalyst for the redevelopment of Springfield. As you are aware, the subject property, which is currently 4.3 acres, has been approved for a freestanding restaurant, as noted earlier, and planned for a 125,000-square-foot office building.

[05:28:43] These uses have been associated with the property for almost 25 years, yet no development has come to this site. We all know the challenges facing office today and the outsized pressure on all forms of retail. As a result, this community has not seen any significant development within the CBC outside of grocery and hotel uses.

[05:29:07] So when the applicant approached me about this project, I was very intrigued due to the successful developments that they've built in other parts of the country. Focus on building storage facilities that look like office buildings really resonated with me.

[05:29:23] In-Site's use of the first floor of these developments for retail and co-working spaces also piqued my interest. As I learned more about this firm, I saw the opportunity for this project to catalyze the redevelopment of this site, to bring about the creation of a high-quality office-style building that is positioned at a highly visible location along I-95.

[05:29:48] So again, on June 22, 2021, the Board of Supervisors authorized this plan amendment and added an option for self-storage up to 175,000 square feet at a 3.0 FAR with community serving retail as an alternative.

[05:30:07] Non-residential uses on the ground floor for the subject parcel would be in conjunction with the neighboring parcel currently developed with the hotel to ensure a coordinated development. The board also directed staff to consider innovative architecture that does not present as a traditional self-storage facility with a site design and other measures that would achieve the goals of the Springfield CBC.

[05:30:28] The subject procedural currently has limited prospects for development. It's pretty clear. It's been sitting there vacant for 25 years, has limited visibility within the CBC. However, through thoughtful consideration of architecture and urban design, the self-storage facility proposed by this plan amendment creates an opportunity to advance the goals of the Springfield CBC. This can be achieved by utilizing a design that results in a visually appealing building, again, that does not present as a traditional industrial style

[05:31:02] self-storage facility. Warning the building towards the street and the inclusion of active ground floor uses, the self-storage facility proposed by this plan amendment will positively contribute to the redevelopment efforts and align with the broader vision for the Springfield CBC.

[05:31:21] This broader vision for the CBC has been further supported by the Springfield Market Study that this board supported and I requested and was completed last year. It provides a roadmap for future development of residential, retail, office, and hotel within this central business center. The recommendations and implementation steps that are a part of those findings and that market study will be vetted by staff in the coming months. And so with that, I'll say I'm delighted

[05:31:56] that we've gotten to this place and I want to acknowledge the work of David Stinson. So David's been working on this plan amendment for quite some time and I just appreciate how thoughtful and helpful he has been in working with a number of our community associations, specifically the Springfield Civic Association and the Franconia District Land Use Committee to really help them understand how these self-storage facilities have been built in this region and they've been built to not look like you know storage facilities either built as residential or office in appearance

[05:32:33] he worked closely with these community members to address all issues that came up with the plan language. And as a result of his efforts, he was instrumental in helping us secure the support of the Springfield Civic Association and the Franconia District Land Use Committee for this plan amendment. So with that, Mr. Chairman, I would like to move that the Board of Supervisors adopt the Planning Commission's recommendation for plan amendment 2021 Roman numeral 4-FS1 per the

[05:33:10] recommendation in the staff report did it may 11 2023 and on the motion discussion on the motion let me uh just i'll be very brief because the history is interesting here and this is a site that you know everyone can see but no one can figure out how to get to um and that was the big challenge particularly for a restaurant is great interstate visibility but impossible to find a path to get there um and so you know while there were you know everyone was hopeful for other uses i was glad to see something come along here that could put this property to productive use

[05:33:48] after this long period of time and i must say i know the springfield civic association started out in a different place and and i think the work that you've done the applicants done staffs done supervisor lusk and your office have done has been significant because this is not i know where they were at the beginning of this process and you know if we learned anything from many storage it's something that somebody once told me a long time ago which is never underestimate people's desire to pay more in rent to store their stuff than their stuff is worth and so it's a remarkable uh business principle uh here but honestly it's it's obviously a use that

[05:34:28] is is in demand and i really appreciate uh the work that's been put into making this as architecturally appealing as possible as we continue the revitalization of springfield and so i'm happy to support this uh with that uh all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any opposed any abstentions and that motion carries and that brings us on to our next item which is a public hearing on the acquisition of certain land rights necessary for the construction of little river turnpike walkway hillbrook drive little river run drive in the mason district and

[05:35:08] as soon as staff is ready we would welcome a staff presentation staff is ready we can go ahead and

[05:36:04] start your presentation thank you mr chairman and members of the board i am to share to send a senior right-of-way agent with land acquisition division department of public works and environmental services presenting today this project consists of construction of a variable width sidewalk along the south side of little river turnpike between hillbrook drive and little river run drive the total segment length is approximately 1500 feet land rights for these

[05:36:38] improvements are required on 10 properties nine of which have been acquired by the land acquisition division the construction of the project requires the acquisition dedication for public service street purposes storm drainage easements and greening agreement and temporary construction easements the final property is an unknown landowner air situation so there is no known owner who can convey the needed land rights therefore it is necessary for the board to utilize quick take intimate domain powers to commence construction of this project on schedule land rights needed

[05:37:16] dedication for public street purposes storm drainage easement grading agreement and temporary construction easement the county executive recommends that the board of supervisors adopt the resolution authorizing the acquisition of the necessary land rights for this important Transportation Project. Thank you and staff is here to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. Are there any questions of staff? Any questions of staff? I do have a question if you could put the slide back up. It was a it was interesting to discover that this is although

[05:37:55] it looks like it's somebody's driveway because there are two houses way down the hill that it whoops it's not it it may be accessible as somebody's driveway but it doesn't belong to the houses that are there i'm wondering how that happens because when those houses were built obviously uh because of where they are on little river turnpike you cannot access them from to little river you have to go down this particular driveway which on the plat looks like a sort of a spaghetti farm it's long and skinny um so it would be interesting to look back at some of the

[05:38:32] approvals of years ago and see how that happened but uh we don't need to do that right now it was just very curious that um what looks like a driveway is actually not a driveway in a legal sense yes this uh title work was really really interesting going back and i i really had to go back over a hundred years and to search to try to see if we could find the owner so it's there's a lot of history there so since there is no owner that's been identified and there is a ten thousand

[05:39:04] dollar plus uh value um is it just a a paper transaction so that there's no money that actually gets paid to anybody because we don't know who they are but the money does get deposited with the certificate in case one of the owners do eventually come back and some of the i think the plat that was in here was dated 1934 or 38 so yes okay yes all right well thank you for doing know that that due diligence supervisor gross yes i do have a question of that sorry um i'm pretty excited about this uh this piece if you could pull up again the map i was trying to see the um i love

[05:39:44] that you're connect we're connecting the library in the parks the community but where it has the indian-run court um is is there an existing sidewalk there or is that not included in the project do you have that map up again it is included in the project okay perfect so there no gaps okay excellent well part of the challenge has been um there have been gaps in the past we're fixing that um my desire was to be able to have folks walk from to the library from lincolnia

[05:40:19] all the way to downtown annandale we're finally getting it done if we can do this last little piece thank you mr chairman i hesitate to ask are there any other questions for staff Okay, this is a public hearing, and I have no speakers who have signed up in advance to testify on this matter.

[05:40:37] Is there anyone present in the auditorium that would like to speak on this? Anyone present who would like to speak? Seeing and hearing no one, let me ask if anyone has called in. No one has called in. Any closing comments or recommendation from county staff? The county executive recommends that the Board of Supervisors adopt the resolution authorizing the acquisition of the necessary land rights.

[05:40:59] Excellent. Thank you very much. Final call. Any questions from board members? Seeing and hearing none, I will now close the public hearing and turn to Supervisor Gross for a motion. We're going to make this quick. I move approval of the county executive's recommendation. I've been moved and seconded by Supervisor Palchuk.

[05:41:16] Any discussion on the motion? Seeing and hearing none, all those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? And that motion carries. Thank you very much. Thank you. And that brings us to our next public hearing, which is a public hearing on amendments to the Code of the County of Fairfax.

[05:41:35] Chapter 82, Motor Vehicles and Traffic. And when they are ready, I would recognize our county staff for a staff presentation.

[05:42:01] Good afternoon, Chairman McKay and members of the Board of Supervisors.

[05:42:19] I am Second Lieutenant David Duffett with Fairfax County Police Department. This public hearing is a housekeeping measure to update Chapter 82, the Code of the County of Fairfax, to reflect changes made to the Code of Virginia by the General Assembly. Portions of Section 82-1-6 dealing with the adoption of state law have been amended to reflect these changes.

[05:42:40] Additional housekeeping changes to Chapter 82 have been amended to reflect changes to Section 82-2-8. Authorization of school board to install and operate video monitoring system to enforce law against passing stopped school buses. Section 82-6-39.

[05:42:58] Headlamps on motor vehicles, 82-6-40. headlamps on motorcycles 82-6-43 excuse me dealing with lamps on bicycles 86-2-44 lamps on vehicles and 82-9-2 right of way of pedestrians all these have been amended to reflect these changes to the code of virginia by the 2023 general assembly additional portions of section 82-1-3 dealing with enforcement by county officers section 82-5-29 dealing with removal and disposition of

[05:43:32] certain unattended vehicles and these enact previous changes made by the code of virginia by the general assembly these changes will allow the authorization excuse me authorized uniform employees of the police department to remove motor vehicles these proposed amendments are housekeeping changes and to conform the language of chapter 82 to the state code and this concludes my presentation excellent uh thank you very much are there any questions of staff any questions Seeing and hearing none, this is a public hearing, and I have no one who has signed up in advance to testify.

[05:44:08] Is there anyone present in the auditorium that wishes to speak on this matter? This is a public hearing. Is there anyone present who wishes to speak? Seeing and hearing no one, let me ask the clerk if anyone has called in. No one has called in. Any closing comments or recommendations from county staff?

[05:44:25] The county executive recommends the approval of the proposed amendments to Chapter 82. Thank you very much. Last call, questions from board members. Seeing and hearing none, I will now close the public hearing and recognize Supervisor Alcorn for a motion. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the lieutenant's summary.

[05:44:43] He didn't mention there's also a very important piece about making sure animal-drawn vehicles have both a headlight and a taillight. So we got it all covered here today. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move the county executive's recommendation. I'm happy to second that, along with Supervisor Palchuk and Supervisor Lusk.

[05:45:00] Any discussion on the motion? Seeing and hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? And that motion carries. Thank you all very much. Next, we have a public hearing on an agreement between the Commissioner of Highways and the Board of Supervisors regarding removing signs located within the limits of any highway in Fairfax County.

[05:45:27] And as soon as county staff is ready, we would welcome a county staff presentation.

[05:45:44] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is David Stoner from the Office of the County Attorney. I'm joined today by Gabriel Zakak, Director of the Department of Code Compliance. Virginia Code Section 33.2-1224 prohibits the placement of any sign or advertisement within the limits of any highway in the Commonwealth and subjects any offender to a $100 civil penalty.

[05:46:08] The Code authorizes the Commissioner of Highways to enter into an agreement with any local governing body, authorizing them to act as the commissioner's agent to remove signs and collect civil penalties and costs. The county collects $10 per sign to cover its costs of enforcement.

[05:46:26] In March 2013, after a public hearing, the board and the commissioner entered into such an agreement. The Sheriff's Community Labor Force, or CLF, began collecting signs for the county on Tuesdays through Thursdays. In 2016, the county's enforcement efforts began, and since then, DCC has collected $242,500 in fines, including civil penalties imposed through legal action brought by the Office of the County Attorney.

[05:46:56] Since 2018, the CLF has collected 55,000 signs. The county's sign removal program includes removing illegal signs from at least 99 selected major roads throughout the county. Those signs are stored for five days at the I-66 transfer station, where they can be reclaimed.

[05:47:17] Last year, the CLF informed the board that it no longer had capacity to remove signs. The county wanted to use contractors to remove signs, but the Virginia Code allowed only local law enforcement agencies, governmental entities, employees, or volunteers to act as the board's agents to remove signs.

[05:47:36] The board, as a result, initiated a code amendment to allow the use of contractors. The General Assembly adopted that amendment, and it will take effect on July 1st. To effectuate this legislative change, county staff sent VDOT proposed edits to the 2013 agreement with the commissioner to allow the county to use contractors and to make editorial changes, such as updating statutory references from Title 33.1 to Title 33.2, as an example, and replacing ambiguous wording or legalese with plain language.

[05:48:09] The Virginia Code requires a public hearing before the board, as the governing body of the county, can enter into an agreement with the Commissioner of Highways. If the board authorizes the county to enter into the proposed agreement and have the county executive sign the agreement, DCC will then finalize its discussions with the proposed contractor.

[05:48:28] This concludes my presentation, and staff is available for questions. Thank you. Thank you very much. Any questions of staff? Let me start with Supervisor Walkinshaw and Supervisor Gross. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to start just by thanking and congratulating our legislative team.

[05:48:50] This was one of our initiatives this year, and I want to specifically thank Delegate Rip Sullivan, who carried the water on this. And he is one of a handful of folks in the delegation who are willing to take on the highly technical, non-sexy issues on our behalf.

[05:49:08] So I always try to thank him for that question that I have. And I also appreciate the county executive and you, Mr. Chairman, incorporating this in third quarter review. I raised this issue during the budget process because I think we're going to see some proliferation of signs over the next few months.

[05:49:29] I also think there's kind of a broken windows effect where if we're not out there doing enforcement, there's more and more of them. And people start to think it's something you're allowed to do. So I think it's important to get out there and do the enforcement. The fine is $10 per sign, which I recognize in some cases can add up, you know, if you're some entity that's putting up signs across the county.

[05:49:55] Is that the maximum that's allowed by code, or have we decided to stick with $10 per sign? You're speaking about the administrative fee? Yeah. That's what we came up with in 2016, I'm sure.

[05:50:13] It could be raised, just got to worry about affecting mom and pop type signs. Yeah, sure, I understand. And then I'm trying to just, obviously this is going to be more expensive for us to hire contractors to do this rather than the community labor force.

[05:50:33] But I'm trying to just net out what the costs will be. And the removal costs are $447,000. That's in the fiscal impact. But that doesn't include the revenue that's generated through the fines or the fee.

[05:50:54] Yes, sir. That's correct. Okay. Which it looks like that revenue has come out to $20,000 or $30,000 a year on average. Am I getting that right? That's correct. Yes, sir. That might just be something that we want to keep an eye on. I mean, our costs are going up because of the change in the way that we're going to have to enforce this, and we might have to have a conversation about the $10 in the future.

[05:51:16] But I appreciate all the work on this. And then final question, when do we think we will be able to have contractors out and doing the enforcement? Mid to late July, sir.

[05:51:33] Oh, great. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Walkinshaw, and thank you for the thanks to the various people involved. I also want to thank staff for getting this board matter to me to get this public hearing set up today and to do that expeditiously because there is some magic to how fast we want to get these contractors out.

[05:51:55] It's election season, and in the past, sometimes people running for office have been the chief violators, And we want to make sure that in well in advance of Labor Day, which is when there's usually a mad dash and sign proliferation, that we are ready and to the point of the broken window to not give an inch.

[05:52:16] because once we do that, then this job becomes a lot more difficult. And so getting this public hearing on the agenda today this quickly to take advantage of what we needed to get done at the General Assembly to enable contract to be in place and to allow enforcement to begin in July is absolutely critical from a timing standpoint.

[05:52:35] And so just another piece of the puzzle here to make everyone aware of. Supervisor Gross. Thank you. It was a long time coming to get this done in the first place back in 2013. So I'm really glad to see that, even with the hiccups that we've had, that we're going to be able to, hopefully be able to, address this quickly.

[05:52:56] But I do have a question. The Virginia Code generally prohibits signs within limits of highways. We had an election last week. There were a number of people in Mason District running.

[05:53:12] I advised them when they put their signs in the middle of the roadways that they weren't supposed to do that. and the response from at least two of them was, the county said I could do it within 30 days of an election. I said, I think you got the wrong information. So I want to clarify that, David, maybe you can clarify, I don't believe that the 30 days exists anymore. That was an old rule.

[05:53:43] And also to make sure that our staff is giving people the right information and not the wrong information. Can you address that? I would defer to the actual text of the zoning ordinance on that, but I believe you've correctly stated that the rules have changed with respect to that timing, but I don't have that text in front of me. Okay. Well, I guess my request would be that the county's departments that would most likely be asked the question should have their staff armed with the appropriate information

[05:54:21] so that when a candidate asks about posting signs, because they're the ones who might ask, that they can be told the correct information instead of the supervisor having to go after them and say, ah, ah, ah. So just a word of caution.

[05:54:37] It would be helpful. We have a lot of people on staff who've been here a long time, may not have been aware that there had been a change in that. I mean, it used to be 45 days and it was 30 days. And so now it's, you know, get rid of them. Put them in yards. Don't put them on the main streets.

[05:54:52] What might be helpful is code compliance does a pretty good flyer on things that then we can put in our newsletters and make sure the public is aware. If we could get a clarifying document from them on this question of signs in general, I think would be great.

[05:55:08] Temporary roadway signs and political signs, I think it would be great for us to share that information to just clarify some of the issues that have been raised. Thank you. Okay. Supervisor Herity yeah, I know in the past on this before I make my comments But in the past the Office of Elections have actually sent out the letter To the registered candidates and that might be the best thing for DCC to work with the Office of Elections And and I think where the 30 days comes from because this rumor floats around out there You get a notice of violation you got 30 days to remove it But that's not the case if it's not on property on private property because they remove it right away

[05:55:44] So we just want to, we probably, and that's the, I know we had a lot of these issues when this was first done. And while we're thanking people, Delegate Albo kind of carried the weight originally on this. And working with him and Supervisor Smith, we were able to get it done. And I know back then, Chairman Boliva and I used to trade phone calls back and forth with each other to, I'd call her.

[05:56:08] There was somebody complained about a Democrat sign. She'd call me if somebody complained about a Republican sign. But happy to do that if you get any calls, Jeff. I got some for the ones in front of the building that are still out here right in front of the government center. I can give you a list. Okay. Well, I've got a whole bunch in front of the West Springfield office because they're all still there.

[05:56:32] All of them are still there. This is why I have a pickup truck or one of the reasons. But you've got to be careful picking up other people's signs. Oh, don't worry. I'm not touching the Republicans. Anyway. All right. Let's keep order. So anyway, what was I going to say?

[05:56:49] I was going to say I'm glad we're getting this done before this round because in 2011 when this came forward, there were 99 candidates on the ballot. I think we're probably going to be over 99 candidates on the ballot this time, so it definitely needs to get done. Yep. Thank you.

[05:57:05] Supervisor Poucher. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think a lot has been said about political science here. I appreciate this work because I know my community, a lot of frustration and the inability to be able to remove commercial signs and other signs that are in the right of way so just to be clear I know that gets a little bit confusing when we have polling locations and community buildings and public buildings and public sites that might have campaign science but that's not what we're discussing here here we are discussing just to be clear the right of ways and the highways which we unlike Arlington and other surrounding jurisdictions do not allow any of those signs but we also

[05:57:44] cannot take them down so it doesn't make sure that I'm understanding that correctly that I think some of that communication that needs to go out to the community and also to our staff because they're they're worried they get scared sometimes that they're gonna overstep especially when they might be political signs and what's allowed and not allowed but just want to get clarity that that that's correct the way I'm reading this that's correct we're talking about the signs in the meeting in the meeting okay so i do i mean i agree because it's especially because the next cycle is important to get that information to us to the community to our employees but also to clarify this is just about the highway sign signs in the highways in the right of way

[05:58:23] which we no longer have a program that we're allowed to use uh to take those down when they can be quite frustrating um in those rights away that's correct we'll work on some resources like the chairman mentioned okay and i just want to thank uh again all of you and staff who've worked on this i know it's been a tricky situation and hopefully this can be a new but different effective program in removing those those signs so thank you okay um now that we've all shared our opinions uh this is a public hearing and i have no speakers who have signed up uh in advance to testify uh let me ask if there is anyone present who would like to speak anyone present

[05:59:02] who would like to speak on this matter and let me ask the clerk if anyone has called in uh no one has called in um any recommendation uh i think i know what it is but let me get county staff to share a recommendation with us the recommendation is that the board authorized the entry into the agreement by the county thank you very much uh last call questions from board members uh supervisor

[05:59:34] stork i just want to clarify you said median that does it include right away as well so it's both the median and the right-of-way on a transportation yes sir that's correct and i the ones that were shown on the map at least for mount vernon richmond highway corridor is richmond highway but also portent road is it exclusively those roads so that other roads that get signs put on them there's no enforcement available even if there's a complaint arising for that particular road we

[06:00:12] limited to the 99 roads at this point we've we've discussed uh adding roads in the past but i don't know i think we have to go through the board to get extra roads on the list i'm raising that because i know particularly over the next many months they will be proliferating peripherulating and and that those are many other roads in addition to that that are still more significant roads but maybe obviously don't rise to the level of the volume of traffic for the ones that you've identified so i support what you've identified but i also recognize that there'll be others that we'll get calls or complaints about that there's no county response to that correct at

[06:00:51] this point there's not sir thank you okay um and on that point uh supervisor stork perhaps we can have a follow-up conversation on that in the context of the the fine amount because you know this was originally set up because of resource constraints um especially when the sheriff's office was running this you know they only had potential to reach certain places and And it's a massive, huge county.

[06:01:18] And we started with the high visibility roadways to send a message, which is also where, coincidentally, most of these signs were. And it has been remarkably successful over the years in controlling sign proliferation. And so certainly open to further conversations on that.

[06:01:35] But I do think it's important we get this done today to at least not lose any ground. and we can certainly have other conversations now that we have this structure in place and the flexibility of using this structure to perhaps maybe broaden that with private sector contracts.

[06:01:51] So we can certainly have that conversation down the road. Mr. Chairman, not to belay the point, but I do want us to consider increasing the fee, and I think we need a process for doing that, and I'm just putting that on the table for that same conversation.

[06:02:09] That's exactly what we've said. It's not in the context of what we're trying to do here. Let's get this box checked, and we can certainly review the fee structure, especially in light of the fact that now there is a major expense here to the county that before was different with the help of the sheriff's office.

[06:02:26] That is not likely coming back. So this is a new expense to the category and to the county and a candidate for looking at how much revenue we're able to raise through the program to pay for the program itself. Did you want to add something, Mr. Hill? Yeah, I was going to ask Mr. Zakkak to send the list to the board of the 99 roads so everybody understands what the roadways that were adopted, I think, in 2011.

[06:02:54] We have it here, but we want to make sure everybody sees what we have today. And you may want to add, as Supervisor Stork stated about increasing fee, we may want to do that as well as add roads at the same time. Right. That's exactly what I had just mentioned. Okay.

[06:03:10] Okay. With that, I think we're ready to vote. Mr. Chairman, I need to make the motion. Oh, you're right. You're right. You have not made the motion. Supervisor Alcorn. Thank you. I move that the board enter into the agreement with the Commissioner of Highways regarding removing signs located within the limits of any highway in Fairfax County and substantially the same form as set forth an attachment one to the agenda item in the board package.

[06:03:38] Can I further move that the board authorize the county executive to sign the agreement? You've heard the motion. It, not surprisingly, has been multiply seconded. Any further discussion on the motion? No further discussion on the motion. All those in favor, please say aye.

[06:03:54] Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? That motion carries. And again, David, Gabe, thank you very much for your work on this. Much appreciated. Thank you. And with that, we are going to move on to our last public hearing.

[06:04:10] before public comment and that is a public hearing on proposed plan amendment 2021-4-S2 Villa Park Road located south of Villa Park Road and west of the ramp between Backlick Road and westbound Franconia Springfield Parkway in the Franconia District and we will now recognize county staff for a staff presentation. Thank you Mr. Chairman. My name is Sophia Fisher with the Department of Planning and Development. I'm joined by Graham Owen also of DPD and Tom Burke of FCDOT I'll note also that the applicant for the concurrent rezoning is also present today.

[06:04:49] This plan amendment, 2021 Roman numeral 4 S2, was authorized by the Board of Supervisors on March 23rd, 2021, and asked staff to consider a density of up to 8.5 dwelling units per acre.

[06:05:05] That would have allowed for a total of 49 dwelling units on the site. The plan amendment is being processed concurrently with a rezoning, which is currently proposing 42 townhouses or density of about 7.2 dwelling units per acre.

[06:05:23] The subject site, outlined in red, is currently planned for residential use at 4 to 5 dwelling units per acre. To the north is residential use at 8 to 12 dwelling units per acre, which is developed with a townhouse community.

[06:05:40] to the west and south is residential at four to five and one to two dwelling units per acre, and property to the west is developed with single family residential, and the property to the south is developed with townhouse residential at approximately eight dwelling units per acre.

[06:06:03] These are views into the site from the adjacent roadways. As you can see, the site contains a large amount of vegetation approximately 88 percent of the site is currently forested and this is a view of the surrounding area including single-family homes on stringer court and wesley road and the ground grandview and villa del rey townhouse communities which are to the north and the south of the site these are some of the issues that staff considered during the review of the plan amendment

[06:06:39] staff studied 8.5 dwelling units per acre which was authorized with the amendment and determined that it would not be able to meet the other priorities on the site with the 49 units that would result from 8.5 dwelling units per acre such as tree preservation storm water management and open space additional considerations during the review of the planned amendment included buffering to existing neighborhood residences, roadway connections and access, and impacts to public facilities and infrastructure. Many of these considerations are governed by existing

[06:07:17] plan policies and are further evaluated during the rezoning process. Staff determined that a recommendation of five to eight dwelling units per acre would be appropriate for the site. This would allow for up to 46 dwelling units to be constructed and the development type which would be townhouses is compatible with the existing development in the neighborhood this is the most current layout proposed by the applicant for the associated rezoning again that's 42 townhouses and about 7.2 dwelling units per acre as with any rezoning going through the review process this layout

[06:07:57] may change before the rezoning comes to the board at this point public hearing hearings are not scheduled on the rezoning. Staff held two community meetings on the planned amendment, one in September 2022 prior to staff report publication, and one in April of 2023 after the staff report was published. The discussion at both meetings focused more on the proposed rezoning, specifically traffic and parking. Note that the proposed townhouses actually generate fewer trips than the 29 single-family houses that could be constructed

[06:08:35] under the current plan recommendation of four to five dwelling units per acre. This concludes my presentation. Thank you very much. Are there any questions of staff? Any questions of staff? Yeah. Supervisor Faust. Does the rezoning require an exemption from the tree ordinance requirements for the site?

[06:09:05] We've been working very closely with the applicant throughout the entire process. on tree preservation the current proposal is meeting tree preservation i understand that might change a little bit with a future submission but they are currently meeting the tree preservation with the current submission without an exception without any exceptions uh without any exceptions yeah what's the requirement um so tree preservation is um the overall open the overall 10-year tree

[06:09:38] canopy requirement on the site is 20 percent of that 88 percent needs to be met through tree preservation and so that's approximately 45 000 square feet give or take a couple hundred thanks supervisor lusk yeah thank you mr chairman um i just wanted to maybe articulate that we've gotten an inquiry from the most recent adjacent community and they've asked a couple of questions which I think we definitely want to try to pursue a response.

[06:10:15] I know that there's a connection between the rezoning and the plan amendment, which right now I think we still have to kind of consider because the language that we would be adopting in this plan amendment would affect our ability to do something different with the rezoning.

[06:10:35] So let me articulate what the concern is, and I might have to ask Sophia if she can put up the map that shows the interpersonal, the connection between Wesley and what would be the new street. But you don't have it in, like, Google, right?

[06:10:52] So you can't really see what it looks like today. Let's see. All right. I guess that connection we'll have to do.

[06:11:09] So the issue, just so everyone has a sense of it, is that today Wesley Road is approximately 21 feet in width. It's a smaller, narrower road in the subdivision that does not have sidewalks or curb and gutter.

[06:11:31] And after driving, and I drove through the community several times and spent extensive time trying to figure out how this might play out, And I'm now of the impression that if we were to have cars parking on either side of Wesley and then having folks try to drive and walk in the street, we would be creating a significant hazard for both the pedestrian and the driver.

[06:12:03] So I don't want that to happen. So what I'm trying to figure out right now is a couple of things. One, if we can place no parking signs along Wesley directly and just to ensure there's no parking on either side of that street if this connection is going to happen, one.

[06:12:23] Two, the community has asked about the language which addresses this tree-safe condition. And right now, the language is very specific in saying that we will fully meet the tree preservation target.

[06:12:44] I would request, and my intent is to move language that would take the word fully meet out, strike the word fully meet, and then add the words to the extent possible or feasible, to the extent feasible.

[06:13:03] Because I think we've got to continue to work with the applicant to try to figure out what's the best kind of option as we balance this question on the impacts of pedestrian safety with regard to this new development.

[06:13:21] So I just wanted to first ask if maybe Tom Burke, who's here, on this question about the no parking, just so we have an answer, at least the community can hear you responding to that here directly. Sure. Tom Burke, Senior Transportation Planner with the Department of Transportation.

[06:13:39] So the county and the DOT does have a residential parking permit district program where no parking signs could be perhaps a mitigation. Unfortunately, though, the problem has to arise first, so you wouldn't be able to do it at rezoning.

[06:13:59] You'd have to wait for it to all play out, and then if the parking becomes a problem, then you could address it at that point. And VDOT also has a program where they could potentially put no parking signs, but I believe that's more of a safety angle. They would come in from a safety angle, and if it's deemed unsafe for on-street parking, they would potentially put signs up as well.

[06:14:19] But I believe that's also after the issue arises. Okay, so there's nothing that we can do proactively to try to address this? Not that I'm aware of. I did speak with a few people at DOT, and they were all saying that it would have to be something that you deal with after the problem arises.

[06:14:39] Okay, that's not as comforting. I mean, the problem is we can already see if this condition arises where people are parking on either side. It is going to limit the through abilities on that street.

[06:15:00] and recognizing there's no sidewalk, that people are walking on the street at the same time as the vehicles are driving. So I just really am having some pause with regard to that. I did just want to add that while you are correct, the pavement is about 21 feet in width.

[06:15:17] The right-of-way is about 50 feet in width. So technically, you could park your car on the grass off of the pavement. I don't know if people... It's a ditch segment. So you basically have a drop that's about 3 to 4 feet. once you get past the edge of the pavement.

[06:15:36] So even though you're probably right, it's wider, but you don't have the ability to access that wider segment because you're going to end up inside the ditch. That would be bad. And that's where I'm going. I mean, we've looked at this, and it just really isn't so clear to me. I'm sorry. Yes.

[06:15:54] Okay. I think we have another option. So we might want to talk to the fire marshal's office about this as well. So let me put that on the list of options here.

[06:16:17] But so just so where I'm clear, I apologize. I know this is a little digressive, but I just want to be very specific that we want to ensure the safety of the residents who live there and that the new development, which intends for the language that we have.

[06:16:33] We're basically saying the last bullet vehicular access should be provided from Villa Park Road. Secondary access should be provided from Wesley. So we're basically saying we want this connection to happen, and that's what this language is suggesting.

[06:16:50] So that's why I'm trying to be careful here before I say yes to this language to make sure that we're mitigating the impact that would be coming as a result of it. So just trying to figure out how to process it.

[06:17:06] Let me ask you maybe a question that will help a little bit. I mean, first, for people watching, we do want to make sure people understand this is a plan.

[06:17:23] amendment. We're not at the rezoning stage by any strategy. I mean, I appreciate the desire to try to head off some concerns, but looking at the map, you know, it doesn't appear, and I know we're both really familiar with this area, you know, it appears like these roads were laid out purposefully to provide access to this property, and I'm not sure there is another access point that has better infrastructure to serve this particular parcel, and maybe a better question from a plan amendment standpoint is? Did we look at connecting in any other locations and what are the shortcomings of

[06:17:58] doing that? So the primary access is from Villa Park Road and the transportation study does show that most of the trips would come in from Villa Park Road, which is, I'm going to try to move my cursor here. That's not working. Anyway, it's at the top in the northeast corner of the site is Villa Park Road.

[06:18:30] So the secondary connection to Wesley, and that's why the bullet was written that way, is the primary connection from Villa Park and the secondary connection from Wesley. That's for connectivity purposes, emergency egress purposes.

[06:18:47] The trip generation distribution, as I noted, shows that very few of the trips are actually anticipated to come out Wesley. But we do think that it's an important connection, and Tom can provide additional details on that.

[06:19:06] Yes, we believe that the connection is beneficial to not only the Villa Park community that hasn't been built yet, but it would be beneficial to the surrounding community as well. It provides alternative access connectivity, not only for vehicles, but for pedestrians and bicyclists. It provides more ways for not only cars to get around, but fire trucks and ambulances and police cars.

[06:19:30] If Bill of Parks blocked or Ben Franklin's blocked for some reason, you have the alternative access to come around. I don't know what the word would be called, but we just think that it makes sense from a planning standpoint to provide the connection in order to maximize people's ability to get around it.

[06:19:48] People in Springvale would be able to have alternative access to get out to Backlick, just like people in Villa Park might have alternative access to snake around up to Old Keen Mill. Right. Okay. And, you know, the no parking piece is frustrating that you can't head this off.

[06:20:08] I mean, I do remember when we had language in a case that required that to be looked at, and then we learned later that you really can't even have that because you have to meet the standard. And at the time, the standard didn't exist because the street didn't exist.

[06:20:24] And so while that's frustrating, I mean, I understand from, you know, VDOT's standpoint why you have to demonstrate the problem before you can put up no parking signs. But, you know, I'm obviously conscious of the concerns the community has here too. Now, that section of Villa Park Drive that is the primary access, I mean, that has pedestrian facilities, that has curb and gutter.

[06:20:47] That is the main entrance into this neighborhood. And I presume the street going through the proposed new subdivision, and we're not to that level stage yet because we're not at the rezoning, but I presume, I mean, obviously that street's going to be required to have the same treatment.

[06:21:03] So if anything, the people on Wesley, while their existing street doesn't have that improvement, this does bring that full street section up to where Wesley right now terminates. Is that right? And so the reason I say that is because obviously in the future, if there were improvements to be made to the right-of-way while there's a ditch section there now, I mean, you know, obviously there had to be community buy-in.

[06:21:26] But there would be a street standard that's been established now that's not there today that future expansions could line up to. Is that a fair assumption? Yes, sidewalks will be provided with the new development.

[06:21:42] Okay. All right. I just wanted to make sure, you know, I was clear on that. No, and I'll say I appreciate the comments, Mr. Chairman, but, again, it doesn't get to the heart of the problem on Wesley. I think this problem still exists, and I guess maybe what I might try to consider here, the word should isn't a guarantee it's going to happen, and then maybe is there a way to add consideration of an emergency access only option as well.

[06:22:14] So we don't preclude that with the language that's here if it turns out that that's something that we need to consider as well. So is there a way for us to give that flexibility as we're working through the rezoning?

[06:22:35] Thank you, Supervisor Les Grayman with Department of Planning and Development. A couple of considerations. We did talk during this process about emergency access only. But for some of the reasons that both Sophia as well as Tom elaborated on regarding just general connectivity, there was a real emphasis on trying to get, you know, a general connection to Wesley.

[06:22:57] One thought regarding that third bullet to try to capture the intent of what the Springvale community has been kind of, you know, interested and concerned about would be to add language, you know, regarding pedestrian safety. and so that you would have you retain the access point but have language that notes that pedestrian safety should be considered you know with that connection so that you're kind of capturing the intent of that it would be something that in terms of the rezoning and discussion about the rezoning you have the ability to carry that forward so that the the conversation can continue and that that's memorialized in the conference i might argue i might argue that it's both pedestrian and vehicular

[06:23:36] safety it's vehicular safety for those who are trying to drive when there's cars possibly parked on either side of the road see i'm not limited just to the pedestrian that's that's that's the problem if again i just feel like this isn't a responsible way to approach this future development i feel like we're maybe we shouldn't tie our hands at the plan amendment stage if we know that we have a potential problem in the rezoning i know we normally don't do it this way but since we have both projects that the rezoning and the plan amendment before us essentially at the same time

[06:24:12] we have a sense of kind of what the applicant is proposing and we have a sense of what the community is raising concerns about those concerns aren't going to go away after we approve the language here today so i'm just trying to make sure we have that flexibility so i'm just going to ask again if is there any way that we could still look at this issue from the point that's raised here

[06:24:38] Look at the primary and secondary access, but still have an option if we need to look at a singular singular point of entry for emergency access from Wesley, just in case we determine that that's the more appropriate way to ensure vehicular and pedestrian safety.

[06:25:03] This is Leanna O'Donnell with DPD. I think we could I think we could work on that last bullet to get to those points. And I'm happy to do that now or if you'd like to, I think we could add to get to, to get to these points. Graham mentioned language, getting at prioritizing the pedestrian and vehicular review of pedestrian and vehicular safety, safety considerations.

[06:25:29] We could also, we could tie it specifically to the Wesley road, the statement about Wesley road. And we can say something that something along the lines of should be demonstrated. um for that for that access point that would make that would make me feel a lot better okay um and i'm sorry can can you repeat that because and i didn't put it in a sentence format when i because now i'm starting to get concerned because this is not what we advertised and so yeah i'm starting to get worried here about what we're doing so can you can you repeat that a little bit usually these things are especially traffic are like on the front end of the

[06:26:06] conversation on a planned amendment not at this stage and so i'm starting to get worried about on the fly changing things that weren't advertised especially since not connecting this road could also affect a lot of people here so i want to make sure i understand exactly what the language is that's being proposed i'm not precluding having the road extend i'm just including the opposite option for it possibly not to the way the language is written now it's it's really more directed to have right what i want to hear is what the actual language and i mean to your point mr

[06:26:42] chairman if we um and and and supervisor lesk if you'd like us to look at at adding language that gets at pedestrian vehicular safety um you're demonstrating that pedestrian and vehicular safety issues are addressed right um we could do that and we could provide that uh to the board and we can get it on our website and all that and you and come back for a decision um as one option uh the rezoning i think sophia mentioned that the rezoning um hearings are not yet scheduled is that correct um and so so we could we could look at timing for that and bringing that back uh to your point about

[06:27:22] if the community wanted to look at it as well yeah and and so and so that would mean a motion to defer the decision only to allow for consideration of that potential plan change think it's gonna probably have to do that when when does the staff at the next board meeting is that what we're considering yes I think we could make

[06:27:57] that work at the next one yes we don't have any public hearings at the next board meeting so we have to be 26 of July okay if I could just add that clearly that will be after July 1st and so that's also another factor that you need to consider if you are interested in deferring decision oh my gosh yeah all

[06:28:35] right um I'm just trying to figure out like if I so we really can't make any of those changes now okay hold on a second we can make changes now I guess what I'm concerned about first of all this is a plan amendment not a rezoning right so we got a long way to go here. We do. I am concerned this issue was not thoroughly addressed at the beginning of this process. I mean, this is a pretty large issue to land in our lap the day

[06:29:09] we're supposed to approve this. I mean, this has gone through a long process, and problems with existing streets around this facility that aren't within the land area that is being proposed for the plan amendment, you know, those have been existing and longstanding, and obviously those things are going to have to be addressed over time. I guess what I'm concerned about is making any significant changes to what has been advertised and already discussed with the community without understanding perhaps what the other impacts of making those changes are while we're sitting here. And there could be a lot of people in the community, other people paying

[06:29:49] attention to this, and might have great concerns with the fact that that road might not connect, just like people have concerns with the fact that it might connect and what i'm concerned about is approving a plan amendment here at the last moment with changes to it that are pretty significant can have a pretty profound impact not only on the existing neighborhoods but on the new neighborhood as well and on emergency access and planning that has done up to this point uh with the road layout in that area knowing that there's limited access into this community as as we know it uh today and And so my concern is not that we don't make changes to it.

[06:30:24] My concern is if we are going to make changes to it here, you know, let's be really clear on what those are and make sure that we're comfortable that they're not significant enough, that they are measurably different than what was advertised and discussed with the community before. And that's why I'm a little bit concerned that this is coming at this stage of the process.

[06:30:44] And that's where I am on it because these things, you know, usually get tied down a lot earlier. This is the first I've heard of this concern with this plan amendment. And I just want to make sure that if we make a change here at the dais, that it's a change that we understand the full impact of.

[06:31:01] Because this is a plan amendment. So this language will be here as a guiding force for redevelopment if any rezoning even comes forward. It's going to be there. And so we're making a big decision about access to those existing communities here today that becomes part of the comprehensive plan and will guide the review of any rezoning that might come forward in the future.

[06:31:23] And so that's big deal stuff. And that's what my concern is in trying to make sure I understand this. Yeah, and I'll just make this point, Mr. Chairman. The community has reached out to me just recently to articulate this. So this isn't like I waited and bringing this to the last second.

[06:31:41] I'm trying to be responsive to the residents who have come to me, and they're the ones who are going to be the most impacted as it relates to Wesley. I'm just trying to do the right thing here and make sure I identify the issue and see if there's an appropriate solution.

[06:31:57] So that's the only intent I have here. And I hear you on the lateness of it, but I'm just trying to figure out what's the best approach here. And in those cases, Supervisor Lusk, as you know, probably the best thing to do is to defer it because that's a big change.

[06:32:13] And normally, you know, we're not talking about the difference in a foot of sidewalk here. For something this profound, my recommendation would be to defer it, re-advertise it. As frustrating as that is, but we want to get this plan amendment language right so that it guides future development in this area and will be there in the comprehensive plan presumably for a long time.

[06:32:35] And so my recommendation would be that we do that and get this right. But it's your call. It's a plan amendment in the Franconia District, and it will be what motion you want to make on it. Okay. I guess then the question is, again, it's July 27th is when it would come back.

[06:32:56] 25th, excuse me. Mr. Chairman, could I just ask a question? Yes, Supervisor Alcorn. You've not called the public hearing yet, so would it be deferring the public hearing or just the decision only? Decision only. I mean, what we have advertised is the public hearing.

[06:33:18] I have not opened the public hearing yet, so let me ask the county attorney that. just question I think since you haven't opened the public hearing that you need not do so at this time and you're deferring the public hearing to July the the second July board meeting we're deferring the entire thing that's correct that's probably better and then you'll start over from the beginning on that date before I got it okay supervisor lost then based on that do you have a motion yes mr. chairman I would move that we defer the

[06:33:56] Public hearing for Plan Amendment 2021-4-S2 in the name of Villa Park Road to a date certain of July 25th and at a time, July 25th at 3 p.m.

[06:34:14] You've heard the motion and multiple seconds. Any further discussion? Any further discussion? Seeing and hearing none, all those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? And that motion carries.

[06:34:30] Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I apologize to my colleagues. I know this was probably a little more arduous than it probably should have been, but just, again, trying to be responsive and think through what's the best strategy. So thank you for your indulgence. And to the applicant, thank you as well, and we'll be in touch, okay?

[06:34:46] Thank you. Okay, that brings us to our final item, which is public comment, and we are just a few reminders about public comment. the board will hear public comment on any issue except issues under litigation issues that have been scheduled for public hearing before the board and personnel matters and or comments regarding specific individuals speakers must register in advance and each speaker is given three minutes for his or her remarks a maximum of 10 speakers may address the board during any public comment period and speakers may address the board once during a six-month period and i will now call

[06:35:23] our first and only speaker who has signed up in advance to testify. And that is Ken Reed who has called in. Mr. Reed, can you hear me? I can hear you, sir. Thank you very much. Sure. Welcome. The floor is yours. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. My name is Ken Reed. I live in Tysons and I'm the Republican candidate for state Senate in District 37 in Fairfax County. I'm just making the rounds to various governing bodies to introduce myself.

[06:35:51] I served 10 years in local office in Loudoun County, four years as a county supervisor, and six years on the Leesburg Town Council. Many of you I have met and worked with on regional commissions, and to those who I have not met, I'd like to introduce myself, and nice to meet you by phone.

[06:36:09] I'm here to tell you that if I win November 7th, which I understand will be a miracle, given the demographics and the politics of the county, Despite my party affiliation, I will do my utmost to advance the needs of Fairfax County's residents, businesses, and your legislative agenda.

[06:36:26] And I have made the same commitment speaking to the Fairfax City and Falls Church City Council in the town of Vienna. You know the old saying, no person's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.

[06:36:41] And that often applies here in Virginia with our General Assembly in Richmond, especially as it pertains to the county, cities, and towns. at least in my experience. I personally don't like it when members of the General Assembly introduce bills that impact the municipalities without discussion with them first, or at least VML or VACO.

[06:37:00] A number of candidates, for example, of Republican candidates, would like to repeal the car tax, but I'm not in favor of that unless there's an alternative that you come up with that will give the money back to the municipalities. However, I was quite concerned by the pay increase that you voted yourselves in March, And the second pay raise that the Loudon board gave itself in four years earlier this year.

[06:37:23] I think that county supervisors' salaries should have a cap like there is for mayors and city councils, perhaps at $100,000 with a bump in the scale every two or three years or so. I also feel the city council mayoral salary bans need revision.

[06:37:39] If you're unaware, in Virginia Beach, which is as well over 450,000 residents, they have a long agenda and they work hard. Maximum the mayor makes is $30,000 and $28,000 for their council members. None of them get an aid, and none of them can invest. They don't have their own separate retirement system, which you have in Fairfax County.

[06:37:58] There are other perks that I won't go into. So win or lose, I do plan to recommend legislation on county and supervisor and city council salaries. But on other issues, I hope to work on the composite index for schools, which disadvantages many counties because of their debt load.

[06:38:16] I also feel the state needs to fund Metro more, and in a perfect world, I would like to see Virginia pay the WMATA subsidy, which is done in Maryland and not have it on the budgets of the counties and the cities in northern Virginia. I also would like to see this board jumpstart interchanges on the Fairfax County Parkway.

[06:38:33] We had a big listening session on that about a year or two ago, and push harder for the widening of I-95 to Richmond, which needs to be done. I want to thank you for your time, and again, I want to assure you and any folks listening that I wish to be a partner with you and the cities and the town in this in my district for those listening at home my website is www.kenreid.org thank you thank you very much Ken and with that that brings us to the end of our board meeting and of June 27th 2023 and if there's no further information to come before the board the board is adjourned

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