Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Land Use Committee, Tuesday, July 18, 2023

Date: Tuesday, July 18, 2023
Place: Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 1h 1m (video)
Official meeting video (Fairfax County): https://video.fairfaxcounty.gov/player/clip/2968
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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[00:00:02] Okay, we need to call the Land Use Committee meeting to order. Going after this one again. Yay, yay, yay, yay, yay. Okay.

[00:00:42] Good morning, everyone. We are calling the Land Use Policy Committee meeting to order. We have two items on the agenda, but first we have the summary from the last meeting.

[00:01:00] Are there any corrections or additions to that summary? Okay, so hearing none, those will be accepted. So the first presentation we have is the Zoning Ordinance Work Program update, and that friendly reminder, this is a discussion about the work program, not a time to delve into the issues of the separate items on the work program.

[00:01:27] I know sometimes that's tempting to do, but this is the presentation to get us moving forward on the work program, and I'm going to turn to Leslie. Thank you. My name is Leslie Johnson. I'm the Zoning Administrator, and I am here to present the annual Zoning Ordinance Work Program update for you and where we are going forward into this next fiscal year. I also have Phil Maland, Assistant Zoning Administrator, with me to correct me if I'm wrong, which I may be. What we have for you, we sent out previously a summary memorandum that

[00:02:06] It has more of the details on each of the topic areas, both past and moving forward. There are four attachments that include the status update for this year, and, again, it kind of lists where we are and where we've been in attachment one.

[00:02:26] Attachment two is our proposal going forward for this next fiscal year. And then attachment three is the priority two update. And then we have a table to show timelines for you.

[00:02:41] As we've talked about in the past, the work program is designed as a two-year program with annual updates for the board and for staff and for all of us to kind of reset priorities. And as you are aware, it usually takes two and sometimes more years to get an amendment through.

[00:03:04] There's a lot of time and effort spending doing the initial background research, talking to stakeholders, subject matter experts before we can even bring to you a proposal of how we might want to approach that amendment. And we do make it -- we do check in with the Board and the Planning Commission as we move forward with these amendments to make sure we're headed in the right direction, to hear your comments and your feedbacks.

[00:03:31] And you'll see in the table at the end the timeline chart that we incorporate when we do set timelines, we incorporate that research and background as part of that timing process.

[00:03:46] So just for a quick overview, the fiscal year 2023 -- 2024, but really 2023 included 12 topic areas with some of the topic areas broken down into subtopics. There were a total of 18 individual items, a total of -- we completed basically a total of eight, which is 44 percent of the work program.

[00:04:12] Five items are in process, which I'll talk about a little bit later. One is pending. That's our parking amendment that was recently authorized for public hearings. And two are in a monitoring phase and two have not started. So highlights of what we've completed and what we've accomplished in the last year.

[00:04:33] I did add the ZMOD readoption to our list because, you know, we didn't anticipate it. It came up. I would like to give a shout out to Carmen Bishop and Casey Judge for kind of being able to pivot quickly and put all the information together so that we could bring something back to you all for approval in a quick time turnaround.

[00:04:56] We also adopted another set of minor editorial revisions, and as you'll see in the updated work program for next year or this coming fiscal year, we've kind of consolidated that into its own topic. Because as things occur, we see -- as we continue to implement the ordinance, we kind of say, oh, did we really mean this, and sometimes they're very minor, sometimes they're a little bit further, and also we've included state code changes under that that we are obligated to take a look at.

[00:05:28] We added last year a new topic, and we've carried that forward, called Reports to the Board. We did three -- and actually I'm missing one that I kind of realized the other day. We also did agritourism, so we had ALUs and HBBs, which we are going to come back to the board next winter, hopefully with some recommendations and other issues that we might want to tackle.

[00:05:56] We came back to you several times on outdoor dining. That's now a carryover item on its own, and we'll be tackling that amendment shortly. They also had the topic, which is kind of apropos from what you all just talked about, about utilizing commercial and industrial buildings for emergency shelters, supportive housing for populations that are unhoused.

[00:06:25] And I've been talking to Tom Barnett about that a little bit, and we're going to move forward on that amendment. And we talked about nomenclature and that the preference seems to be now talking more about people that are unhoused. I unfortunately didn't change one of my slides, but I just, you know, we did update the descriptions in our work program to take care of that.

[00:06:49] And then we also have made significant progress on a number of topics. Parking, which again will be brought back to the board. We have a public hearing next week before the planning commission. It comes back to the board in September. We have signs part two that will hopefully be moving forward in the fall with public hearings landscaping and screening and outdoor lighting around the Turner Farm Observatory are being carried over so the next to talk about is the fiscal year 2024 work program or what we're going to be working on and as I just mentioned we do carry over a

[00:07:28] number of amendments because we might have spent the last year kind of doing all the outreach and reporting to the board but now we're getting into the public hearing stage and the text development stage. So I've highlighted here on this slide what's new. Under reports to the board, we're going to come back with AOUs and HBBs, but we've also added data centers, which was the topic of a lot of discussion during the ZMOD readoption and also was a board matter that you all presented for us to do research and outreach.

[00:08:00] And we are putting -- we've put together a staff team, internal staff team. We're doing the research now as we speak, and we're starting to talk with subject matter experts on the topic, so we're moving forward with that. The other item under affordable housing initiatives, which I just mentioned, were the shelter and services for populations that are unhoused to look at the reuse of some of those buildings.

[00:08:31] climate action and resiliency we changed the name so it's not green initiatives anymore we spoke with our partners in OEC and they made this recommendation we added resiliency because I think it really captures what we're doing and we are having workgroup meetings with the staff on topics related to that and we may potentially see some additional amendments coming out of that probably down the road and that'll probably be a topic for next year I think after we've kind of started to go through that and then the other on the on the right side

[00:09:07] of the column most of those that you see are carryovers we did add the PRC plan exemption to take a look at that that came up as a topic during the Zmod readoption so that's been added as a new item and then for timing on the attachments attachment 1 and attachment 2 but primarily attachment to where you know where we have the actual proposed work program you'll see in the blue box at the top there's timing first tier second tier TBD and monitoring and

[00:09:46] first tier means you know we're researching it and we hope to present to the board or get it authorized, you know, in the first six months of this -- excuse me, of this fiscal year. And the second tier would be targeted for similar, you know, research.

[00:10:02] Sometimes we do the research now, you know, in anticipation of bringing it to you all in the spring. And then TBD not specified, and then monitoring. We're just continuing to look at that. And we are -- and we did change that last year because we are doing work on it.

[00:10:18] It's -- you know, we are having meetings, and we're working on that, so we wanted to get recognition for that part of it. Here is -- there's a better, probably more legible chart as attachment four, but this shows you kind of how we've structured the timelines, and the gold is pretty much the research and outreach that we're doing, and when we get to the blue phase, we've brought it to you all, or we're going to bring it to you all for discussion and direction.

[00:10:48] And then we move forward with outreach, and sometimes we come back a second time depending, you know, as you know, with parking, we've come back several times to kind of do check-in points. And here's just a slide that we talk about how we do tailor our outreach.

[00:11:03] We've had some internal conversations as a staff to maybe this fall work on just a general outreach on zoning ordinance amendments just to kind of bring people up to speed with where we are, what's happening as an open house, but those are in the initial talking phases, and we initially started to do that in 2015, then COVID hit, and so, and now that we have the virtual, I think it's a good opportunity to kind of do that again.

[00:11:34] Let's see. Then, to talk about priority two, as you know, we have, over the last few years, and since the adoption of ZMOD, we've kind of, we've looked at our Priority 2, and in 2021, there were 76 items on the Priority 2 list, and that Priority 2 list basically dates back to the mid, probably the early to mid-80s. So, they've been, some of those items have been on there a very long time. And we, and then with the next, in 2022, we brought an additional

[00:12:11] five or so items that we wanted to take off. A lot of times, those had been incorporated through ZMOD or in another amendment we also so this time we took a deeper dive and we looked at you know other previous priority one items that had not been adopted or had been basically tabled and we've looked at those we consolidated a number of the affordable housing into kind of one topic area and then we kind of used the timeline if nothing had really occurred in a five-year time frame, then we thought, you know, it was time to perhaps move them off.

[00:12:50] I mean, we want to use this priority, too, for our modernized work program, moving forward with new uses, new trends, and then put those ideas on the list to bring back to you for prioritization.

[00:13:08] And we've done a little bit of that with some of the items that are shown in the plus to to be added, and we think some of those could probably be captured through a minor editorial amendment. And so we want to keep this priority to more up to date.

[00:13:24] But there were still some items dealing with climate action and open space, and some of those that we didn't want to put to rest yet because they still have some reference, and there are others that we are still doing some additional research on.

[00:13:42] But all told, you know, we've gone from 76 items now to a handful, about 20 items. And so as we -- and again, some of those that are on the Priority 2 will probably be incorporated into amendments this upcoming year.

[00:14:00] So that's where we are with the Priority 2. We've also included, at least for transparency purposes and for rationale, an explanation, some notes. are any questions, you know, we can -- we'll be happy to answer or if the board and the committee feels that we should not take off some of the items, I'm fine with that.

[00:14:19] I don't have to deal with Supervisor Smith on that. So I think the next steps once we, you know, have this discussion, if there is any, we will prepare a board matter probably for next Tuesday for Supervisor Smith.

[00:14:37] We will post whatever is approved to our website, and then we'll use the new GovDelivery announcement, which I really like. It's such a neat -- I'm glad we made that change. So we'll send that out to everyone on our listservs for information.

[00:14:55] And with that, I'll be happy to answer any question. Thank you for the presentation, Leslie. You know, we've made, I think, some good transformations in the process over the last number of years. I think it's important that we recognize the monitoring reports and that's part of this because the board has made that an important part of our work when we adopt something to ensure it's working the way we want it to.

[00:15:20] Leslie knows my little bugaboo has been priority too that had things from 30 years ago on it. I think especially with updating ZMOD, now was the time to ensure that it was a list that really made sense to help us move into the future and capture things that we really were going to look at doing.

[00:15:37] So thank you for all that work, and I'm going to turn to the Chairman. Thank you, and thank you, Supervisor Smith, and to staff, because this is a major positive step forward. Just the elimination of these items that are old on here, getting them off the books, I think will be huge.

[00:15:53] I guess, and I also want to thank you for the data center report and the timeline that's here. I think that, you know, we just had a conversation in this room about building repurposing earlier, And I think we're all concerned about, you know, this huge spike in data centers and whether or not we have the right provisions in our ordinance to guide those to responsible locations.

[00:16:17] And we know what to look for. And so the sooner that report gets to us, I think, the better. And so I appreciate that that timeline has been much accelerated since, I think, the original timeline that I saw. So I do want to thank you for that. I guess my question is with the other portions of the policy plan.

[00:16:38] I know we have some problems with the policy plan and that we want to do some cleanup and updating to that. And I'm just wondering if you could kind of give us an update on where those stand and, you know, whether or not what that process is going to look like and what the timeline might be and whether or not, you know, we're going to look at those holistically or individually or how you see that happening.

[00:17:03] I think that's going to be the next topic, I believe. You're talking about the comp plan policy plan? Yes, exactly. And so that will be something that Leanna will update us about with that. We are going to be having the next presentation is going to be an update on the public facilities policy plan amendment.

[00:17:22] But there are no items and there's nothing that cross-checks between the two. In other words, in the things that are deleted, were there any things that have implications for the policy plan updates that we'll be doing? And is that why some of those moved or not? I don't think so, but it is something that we do need to be cognizant of.

[00:17:44] And I think we are in coordinating with each other on some of the topics that we're talking about. I know that they're doing some of the environmental policy plan updates. And I think particularly when we get into the land use updates and the policy plan, I could see that there are, you know, we are monitoring these uses, and I just, tuning into the latter part of the conversation, I know that there are other jurisdictions, you know, and I had sent an email because Rachel Flynn had asked me, you know, Arlington's doing some office repurposing.

[00:18:20] What about our uses? And, you know, we did small-scale production, which can go into our commercial buildings. We did a smaller version of freight distribution to goods distribution that can go into some of these commercial and offices. Are the square footages correct? You know, maybe there are some tweaks that we might want to look at going forward as we move forward with that. So, I mean, those are things that we are continually, you know, looking at as the policies come up so that, you know, if we need to make that change in the zoning ordinance, we can add it to the work

[00:18:56] program. Okay. And that's really making sure they're speaking the same language and that coordination is happening. I think it's really important we can make changes to the zoning ordinance, but if we're not keeping up to speed with and the policy plan isn't speaking the same language, then we run into these problems downstream. And so I appreciate that answer and may have additional questions when we get to the policy plan discussion itself, but really making sure they're working in tandem is absolutely critical.

[00:19:24] Thank you. Supervisor Alcorn. All right. Thank you very much. I just want to compliment staff for pulling this together. This is a really thoughtful, thorough review and, frankly, update of the whole zoning ordinance work program. I thought I might find some things in the eliminated priority two, but I didn't.

[00:19:47] So, you know, that was, it's a nice job. And I do actually like, there were some things that, I mean, some of the things that go way back actually are somewhat relevant. I saw references of the infill study, for example, but thank you for pulling some of those things that are still relevant forward. This wasn't just going through and saying, you know, if anything was more than five or ten years, then it's no longer relevant, particularly as it relates to keeping track of some of the open space provisions, and there's some other parts that I think. I'll give Bill

[00:20:21] credit for that, Bill Malin. He did most of that work. Nice job, Bill, because, you know, frankly, this is a really good, I think, update to sort of what's relevant, what's pressing, at least what I hear on the board as priority. So thank you. Great job. Thank you, Supervisor Walkinshaw, and then left. Thank you, Madam Chair. I agree with Supervisor Alcorn. Really useful. Just on the timeline, I think the only question that I have, and I just want to ensure, I assume that

[00:20:59] the report to the board on the ALUs and home-based businesses, you don't anticipate a significant workload there for staff. I mean, based on the interim report that we got, kind of not much to report. Do you expect that to change over the next two quarters? Well, as far as the numbers go, and I've been kind of monitoring that, I think they've been pretty steady. And I can get you some of that information if you'd like, where we are.

[00:21:30] You know, we just finished kind of doing our year-end numbers, if you will, and I'm in the process of kind of double-checking and checking them as to the numbers of ALUs and HBPs that we've had. I think what we'll see more of perhaps in the report in February is more perhaps some recommendations as to these are some of the trouble areas that we're seeing.

[00:21:55] It's, you know, even though we have these administrative proposals, and I think it makes it a lot easier for folks, there are still issues that come up on how people want to design their houses that make it somewhat difficult for us to do some of the review.

[00:22:13] And so we want to look at some of those things. Do we need better definitions? Do we, you know, what do we need? And do we need to look at the regs and make some tweaks? So we probably will have some of those. I mean, we started to compile those, but we felt like we needed a little bit more data to kind of before we wanted to move forward with that.

[00:22:35] Okay. And just, you know, in terms of workload and timing, you know, on the data center, obviously really important work and report there. I think it's possible that whatever time you think it might take, it's going to take more, both in terms of work and time, just given all of the complexities of that issue.

[00:22:57] And the only thing that jumped out at me, and I think it's relevant to our EAC conversation on a small scale, on a small scale is the contractor's office and shop, because thinking back to the presentation we received on that, I do think there's an economic development component and opportunity there that's time sensitive, given the conversation that we just had.

[00:23:23] So if there were an opportunity to accelerate any of this work even more than you already have, I would look to that one even from my perspective in advance of the report on ALUs and home-based businesses with the understanding that I don't have the insight that you have into tweaks that you feel need to be made there.

[00:23:49] But there's not a huge new economic development component there. We're kind of looking back to the past and improving it, whereas contractor's office, we have vacant non-trophy commercial office buildings around the county that could benefit from that today if we were ready to go.

[00:24:07] And that one has kind of been… It's been creeping up. Well, it's kind of, you know, the staff person that was working on that is working on landscaping and screening, and, you know, we're trying to get that one through. So it's, you know, we are, we've had some vacancies, so we're trying to gear back up.

[00:24:25] But I hear what you're saying there, and I don't disagree. And we have a good, I think we have a good framework already in place, and we may need to just dust that off, do a little bit more outreach, and then come back to you all with some recommendations on that, because I understand.

[00:24:42] That's one where all of us, myself included, have buildings today that could potentially benefit. And part of the issue is, what do you do with the storage and the vehicles? Yeah, I get that. That's where we, but we've...

[00:24:58] Okay. I hear what you're saying, and I appreciate that comment, so we'll look at that. Thanks. Thank you, Supervisor Leff. Okay, thank you very much. My question is on the policy plan, page five, letter, policy F.

[00:25:17] So I appreciate the change that's here, and I'm thinking about... So this says ensure that existing or vacant public facility sites are no longer needed for their original use, and then it states the sites are reserved to the extent possible and prudent for other public uses.

[00:25:41] So here I'm thinking about the conversation that we just had around affordable housing and trying to figure out how we find more opportunities to provide that. Would there be a possibility for us to add some language here with specific consideration for affordable housing if feasible?

[00:26:03] So thinking about those properties, those spaces, those vacant lands being appropriate if feasible for affordable housing. Just calling up and giving additional focus and emphasis on that as a possibility.

[00:26:23] That was the first point I had. Rodney, can you say where you are? All of us are trying to find where you are. So it's under the policy plan. It's in the document. Is it in the second presentation?

[00:26:39] Second. It's in the, oh, mine, the. Yeah. Oh, did I skip? Yeah, you skipped, Rodney. I skipped ahead. Okay, I apologize. I apologize. Yeah, we're all trying. I wonder we couldn't find it. I just basically put them all together.

[00:26:55] Okay. All right, I have a question on the zoning ordinance as well, That's why I apologize. I just sort of was looking at the language as well. On the priority two, number 18, letter B, provide open space credit for innovative BMPs, but not for non-innovative BMPs.

[00:27:18] And I was just trying to make sure I understood how we were defining innovative versus non-innovative, what that means. I just didn't quite follow that. Okay?

[00:27:33] We'll have to look at that, because I'm not, you know, again, that was pulled from the previous, so I'll pull the infill study and look at it. Okay, and then I'll hold my other question for later. Thank you very much. Anything else?

[00:27:53] You're good. Okay, any other comments? Thank you very much. I appreciate this work program. I think it's good we went to a two-year cycle, and we look forward to you just keeping very, very busy over this time. Thank you, Leslie. All right, we'll get ready for our next presentation.

[00:28:40] Okay. Our next presentation is on the public facilities plan amendment, and I'm going to turn to Salem Bush for our presentation. Good morning, Madam Chairman and members of the board. Thank you for having us here this morning and taking the time to hear about this project update.

[00:28:58] I'm here. I'm Salem Bush. I'm here with Muhammad Ali. We're from the Department of Planning and Development, and we have some other folks here, too, from the Department of Planning and Development if other questions come up. We're also joined by some other folks in the audience from the Department of Public Works environmental services particularly capital facilities and building design if some questions come up about facilities as well so this update is on the public facility plan amendment and we have been working on that for a couple years now particularly I'm happy to announce that we do have a draft version of the public facility element of the policy plan

[00:29:32] available for review and so that's part of the overall project so with that I am going to go through a presentation and quickly here is the the agenda for today so I just want to give a little background on how we got here with the actual draft text and then talk about a little bit more about some next steps that we have for this project and then a little bit of time for questions and discussion as well so again this policy plan this actual public facility policy plan amendment itself was authorized by the board back in 2020 and it was authorization for the to amend the actual public facilities element of the

[00:30:10] policy plan and then also related area plans and then also reviewing the alignment of those area plans and the public silly element of the policy plan with the capital improvement program and so particularly today i'd like to focus more on the actual draft text the public silly element of the plan and we can talk about the next steps as well i want to also uh make a note that this whole initiative uh this plan amendment was kind of kicked off by the planning commission uh joint schools board and they had a number of recommendations that were directly related to the policy plan and so that was made from a recommendation from the planning commission after

[00:30:50] that schools board adjourned and they had some recommended edits so those all those edits have been included in the update to this to this policy plan as well so I want to go through and just point out a lot of the the work that we've done on this plan has been with the agencies throughout the county, some agencies outside of the county. Particularly, we've had a very close working group with the Department of Public Works, Environmental Services, Capital Facilities, and the Building Design Group, but also the Office of Management and Budget. So we've worked very closely with those groups, particularly Dennis Holder, Rishali Oak, Martha Reed as well. But we've also,

[00:31:30] so through that whole process, we've had meetings together to talk about this update, and also we've meeting with various agencies throughout the county both all these agencies either plan for their own facilities throughout the county or they also are part of the review team when we're reviewing new facilities that are coming in for what we call the 2232 public facility review but also through the capital improvement program and selection and prioritization of projects in terms of funding I want to say too that meeting with these agencies we had a lot of initial meetings with them we've had multiple meetings over the course of the last couple years but initially when we met with them, we talked about the countywide strategic plan that was going

[00:32:07] through approvals, was then approved about a year and a half ago. We also talked to them about the One Fairfax policy, and then we talked to agencies really about how they're planning for facilities throughout the county, how they're adjusting to changes in the county over time. So we had a lot of good conversations about that, but also particularly about how important the comprehensive plan is when reviewing and approving and planning for public facilities and also thinking about that along with the CIP process.

[00:32:33] And I think that coordination that we've had with those agencies has been a good learning experience for DPD and us, but also I think for those agencies throughout the county when they're thinking about projects, particularly related to the comprehensive plan and CIP process. So I want to point out, too, we've really been working closely with the Planning Commission throughout this entire update.

[00:32:56] We've had five meetings with the Planning Commission Land Use Process Review Committee. We had a couple of meetings at the end of last year that were about specific topics. We talked about the 22-32 review process. We talked about co-location. We also talked about the public-private partnership. So those topics we discussed in very good detail.

[00:33:14] We got a lot of good recommendations from the Planning Commission. And then last April, we met with the Planning Commission to go over the actual draft text that we had presented to them. And since then, we've made some edits to that draft text based on comments we heard from them. And then each year, we've also been going to the Capital Improvement Program Committee of the planning commission to provide updates on our progress as well. So just to talk a little bit about community engagement on this project, we held a series of meetings last fall with community-wide meetings or virtual meetings, and then we also had targeted supervisor district

[00:33:49] meetings as well. During those meetings, that initial phase of meetings that we had, we really talked about the background of how public facilities are reviewed and planned throughout the county. It's kind of a complicated process when you think about it. There's a lot that goes into planning, design of public facilities. There's confidential plan review. There's CIP review. So we really, it was really kind of a way for us to educate the community on how that works and then also talk to them about this policy plan update and how all those things kind of come together. So those were very successful meetings. We got some initial input on those and we are actually right in the middle now of going through another round of public input meetings. We had one

[00:34:28] last night with the rest and planning and zoning committee we have another one tonight i believe with braddock and then we have some more later this week so we're just churning through the meetings right now just to kind of bring it all together these are really all the all the items that really have influenced this update mostly the ones that have already gone over now the countywide strategic plan of one fairfax poly policy was big we met with the county executive's office when the strategic plan was being developed and then once it was adopted to make sure that we were crosswalking that plan with this update and making sure that influenced the comprehensive a plan update that we're working on and then of course other countywide guiding policies as well

[00:35:04] and then the agency input that we got planning commission input and then also the community meetings that we've been having as well I want to just go over a little high level on some of the major influences some of the changes that you'll actually see in the draft text the original policy at the public facility element of the policy plan it's a mouthful was was adopted back in 1990 and And so since that time, there's been quite a few changes in the county.

[00:35:32] We have had some edits to that document, particularly the telecom section was revised several years back. And then there's been some minor changes through it, but there's never been a comprehensive look at the entire document, an overhaul, a rewrite of it. So that's what we've done this time.

[00:35:48] And so since that time, again, since 1990, there's been a lot of changes in the county. There's less available land to work with, land costs have gone up quite a bit. So a lot of the changes that you'll see are kind of focused on that theme, I would say. We did work very closely with the Planning Commission on the 2232 review process and talking about the CIP program as well.

[00:36:08] And so you'll see a lot more policies really related to the CIP program in this update. We also had a lot of meetings with agencies to talk about co-location and what suits agencies the best and how we can provide services across the county more and so to better access to residents.

[00:36:26] And so there's a lot more direction in the actual guidance for co-location throughout the county so that we can really provide more access to services, provide more efficiency for the county in terms of funding and land availability, and then also more efficiency for our agencies that are providing services there.

[00:36:43] We do, we have provided basically a more flexible approach to facility design, really a more urban design approach. We're looking at, you know, facilities developing more vertically as opposed to more horizontally. And then another thing that you'll see in this is just providing better access for residents, both in terms of location where facilities go, but also pedestrian and bicycle access as well.

[00:37:07] Just to go over the timeline real quickly, right now we are in the middle of the community engagement and public meeting process, the second round of that. We do plan on coming back together with the agencies, providing the draft text to them after we hear back from the community, finalizing that draft text, bringing it back to the Planning Commission, Landy's Process Review Committee, going through the Planning Commission, and hopefully the board this fall so everything goes okay.

[00:37:33] And then I do want to mention phase two of this project. It's really going to be focused on revising those area plans, and that's why I have Muhammad Ali here today. He's going to be heading that effort. He's already been working on it now, so really that we're going to have to open up each district area plan, you know, all the special area plans, because there's inventory of public facilities throughout all of those.

[00:37:57] There's references to larger needs for public facilities in those particular areas. So Mo has been working on gathering all that information together now and putting it all in one place where all those references are and meeting with all the various agencies to make sure we have an inventory together. So we already have that work underway, but we'll be coming back through the process on that as well.

[00:38:17] I also have the plan amendment website up on the screen here as well. On that website, you can find updates to the project. You can find the draft text to the project. You can find out when we're having more meetings with the public, so we'll keep that updated. I also want to point out, too, we did make some videos.

[00:38:35] And how I was talking about earlier, we met with the community in the initial round. We talked about kind of how the conference plan works and CIP works and how public facilities are planned. We made some videos with Channel 16 to kind of explain that process in a kind of succinct way so that people can kind of understand how this whole process works.

[00:38:54] So I encourage anybody out there to go to that website and watch those videos. There's four videos we call Planner Talk videos that go through kind of how that whole process works in this project update. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions, have any discussion you might have. Thank you.

[00:39:10] Thank you, Salem. You know, when you say out loud 1990, you know, it's really good that we are updating these things because, as you said, it has changed a lot. So I'm going to turn to the chairman first. No, I appreciate the update. I think the only question I had was the one I had similar in the last presentation, which is that the coordination is occurring and that we're not going to run into a zoning ordinance problem with a policy plan amendment that's in here.

[00:39:38] And then secondarily, and following up on that, I mean, this is one section of the policy plan. Is there any type of scope or timeline for the remainder of the policy plan to be updated? Sure, Chairman McKay, thanks for the question. Yes, those obviously will be worked out together.

[00:39:55] We've been coordinating with Zoning Administration Division, Zoning Evaluation Division as well. I just had a meeting today, actually, with someone from ZAD to talk about data centers. So, you know, my work that I work on with public facilities crosses over into data centers and stuff that they work on.

[00:40:13] So we're coordinating on those types of things. So our planning division, as you know, this actual policy plan is on a different schedule than the rest of them as that work plan was adopted this past year for the planning division. And so there isn't a definite schedule.

[00:40:28] We've been assigning members of our team to actually head up different chapters or different elements in that plan. And Andy Dorlester, who was here earlier, who was presenting to you all, she was retiring and she was heading up the actual policy plan work. And so we were finding someone to take her place on that and lead that way.

[00:40:47] So we don't have a timeline exactly on each one of those, but we'll be working on different chapters throughout the next year. And I think we'll be able to provide an update to you all when the time is right on what that timeline is. Yeah, I think that, I mean, that would be great. Oh, I'm sorry.

[00:41:03] Tracy? Yeah. This is Fairman. I'm Tracy Strong, director of Department of Planning and Development, and I appreciate Salem pinching for me on that question. We certainly, we're starting to work on the policy plan, and as Salem mentioned, because of some staffing changes, we're pinning down exactly who's going to be working on that, but we'll have a, in the next couple weeks or so, we should have a better time frame on that.

[00:41:27] We are targeting some outreach in that in the fall, so we'll get you guys a schedule as soon as we have one. We've just had a little staffing snafu, so we're working on that, and we'll be back to you as soon as we can. And we're definitely, I certainly appreciate the point about coordinating the zoning ordinance and the language that we use, frankly, in the zoning ordinance and the plan, and I think that's something that we've actually gotten a lot more aware of and understanding.

[00:41:57] So I think that we're doing a pretty good job of that. Yeah, I really appreciate that, Tracy, both of those. One, you know, a schedule to just give us a general idea on these other pieces, and then also making sure that we're not building in contradictions here that then require interpretations and delays and other things, and that our ordinance and our policy plan are speaking the same language where they need to.

[00:42:19] So thank you. I have Phil Najewski-Eichner, Chair of the Planning Commission. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I just wanted to commend staff on a couple points. One is, first of all, that they've undertaken this in a very thorough, thoughtful way in response to the authorization to look at the full policy plan.

[00:42:40] The full policy plan is dated just like the facilities piece, the public facilities piece. So it requires this comprehensive review. That comprehensive review, and this is the second point with regard to staff, staff reached out to the Planning Commission to coordinate together in the development of this updated policy plan to the point that we have established a separate policy committee, policy plan committee of the commission. I chair that. Then, interestingly, we have a liaison

[00:43:14] of the planning commissioners with the staff leads for each chapter. And so that liaison role is intended to ensure that there's that coordination at the chapter level. And then our committee writ large will help coordinate with the Tracy's group or Van O'Donnell's group so that there's this integration of effort that should streamline and facilitate success.

[00:43:41] Thank you, Phil. I appreciate that. I'm going to turn to Supervisor Alcorn and then Lusk. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I have one other coordination question, and maybe this will help illustrate it. Going to a specific, basically objective 14 under public education, it talks about offsetting school impacts, or sorry, offsetting the impacts on schools of new residential development.

[00:44:08] There's language in the land use element of the countywide policy plan, and I think it mirrors that. But I guess my question is, and that's been in the residential development criteria for a while, but my question is, so we're updating this, and this is great, and by the way, this looks fantastic, great, great work.

[00:44:27] You've captured at least everything that I can see in terms of what we've done in the last few years. But in terms of the coordination between this document and other parts of the policy plan, like the land you sent on us for that, how are we going to keep those in sync going forward?

[00:44:42] Are we going to, whenever, you know, if we go back and update the land use section of the policy plan, which I know we're looking at different sections, are we going to need to come back and update or remember to come back and update this part of the public facility section too? Thanks for the question.

[00:44:59] I don't believe so. I mean, we're looking at all the other chapters, like you said. And so there have been some other areas of this plan that I've been thinking about, particularly with regards to land use, but also when it comes to questions like equity, when it comes to questions like housing.

[00:45:18] You know, I think those plans, also an environmental chapter as well, those plans, you know, I think when those topics are more specific to like environmental or to equity or to land use, I think those will filter down to this one. So I've tried not to step on those plan updates as I'm updating this one.

[00:45:34] So I have some references to things like that, but at the same time, I'm hoping that those other plans are going to guide the way. So I think when you're thinking about rezoning some proffers and residential development, I think the land use plan will guide that more than the facilities plan. That sounds fine. I think, but as some of these, I appreciate what you said about trying not to step on the other portions of the plan, because some of it does go into detail that, you know, hopefully there's consistency i'm sure there's consistency now you know one two three years from now you know who knows uh but but i i would encourage dpd to be thinking about that that

[00:46:12] that maybe maybe as part of a process of updating those other parts of the policy plan that you know maybe we need to remember go back and make sure there's nothing in here that's inconsistent just for consistency's sake. The other thing I wanted to ask is on the, there's some areas where we have a lot of activity.

[00:46:32] We're going to be talking later this afternoon about some of our climate work and the environmental committee. For some of those things that aren't quite fully flushed out, maybe not quite ready for this, but are coming, how are we going to deal with that?

[00:46:49] Because I know through our CCAP process, There are a number of things that we're calling for that I don't think are fully reflected yet in this document. Yeah, and that's correct. I've worked closely with OEEC on this update, so I have gotten comments from them to update the appropriate language in here where we feel like it's at the right level.

[00:47:11] But again, when we're updating that environmental element of the policy plan, there's going to be a lot more direction that's going to capture a lot of the references that you have there in that update. know we're going to be ramping up a lot more you know renewable energy on county facilities and you know so there's there's a lot that's coming and and some of that too i think will be updated like the sustainable development uh capital facilities plans and things like that as well so and we referenced those in here um in this document so however those get updated those will still be referenced here okay great and my the last point and i think this may have been taken care of for another reason i don't think we anticipated but i was going to ask about the

[00:47:50] scope of advertisement. There's a lot of stuff in here. It's great. But as we go through the public hearing process, sometimes things do pop up that aren't necessarily in scope. But I guess with our new advertising requirements, maybe that problem has been taken care of. So I don't have to, but I will just note for something that's complicated like this that comes through the process, we may actually want to think about this a little, or at least be aware that if we're going to be doing multiple public hearings for any reason, including the Planning Commission, that, you know, this new process could impact at least the process slightly.

[00:48:29] And I do want to commend also the Planning Commission and staff for working together on this. This is great work. Looking forward to it going forward. Thank you. Supervisor Lusk, then Pelchik. Okay, thank you. So I want to commend you on the new Objective 7 on page 7 of the policy plan.

[00:48:50] I appreciate the language that you've added there specifically about the co-location of facilities. And I'll note that under Policy C, you've called out affordable housing and child care should be considered and prioritized in conjunction with new facility development were included in the co-location of other public facilities where appropriate.

[00:49:13] I like that a lot, so I'm making the point under policy plan page 5, policy F, if we could maybe do something similar there where we're talking about ensuring that when existing or vacant public facilities are no longer needed for their original use, the sites are reserved to the extent possible and prudent, other public uses and here I would add with specific consideration for affordable

[00:49:49] housing if feasible. So that was a point I was making I apologize I had it in the wrong place before but just trying to see if there is any ability to call that out and this is really in response to what we heard earlier today in the presentation for economic development but also what both Vice Chairman Gross and I heard at COG that housing is the issue that we've really got to get our arms around specifically as it relates to workforce and economic development.

[00:50:23] Before you, I just wanted to tell everybody that's in the redlined version on page five because we have the one that's not redlined in the red line. Thank you. Go ahead, Salem. Yeah, thanks for those comments.

[00:50:38] Supervisor Les will be happy to look into that and I think it aligns with a lot of the countywide goals. I appreciate that very much. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Palchuk, and then Herity. Thank you, Chairman Smith. Thank you so much for the presentation. I know and want to add my commendation for your coordination with all the agencies.

[00:50:59] I think this is definitely, as we've been doing land use now, as we've been doing the past four years, I think it's really helpful to better understand where we are and what the needs are. Currently, I just ask for a public facility because I think better understanding the needs are important.

[00:51:18] A couple of comments in here. I'm also on the red line version, page five. I really appreciate objective three, balancing public facilities with growth and development. I think this is really important. And for policy I, I would just add at the end it says for placemaking such as libraries and parks.

[00:51:42] If we're going into detail, I would definitely add community centers and others. think there are quite a few needs we're seeing, especially community uses across the county where needed. And I know schools aren't in there, but I think access for schools or pre-K are really important and child care. The other item I had in here, I want to just also commend on the use of co-location I think that's critical and more necessary than ever and the need to be

[00:52:20] able to repurpose buildings as they are no longer needed. I don't know if it's I apologize if it's in here but sometimes we're looking at publicly owned sometimes the privately owned sometimes at the public private partnerships so I guess I'm just wondering as we go through the varieties of the document and I appreciate that they all circle back to our other policies because that's think that's that's critical is there a need in here and i apologize if i missed it to to understand that um is a sorry is the goal for this to apply to public and privately owned public facilities

[00:52:57] and i don't know if that was in here and sometimes they're combinations of i don't think it's specifically mentioned but we did have a reference to public private partnerships in here that we had talked to the planning commission about but that was more about aligning with comprehensive plan goals overall um it i think it covers anything it depends on so the state of virginia has kind of a way that it defines public facilities in 2232 review process and so um we go back and forth on what that definition definition is sometimes when we're reviewing these but yeah if it's a facility that's being used by the county it's still considered a public facility even if it's privately owned if like we have a lease agreement or something like that so those would

[00:53:37] be included just by reference to the definition of what they are okay and i think that's very helpful because especially in my area, you know, we're looking at a lot of proffers and the new Tyson space is being repurposed after visit Fairfax moved out. I think we've found a really unique opportunity to be able to bring county and nonprofit facilities. So I just want to make sure all of those are considered here, not just in the county owned, but the privately owned that we are using. And the answer is yes. The answer is yes. Yes. Thank you. Thanks for those comments. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Herody. Yeah, a couple of quick questions. On the public

[00:54:12] input meetings and the draft text meetings how are the targeted supervisor district meetings selected so i have um myself and mo we've we've been coordinating with um each supervisor office okay um to work with the land use days or other representatives of your all's offices to determine what groups we should reach out to and coordinate with in terms of um providing presentations answering questions and so we've been getting a list from from from your office and everybody else's office in terms of who we should talk to, who we should coordinate with.

[00:54:45] We reached out to some folks that were interested in hearing our presentation and talk about this plan, and some other folks have not had the interest. But anybody that's requested us to come, we've been there. Good. Page one of the text, and this was from 1990, of course, but it talks about the vigorous growth of Fairfax County has brought about a corresponding rise.

[00:55:12] 1990, vigorous growth was probably an appropriate word. but probably not vigorous anymore, but the growth. Since 2009, more people have left Fairfax County and come to Fairfax County, so I would say it's not vigorous. But on page, I guess it's page three of the red line, struck me as odd that we would locate new facilities to meet the needs of service providers and provide convenient service of residents.

[00:55:44] I would put the convenient service of residents over the needs of service providers. Because I think that's really who we're serving is not our service providers, we're serving our residents. So that one just struck me as odd that we would be looking to locate facilities for service providers' convenience versus our residents' convenience.

[00:56:07] And maybe that's not intended, but that's the way it struck me a little bit. Yeah, thanks for the question, Supervisor Herdy. I could look at rewording that a little bit. But, you know, when we're working with the different agencies throughout the county, a lot of those folks determine what their needs are and where they are in the county.

[00:56:25] And so, you know, part of that is to determine where they feel like their facilities need to be located. And so some of that is on them. But I agree with you that at the end of the day, and I think the agencies would agree, it is all about providing the best access to residents.

[00:56:42] And I think I agree with you. That's where their focus is. But it just struck me strange the way it was worded in there. The objective two is where we talk about, you know, fiscal limitations, but I didn't see any policy language that really looked and talked about fiscal analysis of any kind.

[00:57:04] And it's somewhere in there I think we need to, and I've harped on this before with the CIP, but we need to really be looking at the life cycle costs, you know, efficiencies, you know, the staffing impact and the design of our new facilities. And I just, I don't see that anywhere in any of the policy language, but as we look to develop new facilities, we need to consider the long-term fiscal impact of the different options.

[00:57:33] And again, some kind of language to that degree, especially in Objective 2, which is where fiscal limitations is listed, I would hope we'd have some kind of fiscal analysis. And if I missed it, tell me. I don't think you missed it.

[00:57:49] I'm happy to look into that. I can work with Martha Reed in the Office of Management and Budget. I know it's kind of insinuated in the capital improvement. It's 10 best sound management practices. And so I think the language used to be in here about that particularly, but we could add it to reinforce it.

[00:58:10] It's just as we design, we need to be thinking about the cost efficiencies you can work into design and co-location being one of them, And co-location for co-location's sake may not make sense, but there may be some good efficiencies that happen at a co-location, and they ought to be called out.

[00:58:28] Yeah, that's a great point. The Planning Commission has discussed that quite a bit. It doesn't always make sense in every situation to have a co-location. It can be more expensive, right? Yep. Thank you. Thank you. Can I do one more? Okay, Supervisor. Very quick. Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair, very much.

[00:58:43] Just a quick follow-up question to Supervisor Palczyk's question. This whole section is public facilities, county facilities. My question is, what about homeowners association facilities that are community-based? Is this intended to cover homeowners association facilities?

[00:59:02] Not if they're private properties, like probably you're thinking about open spaces and park and recreation. Yeah, or swimming pools or any of the things that our homeowners associations provide. I think they're privately owned, so they would not qualify unless there was some sort of easement or agreement that they were open to the public, then they would.

[00:59:23] Okay. All right. So, all right, that's something I think we need to look into a little more carefully so that we're all clear on the applicability of this. Because I think if we do start saying that this applies to homeowners association properties, then that might bring in a whole new set of folks to need to look at this.

[00:59:48] I don't believe that it would – it covers those, but it would cover services that are inside of buildings that the county is operating. Okay, so county facility. Yeah, so if it's a county agency in a private building, it's running agency business out of the building, yeah.

[01:00:06] Supervisor Peltier? If I may, it seems to me, I think to me what's really important in seeing in some of these is who has access to those, right? As we look at new or older development, is it a private facility for certain – for just its residents or just its members, or is it something that's now accessible to the public?

[01:00:23] To me, I think it's really critical. Going back, sorry, to Supervisor, Herity's point, I want to say that co-location to me really is important about what he said earlier, the community need. And so when we talk about cost and benefit, we are seeing more and more the benefit of co-location for the community members to be able to access multiple activities in one location.

[01:00:48] That's all. And so those are discussions that we've had, you know, it's like why we have the health clinic in the Sully Community Center. It's looking at those services we provide. Salem, I wanna thank you for all the work on this, the coordination, you know, that you're coordinating with all those departments.

[01:01:06] I still have to watch the videos. I think they're beneficial for all of us. So thank you for your work. And this Land Use Committee is adjourned. Thank you. - Thank you. - Thank you.

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