Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Land Use Policy Committee, Tuesday, May 20, 2025

Date: Tuesday, May 20, 2025
Place: Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 1h 25m (video)
Official meeting video (Fairfax County): https://video.fairfaxcounty.gov/player/clip/3808
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 2026-10-29. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

[00:00:00] Good morning everyone. I'm going to call the land use policy committee meeting to order the first thing on the agenda is to look at the minutes Does anybody have any corrections or additions to the minutes? Okay, seeing none those will be accepted Today we're going to have an update about the policy plan and where we are with that I think it's important for us to have this meeting number one So the public has a way to review what's happening with our progress and for the board members to be updated and so I am going to turn to Kelly to kick us off. Thank you, Supervisor Smith. I just wanted

[00:00:36] to take a moment. We have an intern who is joining us in our office this summer in the planning division, Noah Mack. He is a graduate of George Mason with a degree in political science and he's currently working on his master's degree in urban planning at Virginia Tech. Go Hokies! So we are thrilled to have him join us this summer. We're going to give him a lot of good insight into a lot the work that we do in the planning division and so just wanted to acknowledge him thank you and i'll turn it over to kareen babak who's going to get us started good morning thank you kelly i'm kareen babak with the department of planning and development today i'm joined by michael burton

[00:01:12] katrina newtson carly aubry kelly atkinson and tracy strunk also from dpd and by bob pecora from the fairfax county department of transportation who will introduce the transportation team when we get to that section uh today we're here to provide three presentations on the environment land use and transportation elements but while we've consolidated the three presentations into one slide deck we will pause for questions on each element after the after the slides for that element are done before we get started i do want to set the stage and highlight some next steps as discussed with the board last year staff took the approach of publishing draft text based on the initial feedback we've heard from the board the planning commission and the community the text

[00:01:50] publication and discussions with the board and planning commission were done in segments intentionally to avoid the concerns we heard about having too much information at once. Since the publication of the text before you, we have had additional feedback from the Planning Commission, County Agencies, Community, and BACs, which is informing potential revisions to the draft text and will be discussed with the Planning Commission at the June 5th Policy Plan Committee meeting.

[00:02:14] This approach will help us ensure that the staff report and updated text that is included in the staff report has the benefit from as much input as possible prior to publishing. Staff has not yet scheduled public hearings and will do so upon completion of this meeting and the June 5th Policy Plan Committee meeting with the Planning Commission.

[00:02:31] However, public hearings are still targeted for this fall per the Board's direction, and the staff report with staff recommendations will be released five weeks prior to the hearings, which we currently anticipate releasing the staff report in September. Before we get into the individual elements, we want to highlight the strategy we used for all of the revisions.

[00:02:50] Most of this occurred before we put pen to paper to ensure that the revisions would be effective and to ensure that we did not remove any good text that is still working. Internally, we reviewed the policies and objectives and how they've been implemented through the years, looking at old zoning cases, proffers, and development conditions, talking with those that work with the policies regularly, and identified where we've had success and what some challenges have been with implementation.

[00:03:14] While we generally found that the elements were strong and provided appropriate flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances and trends, we did identify areas that could be clarified, strengthened, or topics that could be introduced to continue providing flexibility to ensure relevance and applicability of policies into the future. We coordinated with our topic leads team, planning commission liaisons, the community, additional county agencies, and non-county entities. We've now been through three rounds of community outreach and are working to incorporate comments we've been receiving since the publication of the draft text this spring.

[00:03:48] The staff recommendations will be published with a staff report ahead of the public hearings. We then developed research topics and papers to dive a little deeper into some areas that are new or needed additional research. These topics were selected as it was clear to us some additional information was needed to address our questions and the points raised throughout the outreach ahead of attempting to create or update policy.

[00:04:10] These papers are available on our project webpage, which is linked later in these slides. After all that, we began the work of streamlining, aligning, and adding new policies to the plan. The work included reorganizing the structure of the elements and developing new objectives. We also updated appendices within the land use and transportation elements, which will be discussed later in this presentation. Since the policy plan and comprehensive plan are intended to serve as a guide for future land use and development related decisions, a key focus of the work we've done is to ensure the guidance developed through this project avoids being overly specific, does not rely on trendy buzzwords, and provides the appropriate flexibility for staff,

[00:04:47] the planning commission, and the board to be able to apply the recommendations across the county. Another focus was to ensure the newly revised policy plan could be easily understood by the community, and developers. And with that, we'll move into the environment element.

[00:05:05] Before we get into the details, we wanted to acknowledge that the entire element has been updated to address the board authorization for this project. A few areas worth highlighting are that we've modified the introduction to explicitly add new concepts and clarify connections. While these were generally implied in the existing element, we've strengthened references to our changing climate and equity.

[00:05:25] We've streamlined the content throughout the preambles, objectives, and policies to reduce the redundancies and eliminate outdated information. We've aligned with CCAP, Resilient Fairfax, One Fairfax, the Tree Action Plan, and other guiding documents as appropriate. We've added specific references to health within the element.

[00:05:42] We've created a new objective and associated policies to address equity, and we've coordinated with our Topic Leads team and other county agencies to ensure the changes are appropriate or generally address their concerns to the extent applicable for the comprehensive plan. The detailed changes can be found in the redline version of the draft text that we've published, And the clean version provides an easier review experience that shows all the information incorporated without a markup.

[00:06:08] While we've received many comments through the outreach process and discussions, this slide shows a general summary and groupings of the recurring themes. Some of these items are addressed in the current policy plan, either indirectly or directly, which indicated to us that we were starting from a good place.

[00:06:25] However, we have worked to strengthen the existing policies while also adding some new ones to address the feedback we've heard. For example, CCAP and Resilient Fairfax address the importance of incorporating strategies for greenhouse gas emissions reduction and providing adaptive environments. Some of these strategies, such as green building commitments, tree preservation, and flood protection, can be found in the existing element.

[00:06:46] The draft updates to the policies, objectives, and associated preambles aim to do a clearer job of linking the importance of these existing new or improved policies to the goals of greenhouse gas emission reduction and creating a more resilient, built, and natural environment. Since we published the draft text last month, we've received additional feedback related to the proposed element's lack of specificity on certain topics such as stormwater management and vegetation practices.

[00:07:12] While staff is working to address these comments, a key area where we would like board feedback on is how specific this plan should get, recognizing a need to convey aspirational county goals and also to provide implementable guidance. As an example, the comprehensive plan text today contains over 50 recommendations relating to stormwater management.

[00:07:33] Some of these are specifically tied to a particularly degraded stream, but most are general and repetitive. To address the more general guidance, we're working to develop a countywide stormwater management policy with the goal to, in the future, limit site-specific stormwater management text to areas where a specific exceptional need has been identified.

[00:07:54] To that end, the published draft includes a more general policy for entitlements to exceed minimum code requirements that could be applicable across the county but would be flexible enough to be applied based on watershed conditions. Based on the feedback we've received, we're now considering a menu of options that includes items such as good forested conditions, one inch of retention, attaining the lead rainwater management credit, and an intensity-based approach determined by FAR.

[00:08:21] While the menu of options is based on previously adopted site-specific stormwater management guidance that was previously based on watershed conditions, if included or adopted, this would now apply across the county regardless of watershed or site conditions. One challenge we've identified is the need for additional information on when each option would be most appropriate to ensure we continue to obtain water quantity and quality commitments that meet our county goals while addressing the site-specific conditions and providing flexibility to balance other plan goals.

[00:08:51] This would also provide clarity to the development community on quantity and quality expectations. The next slide will provide some additional details on our changes, but I do want to highlight that Data center recommendations are contained within the land use element as that's where we keep our use specific guidance Some more specific changes that we've made through this update An objective to the majority of the policies have been retained, but either revised consolidated or regrouped The primary draft revisions are grouping existing county programmatic policies together

[00:09:27] proposing to move up site design that mimics natural hydrology maximizes infiltration and other practices related to site design. And as noted on the previous slide, we're still working through the addition and development of appropriate countywide stormwater management policy. Additional references and policies have been provided for PFAs and salt management and for the longstanding practice of incorporating 50% contiguous, every time, undisturbed open space for non-residential projects in the RC zoning district requiring special exception or special permit approvals. Objective five has been updated to expand the discussion of potential impacts of

[00:10:04] light pollution and incorporates principles of dark sky lighting practice. Objective 10 has been expanded from just tree canopy to also include native and adaptive landscaping, invasive plant management, healthy soils, conservation corridors, and assessments of sites to identify environmental constraints and opportunities. Objective 11 for the most part is unchanged. The creation or enhancement of conservation corridor connectivity was added to the objective as another purpose of the policies. And policy D was an existing policy that was moved here to consolidate easement references into one objective. Objective 12 is new, and it's where we focus on equity issues

[00:10:43] that are specific to Fairfax County. This includes urban heat impacts, lack of tree canopy, flooding, poor air quality, and environmental contamination. Objective 13 has been updated to expand on renewable resources, formalize the practice of bird-friendly design, refined electric vehicle charging policies to apply to all development and not just residential, and incorporate general concepts of sustainable site design. I do want to note that the entirety of the environment element does focus on sustainable site design practices, but we've strengthened that connection. We've also increased plan guidance for LEED certification to LEED silver and gold to better align with CCAP

[00:11:21] and the operational energy strategy. Some items like climate resilience and biodiversity are addressed throughout the element. And further, we want to emphasize that while we've done our best to address the land-use-related feedback and items that can be addressed within the environment element, there are still some things outside the scope of this project, like banning gas-powered lawn equipment and regulations that are addressed by other bodies. Shown here is our proposed revised structure for the element. The underlined areas include a very high-level note of the changes that we've made. Based on the feedback and the addition of policies, we've tried to maintain the

[00:11:59] general structure of the environment element while focusing on enhancing and adding new policies to fully address the board authorization of this project. And as I've mentioned a few times, we are continuing to work on refining countywide stormwater management guidance with our DPWES and LDS partners. This recommendation would be applied to developments pursuing an entitlement application going forward, and the final recommendation for such a policy would be included within the staff report. And with that, we invite you all and anyone watching to review the current environment element as well as the draft text that we've

[00:12:34] proposed, visit our project webpage, and provide feedback to planforwardffx.publicinput.com. Thank you for bearing with me. We'd like to turn it back over to you for questions and discussion. Thank you, Corrine. It's a lot of work, and I know the board appreciates all the outreach and the work you've done with this.

[00:12:54] You know, I think the biggest challenge is how specific you get, because when people are passionate about certain topics, the tendency is to think put it in the comp plan. But as the board has said before, the comp plan is our general guidance, right? And we have other documents and places when it gets to specific issues that might change over time how we deal with them. So I think you're absolutely right when you deal with stormwater and all. We have to be careful what we put in here because we're writing policies for the whole county that, as you said, might be different in

[00:13:27] different parts of the county um i'm going to turn it over to the chairman uh thank you uh supervisor smith and actually you said what i was going to lead with which is the question of how specific we get um my preference would be to err on the side of less specific simply because we have so many other plans and documents in place that can be referred to um and obviously we want this to be relatively timeless and so the more specific you get the more need you're going to have to go back and have to make constant adjustments. And so referencing some of the other plans that are

[00:14:02] easier to adjust, certainly on the environmental side, we have, as you outlined, a ton of other guiding documents that are much more specific involving the environment. And frankly, any redundancies or outdated information or things like that that get into the policy plan makes the policy plan harder to use, harder to understand, and more of a challenge, I think, downstream for staff and trying to deal with how it matches up to a particular application.

[00:14:35] And so I would say for certainly the policy plan originally was set out to be aspirational, high-level guidance, not very detailed type of thing that we want to make sure we prevent here.

[00:14:51] And so I would say err on the side of being less specific and relying on other documents to buttress the points that the policy plan is trying to get across. And then secondarily, I think the question that I have is with the changes, so the draft was published in April.

[00:15:13] You've been receiving changes you just mentioned for folks watching or for us to submit comments. comments, but help me understand where we go from all those changes and all those suggested edits to a final version. What does that look like, and what does the public participation level look like from kind of where we're sitting today to when we might be ready to adopt this piece?

[00:15:37] Thank you. So with the changes that we've been receiving, we've been compiling them and trying to see what's workable with the comp plan and what isn't. And so as part of the, I almost said January, June 5th, Policy Plan Committee discussion with the Planning Commission, we will be highlighting what changes we are incorporating and what we're not able to.

[00:15:56] And then over summer, we'll continue refining that draft text with our partner agencies. And we've done three rounds of community outreach already. Last week, we just wrapped up round three. So we invite additional community input into our public input email address and also to the public hearings with the Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors.

[00:16:14] Okay, so you will be publishing what you believe to be reflective, either incorporating or not incorporating, but in a transparent way, the comments that you got, and then that final draft that will be the subject of the public hearing at the Planning Commission and Board.

[00:16:31] When do you anticipate that final draft being published? So we can commit to five weeks prior to the public hearing. Right now, we're anticipating that publication would occur in September, but we'll work backwards from the final dates that are set for Planning Commission and Board public hearings. Okay that sounds fine and I think along the lines of the time frame I think many of us were hoping to get so you know there's a lot on your plate there's other things that need to be moved into so trying to get this piece behind us as I think is very important and and I just want to re-emphasize the point of high level you know rely on other other sources of

[00:17:11] information that are much more specific to be referenced, and as Supervisor Smith rightly pointed out, this is a very large county, and some pieces of this may be very applicable in some parts of the county, and other pieces might not be applicable at all, and that's where that high level, I think, is important, and us relying on our other documents to try to steer that process, I think, is most helpful.

[00:17:35] So, thank you. Thank you. I have Supervisor Palchuk, then Alcorn. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you so much to Corinne and the staff who've worked on this, been trying to educate myself as well as I can. It is quite a complex document. And so, first of all, just definitely thank you for the work on this.

[00:17:55] And absolutely agree that there are some updates that needed to happen to make this more regular language. I do also agree with the chairman because I think as we get too specific, right, and there are so many different plans and policy plans and area plans, and every jurisdiction does it differently, right?

[00:18:13] And I think the more we're able to sort of simplify what we do across our 400 square miles so that we can be a little bit more targeted. You know, I have the most urban areas, the most transit-oriented areas. And so it's going to look pretty different from some of the Mount Vernon area, Springfield areas, and even parts of Drainingsville.

[00:18:32] So I just want to make sure that we are looking at it that way. And really, as you do the outreach, I hope it's targeted and that we are able to put it in understandable language, right, to really get feedback from our community that maybe hasn't had the opportunity or the outreach to understand what this means to them, right?

[00:18:56] How will it impact their community? What do they want to see in the next phase of the plan? So that's one thing that kind of worries me as we do these very complex and overly complex plans and put more into them is it is the community's plan right and this is it's our policy plan it's not the specific so again I highly agree with doing that and then more specifically I've been looking at the environmental piece which I think is critical and I've been kind of trying to compare the way we do it with some other jurisdictions I think Alexandria is

[00:19:32] updating their green building policies, and one of the things I wonder is do we, what's comparable if we go up to LEED Gold? We talk about other ways to approve, right, and LEED is one way. There are so many others like Passive House and the federal ones. Have we looked at are there comparables to LEED Gold if we're saying other ways to get approved also work? So with our policy plan, you for the question uh we do have lead as the sort of standard that we use for comparison with the county um we've in the past approved earthcraft and ngbs the national green building standard as

[00:20:09] alternative residential programs um earthcraft also has a commercial program and so with this language it gives us the flexibility to have applicants propose other programs for us to review and see if it's something that would align with our policies and our goals to allow them to pursue that through proper commitments or development conditions and so anytime we do get a suggestion for something that's outside of one of those programs we do review it vigorously to try and make sure that we're we're meeting those goals um no one's proposed passive house yet but um we do encourage through this update uh more similar things to the operational energy strategy which does uh hit at the net zero and all of that so i think hopefully with this revision

[00:20:49] we'll start seeing some more of those um those proposals yeah and i would and i know in a way right lead kind of lets us have the outside um review but i know it also becomes a very costly review that's kind of like organic about that review and and some um businesses whether it's in farming or this are choosing to go with a different process that maybe lets them put more and be more specific as to what they're doing versus putting the time and and money into this external review so i just hope we look at that i know it's a bit of a challenge but are there really comparable. I wasn't able to find one if there are to us going up to LEED Gold. I just want

[00:21:28] to make sure the outcomes we're looking for are practically going to work here and what have other jurisdictions been able to apply that has given them what they're looking for. And then my other one is just, do we have specific priorities when we're looking at these, right? Are we, and maybe looking across, we have CCAP in so many other places. If we simplify it, then we can really be more nimble as okay here you know focusing on energy versus carbon versus water versus you know if everything's a priority i don't know how much of that we want to put into i guess the policy

[00:22:03] plan versus leaving that in our other environmental goals and ccap goals i think that's the that's exactly the challenge we've been grappling with with our policy plan we've always relied on third-party certification just because the county is so big and we were previously doing something called soft commitments that were really staff time intensive and didn't really get us to the the point that we were trying to get at with sustainable design practices and so with the revisions we've made we've kept the emphasis on energy efficiency since that was a board priority and we just refined the way it's worded a little bit and so we are able to

[00:22:41] strike that balance between projects so that we're not penalizing someone for not being able to do something but exactly to your point we are relying on those other documents like CCAP to and the operational energy strategy to help us move the needle my final question is back to the outreaches would love to see what we've done for both targeted outreach and with our business community this housing becomes more and more expensive just want to make sure that we'll be able to continue to build or try to build more accessible housing and buildings and not bring it out of reach of our community so thank you we did publish a community feedback report in April I believe it was um so we'll send that to you and then

[00:23:20] And if you have any further questions, feel free to reach out to us. Okay. Just how it was done. I don't know if it's in there, if I missed it. Thank you. It's in there. Okay. I have Supervisor Alcorn, then Harrity, then Walkinshaw. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. So good discussion about basically maybe simplifying parts of this.

[00:23:40] And I think there's some good examples of where there is guidance that exists outside of the policy plan that's helpful. For example, we have urban design guidelines in, I know, in Reston and Tyson's and some other places, and that exists outside of the policy plan.

[00:23:58] I guess one of the things that would be helpful for me is to understand anything that's coming out of the policy plan, where's it going? So if we are going to take stuff out of here, I want to make sure that if it's still useful and it's still appropriate that it's going somewhere because there's an example of I don't know how you would do that for example with the EQC policy I mean it's several pages there's a fair amount of detail there but you know to me that's kind of that's probably something that's can't go anywhere else but you know as you look at simplifying it and seeing where things should

[00:24:35] go that I think would be super helpful at least from my perspective and I would also you know, as we're looking at some of the details, I think it's important to remember, like our CCAP plan. Our CCAP plan is primarily internal to the county. And there may be things in our CCAP plan that call for external parties, for private parties to do things. And this policy

[00:25:11] plan can be an implementation strategy of our CCAP plan. So there may be the other way too, where there may be plans that there's a little more detail here, but actually they're tied, not doesn't come out of the policy plan, but maybe it's just a reference. So I would caution us about simplifying it too much because comprehensive planning is one of the few areas the General Assembly gives us clear authority for, at least on the land use side, and certainly

[00:25:49] a lot of things we don't want to put in the zoning ordinance because it ties everybody's hands too tightly, so I appreciate there may be some things that we can simplify, but there are also some things I want to make sure we keep in here for flexibility purposes, too, so thank you.

[00:26:07] Chairman McKenna. Just on Supervisor Alcorn's point, because it reminds me of something. Have we checked this really clearly against the zoning ordinance? Because actually, I find the data center information in here to be the exact opposite of what Supervisor Alcorn just described.

[00:26:23] I think it goes beyond what the zoning ordinance requires. And so I am worried a little bit about the compatibility of the two and how much work we put into the zoning ordinance amendments relative to data centers. And then when I look at what's in here, this actually looks like it goes far beyond what our zoning ordinance says.

[00:26:43] And so how do we kind of referee that, the compatibility between the zoning ordinance and the policy plan? Because the policy plan is meant to be a much higher, wider view of what's going on. And the zoning ordinance, of course, is the enforceable application.

[00:27:01] And I actually see, and maybe there's other examples, but this one example, it almost looks like the tug of war between the two. the policy plan is more specific and ask for things that even our zoning ordinance doesn't. So help me with that. Good morning, Tracy Strunk, Planning and Development.

[00:27:20] We can certainly go back and double-check some of those things as well overall with the zoning ordinance and the comp plan. The goal with the data centers, and we'll get to that in the land use section, but was one of the things that we actually wanted to kind of touch base with you all in particular. And if you recall, when we did the report last year, a little over a year now, there was a lot of discussion about what needs to be in the regulations that will apply to everything that's going to be by right, what needs to be in the regulations if something's going through a special exception, which then sort of looks back to the comp plan, and what is something that's sort of more general.

[00:27:55] And so the guidance that we heard or thought we heard at that time was let's focus on the zoning ordinance and particularly those by-right situations, which were not covered in any way really in the zoning ordinance for data centers, and look at the comp plan when we got to that section in the environmental section.

[00:28:12] And so that was our goal, was that the idea was that there are certainly regulations that apply to buy-right situations that cover everyone. And then if someone is coming in and asking for something additional through the special exception process or potentially rezoning process, then maybe there are additional things because they are doing more than the buy-right, and that's kind of generally the way we work.

[00:28:35] If you're doing more, you might get asked a little bit more. And so where that balance is, is something we certainly want to hear from you all. No, I appreciate that, and I think that is something, you know, we should spend some time talking about just from the standpoint of making sure there's compatibility, but also making sure if there are areas where the policy plan is meant to be more aggressive than the zoning ordinance, that we pay particular attention to those areas and the reasons for that, because the conventional wisdom is that's not what we've used this tool for in the past.

[00:29:09] It's not to say we can't moving forward, but I think it is a little bit of a change from the foundational elements that the policy plan be pretty high level and, you know, not overly specific. So I think that's a good intersection conversation to have with how that does fit with our zoning ordinance.

[00:29:27] Thank you. Supervisor Herity, then welcome. Yeah, I'm going to, I think, work from the general to the specific, but I'd like to echo the chairman's comment on less specificity. And it's not just a wide range of geography, as Supervisor Smith mentioned, but, you know, this varies widely in the size of the projects that are coming forward and all that.

[00:29:50] So it's got to be the broadest kind of language in my book. You know, some of these are recommendations. Some are certainly requirements, which makes it very, very difficult, especially when you've got the variety of projects.

[00:30:12] A couple of general questions, and sorry, I missed a couple of months with some surgery, but what work has been done on the cost impact of these? And I know that varies widely, but we talk a lot around this table and around the dais about the affordability of housing in Fairfax County.

[00:30:37] Have we looked at the cost? I mean, there's some very good recommendations here that are great things, But, I mean, the stuff on soils, if you've got to bring in a whole ton of soils to remediate an area, if you've got to remove all the invasive species, what are you doing to the cost of housing?

[00:30:52] And I know that's difficult when you've got varied projects, like I just said, from the small to the large. But I would hope as we went through this, there was some look at what the cost impact of these were before they got in there and who's doing that and what kind of cost information can you give us when it comes to the cost impact of a lot of these?

[00:31:19] Supervisor Herity, we haven't done a specific cost impact this cost X. What we have done is as we look at proposals that we're making, we certainly review what's happening in the development community and in the development area and what people are doing as part of their regular developments.

[00:31:38] And we also are trying to balance the cost between a development coming in and mitigating some of those things as they do the development while they're doing the work on the ground and the cost to mitigating that if nothing is done at that time and who bears the cost if that goes forward in the future.

[00:31:57] So those are the things we're balancing, and we can certainly keep looking at that. Just adding, Jennifer Miller, Deputy County Exec for Community Development. I think that's a good question and something Tracy and I have just been going back and forth a little bit on. The county executive and I met with a bunch of developers and then also met with NAOP to get some input on some of the cost impacts, as an example.

[00:32:17] With the data centers, if you go from LEED Silver to lead gold. I reached out to a couple of data center developers and said, can you give me an estimate of what the cost differential would be here, just for consideration. So I think on some of those big impacts, that's something we can work to try to quantify and then bring back. Maybe, yeah, and maybe a study of taking an existing application and what these additional things would require of that application. You know, you can figure out, you're smart enough to figure out how to get it done. To state to that point, we're actually doing that now, right now with a specific application account. I'm not going to mention the name, but we're

[00:32:53] absolutely doing that right now because it is about cost to delivery. And that's what we heard from those developers. Yeah. And they won't be absorbing it. They'll be passing it on. Trust me. One of the things, sorry, that we asked the development community, because we have started to hear a little bit of anecdotal information about like, hey, the cumulative impacts of these costs. And we say, we don't get input from you all on a project that you choose not to pursue because of these cost impacts.

[00:33:20] So we asked that community if they can help articulate that to us. And we said, you know, feel free to provide that to us, to the board, and so that that can be weighed against some of the requirements. So that's something we've recently asked. That's good news. Thank you. The second one is more on our internal impacts.

[00:33:39] Have we assessed the impact on the time and training requirements it's going to take to understand all these new requirements? I mean, what's that going to do to the time of an application?

[00:33:55] Supervisor Herity, Kelly Atkinson. A lot of the policies, as Ms. Bebeck mentioned, are putting into writing things that we've already been doing. We've already been pushing for invasive species management, for enhancing soil, some of the green building things with the increase.

[00:34:14] These are things that we're already seeing and already looking at. And so we haven't quantified any of that, but it's our anticipation that there's not going to be a significant staff training that's needed because we're just codifying things that have already been done in practice. So staff's familiar with the American Bird Conservancy standards already?

[00:34:36] Again, we're asking them to commit to things that we're already looking at. I mean, we're not trained experts in that, but it's things that we're already seeing developers offer to. So this is a requirement. I'm just going to do one specific. I could do this with a bunch of them, but ensure all fenestration and lighting is bird-friendly, consistent with guidelines published by the American Bird Conservancy or equivalent standards.

[00:35:02] Our staff's already familiar with them. So, Supervisor Herity, maybe the suggestion would be why don't you go through the document and pull out the things that you want us to address specifically to you, because obviously there's going to be 10 supervisors. There's probably going to be 100 things that you guys want us to look at, So why don't we just go forward with that so we can come back to you with a solid plan.

[00:35:23] Sure, I'll do that. I had one question on this. Is that the current standards or is that as they get revised or is it, I mean, they're a great organization, by the way, located right here in McLean, 30 years old.

[00:35:40] So generally the way things that are in the policy plan would get implemented would be a proper commitment or a commitment by the developer. So that would be a discussion. And generally, people commit to current standards unless there's some specific thing where sometimes there are times where they will commit to sort of whatever the current standard is.

[00:35:59] So we're going to, as we go forward in the American Bird Conservancy, changes their standards, whatever they are, in five years from now. So we're committing to those standards?

[00:36:15] Hold on a second. We're not committing to those standards. The Board of Supervisors will be committing to whatever standards we move forward with. But, again, I'm going to ask if we all could get a list of all the things that you want us to look at that you believe are things that you don't want in this plan or things that you need more information on, we'll be more than happy to go after it.

[00:36:34] Just have a little trouble giving control of our comprehensive plan requirements because it says insure to an outside unelected body. That's all. Supervisor Walkinshaw.

[00:36:51] Thank you, Madam Chair. The first of the list of 100 things for board members to ask for, I'll start. I think if we're going to be asking, and I think it's appropriate to ask developers or property owners to share their perspective on the upfront costs that might be associated with some of these requirements, we also then need to ask them about the savings associated with them.

[00:37:19] So yes, there's an upfront cost for a LEED certification, but there are long-term savings associated with many of the elements of that LEED certification. So please do not come back with only one side of the ledger with respect to those requirements.

[00:37:37] Question for the Tyson's Urban Center and TSAs. There's a LEED Gold certification for non-residential and LEED Silver for residential.

[00:37:54] Can you talk me through the thought process in making that distinction and having the different levels for non-residential versus residential. Certainly right now, much more demand for residential than non-residential.

[00:38:11] So there's a strong market for residential. But just talk me through that thought process in terms of having the different levels for non-residential and residential. And then I have one more question after that. Sure. Thank you. Karim, back with DPD. So with the certification levels, previously our plan did recommend higher levels of certification for non-residential development and basic certification for residential development.

[00:38:37] And so through what we've reviewed, through what projects have been getting LEED certified, we've seen more consistent and attainable LEED silver for residential projects, and we've seen more LEED gold for non-residential. So that's based on our experience that they've been able to get to it. And then the kind of broader question, which is relevant to those items and other portions of the plan, and it goes to, I think, Supervisor Palczyk's point in question, the lead or

[00:39:09] equivalent program, is it difficult or more difficult to find a lead gold equivalent versus seems to me easier to say lead or equivalent. When you get down to the specificity of lead silver or equivalent or lead gold or equivalent, that strikes me as a bigger challenge to find an equivalent program or certification that is analogous to the very specific requirements in

[00:39:42] lead silver or lead gold. Have we done that before? And how confident are we that working with a developer property owner that could be accomplished so in the past when we've had this come up we have worked directly with the certifying body so the group that administers earthcraft or the national green building standard reviewers to make sure that if we're recommending a higher level of that program so ngbs silver or earthcraft silver that it is comparable to lead okay so those groups will look at lead with you look at lead silver and say here's our equivalency okay all

[00:40:21] Right. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. I guess we're ready to rock and roll to the next section. Before we jump on, I just want to say thank you. I know this is a big, there's a lot of stuff in here, and I really appreciate all of you spending the energy to look at that.

[00:40:43] All right. Good morning, everyone. My name is Michael Burton. I am with the Department of Planning and Development. I am one of the co-leads for the land use element. I am joined by my other colleague, Katrina Knudsen, and Carly Aubrey, as well, who provided support.

[00:41:01] Next slide, thank you. As a point of comparison to begin, I wanted to start with reviewing the existing structure of the land use element. This slide shows the broad topics under which the objectives are organized, and under each objective are corresponding policies.

[00:41:18] As you can see, the majority of the objectives fall under the land use pattern, and there are currently 17 objectives in total. This slide shows the existing appendices of the land use element of the policy plan. There are currently 14 appendices which have been added over the years to the end of the land use element.

[00:41:39] Since these appendices address important policies and or guidance, one of our goals for this project was to incorporate these appendices into the body of the element itself as both dedicated policies and new development criteria. The draft land use element has been reorganized into eight broad categories, each with its own objectives or criteria.

[00:42:05] This new structure aligns more closely with the goals outlined in the comprehensive plan overview element, reflects updated planning principles, and ensures a more balanced distribution of objectives across categories. As mentioned, we also aim to integrate the former appendices directly into the element to support future policy development and simplify references.

[00:42:27] Where appropriate, appendix content was incorporated into policies or use-specific guidance. For more extensive subjects, like the development and redevelopment criteria in transit-oriented development, we created dedicated criteria chapters.

[00:42:46] As mentioned previously, staff identified recommendations from the Clarion Reports to be incorporated into the land use element. As the findings were in response to emerging land use trends, newly introduced policies will provide staff with the tools and flexibility to respond.

[00:43:03] New opportunities were identified for our consideration of ground floor retail and or retail in mixed-use environments. New policies in this area will encourage greater consideration of where ground floor retail opportunities are encouraged.

[00:43:19] Similarly, as we continue to respond to changes in office demand, the Office Repurposing Report recommended additional considerations for evaluating both the repurposing of existing office structures and or the redevelopment of existing office sites, and these were incorporated into the use-specific guidance. We incorporated new guidance that would support the expansion, both in gross floor area and height, of existing buildings to be repurposed and allow for new residential density intensity outside the footprint of the repurposed building in areas

[00:43:53] developed with surface parking. Lastly, staff has incorporated additional guidance around the preservation of areas designated for industrial use and our concept for future development. Collectively, the introduction of these new policies represents our effort to stay ahead of emerging land use trends and provide additional flexibility.

[00:44:13] Another addition, informed by recent development trends, is a new concept called Suburban Village Centers. This new classification represents predominantly commercial nodes within our suburban neighborhoods along arterial roadways and that provide a range of services to adjacent, lower-density communities and are currently or have the potential for a mix of uses or mixed use.

[00:44:42] They may also be appropriate for a wider range of housing types such as multifamily residential or townhomes. The goal was to classify areas functioning as neighborhood commercial hubs that are generally less intense in nature than the activity centers identified within our concept for future development.

[00:45:02] An already built example might be Graham Park Plaza or the adopted plan amendment for the Pan Am Shopping Center or one of the recent SSPA's Hilltop Village Center. While suburban village centers have not been geographically designated, the classification would allow staff to identify these important functional areas during a plan review process and provide additional guidance for how redevelopment in these areas could be treated.

[00:45:32] The concept of suburban village centers was included in several policies and criteria, with Objective 2, most specifically addressing suburban village centers. In a future review of our area plans, additional considerations could be explored based on the unique needs of each community, and this classification could be added to the concept for a future development map.

[00:45:57] Another notable step taken during the review of the land use section was the introduction of a new objective that highlights the importance of creating places with high-quality urban design principles. Existing policies that focused on these elements were reorganized under Objective 12 and strengthens their intent.

[00:46:17] Likewise, this further supports guidance included in the county-adopted Volume 1 Urban Design Guidelines for Commercial Revitalization Districts and Areas, including mixed-use centers and newly introduced suburban village centers.

[00:46:32] In our broader review of the policy plan, synergies were identified with our goal of articulating placemaking and existing plan guidance within the visual arts element. As a result, existing policies from the visual arts element were synthesized and reorganized into the land use element as Objectives 13 and 14.

[00:46:55] This approach ensures that these objectives are better integrated into the plan review process. A key goal was to incorporate equity-focused policies across the entire policy plan tailored to the context of each individual element.

[00:47:13] In the land use element, this effort resulted in two new objectives supported by five specific policies. The new policies promote stronger connections between communities and economic opportunities while recognizing and respecting the unique cultural and economic identities of each area.

[00:47:32] They emphasize thoughtful approaches to displacement, equitable access to resources, and the preservation of a resilient, diverse economic base. Lastly, new development criteria were introduced for consideration of data centers.

[00:47:50] The newly developed criteria builds upon the staff work conducted as part of the January 2024 Data Center Report and the Zoning Ordinance Amendments, which was presented to the Board on March 12, 2024, and the amendment adopted in September of 2024.

[00:48:08] The table lists nine topics for which criteria are proposed and would apply to data centers seeking rezoning and/or special exception approval pursuant to zoning ordinance standards. To highlight a few of the proposed criteria, staff proposes for data centers to achieve a standard of LEED Gold; for energy and water demand, staff proposes criteria to encourage coordination with utility providers, use of renewable resources, and the implementation of energy or water efficient strategies.

[00:48:41] For water quality, a couple of the proposed criteria encourage monitoring or cooling system discharge, and site design to exceed code requirements for open space, tree preservation and planting, and stormwater treatment. And for noise, staff proposes that data centers should seek to exceed minimum code limits through site design, building design, and mitigation measures.

[00:49:05] And that concludes the presentation. Our contact information, project webpage, and links to the draft text can be found on the slide. As Corrine mentioned, we are accepting comments via our public email address, and that's all we have.

[00:49:20] Thank you, Madam Chairman. Thank you, Michael. All this work and everything good you're doing for the Centerville Suburban, so I personally thank you for all of this. I did want to talk for a minute about the building repurposing for the commercial and your process.

[00:49:39] I know when I would talk with Supervisor Gross, and she had, I think, maybe the first one of those, there were some frustrations. So if you could talk me through kind of lessons learned and the changes you've made with this, I think that would be helpful. Kelly Atkinson.

[00:49:55] Yeah, the changes that we've made to the repurposing policy have been informed by trends that staff has seen either through pre-application request, primarily through pre-application request. So we have one project in the Mason District where there was a request to repurpose, but just based on the exterior of the building with the windows, They needed additional flexibility with the gross square footage to bump out the building slightly to add windows There was also a request to add floors to the height of that building and based on how the policy was currently drafted We haven't we haven't allowed for additional GFA or additional building height through the policy

[00:50:33] And so what we've done is we have added additional guidance to the policy plan to allow that And we've based that off of the minor modification provisions and the zoning ordinance And then we've also had requests to repurpose buildings, but in addition to that, also build new market rate housing, which we could also get affordable housing through our policies and ordinances.

[00:50:54] And so we've provided additional guidance there. These are all ways to avoid need for plan amendments so that we're getting to that board concern about the speed and the consistency and predictability of the process, that we're providing that additional flexibility using past plan guidance such as the preservation policy in terms of mitigating impacts and looking at compatibility.

[00:51:16] Thank you. I think that's really important that we take our lessons learned and we move forward so that we can get more housing. So the other piece is the data center piece. Um, I share the chairman's concerns that we have gone way too far with these pieces.

[00:51:38] Um, I think it's going to be important to get feedback also from industry. Um, but when, I think the board, I know the board did a great job doing our zoning ordinance for data centers to create balance because we all use data and we need the data centers and have requirements there.

[00:51:57] I'm not going to go into detail of which areas I'm more concerned about, but, you know, one of them is the repurposing. You know, how much I'm looking at this and I'm looking at a warehouse or other facilities we have, and are we requiring them to deal with repurposing?

[00:52:13] I think that the staff report on data centers, you know, when I reviewed that back when we were doing the zoning ordinance, it went too far in certain areas, in my opinion, And I think we need to inform what is valuable to put in the comprehensive plan because we want to have a great environment for people and what is too much here.

[00:52:35] So I would appreciate a look at this and some discussion with industry and other people to get to a better place with this. With that, I'm going to turn to the chairman. So I concur with exactly what Supervisor Smith just said with regard to the data centers.

[00:52:51] I will say, and maybe I'm reading this wrong, but one of the areas I think that's a challenge in here is the pace, quality, and types of development section. If I'm looking at the new one compared to the old one, I mean, this is a case where elements of the old one, I think, are better than elements of the new one.

[00:53:13] I'm just I'm just concerned about this section and not having it read as if it's not a legal, adequate public facilities requirement. And when I read things like support the pace of development, redevelopment or repurposing in the county for new uses and densities, intensities through the adequate provision of transportation, public facilities, services and infrastructure.

[00:53:38] And then I read the old language on that that says the pace of development in the county should be in general accord with the comprehensive plan and sustainable by the provision of transportation and public facilities. I mean, to me, the old language gives us the flexibility to understand on a case-by-case basis how a development is affecting public infrastructure.

[00:54:02] And I am a little bit concerned about what the definition of adequate provision of transportation, public facilities, services, and infrastructure will be interpreted as. And so, to me, that goes a step further than I'm comfortable with.

[00:54:19] And certainly there are areas of the county where we're trying to induce redevelopment, revitalization. In some cases, the public improvements that come with the development need to be factored in and I know would be factored in.

[00:54:35] But we have a humongous housing shortage right now. We have parts of the county where we're trying to induce redevelopment. And I would sure hate for Objective 4 to be misinterpreted as there will be a traffic delay or we are adding kids to a classroom.

[00:54:56] I mean, we get the memos on those that tell us what the school capacity is. And kind of going back to the comment that was made earlier about not taking the authority from an elected board away and giving it away, I think we, through working with the public, through understanding our constituents, understanding the very specific issues with adequate public facilities, understanding of how that aligns with our joint conversations on CIP with the school board, I mean, we know what's down in the pipeline.

[00:55:27] We know what's necessary in some of these areas, and I just see that part could be misinterpreted and somebody not come forward with a potentially valuable development to the county that addresses a housing shortage or some other commercial use that we need and say, well, it doesn't look like this is adequate with regard to provision of transportation, public facilities, services, and infrastructure.

[00:55:55] And that, to me, is very broad. That, to me, is very subjective on a case-by-case basis and does concern me because just in alignment with what we were talking about before about how different parts of the county are, there are some areas where you would say no to a case because you know there's an existing huge public facility problem that will be exacerbated. And then there's other areas of the county where you're trying to transform an area into a transit-oriented development and change people's behaviors and induce revitalization and address our housing shortages.

[00:56:32] That's a very different review, I would think, of what our infrastructure needs are. So I'm concerned about that area and perhaps maybe a little bit of an overstep of at least what would make me comfortable. Can I just add, because then when you read policy A under that, and I forgot I had this, my timing of development should coincide with the provision of transportation and other necessary public improvements.

[00:56:55] That creates an issue, and I'm sorry, I want to add on here because I did have a question under Policy C to understand this. Require the proportionate participation of all development in fully mitigating impacts to public facility and transportation capacity.

[00:57:13] And so I think those questions go with what the chairman brought forward. And just to be clear, anything that you see in this document, we can go back and either bolster, remove. It's basically a guide to where we think or what we thought we heard from the board.

[00:57:32] Some of these policies are existing. Maybe it's time for us to reshape and remove. Yeah, I don't disagree with it. I mean, in some cases, the old language is better than the new language, too.

[00:57:47] And that, I think, is, for me, looking at that, some elements of the old language here give us more flexibility in having the board work with the community to decide whether development lines up with the adequate infrastructure that we need for that development to be successful and for the community around it to be satisfied.

[00:58:06] And this new language, to me, seems to almost take that out of our hands. And I just don't know how you would make the interpretations needed under Objective 4 as a staff, particularly when you have a case that's supported by the community, understanding that there could be some infrastructure impacts with it.

[00:58:25] Okay. I have Supervisor Palachuk, then Alcorn, then Lusk. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Awesome work again, Michael and staff. Yeah, so let me start with the areas that gave me really positive goosebumps. which would be, you know, the equitable community development, the outreach, that piece of it, right, because if we're not bringing the community into the process and early and empowering them and more people in the community, we're going to have a limited number of voices making decisions and almost having a veto power, right, for the larger community.

[00:58:59] So to me, you know, it's just words on paper unless we're thinking about the processes, and I really love that that's in here. so thank you. And I assume our equity team was involved, so very much appreciate that work, and we've learned, and I've been learning more and more about how to do that even better. There's always room for improvement on that, so very much appreciate that. And I do echo, I'm glad the chairman spoke, because I echo some of the concerns on the specificity of the, especially the accommodating future growth, density, intensity objectives. And I would say in addition

[00:59:36] to the challenges he shared, going back to the environmental challenges, right, we know that the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases are transportation, especially related to long commutes. So I don't know where we bring that in. I haven't heard that yet. But if we are keeping, you know, appropriate housing and different levels of prices of housing from being developed closer to our work centers closer to the county then we'll continue to see more and more people having to live farther and farther away and driving in single occupancy vehicles all the way to work so

[01:00:14] to me that is something that cuts across all this is why we need appropriate housing for the number of jobs that we have or are looking to grow in the community so that that's one thing that i hope we consider strongly and its environmental impacts as well. A little nitpicky, but when you bring up the villages, I love that as well, being able to think about suburban villages, especially I have a lot of border communities to the cities of Fairfax and Falls Church and trying to see what are the right fits there where we have kind of some development. We're seeing them develop a

[01:00:52] little bit more on their side. And so thinking about what's appropriate right on our side of the county side so we can build those sort of village feelings as well so I love that that's in here but the one the one issue I had on policy the see there when you mention kind of the two ends multifamily and townhouses there's all the stuff in between now the two or twos and the triplexes I don't know they have to be in there but I just think they're an important mix in the different types of housing yeah and then finally just really agree with the density intensity going back to every single district and even within our districts right

[01:01:30] there are different areas and we can't get the transit without the housing density right and so it does have that chicken and egg and it reminds me back to when we look at the fire code and there's so much in the fire code that ends up being sort of up to interpretation in some ways which pieces we look at so you know whether it's cross sections but making sure that we're not putting staff in a difficult position of having different sort of, and I know it always will be there, but so many overlapping priorities in the different plans and having to guess which ones are going to be picked, right, to have that highest priority. I don't know the answer to that,

[01:02:10] but I do think that kind of addresses the let's try to keep the policy plan a little bit more high level and flexible so that we can go into more detail, especially after we've had those community conversations and in our area plans and what each community would like to see in each greater area plan and what's missing there. So love this conversation and appreciate your work on it. I'm glad I'm not on your side of the table on this one. Definitely a lot of improvement, but I agree with looking at a little more flexibility here. But on the flip side with the data centers, I don't know where that kind of research should go, but that's kind of what I was

[01:02:49] hoping we could do for the last questions I asked around LEED or other certifications like how do we get a little bit more into the weeds to understand what the outcomes and the impact are so that we see right what the community outcomes are going to be what the both the expense and the cost savings the life cycle savings are going to be for our community and for the development and for the environment so we can kind of have more of that cost-benefit analysis of what we're putting on paper. So, love this. Thank you. I have Supervisor Alcorn, then Luss. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a

[01:03:28] couple thoughts. Really good discussion. I appreciate that. I do, I am interested in the chairman's points that he brought up in terms of the old language and the new language. I mean, a lot of that goes back to the days when we were all fighting about adequate public facilities, which we've never had that authority in Virginia. And I think some of the existing language was put in because we knew we didn't have that authority. We could at least put it in the policy plan and, you know, aspire to it. So I think it is appropriate time to take a look

[01:04:02] at that again. We still have some similar issues, but some have changed as well over time. And I appreciate uh supervisor paul check and some of the points she brought up um there there are a couple of places i i want to focus on very quickly um that relate to that first of all an objective one policy d um it says accommodate forecasted population employment growth by establishing you know and it goes on um the word forecasted is circular because all of our population forecasts come out of the comprehensive plan. So we probably want to think about another term there that gets

[01:04:41] to some of the bigger issues that we're talking about, like, you know, additional population or needed population, you know, or balanced or some combination like that. Let's put in there what we want, you know, not just the forecast. And then I want to raise one other issue, and it also goes back to sort of the village issue that Supervisor Palchuk was talking about. I think we might want to be a little bit more intentional about our activity areas and our growing areas,

[01:05:14] you know, whether the new suburban centers that we're talking about here or just any of our activity areas. And there are really, I guess, two, maybe three things that we should include explicitly in our policy. The first thing is, you know, we have our TOD areas already. Obviously, we've got a number of those. But we have a lot of areas that we're growing that do not have transit service, or at least not significant transit service. So I think explicitly we should

[01:05:49] be thinking about making these areas that we're focusing development transit-ready. So this is a big discussion that's going on throughout the region on bus priority. And the rest of the region is struggling to retrofit their existing development pattern to get bus priority. So I'm not saying buses are always going to be the primary transit service, but they're there. We know they can work when designed and integrated with development. So thinking about some language that

[01:06:25] talks about our growing areas as transit-ready, I think would be really helpful. And then the other thing, and this is a related thing, it gets back to the village idea, is really integrating active transportation into the integrated uses.

[01:06:42] Integrated uses is already talked about in the language, but we probably need to close that loop just a little bit because across developments in our growing areas, We need to integrate really the uses at a human scale that allows for more pedestrian and bicycling active transportation.

[01:07:04] And then the last one I'm not as sure about, but, you know, there may be a third item that we want to include, and that's integrating with our green open spaces in our activity areas, in our growing areas. Because we talk about parks, we talk a little bit about open space, but perhaps that's a third thing.

[01:07:25] So these are all really important things, and I hope we have a chance as a board to talk a little bit more, because honestly, these are things I want to make sure that everybody understands and is on board with. So thank you very much. Supervisor Lesk.

[01:07:41] Go quickly. My colleagues have actually touched on a couple of the points I wanted to make, but the uplifting on the suburban village centers and specifically thinking about the hilltop project, this is the one that's in my district, and the conversion from formerly office on the site to residential multifamily.

[01:08:02] I think this is really important. Having the flexibility and the ability to do that makes eminent sense, So appreciate that as one of the new policies here. And then second, just thinking too about the community that I serve as it relates to the manufactured housing.

[01:08:22] And I just want to uplift what's being done as it relates to the equitable development section. I heard very loud and clear, and I think all of us who've been in meetings, hearing from members in those communities, Harmony and Audubon in particular in my district, since that we're not included, a sense that they're not being protected as it relates to future development. So the language that's here gets to that very clearly and distinctly, and I think that's important and necessary. And the last point I'll make is one relative to a case that we just

[01:08:58] heard last Tuesday, and I know there was a lot of issues that came up relative to quote-unquote traffic and schools. And one of the things, at least on the traffic side, it is helpful if we're able to look at the impacts of traffic from more than just the site, but looking at it from a more connected and expansive view. So thinking about what is the background traffic from other developments that are planned in the area that would impact that site.

[01:09:38] So I think being able to ensure that that's part of the analysis that we have, and I guess we'd have to obviously talk to the plan nominators and those applicants to have them do that background work, but I'm glad that we were able to, in the case that we heard on last Tuesday, to get concurrence for that because it makes a difference.

[01:09:59] So I just want to lift that up as a way for us to help for those who are saying cumulatively we're not looking at those impacts and not aware of how other projects in alignment with this new proposed project will affect traffic in the area.

[01:10:18] So with that, I'll conclude my remarks. Thank you. Thank you. I thought we might get done early, and now we're going to be crunched to be done. So on to transportation. Good morning, members of the board.

[01:10:38] I am Bob Pecora with Fairfax County DOT, and I'm joined by my co-workers, Jeff Herman, Mike Garcia, and Taylor Wehmeyer behind me. Taylor and I are the co-leads for this transportation policy plan update. Today, I'll summarize the work that we completed in updating the transportation policy element.

[01:10:57] Similar to the other teams, we began work with a review of the current policy plan to understand how it was organized, written, and what were the key topics. Transportation policies are written for everyone to use, and we needed to ensure that it continued to be reader-friendly.

[01:11:16] We noted that there are a lot of repetition and overlap of terms, so in taking the board's direction, we focused on streamlining, modernizing, and reformatting the structure. There were numerous changes that we made to the transportation policy element, where there's outdated information, economic or demographic data, or vehicle road volumes.

[01:11:38] We removed those references so it doesn't artificially date the policy plan. We coordinated with the other elemental teams when we spotted overlapping policies so that we would not repeat ideas or policy recommendations. The new structure has objectives that are directly supported by the policies and are grouped into topic categories and themes.

[01:11:58] We updated the transportation strategy with emphasis throughout related to active transportation, safety, equity, and fair access to transportation and the relationships with land use and the environment. On forward thinking, we recognize that there are technologies that are emerging that could help take us into the future and for us to keep pace with innovation.

[01:12:23] Basically, we took a broad brush and updated all of the objectives and policies. Throughout the community engagement phases, we received many comments and had discussions on a variety of transportation topics.

[01:12:41] Overall, there were many related to transportation issues and concerns in the different areas of the counties, whether we visited in person or in a broader perspective in the virtual meetings. We heard about the need for more sidewalks and bike lanes, less traffic and congestion, more bus service and additional routes, and concerns about safety because of incidents involving pedestrians, bicyclists, and vehicles.

[01:13:08] When we talked about the policies and guidance for current transportation needs and also for the future, that's when we received comments about expanding rail and bus rapid transit lines, transit-oriented development, fixing roads, again, improving safety, adding more crosswalks, and more funding for pedestrian and bike facilities, and also ways to reduce emissions or adding street trees and embracing future tech and electric cars.

[01:13:34] The comments and ideas we heard were the backbone for this update for the transportation policies. This slide here highlights the objectives and policies we revamped. You can use this as a quick reference guide when reviewing the transportation policy document.

[01:13:52] Generally, the objective topics remain familiar with the current policy plan, but after the first one, multimodal transportation system, they are in a different order. These are the familiar topics besides multimodal transportation systems. Land use and transportation, public transit, TDM, transportation demand management, transportation and environment, and funding.

[01:14:15] Note that we work with the FCDOT transit team to review and update transit policy recommendations. In modernizing the policy plan, we also use newer terms where appropriate. The revised objectives that appear as new topics are active transportation, technology and infrastructure, and community engagement.

[01:14:37] In our updates, these objectives may have been policies scattered about in the current policy plan, but we thought that they deserve to be objectives with policies to support them. Safety was mentioned a lot in the current policy plan, so we thought it would deserve to be its own objective with supporting policies.

[01:14:56] For active transportation, it's not really new, but this is where we grouped policies for peds, bikes, and micro-mobility. That's a new term. We just gave it a newer name and more policies for promoting walkable and bikeable communities. We work with the Fairfax County Department of Transportation Act of Transportation team to help us group policy recommendations in relation to their ongoing work with the active Fairfax transportation plan.

[01:15:24] Technology and infrastructure is where we have policies to support improving the transportation network and also to recognize that technology could help with innovative ideas, analysis, and design work. On community engagement, this is what we added since we asked the public and stakeholders to provide us with their input on capital projects, head and bike facilities, transit updates, and transportation studies and designs.

[01:15:54] The transportation element also has four large-scale maps. In the current version, these are static maps and are outdated. However, if you go to the Conference Plan Policy Maps webpage, there you'll find the newer updated maps for the county-wide transportation plan, the trails plan, and the bicycle map. A fourth map, which details the roadway system functional classifications and is found in Appendix 1, will be updated and linked to the comprehensive plan maps. Four of the appendices have been updated for readability and understanding with newer text,

[01:16:31] definitions, tables, and diagrams. There is an Appendix 5 for the bicycle master plan, though it's not listed here. This plan can be found on the FCDOT website. It was not included in this update that we are proposing any changes as we are not proposing any changes to it with this policy amendment. The new active transportation and trails plan will be a separate comprehensive plan amendment that the board recently directed staff to begin. We will be coordinating with the active transportation team to ensure that the policy updates also support the new active

[01:17:05] transportation plan and vice versa. In this regard, we will be updating the maps and reviewing Appendix 3 by control classifications, as well as Appendix 5. In closing, this is the project website where you can find our current policy plan and the new draft policy plan text for review.

[01:17:29] Like the others, we are accepting comments today and by our public input email address noted here. And then with that, I'd like to turn it back over to the board. And looking forward to the comments and ideas you have for us.

[01:17:44] Thank you very much. I am going to turn it to the Chair, Ms. Good. I have Supervisor Biermann. Thank you for all your work on this. I have a couple questions that actually fit, I think, in the context of a lot of what you've heard already about keeping the plan broad enough and flexible enough to give us, you know, more opportunities.

[01:18:10] This is supposed to be the broader document than we have narrower documents. And I know this actually was a letter addressed to you, Mr. Pecora, from the Transportation Advisory Commission, the TAC, submitted comments.

[01:18:25] And there was a line in that that I thought if the sort of line coming from this side of the table has sort of been surrounding flexibility, the line that the TAC consistently used was a context-sensitive approach.

[01:18:43] The idea that we really needed – the TAC believes that the transportation element of the policy plan should acknowledge that its implementation will require a context-sensitive approach, balancing key priority factors such as land use and transportation plans, economic development priorities, one, Fairfax and equity, safety, and environmental considerations in different areas of the county.

[01:19:04] And I look through the plan, and there were some points where, for instance, Objective 1, Policy G, integrate comprehensive transportation analysis metrics. That sounds kind of like a context-sensitive approach.

[01:19:20] Appendix 4, which acknowledges, you know, right there, there's a line. Sorry, actually, it was Appendix. No, that's Appendix 4. Roads and revitalizations. The county is comprised of diverse communities and development patterns, some of which have urban features, higher land use densities, and more active transportation and microtransit services.

[01:19:44] I guess my question is, do you feel that the plan implements – actually, two-part question. One, do you think that's a useful suggestion coming from the TAC? Two, do you feel that the way the plan has been written implements that suggestion?

[01:20:01] And three, what would you point to as aspects of this plan that you feel are doing a good job of implementing that suggestion? Okay, great comments that we've worked with the TAC almost all of last year, five different times we met with them.

[01:20:19] This is your chance to show off. Yeah, okay. So I worked with Mike Champness, and his comments, the letter that he provided to us were really great. And we did incorporate a lot of their ideas into the policy plan here. So his concept for -- or the tax concept for working context sensitive was also related to the concept for future development that's in the land use policy.

[01:20:45] So that helps to orient the policies that we have that are specific to certain areas, but not specific enough that all these policies are only just for one kind of community. We emphasized to them that the policies are countywide and there are certain policies within transportation or within the other elements would apply to other areas of the county that may not apply to other particular areas.

[01:21:15] So I'm trying to emphasize that it was recognizing that there is this context that the county is so large and there's different and unique communities throughout that we can't specifically tailor one set of policies to fit one group or one area and it not fit with the other ones.

[01:21:36] So we want it to be as broad-based as possible. So the TAC did provide us a lot of comments about 15-minute communities, transit-oriented development, looking at transit stations. They looked at electric vehicles and active transportation.

[01:21:53] So a lot of the comments that they gave us, we actually incorporated in it. And one of the comments that you might not see directly is, did we use AI to help us with this? We used that sparingly, but we did use that. So we're trying to embrace some technology as well, and that was a good comment from them.

[01:22:14] There are, as we're getting some more of the round three comments, we're getting some other transportation-related comments, more in very specific comments to certain areas of the county. So there are things that we're still probably going to, as we do the staff report and the next round of recommendations, there are things that we're still going to be adding to it.

[01:22:35] And with the tax help, they'll probably give us some more comments as well. Thank you. Supervisor Harity. Yeah, I'll try to be quick. Go back to where we started. I mean, the county is a big county, and it varies widely.

[01:22:54] And you've got rural areas like the Aquacon watershed. You've got suburban areas. So I think flexibility, again, is key. A little disappointed I didn't see congestion mitigation really mentioned anywhere in here overtly.

[01:23:10] I mean, what our residents want is to get from point A to point B as quickly as they possibly can. And I think I would work congestion mitigation in here somewhere. And then requests for information.

[01:23:26] I don't expect you to have this, but it would be interesting to see the mode share from 5, 10 years ago. You pick the number of years, however, makes it easier today. And what we project that to be in 5 or 10 years, if that's something that is gettable, and I should probably know that, but I don't have it.

[01:23:46] I think it'd be interesting for the board to see that. You can go ahead and make a comment, so it looks like you want to. Yeah, we can actually look for that data if we have that, and provide something that's like a background report in our staff report. Yeah, and I also just noted a conflict threat here.

[01:24:05] We're encouraging EVs in this, but discouraging SOVs. I thought EVs were SOVs most of the time. That's correct. EVs or SOVs, single occupant vehicles and electric vehicles.

[01:24:20] So as everyone's trying to get into electric vehicles, we also have our policies were to reduce single occupant vehicles, and that was promoted a lot in the current policy plan. We still have that. I didn't mention it as many times as it was last time, but we are still encouraging a reduction of SOVs, So that way we're looking at bike and ped facilities, expanding bike and ped.

[01:24:47] So we're discouraging SOV EVs, but not MOV. Well, if there's a way to encourage more Ubers to have EVs, maybe we can get more people in those cars. V, not B, for anybody who misheard it.

[01:25:07] V, S-O-V. Okay, I think it is time to adjourn this land use policy meeting. I want to thank all of the staff that have been working on this. I know it's a big lift, and we appreciate your communication with the community, with the different business partners, and with the Board and the Planning Commission.

[01:25:27] So thank you very much, and the Land Use Policy Committee is adjourned.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Coraggio Consulting · aguyonx.com